C l e a n

Not drinking.
Appearances // Thursday, Oct. 03, 2002

I went running this morning. As I turned down a dark avenue lined with trees, I felt a dry rain patter on my face. It was strange, but I forgot about it until I got home and looked in the mirror. There were four dead gnats stuck to my face. I was the semi hurtling down their highway at night.

As I stumbled back into my building after my run, I said hello to my neighbor, who was outside smoking. Actually, he�d been outside smoking when I left, too, an hour earlier. He is an otherwise normal, friendly, good-humored man who smokes like a freaking chimney and doesn�t seem to sleep. When I kept more erratic hours I would come upon him smoking in the stairwells in the middle of the night. He seemed both apologetic and helpless to explain himself. I don�t know why he doesn�t smoke in his apartment. Maybe he does.

Anyway, as I stumbled up after my run, sweaty and quietly exuberant, it seemed he looked at me and my healthiness kind of wistfully. I may have imagined it. Either way, I wanted to tell him, �No, dude, it�s just a phase. I�m not really like this. I�m sure I�ll be sucking on the bottle again before you know it. Don�t feel bad.�

Now, I don�t really believe that, but I�ve been sensitive lately to how my new lifestyle might appear to others. A friend recently told me I was �Straight Edge now.� I kind of spazzed. He was sort of joking, and probably doesn�t know any more about Straight Edge than I do, but I feel what I am doing is about the furthest thing from Straight Edge. I still appreciate intoxication as a concept and find it heartening to see it in others. I still have treasured memories of being excessively fucked up. I am just not doing it right now, and not anytime real soon either.

I recently read an interview with popular recording artist Moby. He was talking about how he used to have a big thing about not drinking and not doing drugs. Then something made him think about why, and he realized that the only reason he didn�t drink or do drugs was because it allowed him to feel like he was better than people who did. So, disgusted with his own self-righteousness, he started drinking and doing drugs and found out he really liked it. I never was that interested in Moby before but after reading that I feel a fondness for him.

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Visitation - Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2004
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