When I was drinking, I used to fantasize about a disaster that would shut down the city and trap everyone in their apartments. I often wished for this after falling into bed drunk at 4 a.m., knowing I had to get up for work in three hours. In my disaster fantasy, I was stocked up on alcohol and drugs and would be blissfully ensconced in my apartment for days or weeks while the world collapsed around me. The disaster I thought about most often was an invasion of 50-foot-tall evil lumberjacks who stomped up and down the streets glaring into people�s windows.

When I was drinking, I craved turmoil. Any bad news just confirmed my suspicion that life was crazy and that drinking was the only way to handle it. September 11th was a license to drink myself silly for weeks. I doubt I�m the only one who exploited it that way. I even got some satisfaction out of watching people around me drinking more than usual -- the bars filling up, lines at the liquor store. It was as if people were conceding that I�d been right all along.

There�s something in a drunk that seeks disaster, downfall, heartbreak, best-laid plans going to shit. I needed constant excuses to be doing what I would be doing anyway: drinking. I suspect I even created pain in my own life when current events weren�t doing their part. It�s another way that drinking twisted me and I never realized.

This weekend, with the double whammy of the terror alert and the snowstorm, was probably the closest I�ve come to my old fantasy of being housebound. Needless to say, it wasn�t nearly as fun as I had imagined. I was sober, I was bored, and then I was desolate. I went in to work Tuesday, climbing huge snowdrifts and pissing off co-workers who were pretending like it was impossible to leave their houses. Yes, it was lame, but I couldn�t sit in the apartment one more day.

Routine is my friend now. I like it in my own life and I�d prefer that the world at large stick to one too. Sometimes I worry I�m becoming inflexible. It�s a phase, maybe. Either way, it�s a lesser evil than praying for killer lumberjacks and toasting their arrival.

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