I must be crazy. I’ve chosen to give up not only alcohol for thirty days, but caffeine as well. What’s that sound, you ask? It’s just me crying, as I realize they’re never going to let me back in the Raymond Chandler Society after a stunt like this.
To be honest with myself, and you, dear reader, I feel better for having yanked the drips out of both arms. Intellectually, at any rate – my meat body is doing some weird shit. I’m craving sugar for the first time in years, and have inherited the unfortunate habit of micronapping at minorly career-inopportune moments. But energy levels are returning to normal and my stomach has cleaned up its act a bit; I no longer feel like half a loaf of walking suck. Alcohol consumption is down 94% by my count (the remaining 6% was a sip of beer and a glass of wine at some point), and I feel pleased by that.
By the way – if you’re ever off the firewater and still want to get that old-timey cocktail feeling, try a Southampton:
“The Southampton”
Fill a glass with ice, add tonic water to fill, squeeze in half a lime, three dashes of bitters. Serve with lime wheel.
Mornings are still tough. I never realized how much I got, spiritually, out of having a cup of coffee in the mornings. It wasn’t about some Elysian Folgers sunrise moment. It was about having the opportunity to grumble, to feel held down by The Man, and to take refuge in having the one jolt of slightly morally-tinged stimulant that unites all souls of good, honest working men the world over as they claw bloody nails against the drudgery of another day in the pit for wages.
My next thought: What a load of crap. I sit behind a desk and work on video games. Seriously. I don’t even write them or test them directly. I write plans, schedules, specifications and communications about stuff that’s about video games. What am I complaining about? By extension, what have I got to drink / smoke / caffeineate about? Not that I wouldn’t enjoy that cup of coffee, but something feels like a great big phony about it.
This past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I participated in a three-day “Startup Weekend” in an attempt to see if I could wrestle value out of something that didn’t carry the safety net of a salary. The results? Mixed. People liked my idea, I recruited a team of eight, we worked and got a prototype running, but at the end, we didn’t make the dramatic bridge leap to freedom, instead crashing the car into a wall of cynical investors. Ultimately, we didn’t win anything for our efforts and our startup went largely ignored by the local Twittermedia that was covering the event. BOOOOO!
This, plus the recent rejection of Hash is enough to make me feel ready to go back to life’s drawing board and figure out what I’m doing wrong.
Probably just need to throw more darts.
