Another Stop On The Karma Train

(Tiegs at 57)



Dear Kathy,

Remember when Cheryl Tiegs made a come-back in the late 80's, doing commercials for Dannon? She was speeding toward 40, and we were in our late 20's. We'd sit around my apartment, drinking beer and eating Camille's pizza while we made fun of her "bra fat." We'd shout, "Put a shirt on!" and "How 'bout some push-ups!" at the TV, where she, clad in swimsuit or tank top, spooned yogurt into her mouth at the beach or on the tennis court.

Well, here I am at 43--jogger, mountain biker, racquetball player, dumbbell lifter, push-up expert, Splenda eater:



I've figured out the secret, though: Always keep your hands on your hips and your arms slightly flexed:

Voted Off the Island

After two days of jury selection, I was not chosen for the trial. Shocker.

You know how I was talking about coincidences recently--how they freak me out? It's actually a fascination more than a freak-out; fascinating coincidences give me the same feeling I got as a kid, when I'd lie awake at night and contemplate Nothingness or Eternity.

Some of the coincidences I experience wouldn't happen to normal people. They're the kinds that the universe spends years, decades even, planning and conspiring to pull off. Like off-the-scale bad dates, I have many stories I could share, but here's a good example:

It's no secret that "bad things" happened to me in my grandparents' house when I was a toddler--up until I was about four. Their house was on the Marietta's main drag of Roswell Road until several years ago--after my grandparents and their half-wit son were long gone--when the house was demolished and, in the most brilliant stroke of irony, the East Cobb Church of God was erected (like that verb?) in its place.

Thirty years after those unsavory childhood events, I joined my local AA, which apparently caused membership to expand so much that we were outgrowing our rec hall. Well, okay, maybe it wasn't because of me, but that too was quite the coincidence.

Anyway, finally someone piped up with a plan to move my AA home group, and where do you think that was? You got it.

Simple breakdown: 2-4yrs old: molested in basement of little white house on Roswell Rd.-->12 years later, I am well on my way to being an alcoholic-->14 years later, I move from Atlanta to Marietta-->5 years later, little white house is replaced by church--->7 years later, I join AA-->1 year later, AA home group plans to move to East Cobb Church of God...

C'mon!

And the case I was being considered for this week--the one that prompted a million questions to me personally about whether I could be impartial and whether I believe it's likely a 16-yr-old girl could come forward in 2006 and falsely accuse a man of committing a crime against her from 1999-2003--the one I answered honestly and got myself tossed for? The one case out of 6 being divvied during the only week in 43 years I've ever been called for Jury Duty? That's right, Child Molestation.

It's a crazy world, Boys and Girls.

Deli

Tonight I dash into Publix to pick up some roast beef for Biggy so I won't have to hear him cry in the morning about what he's gonna have for breakfast. While I'm waiting for the woman in the shower cap to slice it up, I see this:




"What the heck is mortadella?" I ask her, wondering if anyone would actually eat something with MORT [Middle English, death, from Old French, from Latin mors, mort-; see mer- in Indo-European roots] in it.

"It's made from ground pork paste and studded with pork fat taken from the throat of the pig," she informs me.

Exactly.

Recipe For Your Next Trailer Park Party

Because I've been so busy at work lately that it has carried over to home, I've lacked my usual blogenergy. This morning, I resort to stealing Alena's recipe idea, which wasn't even her own idea but Harpy's. Still, I'm doing it with more flair...I saw this recipe years ago at Jolene's and have never hosted the proper event at which to serve them. Maybe a white trash party for my 45th? That gives Biggy over a year to plan it.

Catbox Cookies (Choose either chocolate or gingerbread)

Chocolate ingredients:
1/2 cup honey
2/3 cup (1 and 1/3 stick) butter, margarine, or lard
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla or peppermint extract
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
Grape-Nuts™ cereal

Gingerbread ingredients:
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup molasses
2/3 cup (1 and 1/3 stick) butter, margarine, or lard
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla or peppermint extract
2 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
Spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves) to taste (suggest with 1/2 tsp each)
Grape-Nuts™ cereal

Mix-ins (to your level of tolerance):
Coconut Tapeworms
Chocolate Chips
Butterscotch Chips
Peanut Butter Chips
Cooked Spagetti or Ramen noodles Roundworms
Corn
Peanuts
M & Ms
Shrimp Chips Styrofoam packing

Microwave the honey till it bubbles(about 1 minute). Add the butter, (I've been told using lard makes for a more realistic texture and softer cookie) and the molasses, if any. Add the egg, mix well, then mix in all the other stuff. add mix-ins of your choice to some or all of the batter.

Chill 1 hour in the freezer or several hours in the fridge. Roll dough logs of random length and the diameter of cat poop. Roll logs in Grape-Nuts and bake at 350 degrees till done (maybe 20 minutes.

Serve in a disposable cat litter box on a bed of grapenuts, with a cat litter scoop. Improved effects can be achieved by decorating the box and scoop with melted chocolate or pudding. The contributor has heard that "mixing brown sugar with the Grape-Nuts sweetens up the cookie a bit while still looking truly hideous."

Coincidence

Coincidences freak me out. Today, for instance, Georgia and Jack left to go meet their aunt at the Georgia Aquarium a little after 11 a.m. About an hour and a half later, I went in to school for a while, to help Hank with a presentation he's giving tomorrow. Biggy and I had a date to play racqetball at 4:00, which gave me two hours plus before I had to head back to the burbs to my neighborhood Y.

When I got to school, Hank was sitting at the "big table," the one you see pictured so often in this blog, with a group of students who'd met there to discuss a project. Hank was deep in the conversation, so there was nothing for me to do but have a seat and learn something. As usual, then, it was an hour at least before we finally got down to the business of the presentation. Unfortunately, he didn't like any of the images I'd chosen to complement certain points. For example, Car Trouble, which was DENIED:



His nixing it sparked my soapbox spiel about see/say imagery and how I refuse to find images that simply and literally illustrate, followed by a little diatribe about how I guess I overestimate people's ability to make connections, which, evidently, isn't nearly as strong as my own... and Hank proceeded to point out that my choices of visuals for "Guts" were indeed see/say, and gross at that:



Well, I argued, it was just so disgusting I thought it would help make his point more memorable. But, granted, it might not set the proper tone, so I offered up an alternative, which was also DENIED:



Before I could decide my next point/counterpoint, an alum from about five years back stopped by with with his wife and father to say hello to Hank, and right after that, recent grad John F. entered the office, chatting non-stop because he's never not. All of this to say it was quite the interrupted back-and-forth, trying to come to some agreement on these visuals and running out of time. Hank finally won, landing on a typographical solution to the problem, which meant my work was done, since I know as much about kerning as I do about astrophysics.

It was 3:40 when I got back in the Beetle, which meant I was going to be 10 or 15 minutes late for getting my ass kicked on the court.

Near home, on the 120 Loop, I got stopped at a red light. Right behind Georgia and Jack! If any one of the things I just told you about had not happened--or had happened differently, that would never have happened.

Freaky.

Friday Nostalgia

The New Dating Game was on in the 70's. This clip is from 1973.

Pretty Bjorn & Stella Plain

Seeing these two in the same room together today brought to mind an Ellen Bryant Voigt poem from her book Two Trees:

Because it is a curse to be beautiful
and thus dismissed by other men,
the pretty man often wants to marry
mind, or grit, or great heart undistracted.
This is not the same as the lovely woman
who marries someone plain; she knows
the world’s assessment has been wrong,
knows she is a fraud and proclaims it
with that mirror. The handsome man feels
no such scorn; yes, he is as gorgeous
as they say, but it’s not a useful currency,
except with the plain woman who marries him
as one would pocket found-money or plant a rose.
But the plain man, the homely man, the man
hunched like a cricket or built like a jug,
who marries beauty and covets his own wife,
the man who weeps when he has her, weeps when she’s gone—
remember Menelaus, how he burned?

Stella at Work

Jun 68

Came across this yesterday. It'll take the rest of my life to write about it.

Awesome

Waiting to Exhale came out in 1995--the year of my divorce. My friend J, also newly divorced, and I would watch this closet/car scene (the first 5 minutes of this clip) over and over. It was so cathartic.

I'm No Hater

As the faithful readers among you will recall, I posted earlier this week about the big fight Biggy and I had last Sunday regarding my new bed spread, blood, and mulch. For the rest of you, let me get you up to speed.

Well, the war of the sexes rages on, with its air raids of insults and embargos on affection, but always caused by the same thing--at least in my experience: the inability of men to actually HEAR what a woman is saying. I think that when women get angry, men suffer spontaneous temporary hearing loss. Their ears stop functioning altogether, so we become like a silent movie. And no matter what's going on or how calm we might be, we look dangerous or deranged.

A woman could be slicing onions in the kitchen, matter-of-factly explaining to her husband why she's not happy about his taking two-hour lunches at Hooter's every day, and all he'll see is a red-eyed woman holding a big knife. Or, on the other hand, she could be stepping out of the tub after a huge crying jag under the shower massage, because he called her by his ex-wife's name when he reached the top of the mountain last night, and this will appear as a slow-mo nude scene with pornosonic playing in his head. The woman is obviously lonely, but the UPS man is ringing the doorbell...

And so it goes.

Yesterday morning, as Biggy and I were getting ready to leave for work, Stella puked on the new bedspread. Biggy, being the one to actually witness it, pointed it out with slight trepidation. "Poor Stella," I said, grabbing a wash cloth and wiping it up as she puked yet again, closer to my pillow. I picked her up, asked her if she was ok, apologized for feeding her the celery out of the pot roast Thursday night, and dragged the spread out to the washing machine, still kissing her and cooing to her.

When I came back into the room, Biggy seemed to be in shock. He looked like he'd caught me in bed with the tooth fairy, like everything he'd ever believed was in question.

If only he'd listened last weekend.

When Art Meets Poetry: Waterhouse

This painting is based on The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

It illustrates the lines:

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.




Inspired by Robert Herrick's "To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time" as excerpted here:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a-flying;
And the same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

Friday Nostalgia

I was still in college in Athens in 1984, when Nightmare on Elmstreet came out. My friend Hossein and I rode our bikes downtown from Little Five Points to see the 10:00 movie.

Big mistake.

We had to ride those bikes back home after midnight.

Mittelschmerz

(photo credit: Rebecca)

For me, the worst PMS comes mid-cycle. I might get a little Ally-McBeal mopey the day “before,” but what happens in the middle of the month approaches Annie-Wilkes psychotic. I’ve been charting it since summer, when I began taking the anti-anxiety medication and noticed that the little tablet was less effective on certain days—that for one or two days out of 28, I need a Celexa sandwich with a cup of Celexa soup, followed by some Celexa a’la mode. On those days, I mark a big C for CRAZY on my Napoleon Dynamite calendar and dare Uncle Rico to look at me sideways.

From the research I’ve done on serotonin, I gather that I simply don’t have enough of that chemical available to equalize the extra hormonal stress. In order to ensure the safety of those around me, I need to anticipate the problem and pop an extra 20 mg., which nullifies the problem.

Still, sometimes I worry that I’m medicating away a justifiable homicide.

For instance, this past Sunday: Did I fail to pay enough attention to the calendar, or would a normal human being—male or female—have raged under similar circumstances? You tell me: Justifiable or Certifiable?

First, I must refresh your memories to an ongoing complaint of mine, namely, that at almost 44, I can’t have anything—or anyplace--of my own. I come home from work, and Lola is eating cheese in my bed; I go to check my email, and Jack is downloading Cavaliers’ drum solos on my laptop; I find my underwear in Georgia’s floor and my toothbrush in the dog’s water bowl.

I’ve accepted the consequences of my choice to have four kids. Since 1987, when Sadie was born, until 2018, when Lola will leave for college, I’m signed up for gum on the sofa, fingerprints on the walls, skid marks on the toilet, dishes in the sink, and spoons under the bed.

But before I remarried, I had my children trained. My room was off-limits. It was the only place where I could have glass and candles, where I could put a cup of hot tea on the table (who am I kidding—a goblet of wine) without keeping my constant (pink) eye on it.

After I married Biggy, our bedroom became a wrestling-mat-boxing-ring-batting-cage-jungle-gym. And during down-time, it’s study hall, cafeteria, and infirmary.

I just want a 300 sq. ft. space out of the 5000 square feet that comprise our house with basement apartment—one fractional child-free zone. I’ve been clear about my wishes.

So here’s what happened this past weekend:

Biggy took Lo and Jack Man to the Monster Truck Show at the Georgia Dome (I don’t know why!!!) like he does this time every January, and I spent all afternoon and early evening cleaning the house. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant task; often, scrubbing toilets in peace beats being all-day short-order cook and nurse.

I also got caught up on the laundry so that Sunday I could wash my sheets and blanket, dust and vacuum my room and put on the brand new spread I’d gotten for half-price at Kohl’s after-Christmas sale. I was finally going to replace the dingy, dog-chewed quilt I’ve had since we bought our last VCR.

I had no sooner put the new spread on, sighed with satisfaction over the task completed, and stepped into the closet to find my running shoes when I heard the usual two-step head slaps between Biggy and JackMan followed by, “Way to go, Jack; You got blood on your mom’s new bedspread.”

I went snake-spit-bat-fit-ape-shit. I came out full banshee. I don’t even remember what I said. And if looks could really kill, the two of them would have spontaneously combusted. I ran downstairs and burst into tears over all of it—the bloody spread, the broken handle on the passenger seat of my Beetle, my missing bracelets, the cracked Napoleon Dynamite bobblehead doll…

Georgia came into the sunroom where I stood bawling and asked me what was wrong. I gave her the staccato blubbering version, and she convinced me to go ahead and jog with her. The folly there was that Biggy was, by that time, out working in the front yard, so I had to confront him with my snivel-face. He assured me that they’d spot-cleaned the spread good as new. I was more furious, though, because he wasn’t doing follow-up penance. I iterated that he was completely missing the point, and I tried to explain, through the tears, exactly what he was missing--until I got sick of his glancing over my head to see if the neighbors were around. Finally, out of words, I scooped up two big armfuls of dirt and mulch and threw them in the front seat of his FJ.

After that, I felt like running.

O Wee O Wee O

For no good reason, 'cept I've always loved this.

Watch Dog

She used to lie across the top of the cushion, but a couple of weeks ago, Daisy started sitting like this on the couch she's not supposed to get on. She has a perfect view out the window.

FYI

Three weeks past Christmas, this is as far as we've managed toward taking down the tree.

Much progress was made last night, after Biggy and I told Jack we were going out to dinner for a "date night." JackMan cried about not wanting to eat leftover meatloaf (I made Tuesday) and begged one of us to take him to McDonald's, so Biggy, who gets points aplenty for thinking fast, agreed to give him a ride only if he'd promise to take the ornaments off the tree. That brilliant transaction inspired a new chapter in my book on child-rearing, all about the advantages of adding bell pepper to meatloaf.




The aluminum tree, my very own, remains fully embellished in the living room. Last year, I took it down in July. The only reason I recall the month is that Garey reminds me weekly. (Perhaps I should remind him to dust that air vent. He's been know to clean up my house when he can't stand it anymore.)

Hank's Logo Class

Getting a late start at 7:30 a.m.



An encore performance of Mary & the Wonderettes.








Past 3:00, still going...






Fruity Metaphor


Looks a little like kindergarten, no? But if you're going to spend 8 hours learning the differences and relationships between signs, symbols, icons, indexes, metaphor, semantics, syntactics, pragmatics, denotation, connotation, association, ethos, pathos, and logos, it had better be interesting. These guys have FUN with difficult subjects. The ways they find to teach each other make the lessons memorable. I learned so much, myself, that my head is still spinning.

This ain't your father's grad school.

Friday Nostalgia

Ivan Ooze: Best. Villain. Ever.

Pain In the Neck

When I went to see my friend Betsy on Sunday, we took her dogs for a long walk. About three minutes into it, she asked me if my neck hurt. Betsy doesn't miss a trick. I'd had a crick in it for over a week and a half.

Bets is one of those women who knows stuff. She's like Faith Popcorn, Suze Orman, Judith Martin, and Sue Johanson all rolled into a single suburban mom.

Betsy doesn't make suggestions; she tells you what to do: "Every time your mother-in-law says something ridiculous, simply answer,'You may be right'... Use a pumice on your heels every day...Invest in Home Depot...Puree peas and put them in the chili--your kids will never know...Use Astroglide..." And if you're smart, you'll just do it--no questions asked. Because she's never wrong.

Once my neck pain was confirmed, she instructed me to get a tube sock, fill it with rice (any kind except instant), tie off the end, and nuke it in the microwave. She said you could leave it in the microwave for four days and it wouldn't hurt anything, but all it takes is about three minutes. It creates a moist heat that lasts at least half an hour, and you can use it over and over.

Me, I'm not so smart. I didn't find a tube sock in the first drawer I tried, so I went and fished out the electric heating pad from the floor of the linen closet. I had to fold it over and perch it between the pillow and the pain, and I worried the whole time that the fray Stella had chewed in the cord was going to set the house on fire.

It wasn't until last night that I finally complied with Bets's directive, spotting a big sock in Biggy's hiking boots and filling it with brown rice that had been in the pantry since I went on a macrobiotic diet for half a day five years ago.

It was a little bit of heaven--hot, moist, and curving perfectly over my shoulders and under my ears.

Turns out, they sell these things in the stores, so maybe I was the last to know. In case I wasn't, though, I thought I should share.

Random

A few pics from the weekend.

Morning in the House of Champions

Go Gators!

Childhood Fear

Recently, MF posted about her longtime fear of the movie Foul Play. That got me thinking about the irrational fears I still have left over from when I was a kid, one of which is quicksand. TV is to blame. If I'm not mistaken, most of my readers are too young to have been plagued by fear of quicksand, which is of the same generation as alien invasion and being eaten by piranhas. The following list, stolen from The Quicksand Page, is a sampling of television shows that fed my phobia (and the creator of the site's apparent fetish):

Batman. An episode with the Riddler where Batman and Robin sink into quicksand cake (yea, right!) Another episode has poor little Batgirl thrown into a vat of caviar (like qs.)

Black Beauty/English TV Series - Episode: The Pit Pony(RKO Video rentals used to have this one on their shelves.) A teenager falls into quicksand after backing away from a pony that keeps advancing on him.

Brisco County Jr. and his partner Lord Bowler are captured by pirates in the desert and forced to 'walk the plank' into a quicksand pit. Up to their chins and then some, they are rescued by Brisco's horse, Comet. Great scene.

Dukes of Hazard. While running thtough the woods, Daisy Duke falls into quicksand and is rescued by her brothers.

Fantasy Island - (TV Episode) One plot has a man who wants to find out about his father. This lands him in an Island prison. As he escapes with a guy who he believes killed his father, the guy falls into very realistic, thick, grey quicksand and is rescued by the the man and his wife just as Mr. Rourke shows up at the last minute.

Get Smart- At the end of an episode where KAOS has the giant magnet on an island, the bad guy marches Max, Agent 99, and the chief to a point where they start sinking in Synthetic-(99:"Synthetic-sand!?" Bad Guy:"It's kvicker than kvicksand!")Funny shots as they sink knee-deep, waist deep, chest deep, and then shoulder deep in sawdust/water.

Gilligan's Island. There is a LOST episode with headhunters involved where MaryAnn and Ginger are up to their necks in a mud bog, taking a mud bath (very little motion or muddy skin seen, but nice, never the less). This episode doesn't show up in the official guide to Gilligan's Island, but it is confirmed! The headhunters weren't as politically correct as today's producers would have liked! :)

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys - In one episode, Hercules is guiding a group of refugees through a swamp. While attacked by a giant, winged reptile, a well-endowed young lady and her brother fall into a quicksand pit and are pulled out by our hero after going all the way under. The quicksand is of the dry type, but the scene is good, nonetheless.

I Love Lucy. There's an episode with Jack Benny where Lucy shows him how they have made their vault impossible to be broken into. They step into dry looking quicksand together and slowly sink into it while talking.

The Incredible Hulk. In the second movie before the series began, Bill Bixby and this girl he's protecting step into quicksand (muddy water). He turns into the Hulk after he gets her out but can't get out himself. Baddies also fall in but get out with the help of their dogs.

JAG.The episode dealt with an investigation into a female marine recruit who was killed in boot camp. A pretty JAG lieutenant goes undercover as a recruit to find the killer. She ultimately does find the killer... sinking in quicksand, and gets a full confession before pulling her out. The killer then shows her gratitude by pushing the lieutenant into the same bog.

Land of the Giants. Episode called "Manhunt." Giant is caught inquicksand and has the ship of the heroes with him. Slow quicksand, as almost entire episode takes place with giant caught.

One Life to Live - In an episode (?) several years ago, a group stranded on Barrington Island tries to escape from a mob family that owned the island. A woman crosses a clearing because she thought she saw a boat and stepped into quicksand....it lasted several episodes until she finally got pulled out.

Six Million Dollar Man- One of the first episodes. A girl needs her scientist/father rescued from evil types in the everglades. On the way in, Steve rescues her from some watery quicksand. At the end, leads them to the same spot, leaps over, and waits for them to spot him so they rush forward to their doom.

The Bionic Woman- After plunging in and pulling herself out, she pulls the same trick as above on the prison guards pursuing her.

The Fall Guy- Hunting for treasure in the Everglades, Heather Thomas falls into some quicksand.

Tarzan: The Series - While searching for his beginnings, Tarzan and Jane must cross a swamp. Jane falls into muddy quicksand and goes under. Tarzan rescues her and they clean up under a waterfall. The coverage in this one is very nice.

PBS Wonderworks movie - title forgotten. Based on the book 'Freckles, Boy Of The Limberlost': A boy working in a Pacific Northwest logging camp encourages his budding romance with a pretty naturalist by pulling her out of the quicksand into which she had sunk up to her pretty ankles.

Xena: Warrior Princes - In "Return of Callisto," Xena and Callisto fall into a quicksand pit after a running chariot battle.

Hung Up At School Today

Wholesome Fun: Dodgeball at the Y

Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer took ka-ra-tay, and bragged about how he could beat up everyone in his class, and how it turned out it was a class full of kids. Here's Biggy's version. The oldest kid out there, besides him, was maybe 10. Yeah, he clobbered them.

Not Much Going On Over Here

Just Frick & Frack, getting ready to watch How To Eat Fried Worms.

Like Riding A Bike

'cept Jack says I'm too old.

Recognize Anne's little Anton?

Friday Nostalgia: Worst. Movie. Ever.

Demi Does Phallus

And Next...

the kibosh on my own.

Minus Puts the Kibosh On Georgia's Love Life

Garey as Granny

Lo Knows Best

I assured Lola, after my Christmas disappointment, that I would work on her father regarding the "puppy" issue. I imagine the slow chipping away of his resistance--over time--and I've asked her to hang back, keep quiet, and let me handle it.

Yesterday, though, she wanted a progress report:

Lo: Mom, so when do you think we'll get that puppy?

TR: I'm not sure, Lo. I'm giving it a little rest for a couple of days. Can't bombard him too much, you know. I'm afraid if I do that, he'll just get mad and we'll never get it.

Lo: (silence, silence, thoughtful silence...) No. You have to push him.

Resolutions

Last night, Garey ate dinner with us. Spaghetti and meatballs--I really rolled out the red carpet. While we were eating, Biggy bothered each person about their New Year's Resolutions. After the expected "make better grades...eat healthier...swear less..." stuff, Garey came out with the most profound goal: "I want to get more mentions on Tania's blog." (And shouldn't that be everyone's aspiration?)

So JackMan says, very nonchalantly, "That's easy. Just wait until she's in her room, and we'll walk upstairs, stand out in the hall where she can hear, and you can ask me to smell your finger."

Panda Sneezes

Georgia: Mom, have you seen the sneezing panda video? You've GOT to see it. I keep watching it over and over. Like Napoleon Dynamite. But this is only 13 seconds long. And it's pandas.

Rubbing It In

To all of you who are starting the year with the usual hangover, I just wanted to say, I FEEL FANTASTIC!

When I quit drinking almost two-and-a-half years ago, I went through some difficult days (months)--especially the first year. I missed the taste, the escape, the old party-girl me. But I didn't miss the blackouts, the "haunts," or the always-anxious sense of entitlement I felt each night to "clock out" on my family and disappear into a goblet of wine.

Once I got over the shock of actually feeling my feelings, I began to enjoy the living, even the hard work of building real relationships. But occasionally--say, at the beach with a cooler of Coronas at arm's reach, or at a nice restaurant where the stem glasses sparkled on the tables, I would feel that longing again.

The way I got through it was by telling myself that if I ever woke up in the morning and wished I had drunk the night before, I'd start drinking again. I looked forward to that day too--couldn't wait to regret not drinking. But it hasn't happened yet.

Just like today, I always wake up happy that I made it through another tiki bar, another disappointment, another New Year's Eve.

No headache, no nausea, no guilt--and the sun shining bright as a bottle.

Happy New Year, Y'all!