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2:01 pm | 05 March 2003 | drinking in ten

1. On Things Happening

In the time it takes a beer to fall over, people meet. In the fractioned moment between an upright and usually brown bottle, slick with condensation, and a horizontal one, gushing forth its foamy cargo, onto some (un)lucky man's (whether he knows it or not) expectantly empty lap, things change. Our lives are ripe, replete, with moments like these. A pretty girl, a cold and enervated hand, a defiantly (or is it graciously) slippery beer�strung like beads on the narrow silky red cord of time. When L�otard (and so, originally, Lacan) attempts to deconstruct the sublime, the 'happening-ness,' of the avant-garde, he speaks, in a derivate manner, of precisely these moments�the expression of the intangible immediate. The instantaneous. That thing we seek to grasp which is already past us. The sublime, here, in a bar.

2. On Unpredictable Destinations

If one were to compress my drunk escapades from 1996-1998 into a single paragraph, it would be as so: �Well, you drank a handle of Captain Morgan before we got to Canada, but--no, the toilet lid slammed on your face, that's where all the blood's coming from. You cool? Okay, anyway, then Danny Charo decided to see how far south we could get in the Rabbit. That�s why we�re in Tennessee, actually. Well, no, the car died, so we pushed it into that lake. No, J�s coming to get us. Oh, shit, have you seen my Sugarcubes tape, man? I think it sank.�

3. On Feeling Sorry For Oneself

Last fall I made a list of things I accomplished while twenty-three years of age. When I only had three items on the list (1. Met Jason Spaceman, 2. Danced on a table at Playboy bunny�s birthday party, 3. Fled Los Angeles), I scratched it out and made a roll-call-style list entitled LET�S FUCKING START YEAR 24 OFF ACCURATELY [I am inebriated so it's not too sensible]:

1. Unrequited. Check.
2. �Lost & lonely.� Cheque. [?]
3. Foreigners. Check.
5. Skipping 4�too drunk. Check.
6. Left. Bereft. Heft. Can�t think of anything else that rhymes, but I�m sure something will be appropriate.
7. Eavesdropping. Classy.
8. Never mind, can�t hear anything anyway. Beermuffs. Too drunk.
9. The snapping of trash bags: reminiscent both of the efficiency I suddenly and sorely lack, and my dead dog. Perfect.
10. Waiting, toujours, pour tous temps. �Too drunk & getting old.� Check. Motherfucking. Check.

4. Anticipation

After a while every bar is just another case of overblown expectations, like New Year�s Eve. Parties are never as good as they promise to be; all this worry and preparation and oh my god, this is going to be the absolute most fun ever had by humans ever�and the best New Year�s I really had was alone in Palm Springs, calling my sister from the top of a mountain. �Happy New Year! I�m on top of a mountain in Palm Springs! Yeah, no shit!�

5. Theories of Comedy #1

At the bar, I sometimes try to tell people my two favourite jokes. Unfortunately, such is the inside nature of these jokes, such is the absurdist content, that even the drunkest drunky-drunks aren�t amused. This saddens me immeasurably.

�Hey, why did the monkey fall out of the tree?�
�Uh, I dunno, man, why?�
�Because it was dead.�
[Silence.]
[Hysterical laughter.]

6. Signs Your Child May Be Depressed

My mother clicks her tongue when she calls at eleven a.m. on Sundays. �Sleeping so much is a sign of depression, you know.�
�Mommph,� I slur into the phone, �then I must only be depressed on Sundays. I get four hours of sleep every other night, and I�m not exactly the Jolly Green fuckin� Giant on Tuesdays, now am I.�
�Don�t get fresh with me, asshole.�
�Sorry, Mom. But seriously. I�m only happy when I am asleep. Gawd. Anyway, I was out until five. I need my beauty sleep.�
�Well, quit smoking.�
�Moooommmm��
�Okay. Call me later.�
�Mmmkay. I love you, Mom.�
�You too, you little fucker.�

7. The Effects of Whiskey

I don�t like being drunk on beer, I realized. It�s got nothing to do with what I thought was the problem�my inability to belch coupled with nine or ten bottles� worth of carbonation usually generates a sad, bellowing, walrussy me�no. Beer is great for refreshment (with this sort of piercing insight I should consider writing snazzy ad copy for Anheuser-Busch Ontario: �Bi�re: C�est bon pour le refra�chement!�), but the drunkenness it creates is too woozy, too thick-tongued, too incomprehensible. When I drink with The Deep South we drink whiskey (well, he drinks bourbon) and we understand each other fine�our words, anyway. Whiskey just adds a sort of amber-coloured haze to the evening�s proceeding, like my eyes are suddenly full of maple syrup. I can handle myself on whiskey: no stumbling, slurring, or inappropriate dancing. Just a cozier, hotter-tongued, more openly-mournful version of me: and a version that yells "Vive la France!" and falls down a lot more frequently (ask Marc, whom i horrified this weekend!).

8. Doing

Drinking isn�t about getting drunk, for me. Increasingly it�s about channeling the melancholy into something that moves forward�it�s like there�s a stagnant pond of sorrow in my chest cavity and whiskey galvanizes it, acts like a turbine, and suddenly I�ve got a hydroelectric plant flanging my arm into action, wasting paint across a giant canvas or carving out some really, really awful poetry. At the very least it�s action, and more and more I look for the verbs that pull me forward.

9. Theories of Comedy #2

�Okay. Two penguins were walking across an iceberg. One penguin turned to the second penguin and said, �You look like you're wearing a tuxedo.��
�Yeah?�
�And the second penguin said, �Maybe I am.��
[Silence.]
[Hysterical laughter, then] �It�s from Twin Peaks, you humorless asshole.�

10. What It Really Means

The whiskey's edges are sharp, like the point of tongue against tooth, like a button irrevocably pressed, like the unsubtle thrill of danger. Like the sightless curl of the slowly-raveling deconstruction, loosely, of the stomach, signaling the real defeat of accepting the inevitable. Please, pardon me. Of the slow descent of the interminable patience of will into submission to the definite. Ah, pardon. Of possibility. I am not speaking clearly, pardon me. Of love. Thank you. clm.


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unless otherwise noted, all work contained herein is � claudia sherman, 2002-04.
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