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October 16, 2009
Goodbye to All That Booze
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I sat at a table near the bar
and spent the next several hours saying goodbye to some old campanions. I began with a glass of Guinness. I next had a light beer with a shot of Jameson's Irish on the side. I added a double shot of Stolichnaya on the rocks before the beer was gone. I switched to a house Gin and Tonic, a breather. Then I ordered a Bombay Blue Saphhire martini, which tasted so good I had another. Maybe the waitress thought I'd finally made up my mind because I stayed with the Blue gin until I was ready to go home.
For a nightcap, I ordered a special drink for old times, a farewell toast to a way of life, a moment I expected to remember forever -- and have. I ordered a B-52. Its layers reminded me of the different periods of my life -- the high school science nerd, the confused mathematician, the Berkeley street person, the linguist-spy-mascot, the ambitious grad student, the less ambitious playwright -- each period clearly set apart from the others. When I raised the small, narrow glass and tipped it, the fragile spectrum dissolved as each color ran into its neighbor to become a drab concoction of spirits, suddenly dark and dreary, just as the periods of my life finally had succumbed to one all-encompassing description, which had become more meaningful than any colorful distinctions between them: I was living the life of a drunk. I belted down the B-52, paid my considerable tab, and left.
-- From LIQUOR AND LIT
Posted by Vanderleun at October 16, 2009 10:53 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Nice.
Posted by: retriever at October 20, 2009 3:56 PM