want a drink

I wish I still drank. By that I mean, I wish that I was still drinking alcohol in the way that would encourage me to pull one from the fridge right now and slam it. And follow it with another one, drinking it more slowly and savoring the by then headlong slide into alteration.

But I don't drink like that anymore. In fact, the way that I look at it, I don't really "drink" at all. I very occasionally have a drink with dinner with friends--specific friends, in fact (Robert, Laurie, r)--but since I've been single, I haven't bought a drink on my own. Haven't been in a liquor store. Haven't gone to a bar with the intention of drinking but not eating.

I miss it. I miss the irresponsibility. The thoughtless spending. The taste of alcohol. The stupid things that I drank with the alcohol so I couldn't taste that alcohol. Drinking games (though I haven't played them in years). The numbness in my nose as intoxication sets in. Unconscionable flirtation caused by decreased inhibitions. Heavy eyelids, which helped some with that last bit. Langorous movement (or did I just stumble?). The way that those little commercial ice cubes crumble when I chew them. Eating a hard-boiled egg in 2 bites at Charlie's D & D in Winona. The shocking brightness of the restroom lighting at Max's in the mall. The unfathomable, beyond-bracing cold of a Minnesota winter after stewing in a packed bar for an evening. A mating dance with someone across a crowded room in no other way than making eye contact, purposefully and relentlessly.

If I had vodka I'd be drinking Screwdrivers right now. If I had beer I'd be pounding them much faster than Blue Moon ought to be drunk. The thought of a rum & Coke or a brandy-7 doesn't turn me off. It's possible that enough time has passed that I could even stomach an Amaretto-7 or a Tequila Sunrise.

That's the problem, though, isn't it? It's the wanting that makes it something that I shouldn't do. It's not that I'm thirsty and that's the flavor that my buds are calling for--it's that my brain is screaming some shit I don't want to hear and some smaller part of it is saying, "If you want to turn me off, the key is in alcohol." And no matter how fucking numb my brain--or my nose--would be, the fucked up stuff would still be there, and I'd just be [more] broke and [more] irresponsible and, eventually, feeling a lot worse.

God, I hate being a grown up.