Pictures on the rocks...

Not long after a personal debate dealing with whether I should have a drink or pop some sleeping pills, I decided to go with a Jack on the rocks, squirt of water. For some reason I decided to look at all my photos on my computer. Ah, now there's something to justify suicide! Ex-lovers, drunken moments, too much weight then the right weight and I look at myself and I'm a bloated whiskey tick. The memories are in no means "haunting", in fact, they are pleasant. Mostly because I was so drunk that I can't remember that shit without the help of the photos.
I've thrown away most of my pictures of the past. Massive lovers and vacations. Pictures of kisses and beaches. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. I always have this thing in my head of wanting to forget. Strip my brain and life of weight, objects, things, unnecessary memories. But maybe these memories are in fact necessary. They document my life; just because things didn't work out, doesn't mean I need to throw away the past. I've thrown away hundreds of love letters and little notes with the words "miss you, love you" scribbled on them. I wonder why I can depart with those things so easily. Minimalism. And honestly, I do remember. And because I have such a good memory, I drink. I drink away my failures. I allow drink to be my honesty and then when the hell of truth comes out of my mouth, I pass out and wake up and pick up the pieces, if I'm wrong.
I'm often wrong. But when I'm right, I'm goddamned right.
And whenever I feel guilty about ending a relationship, years later, even through the drunken haze, I remember getting slapped, yelled at, screamed at, attacked. All for being honest, and perhaps a bit drunk.
In any event, looking at the pictures was a fun time to have alone in the dark.

Tonight's Drinking

Last night I worked and was exhausted. I bartended until 2 AM. Drunks, wish I could have been one of them but I was on the wrong side of the bar. I kept pouring. They kept paying and talking until they could barely talk. One guy told a chick he wanted to eat her out. "I'd like to perform cunnilingus on you" was his exact line. She laughed, invited him to another bar and who knows what happened. I went home, drank 2 beers and hated being alive. Still hungover. Still somewhat reeling from a panic attack, still unhealthy, tired. Just the other two nights, I was the drunk.
Tonight, I'm trying to lay off of the sauce. I just finished a bottle of Cab, and I can't sleep worth a shit. I'm looking at the Jack and saying "No." Then I say "we're not there yet". Then I say "should I drink it on the rocks? Or with a splash of water?"
Fuck it. The gym I joined finally started charging me and my phony ambition says, skip the whiskey, go to sleep, work out.
On the rocks it is...

Surrounded by bottles, love

The drink brings me back and takes me away. When I try to fall asleep sober, that's when the demons come and choke me and pile dead children on top of my paralyzed body. I can't scream, I hyperventilate, I yell inside of my mouth and stop breathing just to wake up. When I do wake up, I throw the dead and the demons up into the air and then go and take a piss and a breath. What the fuck is that shit all about?
"You need to see a therapist," I am told. I see the bottom of a bottle instead. It's cheaper, I don't need a referral and I can smoke and do the dishes.
Fuck all.

Notes From The Show

Last night I went to see my friend perform in his band, B1g T1me. I wasn't initially going to go, I had already had four martinis, two jack on the rocks, and two beers. I got into a mini-van taxi and headed for the show, in the rain. The cab driver wore a camouflage headband and we talked about the Chicago White Sox the whole trip over to the Abbey Pub. I gave the driver 20 on a 15 dollar trip. I had a few shots of Jack and a few beers before I realized that I was drunk. I sat at a table in the back of the room. Before my friend's band played the crowd was treated to a burlesque show. About 30 minutes of eh, not-so attractive women, by conventional means, took their clothes off.
I felt a bit perverted being the guy, the alone guy sitting at a table, with a few drinks in front of him. I pulled out some paper and started writing.
Here are my notes:
Dick fingers
Pulling at them
Cracking knuckles
Cunts
Notes
Make it look
Like I'm not drunk

It took me awhile to decode my drunk handwriting.
Three songs into listening to my friend's band play, I had to leave. I was wasted. I stood on five different corners while trying to call a cab or find one driving by.
I caught a cab and headed home where I continued to drink myself into hell.
But I remember writing those notes and how hard I was trying to not look drunk.
I am an asshole. Finishing a second bottle of wine tonight.
I was sitting in an Italian restaurant, having some crazy panic attack. I couldn't eat my food and I could barely drink my wine but I choked the wine down and the buzz calmed the panic.
But the panic and the fear and the paranoia and the depression and hatred mix together every once in a while and my system crashes. And I think that I'm going to die.
But again, another drink keeps me alive and I wonder, just how long can I live like this?
Then I see old, old men, drunk, wasted, fucked walking up and down Chicago avenue and I take comfort in knowing that if they can survive like roaches, drunk, drugged up fuckless roaches, then I can live and survive too.
I guess we'll see. Or, see you at my funeral. Don't wear a suit. Don't even come. Or bukakke my ashes. I don't know.

14 Dollar Roll

With that bottle of Jack that I bought from the grocery store after work, I have now had just over half of it. If I was in a bar, my bar or any bar, that would be at least a fifty-dollar roll.
We must understand the economy of self destruction: have enough money to drink enough death and never go into financial debt for the thirst. This is perfect consumer alcoholism. Making it seem that no real harm is done because it doesn't break you financially.
If you're not paying for it, it's not alcoholism. Free drink is just a party. Cheap drink, alone, is trying to work out the demons. An inflated tab is just being an asshole.
Falling asleep with something left in the bottle is questionable.
Landing on a bed is admirable.
Getting home is praise-worthy.
Not shedding blood or tear is noble.
Exuding and soul-bearing is putting the truth on the line.
Waking up is the problem.

Ah, A Peaceful Fuck Me

I'm sipping Jack while listening to Wolfgang Voigt and not feeling like killing anybody, not even myself. Not yet, I've only had two drinks. I was loaded and pumped on July 4th, standing outside, getting ready to murder a group of asshole suburban kids blowing up garbage cans. Been standing on my collapsing knees for the past few days in a bar that almost no one visits. I limp home in pain, a pain I didn't really earn. And a soreness, the soreness of doing nothing. Combined with drink and I feel like I'm pickling myself alive. As I grow older conventional opportunities for success seem to disappear. Now I must become more creative.
But I can't these days. I just can't think. The ideas show up, enter a queue in my brain and I do nothing with them.
This is in part due to depression. A malaise, a lack of interest. And just to feel something, I drink, t feel drunk. And then I smoke, to help ignite the poison.
I wash the dishes and do the laundry and clean the bathroom just to get some immediate results. I watch baseball games while drinking on the couch just to feel like I am participating. I watch movies drunk to get that feeling that others are near by watching it with me. I carry a book around, thinking I'll be able to sneak in some pages on the bus or at work but I end up staring out the window.
As I walked home from work tonight, I carried a bottle of Jack with me for two miles. I enjoy the buildings and the city chaos to some degree but I need some peace. To be in the middle of nowhere, quiet.
This woman came into the bar and told me about how quiet her neighborhood was on the Fourth Of July: "It was so quiet you could hear a rat piss on a piece of cotton".
I need those days. Those nights. Lots of them. I need all the shit I live with to catch up to me and then let me settle down and analyze it. Walk through it. Remember it and relive it, from a distance. I'm finding it harder to write about Hell when I am constantly wading through Hell, being slapped in the face by waves of fire. I need everything to shut down for a minute, an hour, a day, a month so that I can re-group. Because every day sucks so much, I have to drink them down instead of documenting them. At the end of the day, at the end of the night, I want to forget. But really I need it all to survive.