Straight Edge Life

Ok. So here’s my take on going to parties with alcohol when you’re straight edge. It can be alright. Most of the time it’s tollerable in my experience. But it definitely depends on your level of disgust with the effects of acholol on the people at the party. More specifically it depends on the effects of alcohol on the people you know at the party. Who cares what strangers do or how they act. Take for example the office party. The holiday office party where you get to see your bosses tanked. This is one of those times when I would prefer simply not to go. Or, as I did this year, simply make an appearance for a few minutes and then escape to the yummy Thai restaurant next door. Some of the last people on earth that I want to see drunk or tipsy are the people I work with. They are all generally interesting people and I enjoy talking to them on a day-to-day basis. I respect them. But seeing them all happy for no reason, maybe stumbling on their words or professing their love for one another… well it does very, very little to boost my confidence with them in the workplace. Yes, I have to keep it in perspective. People drink. Surprise.

Another funky situation is when you go out to drink with a significant other. Here’s where it gets tricky. Ok… don’t want to intrude on their lifestyle if they are a drinker. But, you definitely don’t want to see them tipsy either. Hell no, because as a straight edge guy I can guarantee that you didn’t become attracted to them when they were tipsy and they certainly aren’t going to get more attractive when they are tipsy. In fact they will be substantially less attractive. Massively so. And that feeling can last for a week. And then with friends… if someone needs alcohol to become interesting then they’re boring in the first place and it’s very pathetic. If they were interesting and then get drunk they don’t get more interesting.

I’m convinced that the whole trick to parties with alcohol is that NOBODY there should really be sober. Think of it like this… the next day, Monday or whatever, if people are standing around talking about how stupid they all got at the party it’s no big deal. But if there’s a straight edge guy stanting there too… and he says “yeah, you were a fucking idiot when you photocopied your ass cheek on the new minolta copier.” it carries a different kind of weight. And even if you, straight edger, don’t mean it in some kind of mean way, it doesn’t come accross nicely if you yourself weren’t drunk. Which explains why I lost entire groups of friends from time to time after parties in high school and college.

So yeah. I’m trying to level out my intensity when it comes to the reality and pervasiveness of alcohol. It’s here. The vast majority of people don’t think about it like I do. And if I stuck with the people who do think about it like I do I’d be a damn lonely man. But it doesn’t mean that I should go somewhere that I’m uncomfortable or be friends with or date people who do things I’m uncomfortable with. Fortunately I have a certain level of resigned comfort with alcohol. Those who take it in with a moderated or european perspective are easier for me to understand and be comfortable with. It takes work, it’s definitely effort, but it can be done. But then I know that it will take the people at my office to take time getting comfortable with me being sober at their parties. Even if the decide to keep photocopying their asses.

Ok… so here’s another project I probably won’t ever get around to doing. I’ve got something like 1000 entries on this site, all written at a pretty random distribution of times and days of the week. I was thinking that I would like to run some statisitics on how depressing my entries are compared to when they were entered. I’m pretty sure that my entries after 1:30 in the am are going to rank much more depressing than my entries after 10 am. I wonder how I would have to do it… rank the occurences of a set of depressing words over time I suppose. Hmmm. Maybe this wouldn’t be that hard to do. You know, in my free time.

“I can’t imagine dying before I find love again. I can’t imagine being able to die if I do.”

– Aran J. Denison

I am waiting for you to come online. Night after night I see your handle shift positions with others coming on and offline. Their clever status messages make me smile from time to time. Never can seem to come up with one of my own.

You never come up to the top. You’re always lost in the middle somewhere. Always grey. Even though you are gone forever I will never take you out of my list. Sitting here, mere inches from where you died, the saddest song in the world, a song that I’ve heard only twice before, plays in my headphones again and again. My world is empty without you. DIrectionless, moving so very fast.

I don’t know if you ever found peace here. I don’t think I helped with that. They say that new birth helps us understand death. Where is my new life? Where is my peace?

Been a busy last couple of weeks. I’m not going to bother even guessing when it all might ease up. I’ve been busy enjoying my healthcare benefits. Never really had them before. Got myself into some counseling to try and learn some tools to get through a couple of roadblocks I’ve hit while dealing with the last few years worth of crap. Also went to the allergist and got myself started in treatment for allergies and asthma. Next week it’s the hand surgeon, and the week after it’s some other thing I can’t remember. Call it self-improvement month for me. And speaking of… gotta to take care of something on the database. Back in a bit.