Day 40 Friday, Apr 3 2009

T is for Through, as in: I am Through with this Folly at midnight tonight!

Wouldn’t it be wild if I wake up on the morning of April 3rd at a farm in Kansas and everything is in black-&-white?  Well, it would be something, at least.  If anything, it’s been the wagon ride down the sober brick road that’s been muted and monochromatic; managing somehow to fall short of even so mundane an adjective as “maudlin”. 

Mickey Mantle is afraid I am going to start drinking at midnight and get so wasted that I miss work Friday.  He is a dear to concern himself, but he needn’t worry.  If the these 40 Days of Folly have been mostly “full of sound and fury; signifying nothing”, they have at least demonstrated that if I say I am going to do something, I’m good for it.  I said I was going to wait until the Bus Party to start drinking, and I meant it.  It’s been 40 days, what’s another 18-and-a-half hours? 

Is that enough time for  a post-script “illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure“?  Don’t hold your breath.  All I’m hoping for is that I have a good hair day, the gale force winds whirling outside as I type this die down, and that my orange sandals don’t clash too terribly with the cute, low-cut purple shirt I’ll be wearing.

This would be a likely place for a succinct summation of the sagacity acquired during my 40-day sojourn and/or perhaps some reflection on lessons I’ve learned living la vida vodka-less, except I’ve explicated pretty much everything over the duration of this experiment and none if it seems engrossing enough to bear repeating.  The account above is a chronicle of a curiosity, at best. 

Rather than dwell on the uneventful nature of my journey through the Uninspiring Land of Unintoxication, I am going to adopt an attitude of insouciance going forward.  Wagons don’t have rear-view mirrors, and there’s probably a reason for that. 

Feel like there needs to be a moral to this page of the story?  OK.  I suppose if you’ve read this far, you deserve a conventional conclusion.  Here’s one: if The Hostess can manage to quit drinking for 40 whole days and nights, then getting on with getting to all 130 128 Bars By The Book is going to be a breeze.

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Day 39 Friday, Apr 3 2009

It’s T-1 — is it time for the drum roll?

I went to BevMo today. Just as I had feared, business has not been as brisk without my biweekly pilgrimages to bolster their bottom line. However, the decline in their sales figures prompted them to extend their March 5-cent Wine Sale into April, so I made out like the proverbial bandit. 

As I type this, there is plenty of celebratory champagne chilling in the ‘fridge, and spare value-sized vodka in the freezer.  There’s also a profuse plethora of wines waiting to be drunk.  I think the corkscrew — which had been showing its age before the Folly — will give out before the vino does.  Fortunately, there’s a backup in the glove compartment of the J-car…

The camera battery is charged and ready to take the next Official Photo.  I had my nails done and painted to match the cute, low-cut purple shirt I’m planning to wear on Friday.  And on this penultimate night of my sober shenanigans, I am nonplussed only at how pensive I am particularly and pointedly not feeling.

I do feel,  however, like I have earned the right to cast a certain amount of scorn and derision on the weaklings who let their own willpower wither away in 12-step programs.  Please!  It’s a one-step process: quit drinking. 

There are lots of other things way harder than not drinking.  Passing college elementary algebra, for example, is much more challenging.  Finding a man who is not some disappointing combination of brainless, heartless and/or cowardly: now that’s a trying task.  Hell, attempting to post to a ridiculous blog on a daily basis 40 times requires more herculean effort than staying sober does. 

Lest I be cast as an unsympathetic termagant, I have this to say to anyone who stumbles upon this senseless screed while doddering through the doldrums of alcohol detoxification (hey, I said it wasn’t difficult — I didn’t say it was delightful):  if a pleasure-seeking, gratification-driven, liquor-lusting person like The Hostess can trade in a first-class ticket on the Tippling Train for a seat in coach on the Unwonted Wagon, then so can you.

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Day 38 Thursday, Apr 2 2009

T-2 and April Fool’s Day.  I was going to post a tragic account of throwing myself off the wagon in a moment of weakness, and maybe harken back to how that fall I took down the stairs 38 days ago was a portent of failure and doom for my journey from the very beginning.  Then I would reveal the ruse tomorrow, after everyone tried to console me (ideally with Xanax).  But I decided that would be juvenile.  It may be called “Those 40 Days of Folly” and, to be sure, it has been an absurd exercise in no small amount of inane lunacy all along, but the undertaking still deserves to be taken somewhat seriously.  And besides, The Hostess is just not that into April Fool’s Day.

I am into hot tubs, though.  Or, I should say, I was in a hot tub earlier this evening.  One of the Court Jesters — who has a hot tub — thought I could use a relaxing soak before the end of the Folly, and was he ever correct!  But guess what?

17.  Hot tubs

…have been added to the List.

I know!  I was actually shocked, shocked.  Especially since I took a bubble bath a couple of weeks ago that was not any less fun at all than ususal without the drink(s) I typically sip while soaking in the suds.

I can’t imagine what the difference could be between taking a bubble bath and relaxing in a hot tub.  There are the bubbles, of course, but could a little soap really be such deciding factor?  Alas, there is no way for me to test this variable, because I flatly refuse to do something so pointless as take a bath without bubbles, and I don’t think one is supposed to add bubbles to hot tubs…although this is pretty perplexing, really, because the bathtub has the same jets as a hot tub, doesn’t it?

Maybe it’s not the bubbles.  Maybe it’s the social element.  I don’t recall ever hanging out in a hot tub by myself.  But most of my bubble baths as an adult have been solitary soaks, given the puny dimensions of a most bathtubs.  Hmmm.   Is it possible that sitting in a tub full of gurgling hot water is satisfactory when sober if solitary, but is considerably ameliorated with company when coupled with cocktails?

Hmmm, indeed.  There’s only one way to know for sure: I have to take a bubble bath with someone.  We’ll need to start out sober and see how it goes.  Technically, I suppose I could sit in a hot tub alone and check the same correlation coefficient, but I don’t have unfettered access to a hot tub and the bathtub in the Mystery Mansion is big enough to serve as the setting for this experiment.  Now all I need is someone to volunteer to join me on this noble quest in the name of  scientific discovery…

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Day 37 Wednesday, Apr 1 2009

T-3 being the last Monday of this Folly, I decided to make it one of the rare Mondays I actually go to work.  I even baked some apricot-banana bread and brought it in for my co-workers to enjoy.  They did a good job trying to hide their general amazement at the unusual combination of my not only being there on a Monday, but bearing freshly-baked goods to boot.  Heh.

I got the invitations to the Marvelous Mystery Mansion Post Geneva Pub Party/Beyond Broken Record Bash & Password-Protected Subsequent Soirée in the mail this morning, so if you are reading this, keep an eye out for yours.  You’ll notice that I went ahead and splurged on stationery befitting the occasion.  What the hell — how many times am I going to quit drinking for 40 days?

If you don’t receive an invitation in the mail, don’t panic.  This is probably just a reflection of the fact that The Hostess does not have your mailing address.  Chalk this up as one more sad casualty of the civilized life in these cyber-times.

Hmmm.  It occurs to me that you might not have the address of the Mystery Mansion, either.  After all, not that many people do (wouldn’t be very mysterious otherwise, would it?).  Not to worry.  Just join the Bus Party, meet me at Geneva Pub, or show up at Broken Record and whisper the password in my ear…

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Days 1 – 36 Thursday, Mar 26 2009

{See the 40 Days of Folly Page for a full account of the foolishness.}

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An Announcement Tuesday, Mar 10 2009

DAY 16: Well, enough people actually know about this by now that rumors might be starting.  So, before anyone loses a large wager betting on the impossibility of such an improbable allegation actually being accurate, allow me to assure you that it is true:  The Hostess has quit drinking for 40 days.

The earnest epoch henceforth known as Those 40 Days of Folly is, forsooth, well underway.  So there is no talking me out of it now. DO NOT PANIC. When all is said and done, there will be a celebration, and that celebration will be worth the wait.   Just count the days with me and see how time flies by, even when every hour is just 60 minutes of sobriety.

Don’t worry, you haven’t missed a minute of the frivolity. Of course there’s a whole new page with all the details to date (however much to Miss Anthrope’s chagrin).  I meant to tell you sooner, but I got distracted when my Minister of Finance informed me that the current economic blah-blah makes now the opportune time to consider trading in the trusty J-car for a purebred BMW.  Test-drives needed to be carried out, posthaste, I’m sure you can understand.

Anyway, now you know what is — or, more precisely, what is not — going on.  I’d tell you why, if I was sure myself.  There’s still plenty of time for me to figure out the impetus behind this incomprehensible impulse, and I will keep you posted.  Oh, and please note the following with respects to posts about the Folly:

You may have noticed that the Comments option has been turned off for this post. This is intentional. While I am pretty sure that most people will not be too terribly intrigued by the day-to-day details of my non-adventures in not drinking, I am completely certain that no one wants to read your thoughts on the subject. If you would like to offer support, congratulations, or prescription pharmaceuticals, feel free to e-mail me directly. I am also looking for a pool-shooting partner, but any and all other forms of distraction proffered will be given due consideration.  (This also appears at the bottom of the Folly page, but I can’t count on anyone reading that far before being compelled to chime in about something or another.)

More tomorrow…

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Post-2/21 Update Wednesday, Feb 25 2009

Judging from the statistics feature of this ridiculous blog, a fair number of you have been checking back here ever since Sunday to see how Saturday went.  My first thought is that if you wanted to know, you should have been there.  There were certainly enough settings at which to join me — fancy brunch in the Mission, funky art gallery, hipster bar in the Castro, and a three-ring circus  (and at at least one of which, I could have used the company, frankly).

Anyway, if you weren’t there, you missed it.  Maybe I’ll get around to telling you all about it someday, but what this post is about is what happened next, which was almost as interesting, if definitely much less fun…

It was the proverbial morning after and I found myself having to arrange my own hasty breakfast plans (which you are correct in thinking that I should most certainly not have had to do).  Since I really did have to wear something besides my frock — which smelled like cigarette smoke at the very least by then — I stopped off at the Manse’  for what was supposed to be a quick costume change.  As I dashed up the stairs, I was trying to decide which low-cut top would detract from my otherwise somewhat dishevelled appearance…

Except I never made it to the top of the stairs.  I don’t know if I was in too much of a hurry, or if my shoes were too ridiculous, or if maybe there was a tiny earthquake centered directly on that particular staircase, but I do know that, of the 20 steps inside the front door, I fell down — backward, I think — at least 12 of them, and in a remarkably short time.  None of that nice, slow-motion action like you see in the movies.  In the blink of an eye, I was in an absolute heap, at the bottom of the stairs, wondering if I might be paralyzed.

The good news is that I was not paralyzed.  As for broken bones, the jury is still out on the extent of actual damage to at least some of my ribs (since I refuse to go to any hospital that doesn’t pay me), but it definitely hurts to cough and to laugh (and I have actually found occasions to do the latter since almost plunging to my death on Sunday).  There is, of course, another lovely cut above my right eye (but that’s the one with all the other scars, so no one but I will ever notice once it heals).

The bad news is that most of the right side of my formerly-fetching torso is covered with the most alarming number of truly disturbing bruises.  And I’m not talking about a regular black-&-blue mark here-&-there, I am talking about a sight that would bring tears to your eyes (no matter how heartless of a careless lout you might be).  I look like I have been tortured — and I’m not even exaggerating.  It actually hurts too much for hyperbole right now (which is a sad sentence The Hostess hopes never to utter — again).

I suppose I should be thankful it’s not swimsuit season.  Or that I was not, in fact, paralyzed.  And it is a happy co-incidence that the house was filled with flowers for Saturday anyway, so there’s that “get well soon” vibe perfuming the air.  But I ache, almost all over, from the inside out.   These bruises are far too tender for a massage, and I gave up on Vicodin on Sunday evening when it became apparent it was doing nothing whatsoever to make me more comfortable.

Yes, I think I can safely state that Sunday was as dire a disappointment as (most of) Saturday was an enjoyable celebration.  Not only did I nearly tumble to my death (just barely escaping my family tradition of dying, far too early, on or about February 21st), but my trusty pharmaceutical supply let me down, and I am completely contused for the time being.  Oh, and I never did get to breakfast that day, either (which was possibly the worst thing that befell me that day, given how much I was looking forward to that relaxing repast).

The Hostess has to go rest now.  (I cracked myself up with “befell” in that last sentence and it really does hurt.)

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Saturday 21 February 2009, 2:00pm Friday, Feb 20 2009

Come see me.   I will be sporting a really pretty new dress that Kevin Banks miraculously found for me in a sea of dross at Macy’s.  It is a frickin’ size 4!  Mr. Calvin Klein apparently was dreaming about me when he designed it.

This is where I’ll be:  Root Division.  ( <–a link that it will not hurt you to click on)

You don’t have to dress up (unless it is your birthday, in which case it couldn’t hurt to look festive).  You don’t have to bring The Hostess a present (if the Bars By The Book’s 2nd Anniversary bash at Cantina the other night is any indication — ahem), but these people are artists and you do have to support them with a donation of some kind to get in the door.  (Don’t be stingy; they are artists and are probably starving — which is not fun, as I  have recently learned — even if it does  make you crazy-sexy-size-frickin-4-skinny.)

There will be pictures (the kind we somehow neglected to take at Cantina — ahem).  Autographs are not out of the question.  I will probably ask you if you think this ridiculous blog is confusing ( — and if you say yes, I will think you are retarded — ), since Miss Anthrope recently suggested to me that navigating it is perhaps somewhat non-intuitive  (Miss Anthrope is not retarded; he is provocative).

There may also be a dramatic departure on a motorcycle (fingers crossed).  Jessica Rabbit assures me it is entirely possible to ride a motorcycle in a dress (since that is all she wears, she should know) and perhaps I shall finally get to know for sure if this is, in fact, true.  My helmet will be nearby, in any event.

Oh, and I’ll be drinking, so you don’t have to … although why wouldn’t you?  (I mean, unless you are fixin’ to drive a motorcycle.)

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Have I really been doing this for two years?!? Wednesday, Feb 18 2009

Good grief.

Anyway, I had some grand plans for the Bars By The Book 2nd Anniversary, but I have decided to spare everyone the trek out to Geneva Pub for the time being.  That’s how much I adore you & you’re welcome.

The truth is, I want to have a good time on this momentous occasion, and I don’t think that’s exactly the place to do it.  Also, it would just take too long to get all the way out there and then back to someplace actually fun.  So, let’s save that exciting excursion for another night, and meet at Cantina after work, instead, shall we?

Wednesday 18 February 2009 — 580 Sutter St.

No, it’s not a Bar in The Book — and it used to be called something else entirely when I first stumbled upon it — but it’s a pretty neat little spot, and it will be a nice addition to the woefully-neglected Various Marginalia page. I’ll try and get there early and snag the couch.  There won’t be a fabulous photo album of this year’s Bars, and I seriously doubt Nora Charles will be surprising us with a cake, but The Hostess will be there, which should really be enough incentive for you to come.  (Did I mention that there is a couch?)  Also, they probably won’t be shushing us for a comedy show, which will be a nice change from last year (although I’ll miss the free pizza).

The first Barfly there gets a free drink.  So does anyone with those recently-extended-for-one-more-year free drink coupons.  As does anyone thoughtful enough to bring The Hostess a present.  (Pizza will not qualify as a present, but might get you a free drink, as there is no food at Cantina, which can sometimes be a problem.)

Since while I was flipping my hair around at Fuse last week I never did get around to telling the tale of  how I uncharacteristically attended to the battered and bleeding boy who bravely approached me in the driveway of the Mystery Mansion not long ago, there’s a chance of a spontaneous story-time.  And it isn’t supposed to be raining, either, which means a hypothetical motorcycle ride could become a reality (my helmet will be a mere block away).  Honestly, what more could anyone ask for?  (On a school night, I mean.)

Get there early, because The Hostess is not staying late.  I have to rest up for this weekend.  I have to sign some autographs on Saturday, when I will also be (it is to be hoped) debuting a new dress.   If you come to Cantina, I will tell you where I’ll be that day…

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Happy Valentine’s Day, Barflies! Saturday, Feb 14 2009

I <3 you all so much that I got the recap of Fuse finished in time for you to read today.

Enjoy and … save the date:

Wednesday 18 February 2009:

Bars By The Book’s 2nd Anniversary.

(details, TBA)

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