It’s actually not that cold. It’s seasonable, I’d say. But it’s been so oddly warm this year that it feels cold. Not that I mind… I prefer to be cold over hot.

I’ve had that conversation a lot. Anyone who has spent more than five minutes with me has heard me say that at least forty times.¹ It’s because once you reach a certain age, you start having the same conversations over and over again. Most of them are about temperature or what you’ve had to eat. If this observation offends you in some way, or makes you feel insulted or personally attacked, you’re probably old, and you should just go back to bed.

I’m back at Higher Grounds, which reopened for indoor seating at some point in the past year, but it escaped my notice because I was just drowning in ennui and not paying attention to much. Recently, in an effort to spit up some of that ennui and grab some air, I went 27 days without a drink, and I have to say, that it definitely changed me. My mind is clearer. I had some drinks on 11/4 when friends came into town, and I had a glass of wine on Friday. But I’m trying to revise my life a little so that I don’t drink just because. There should be a reason. Tuesday is not a reason (I’ve also made that joke about 1,000 times since I began this journey; see prior paragraph).

Anyway, I’m not making any promise to stop drinking forever. It’s not like that for me. I just don’t need to do it so often, and so much. It took much longer than I’d have liked for my body to feel better after I stopped. That’s gross, yo. No thanks. So I don’t want to get back into that state again.

Also, I’m almost 45. Prior to this year, I hadn’t gone more than 3 or 4 days without a drink in probably 25 years. I’m tired. I guess I’m also tired of hating myself. I would wake up in the morning with not only a hangover, but a shame-over, regardless of whether I’d done something stupid the night before. Even if I had a ton of fun and was perfectly nice and amiable and kind and hilarious (to others and not just to myself) – if I drank too much, there be the shame and the self-hate. Thar it be!

I’m over it, and besides, I don’t need any help to act like an idiot. I can, have, and will act like a perfect idiot while stone-cold sober. It’s one of my gifts. I rate it somewhere below my excellent sense of direction but somewhere above my ability to make a huge mess every time I eat, no matter how hard I try not to.

B

^{1. It feels necessary to point out that anyone who has spent more than five minutes with me has heard me say a lot of things at least forty times. I repeat myself a lot. It’s not because I’m old, though. It’s genetic. Thanks, Dad.↩}