In retrospect, that was probably a little too much alcohol for a Monday evening

"We were in such a good mood before she showed up," I snarled to Heather.

I sat, sandwiched between Heather and Alice, the only patrons in an otherwise empty Rivington Street bar early Monday evening. My second glass of Bass was disappearing at an alarming rate and it was almost time to order a third. Happy Hour was not quite living up to its name.

The truth was, the mood was spoiled long before Alice arrived and gave her litany of complaints. Heather and I had spent the previous half hour doing the same, battling over who was unhappier than the other.

The Happy Hour-in-name-only was followed by an overpriced, less-than-satisfying dinner over similarly overpriced wine, more beers and apparently an abridged drunken phone conversation, the particulars thereof I cannot recall. I am told I passed out at least once while talking to my friend, as my call log displays an outgoing call, a missed call and two incoming call to/from her within a 30-minute span.

As exciting as I'm sure that was, Monday night was a mere denouement to a 5-day period I spent being bitter and angry at everyone and everything around me. While it takes a lot of effort to make me angry, when I'm pissed, I'm fucking Incredible Hulk pissed, sans the green skin and muscle swelling. Seriously, you don't want to be around me when I'm in a bad mood. I throw and punch objects - objects, because people know to avoid me. I don't know, I'm rarely angry, so I've never really developed a really dependable anger management technique besides drinking and destruction of property.

It started innocuously enough on Thursday with the the longest and most pointless conference call of my life, but it got progressively worse from there, gut punch after crotch punch.

Now, I understand everyone has work-related sob stories and I also realize getting shafted is part of working freelance, and that's why I get to charge a ridiculously obscene day rate. Plus, after the shit I went through earlier this year when my previous employer went under, I should've been happy. I was no longer miserable at work, I was doing what I wanted to do, my career was finally moving after a couple of years of stagnation. I'd worked enough that I could take a couple of weeks just taking it easy and plan out my next move. All things considered, I was in a happy place. Or should have been, anyway.

I understood all that perfectly, but I was still pissed. Maybe I was mad at myself for falling into a false sense of security and didn't prepare myself for the inevitable setbacks. Maybe there was something missing in my life that I was masking by consuming myself with work 24/7. I don't know, but the fact that I couldn't explain why I was in such a shitty mood pissed me off even more.

Drinking your problems away is never advisable, I guess, but when every little thing was pissing me off, I really didn't have a choice. I figured drinking and being social was better than stewing alone and sober. So there I was Monday evening, drinking myself to, as Mike Tyson would say, Bolivian.

So yeah, if you were wondering why this site hasn't been updated much recently, that's what I've been up to - I've either been working, drinking or wallowing in self pity and neurosis. But I'm doing better now. Monday night helped a lot. Thanks to everyone who put up with me over the past few.

---

Oh, and you might have noticed there hasn't been much action over on [dc]. We're making changes... soon. Just hold on tight there.

tags: drinking