The dog days of summer are definitely here and have been here for quite some tme.  In some places it is so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, and in others summer has yet to even show up the temps are so balmy…of course you must realize I am referring to the northern states.

Along with the summer heat, we have various problems that somehow only get worse as the heat goes higher…in the places where there has been flooding,  the challenge is unbearable as the heat returns and the wonderful mosquitoes show up in mass to quickly ruin any hopes of going outside.   Ticks are a really bad thing to have crawling through your yard and someone help the  poor dogs and cats who are besieged with fleas.

Yet there is help and it comes from something which I wrote about not too long ago.  Garlic.   As in days of old when people used to wear it for warding off vampires, it will ward off fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, and also rid your yard of the dreaded fire ant.   I discovered this wonderful product last year after my dog contracted Lyme disease from deer ticks.   It almost killed her and would have if I had not taken her to the vet and put her on a two month regimen of antibiotics and some other type medicine.  She is healthy today praise God!  But Lyme strikes humans as well and if deadly to us also…….I had to find a natural product as I do not use chemicals on anything.  My gardens,  myself and surely not my yard.

I was unable to believe it when I found it as garlic has so many medicinal properties, but the liquid actually repels all sorts of nasty creatures.    Just imagine!  A yard free of mosquitoes,  time for a family barbeque again….no more scratching from the dog being eaten alive or having skin allergies….what a novelty!    And your cat wil be purring and not scratching…….and guess what?   It will get rid of those fire ants too!

Mosquito Barrier

You will be amazed that the tiny garlic clove is powerful enough to rid your home of all of these pesky problems!  Start enjoying yourself outside again!!

The best part of working here at the Developmental Disabilities Association is all the festivities. We have plenty of picnics, barbeques, celebrations – and all for good reason! We were recently accredited with CARF for another 3 years with 3 exemplaries, we have great supporters, and we host some fun events.

There were always projects to do in summer, either at my house or at the neighbors. When I was young the neighbor’s house stood on stone pillars. As their three boys got bigger, they were put to work filling in between the pillars with stone and cement. I joined them for the fun of it. We carried the stones, mixed the cement in a wheelbarrow and built roads and fortresses in the leftover sand pile. Although I did my share of stone carrying, I enjoyed mixing the cement most. It was fun to slosh it back and forth with a hoe in the wheelbarrow. After we completed building the basement, we were put to work making a cement pier for the boats. I’m not sure how many summers we were kept busy with this building. It was probably a chore for the boys. Maybe because it wasn’t my father heading up the work crew, I thought it was fun.

At home, stonework was a little less complicated to start. My father and his friends built a barbeque for cooking outdoors. While the meat was cooking, the food prep could be done in the sandbox in the backyard.

Preparing-the-Beans

This early barbeque was replaced after a trip out west. There my father saw a chuck wagon barbeque. It looked like a long double wall with different levels for cooking different things. The next summer we built one beside the house. You could cook the corn at one level and roast the meat at the other. The wood need not be cut up before burning. My father did not do a lot of cooking but he was an expert at cooking a London broil over his chuck wagon barbeque, charred a bit on the outside and rare pink inside.

Barbeque

Judie Fouchaux

Here it is.  I hope it was even more worth waiting for than your health teacher wanted you to believe married sex was.  Sorry for the crappy photo instead of scan–I’ll replace this one with a nice scanned image when I put up the new one next week. Also I just realized I forgot to paint in the beer I’m holding.

Independence day is the holiday that I hate to love.  I grew up in a household where we had a special dip (or several) for every holiday, so I can’t resist an excuse to shove a chip into something fattening.  I like to keep it tacky for the fourth and stir onion soup mix into sour cream (tofutti faux sour cream actually) and make something that my family called “California Dip” to make it sound more classy, like calling your burnt toast “California brown.”  It’s always delicious, except that this year I accidentally bought a soup mix with powdered milk in it and accidentally fed it to a pretty vegan.  I am sorry, lady.

I hope you all did it up right this weekend.

Summer officially starts on June 21st this year and if you’re anything like me, you’re already ready to have an outdoor party or barbeque. Whether you’re celebrating the 4th of July or just having a few friends over, hosting a party can seem daunting.

Check out this article I saw:

Hosting Outdoor Parties

The article mentions how much lighting can affect the atmosphere of the party. Outdoor Lighting Perspectives can transform your deck or backyard in a wide variety of ways. There are over 70 locations and you can schedule a free lighting demonstration at any time on the website.

You can preview a demo on the website, too. To locate the designer servicing your area, click here.

Once you get the lighting taken care of, your party will seem like a breeze to plan!

The awesome thing about an autobiographical anything is that you can be self-absorbed with impunity.  My elbow has been hurting a lot lately, so the rest of June is scar month.  Get ready to hear me bellyachin’ about my wing!

Also I know I spelled barbeque wrong.  I forgot to fix it before I scanned.

We Brits love the sun don’t we? The first sign of it and were whipping off our pants and caking ourselves in coconut oil. One minute you’re strolling through the vegetable section in Morrisons, dreamily whistling along to a cover version of Spandau Ballet’s ‘True’, the next there’s a break in the clouds and you’re knocked to the ground by a marauding posse of topless, tattooed skinheads desperate to ransack the meat and booze aisles. To be honest I can’t blame them, we didn’t get a summer last year (rain) or the year before (lots of rain) so it’s only natural that they greet the advent of a true heat wave with such unbridled joy, but the sun seemed to bring out more than their love of barbeques this weekend.

Whilst British people choose to enjoy the sun in different ways, most of them migrate to their nearest seaside town and this weekend I was no different. On Saturday afternoon strolling along Cleveleys’ sweltering promenade I encountered a vibrant and colourful beach scene crowded with a wide variety of people. Dog walkers, wheelchair users collecting for charity, young couples, old couples, elderly women with sagging breasts, elderly men with sagging breasts, rambunctious children, kite flying middle aged men and the sum of those motley images, I thought combined to paint a delightful portrait of what can make England such a great place to be in the summertime. I happened to be with a South African girl at the time and was giving her a brief outline of what sort of place Cleveleys was and had become, and it had pretty much lived up to its billing thus far. We sat atop the steps leading down to the sea with our ice creams and for once I actually felt quite proud of where I came from. She snapped away with her camera and seemed genuinely enamoured with the place and in that moment it would have been difficult not to be.

However one thing rankled with me. There may very well have been a plethora of weird and wonderful people out there that day but none of them were black or Asian; just white. Literally there were no other races represented in my entire field of vision whatsoever. I said as much to my friend and she said she had noticed too which launched us into a conversation about race and inevitably apartheid. She explained the whole unfortunate episode to me in a nutshell, about how it affected people she knew and how the country was still a tense place and as we walked along the top of the steps I felt a genuine regretful wistfulness coming from her. I gave her my world-view; that I thought the concept of nation states was archaic and that passports should be abolished allowing free travel between countries and she agreed it would be a nicer world to live in then we dropped the topic to concentrate on the dogs in the distance.

There are lots of British people who believe that such a thing as apartheid couldn’t happen here, that we are too modern, too integrated a people for such a blatant segregation to take effect, but I believe that to be an extremely slippery slope and what I saw next on Cleveleys beach gave that belief conviction.

The beach has these thick wooden panels that help control the tide at regular intervals, which act as a barrier between areas of sand. One side of this particular barrier (the side closest to the hustle and bustle) was choc-a-bloc with white people all throwing Frisbees, playing with dogs, sunbathing, paddling in the tide, swilling down alcohol and generally doing what one would accurately describe as ‘merry making’. On the other side of the barrier all huddled together in the middle of the vast plain of sand stood a single Asian family literally segregated from everyone else. All dressed in traditional black, they had come to share in the great British party but it seemed sadly that they weren’t invited. The view from the top of the steps provided me with a microcosmic snapshot of exactly what is wrong with the country and why we may well be headed for our very own regretful incident in the near future. If I had been down on the sand level with them, I would not have played witness to the gigantic ‘BNP’ logo scraped deep into the beach’s flesh. Flanked by an even bigger, more dreadful ‘VOTE BNP’ I felt embarrassed of the perpetrators. It was obvious why no other races were represented back towards where we had eaten our ice cream. The poor Asian family must have felt frightened and outcast and all of a sudden, those images that had moments earlier painted such a quaint playful picture of England, morphed into something else, something terrible. Now I only noticed the St.George’s flags flaming forth from the proud bared chests of the skin-headed men, now I only saw the intense hatred behind the knock-off sunglasses and felt utterly ashamed of my countrymen. This is exactly why I am not proud to say I am English.

These people need to realise that England, Britain, Europe, the world is changing. Countries are no longer inhabited by only one race or one nationality. Diversity in our personal lives and our social lives is the key to remaining young, to remaining relevant. The BNP cannot seriously lay claim to having any semblance of a connection with young people in this country, but unfortunately they obviously do strike a chord with a past generation. A generation consisting of narrow minded, ill informed, prejudiced white people and if the BNP get their votes, that prejudice borders on outright fascism because they are actively exercising their right as an elector to oust that which holds the key to Britain’s future; diversity.

Disgusted by the display, my South African and I walked back towards a pub and started talking about other things.

So, wow.

Five days off and only one wine-fueled post… I’d say that I did pretty well. Especially considering all the wine that I consumed during that time period. You’re welcome.

It was so fantastic to be at home. The problem with vacation is that, eventually, you must return to work and the realization that the vacation life? Is not your real life. But while it lasts… oh, vacation is ideal, isn’t it?

We didn’t do a whole lot – we stayed close to home, just doing everyday things. I got to get up with my girl each morning, I got to feed her breakfast and put her down for her nap at 11:30am. My husband and I had our very own bonfire in the backyard on Friday afternoon; I did laundry and hung clothes out on the line. We both cleaned and worked around the house. I spackled walls (badly, I might add – seems I’d forgotten just how to do that until the last hole) and tried to prep them for upcoming paint. We grocery shopped and returned cans and recycled all the plastic bags I found when cleaning out the pantry.

There was lots of time for play with Maddie – time in the yard, time bumming around the living room, time spent reading stories with her in my lap. We went to several barbeques with family and friends; we played on the swings and slide for the first time this year. Maddie got to play wiffle ball with her cousin Drew. “Drooo!” she cried over and over, toddling after him. “DROOO!” She ate my hamburger bun and chased his kitten, Mr. Bob Kitters.

It was a lovely, lovely five days.

Oh, with the Memorial Day weekend behind us we are thinking forward to more barbeques, right?  Especially since we had such spectacular weather in the San Jose Bay Area.  Well, I honestly don’t know where this recipe came from.  I will credit the person that I got it from about 10 years ago.  I worked with this woman named Diana and she brought this salad to a potluck.  I have been making it ever since. 

Now, it is an exercise in imagination calling this a recipe, this really isn’t a recipe per se, because I don’t have amounts of ingredients.  You need to decide that for yourself.  I am just sharing the idea and giving you a ball park.

So basically you get some mangos peel then cube them.  Then you cube or slice a peeled cucumber.  Throw it all in a bowl, then you add lemon juice and salt.  So easy.  And so good.  But you have to decide how much mango you want or how much cucumber.  And the lemon and the salt again, all to taste.  What I usually do is I bring a lemon and salt to the event so that people can add more if they like. 

I usually start out with three mangos to an English cucumber.  And I chop everything up in tiny little cubes because I like to get a bites of both mango and cucumber.   I am a firm believer in eating the edible skin of my fruits and vegetables, so I don’t always cleanly peel the cucumber, but without the cucumber skin you can taste the mangos better, I think.

Mangos contain the antioxidants C and A.  They also contain fiber.  Even peeled cucumbers have vitamins and minerals that most could benefit from.

This salad is one of those super easy, yet packs-a-tasteful-punch kind of summer salad that I bet you will have on all of your barbeque tables from now on.

“Recipe” for Mango and Cucumber salad

• Peeled and cubed mangos and cumbers, salt and lemon juice to taste.

Photo by Nick Oliva May 23, 2009

The rapidity of ridiculousness
Blinds those of imploded consciousness
To the past explosions of human tragedy
For sacrifices of those yet unborn.

We see the blood red stains
Washed upon the shore
A fire awaits that rawness of meat
In celebration of a time long gone.

But is it gone, really?
Have we learned from the past?
Do we consume the memories
Of the blood spewed and cast?

War is within, war is without
The bombs bursting in air
Lost dreams of those who no longer live to tell their tale
And what of what those unconsumated moments they’ve allowed taken away?

We remember the details
Of yesterday’s meals
While not giving thanks to those
Whose selflessness was real.

Be mindful of the blood in those meaty delights
That one takes for granted, today and in life
They had no choice, they had to fight
So stand, be mindful and heavily breathe-in life
As you live from their ultimate sacrifice.

Most of us probably have tasted a typical bacon dish during Christmases or on any special occasions. But this new recipe of preparing bacon is way different from the usual dish that we have tasted.

The recipe is popularly called the Bacon Explosion, modestly called by its inventors “the BBQ Sausage Recipe of all Recipes.”

When it’s completely cooked you will notice that physically it looks like a massive torpedo-shaped amalgamation of two pounds of bacon woven through and around two pounds of sausage and slathered in barbecue sauce.

This recipe has gradually coming out to be known world-wide as it is being circulated and viewed densely over the net. More and more people get interested of making one for them to enjoy consuming.

The ingredients, via BBQaddicts:

2 Pounds Thick Cut Bacon

2 Pounds Italian Sausage

1 jar of your favorite barbeque sauce

1 jar of your favorite barbeque rub

The most important thing to know about lighting up a portable charcoal grill is to get the charcoal burning, but leave it until the coals are red hot embers. You should never cook on charcoal before this happens, because the temperature won´t be right and you will end up burning the meat. To get the coals going, all you need to do is scrunch up a bunch of paper, put charcoal on top, and light the paper. This should get it going pretty good. NEVER use gas to start the charcoal, unless you are willing to wait at least an hour to burn off all of the fuels. It lends an awful taste to the meat.

We provide event planning and contract catering. We are one of Manchester’s top outside and party caterers providing food for all occasions. Whether it is a breakfast or a cocktail party, an executive lunch or a themed event or conference or even fruit platters for your office we would be delighted to discuss your catering requirements and budget. We also cater for private events such as weddings and BBQ’s across Manchester.

Readers from our adventures in sunny weymouth will remember that I mentioned GoApe – in particular the Moors Valley course.

Well, I threatened we’d be headed to another GoApe and for the first sunday in August, that was what we did.

Wife number one and I weren’t celebrating a wedding anniversary this time (apparently, you should only celebrate that once a year …) so the Present Mrs Ben graciously decided to have a birthday so we could celebrate that instead.

To get there was a mini adventure of itself.

Myself and wife number one were picked up by Mr and Mrs C early sunday morning.

“15 mins from yours to theirs” they were told by Mr Ben and the Present Mrs Ben. Maybe for the crow but in the real world nearer 30 mins (gotta love that London traffic)

Then we started on the South circular, thought that we could save time going a little south through Norbury towards the A23/A3, failed, had a road closure, drove over A LOT of sleeping policemen (they didn’t wake up), found the A3, found the M25, then the M4 and hence to Wendover to arrive for the 1pm prompt start.

At about 1:17pm.

Luckily, at that point, there were so many people braving the sporadic rain that we were about to blast through the safety briefing and the quick first course to catch up with Mr and Mrs Ben and Sgt Stub in time for the high wire adventure proper.

Photos can be found on my Flickr.com page

As before, it was a most enjoyable experience. This time the stirrups hanging from hemp lines were bigger than my feet and at one point, there was actually a view that wasn’t tree (or ground).

There was also a higher drop-out rate – a higher rate of people not going through all the courses; not people dropping out of the trees.

Firstly the older couple in front of Mr Ben who were surprised when the second course wasn’t at the 6 foot height of the practice run – being instead at the normal 30 foot height.

Then the gentleman in the red hoodie whose vertigo kicked in after course 2.

We also seemed to lose a group of seven or eight before course 4. If you are passing Wendover Woods, keep your eyes open for a group in sit harnesses trying to find a wooden door.

Oh, and for the group of adults who brought their toddlers along to throw sticks at the Go Ape participants during the Tarzan swing – it’s not big and it’s not clever. I believe the Go Ape Stewards were 30 seconds from introducing you to some of the finer points of the British legal system.

Grrr.

As it barely rained while we were testing the tensile strength of trees, we decided to have a barbeque.

I think over the course of the barbeque I consumed (in order): chocolate fudge cake; flapjack; capri-sun; mug of tea (with cow juice); kettle crisp (singular); vegetarian kebab; sausage roll (cold); chinese style rib; burger with false cheese, real bread and interesting salad; satsuma; pear; bottle of water.

Just another regular Sunday lunch then …

Though, I don’t normally have Sunday lunch punctuated with the “whompfh” of people splatting into cargo nets.

We watched a man attempt to fly a kite with no wind in a narrow field lined with tall trees. Sadly, he did manage to take the kite home in one piece.

Of course, this was an English barbeque so the heavens opened once the meat was properly on the grill.

Still, that’s what trees are for (after climbing through them, of course).

When we left Wendover Woods at around 6.30, there were still a couple of die-hards in the trees.

I’m not certain where they hid the brollies.

It took another three hours to get back south of the river to the place we call home (and got to show off the new kitchen to Mr and Mrs C)

The challenge we are left with now though is – Bracknell or Thetford (or maybe Leeds Castle)? There’s another fifteen Go Ape sites around the country …

So many choices, too much work to have time to decide …

July 4, 2028 — With the nation only beginning to recover from months of governmental turmoil, today is expected to be the most forlorn Independence Day in U.S. history.

Americans will go through the motions of gathering for backyard barbeques, watching fireworks and chasing after kids who throw firecrackers into their lawns.  But the overall mood of the country will be anything but patriotic.

In the last three months, the country has transitioned from a democratic republic to a corporation to a dictatorship and finally back to a republic.  It began with Google’s acquisition of the U.S., followed by a military coup led by former Sen. Hillary Clinton and an ultimate rescue by the lunar armed forces.   

“The American people are more confused about their identity, about their leadership and about the future of our form of government,” said Horatio Ivee, a history professor at Harvard University.  “It’s created a kind of despondency, a kind of decadent resignation that I’ve never witnessed before. It’s like Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw’ is the new national anthem.” 

The national mood stems partly from a crisis of leadership. President George Prescott Bush has decided against running for a second term, and both political parties are scrambling to get nominees onto the November ballot. 

Festering environmental crises have also been weighing on the America spirit.  Several major coastal cities, including Seattle, Boston and New York City, are suffering from ongoing flooding due to climate change.  Water shortages abound in many southwestern states, resulting in widespread rioting.  And the shift to alternative forms of fuel, including cranberry juice cocktail, are proceeding slowly.   

The Bush administration is hoping the Olympic Games, set to begin Aug. 8 in Bismarck, N.D., will lift the country’s spirits a bit. 

Meanwhile, temperatures in Washington, D.C. are expected to hit 135º F today, which is expected to suppress the number of people attending activities on the National Mall.  A concert on the lawn of Capitol Building will feature Miley Cyrus, David Archuleta, the National Robotic Orchestra, and the president himself performing with his old high-school pal Enrique Iglesias. 

Jimmy Buffett is also expected to perform, although organizers of the event have asked him to stick to uplifting songs. That means fans won’t get to hear his aforementioned hit and his signature “Margaritaville.”

Country crooner Lee Greenwood, best known for his hit “God Bless the USA,” turned down an invitation to perform at the event, saying that he would rather spend the day at his villa in the south of France. 

Performers on the Capitol lawn tonight include, from left, Miley Cyrus, David Archuleta and Enrique Iglesias and President Bush

A new website has just been launched at http://www.stainlesssteel-grills.com that is designed to provide information and answers to Stainless steel problems that most people don’t know there are answers for. This website is focused on tips and tricks for cleaning Stainless steel grills and outdoor kitchens and proper maintenance that will keep them in top shape season after season.

Your outdoor barbecues, grills, and kitchen appliances take a beating from moisture, acid rain, air pollution, excessive heat, corrosive chemicals, not to mention scuffs and scratches from normal usage. This web site offers the best advice available about the care, cleaning and restoration of your Stainless steel investment. Keep it looking like new and enjoy it season after season by employing the secrets we are going to share with you and the new technologies available today.

Many people believe that scratches, chemical stains, burns and scorches cannot be effectively removed from brushed Stainless steel – but they are wrong! This website shows you how you can remove these problems and restore your Stainless steel outdoor cooking appliances to like-new condition quickly and easily. You’ll find before and after photos, complete instructions on how to clean and maintain your Stainless steel grills, barbecues and outdoor kitchen appliances, as well as links to other online resources.

For a long time now, I’ve been meaning to take one of those alcoholic screening tests, if for no other reason than to determine whether I am a bona fide alcoholic or just a fun-loving boozer who has it under control.

I guess the reason I never got around to taking the quiz is because I’m a little scared of what I might learn, and also because I’m usually too hungover to concentrate on exams. Today, however, I finally decided to take the test. After a little research, I chose the John Hopkins University Hospital Alcohol Screening Quiz. The quiz asked a series of yes-or-no questions. Before proceeding, I made a pact to answer them honestly and completely. Here are the results:

Q: Do you drink to build self-confidence or because you are shy?

A: No. Shyness is the opposite of my problem.

Q: Is drinking making your home life unhappy?

A: No. Drinking makes my home life happier. For one reason, J. is a bit of a boozer herself. We host barbecues and consume beer. We have dinner and drink wine. We do shots together. While watching TV, we play drinking games like, Drink Entourage or Drink Hogan’s Heroes. So much is better around our home because we both booze. Some might call this codependency; we call it a marriage heaven sent.

Q: Is drinking negatively affecting your reputation?

A: This is an ambiguous question. Affect my reputation with whom? Because certainly my reputation with the morality overlords has suffered over the years. But as far as the people who matter—family and friends-type people—my reputation remains as a fun drunk.

Q: Have you ever felt regret after drinking?

A: Have I ever put food into my mouth? Have I ever breathed air into my lungs? Have I ever fallen off a stool in front of a lady and vomited on her shoe? I regret that I must answer yes to this question.

Q: Is drinking jeopardizing your job? Do you lose time from work due to drinking?

A: No. I have not called into work gin-sick in a very long time.

Q: Have you had financial difficulties as a result of drinking?

A: Another ambiguous question. Are they asking if I spend too much money on booze? If so, then I am inclined to say yes. But if they mean, do I go on benders and squander the rent on gambling, hookers and blow, then the answer is absolutely not (I spend only what I can afford on gambling, hookers and blow).

Q: Does your drinking make you careless of your family’s welfare?

A: Definitely not! I’d have W. tell you that herself except she and the kids are on the road right now smuggling moonshine across state lines for me. (Thanks, babe!)

Q: Do you crave a drink at a definite time daily?

A: Nope. I crave drinks at all different times of all different days and nights.

Q: Do you want a drink the next morning?

A: Ah, the old, “Hair of the Dog that Bit You” theory. I’ll never understand this one. How on Earth does sucking on a larvae-infested clump of dog dander heal canine wounds? Still, I have always marveled at some of my friends who, after a long night of hard boozing, will wake up the next morning on the couch, rub their eyes, grab a half-empty can of warm beer sitting on the coffee table and guzzle it down without even checking it for cigarette butts. Maybe it’s a sign of alcoholism that I even have friends like that, but the answer is still no—after a bender, I would sooner drink a glass of Satan’s bath water than consume another alcoholic beverage.

Q: Do you have trouble sleeping when drinking?

A: How would I know? I’m usually passed out by then. I do know that anyone nearby has trouble sleeping when I’ve been drinking, what with my snoring and thrashing and yelling obscenities at myself, so I guess I should answer yes to this one.

Q: Do you drink to escape from worries?

A: No. Drinking booze to escape your troubles is like climbing Mt. Everest to escape the cold. I will, however, admit to embarking on an occasional binge to take a hiatus from a problem, but the only true way to escape a problem is to fix it, which drinking doesn’t do, unless your problem is that you don’t drink enough.

Q: Do you drink alone?

A: Hell yeah! I love drinking wine at my writing desk, or sitting alone on a balcony overlooking a sunset with a stogie in my mouth and a double highball in my hand. Drinking alone is often better than drinking with people and screw you, buster, for giving negative points for it. How is drinking wine alone in my office any more a sign of alcoholism than downing tequila shots with a group?

Q: Have you ever had a loss of memory as a result of drinking?

A: Does water float? Is blood bloody? Have I ever spent an afternoon hung-over on the couch, with the shades drawn, fielding numerous calls from friends telling me outrageous stories I don’t recall about people I insulted and the inanimate objects I molested the night before? I’ll have to say yes to this one.

Results: According to Hopkins University Hospital, if you answer yes to three or more questions you are “definitely an alcoholic.”

Uh-oh. I scored four. Bummer. Oh well—the good news is, it’s out of my hands. All I have to do now is wait for the interventionists to come. In the meantime, I’ll just get drunk and ponder what I’ve learned.

For instance, I learned that the people at John Hopkins don’t know the difference between a boozer and an alcoholic.

I learned that it’s always best to blame your alcoholism on inferior alcoholism testing.

I’ve learned that being an alcoholic means never having to say you’re sorry, except once, when you join A.A., then you have to say it a lot.

And, most importantly, I’ve learned that introspection is a bad thing and not to do it anymore—which reminds me, what was your score? You can tell me when I see you at the bar later.

The lights flickered like those mosquitoe zappers we used to have in our backyard. I remember we used to have barbeques out back and the zapper would be just above us. Everytime a mosquitoe was blown to pieces, I would wonder how many of its body parts had landed on my hamburger.

It was three in the morning and I just came from a nightclub with Jen and Eddie. They’re probably in Jen’s apartment fucking right about now. I’ve always been sort of the third wheel. The odd man out. Nightclubs never really appealed to me, but I was fascinated by the way total strangers go to this enclosed space, crammed like a pack of sardines, and engage in sexually suggestive dances. Like bees communicating with each other through body language. Wing flap, wing flap, hop, moves antennas, wing flap. Translation: “I know a nice little spot in this bee-hive where we can get to know each other a little more–if you know what i mean.”

The music in nightclubs suck, atleast nowadays they do. Disco is dead and a synthetic form of music has taken its place. I usually sit at the bar, close my eyes and feel the vibrations of the bass reverberate in my chest cavity. Anything can be a surreal experience once you choose to let go of reality. I’m never at the club, even when I’m physically there. I’m in my own world where the air smells like alcohol breath and cigarette smoke. But the sky there, in that world, it’s so beautiful.

I looked out the window and saw nothing but my own reflection on the window. My face painted upon a blackness. Life seems to have more meaning when you’re moving at a high speed. Take that lady over there for example, the one eating the cup of ramen noodles. She’s taking her time blowing every bite. Sipping a little bit of the soup between each one. There’s no need to rush. The train’s already flying like a bullet. Going nowhere and everywhere. That’s the funny thing about destinations, it’s never really an end-point. It is for the passengers, looking forward to home, or work, or the strip-club. But really, these places are just points along a timeline. Time after all is measured by space and movement. But the train continues onward without care. It doesn’t give a fuck if you missed your stop. Too bad, it has an agenda of its own and that agenda is to keep moving forward, no matter what direction.