pic of Liana K nicked from Nerd Girl Pinups

Sometimes, when people forget to invite me to a party, I just invite myself.  I’ll even pay the occasional cover charge.  But I do have limits.  I will never line up.  Life is too short.  I refuse to wait to be somewhere when I’m already wherever I need to be.   Although doormen may kindly separate everyone on the inside from me with a velvet rope, it does makes me feel a bit like a museum piece.

Thankfully, there was no line for the Nerd Girl Pinup Launch Party at The Annex Wreckroom.  This might have something to do with the site’s utter lack of nudity.  They claim that it’s sexier that way. As a man who enjoys some of the most vile pornography in Christendom, I wouldn’t know.

This whole clothing idea seems a bit quaint and I doubt it’ll catch on.  The competition is being humped by donkeys and whatnot.  Seems to me that, to compete, you should be getting humped by larger donkeys.

And they should be angry donkeys.

Now, you may say that’s sick and maybe you’d be right.  But could you masturbate to this?

If you can, you’re a sick pervert.  She’s clothed, obviously busy and minding her own business.  If that gets you off, you shouldn’t even be let out of the house.  What won’t you masturbate to?

Even though these women insist on wearing things and there wasn’t even a mule in sight, I still invited myself to their party.  I even paid a cover charge.  That was okay.  I suppose.  It reminded me of what life was like before I had a mildly successful blog and when I still went to strangers’ events.

Walking though the door was like returning to 1997.

For starters, I felt utterly louche.

I’m growing another mustache.  Not for cancer or Hitler but for a combination of the two; the Canadian winter and me.  My face is an itchy mess and I feel slovenly.  Since last year, I’d forgotten that growing a mustache is a long arduous journey that starts in peril and ends in disappointment.  It’s a lot like love.  Or breakfast.

Aside from my poorly put together face, the musical selection reminded me of the past.  It’s called “retro.”

Retro songs are the songs from your adolescence.  This nonsense sounds good when today starts making yesterday look better; when your youth has been gone long enough for you to imagine you had another one.  A glamorous one.  One that was fun.  No one ever hurt your feelings.  And you weren’t a loser with a bad haircut.  You’ve never had a bad haircut.  No one has.

People get drunk, cling to this soundtrack and pretend that things were either much better or much worse than they were.  They remember themselves like little adults.  I can’t.  I lack an imagination.

But looking at the party –I never participate, just look– I realized that this was the sort of thing that would blow the mind of a seventeen year old from a small town.  They’d stare at the costumes and think: Toronto: That’s the place for me.  Look!  That person is dressed as Donald Duck!  And no one is kicking their ass!

I know that feeling.  I once had it.  And I know that place.  It was called “The Dance Cave.”

Just thinking of that makes me think of what my high-school sweetie, who broke my filthy little heart, said when I told her I was moving to the big city:  “What are you going to do?  Be you better than anyone else can be you?”

Well, I showed her.

Ahem.

I hope she’s fat.  Sarcastic bitch.

Aside from my troubles with high school romance, the party seemed to be going well.  There was a costume contest and they were giving away The Cure’s new CD.  I’m not kidding.  The Cure has a new CD.  And it’s a CD.  If someone tried to give me a CD –any CD– I’d ask for the nine bucks instead.  If they tried to give me The Cure I’d just keep the disease.  Even if it was AIDS.

But disaster was waiting to strike.

From the young woman providing the table service, I ordered my customary tonic water.  She arrived with the drink and I had a good swig.  It tasted a bit flat.  I figured it was one of those draft ones.  They always taste off.  I continued to drink and, halfway through, noticed that I felt a bit peculiar.  A bit warm and sick.

The DJ, for reasons I still cannot fathom, started playing Rage Against the Machine.  I was shocked to find that my fingers were tapping the table and I was thinking — They’re not so bad.

That’s when I realized what was wrong with my drink.

I handed my glass to my date and said:  “Could you have a taste of this and tell me what it is?”

She looked at me and had a sip.  “It tonic–OHHHHH- That’s gin!  That’s what gin and tonic tastes like?  Yuck!”

“I’m drunk,” I said. “This music sounds like music.”

My tolerance is utterly gone.  I once quit drinking for two years.  When I decided to start again, I was pissed after three sips of my Guinness.  That didn’t stop me from drinking ten pints more.  But things were different then.  I intended to start drinking again.  This was some horrible accident.

Then the stress hit.

Although I don’t intellectually believe any of that AA nonsense about how you can’t have just one, it’s difficult to avoid emotionally believing it.  It’s similar to how I don’t consider myself a racist or sexist but, if I’m walking through the park at night, three black guys walking towards me will make me more nervous than three white guys walking towards me and either of those will make me far more nervous than three women of any color being humped by donkeys.

It’s incorrect, screwed up and ugly but it’s there.  Just like that lie about just one.

I’ve always figured I could have just one.  I just couldn’t figure out why I would want just one.  Even when I drank, I never wanted just one.  What is the point of just one? Better none than just one.

But better one than half of one.

I finished my drink.

Frankly, I was thirsty.  Aside from that, to push it away whilst turning my nose up seemed like an ostentatious display of self control.  The damage was done.  I might not like it but there are children in Africa who have no gin and tonics.  So I finished the damn thing.

And did not order another.

Nor do I plan to ever order another.

I felt something like a Looney Tunes character.  I accidentally walked off a cliff, looked down and saw the abyss.  But, instead of falling down it, I staggered back to solid ground.

To be completely honest, I did want more.  Like all people, I’m fairly capable of bullshitting myself.  And that AA lie was a convenient line of bullshit.  I have an excuse, I thought.  I could get really drunk and I wouldn’t be to blame.  After all, you can’t have just one.

Well, it turns out you can.

And this becomes another line of bullshit.  After all, if I can just have one, why not just have one on special occasions?  Like breakfast.

You see, the mind is a tricky little rascal and one must always check its bizarre claims against reality.  Though black men in a dark park may frighten me, I’ve been more often attacked by white people in broad daylight.  Although I may think I can have just one or think I cannot, my thinking is irrelevant.

I’ve put the question beyond thought.  I won’t drink.  And I don’t ask the monkey about it.

Just look at him!  Do you trust that monkey?

I don’t.

If I thought about it, I could think of a lot of reasons to never drink again.  But, if I thought about it, I could also think of a lot of reasons to drink again.  That Nerd Girls Launch Party would be a good one.  The Annex Wreckroom is a better one.  So I don’t think about it.

That particular question is put safely and simply out of the range of my thinking.  It’s off limits.  Sometimes you just have to reach your conclusion, give your word and stick to it.  That’s all.

It’s not a question of accuracy, truth or evidence.  It’s one of character, honor and dignity.   You occasionally have be stupid to be smart.  Smart people are capable of the most shocking stupidity.  if I’ve learned one thing about drugs, it’s this:  I am not smarter than drugs.  To forget that would be moronic.

I could have gotten drunk and blamed the barmaid.  But, like every excuse, blame is useless.  You can identify it as such because it’s satisfying. The worst thing about a nuclear holocaust is that there won’t be anyone left to blame.  Not only will we be dead, we’ll be to blame.  But we won’t even be able to blame ourselves.  We’ll be dead.  Then what?

Nothing.

So I had an excuse, my nerves were frayed, my judgment impaired and I was in an environment designed to make me want to drink.  But, if I had any doubt about my refusal, it was cleared up when I met a friend on the stairs.  I watched in horror as my hand shook his.  Jailhouse style.  I was completely out of control.

I don’t know how I will ever look him in the eyes again.

The night ended without further incident.  I  returned home in the company of a lovely lady.  Though I was sober by the time I went to bed some hours later, I woke up with a hangover.  Unshaven.    If I had my boots on, the lady had of been a Kleenex and I didn’t have to work, it would have really been like 1997.

But time keeps moving.  Thank God.  1997 is much better in the past.  Where it belongs.  Not at The Annex Wreckroom.  Nothing belongs there.  Not even Nerd Girls.  And I certainly don’t belong anywhere near 1997.  Wherever it may be, I’m just not there anymore.