McCutcheon

[TragicPixie]

aww poor you *gives you a hug*

[sara]

MC, I think you're right about the couple in Burnt, and American Puritan ideals -- we can be so stupid, but we're pretty well trained in it.

[mccutcheon]

Americans want their tragedies to have happy endings. The fact that Tour is a tragedy with a tragic ending should have told me that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't have been writing it in the method style that I was. But I'm stoopid like that.

[marky]

WELL TRAINED in Stupidity! That's downright funny, Sarah. I love it. "we may be stupid but we're really good at it"! HA HA HA HA!

But I'm sure it's not just an American thing the happy ending.
I'm sure there's at least one grad student somewhere who has dissected the whole phenomenon backwards and forwards. If Orwell's 1984 is anything to go by, a happy ending just stops people from thinking. But that's only in fiction and this is reality. McC if you're gonna get on the wagon you do have the right to make that wagon anything you want it to be. I mean you don't have to accept a carbon copy cookie cutter version of a happy ending, you know. It's all yours to chip at like a sculpture and make your own. If you want to.

[mccutcheon]

thanks Marky. 6 days sober. To most people six days is a DJ Shadow song, but for me it is a lifetime. and don't worry I'm not gonna go bible thumper or anything. these are early days. I'm scared as hell though about how I deal with the boredom and all that. I always believed that people weren't meant to be sober.

[marky]

Wow I haven't heard or thought about that DJ Shadow song in awhile. That would be fun to hear right now.

[martino]

i am sorry (and i am probably a rat) to criticize the bandwagon, but i fail to see the point. why stop drinking? just because of one crise de coeur?

listen: i adhere to the mediterranean school of drinking. i never start before sundown. i don't consider eating to be cheating: as a matter of fact, i never drink without food. if i am expecting a big night then i eat lots of fat and / or oily foods. it's good to start the evening at a tapas bar. and then, when you drink, you stick to one kind of alcohol. the only exception is that it is allowed to go from beer to wine but never the other way around.

and most importantly: drink a glass of water after every glass of alcohol. if you want to play safe, drink two glasses of water. the worst thing about heavy drinking is the dehydration.

if you follow this, you will be able to go through two bottles of wine during one evening with not much more than a hard-ass hangover, which however will be gone in 24 hours.

don't do cocaine when you are drinking. kick the amphetamines. kick the e -- no, use the e for experimenting with kinky sex but don't combine it with alcohol, because it dehydrates you.

if you are a drunk then you have a problem but being a dry drunk is not necessarily much better -- just look at dubya.

knowing mc from little experience but from good friendship i think i can say he is not a drunk, and should merely try to drink in a more mature way. or am i being unrealistic?

[TragicPixie]

alcohol ruins the e martino. lol

and coke and alcohol can be a leathel combination - the chemicals combine in your body and produce toxic ethonal.

umm... ok... so yeah, and that's what I learned as a nurse!

[Tommy Martyn]

Although we approach drinking in a different manner (I loves drinking in the afternoon especially when watching sports) I'm with Martino in spirit on this one. (No pun intended) Make some flexible and sensible rules that allow you to enjoy your life.

There is no doubt that the body can't handle the ale the same way as you get older. Another big difference is that during your twenties it can be hard to tell who the drinkers are just by looking at them. This gets easier during the thirties and becomes a fucking walk in the park thereafter.

[Sloth]

TP,

If cocaine and alcohol were toxic Pax Acidus would have been over before it started.

As for alcohol ruining ecstasy I agree with you.

Kisses as my belly gets bigger by the day. My parents at thanksgiving told me they never saw someone drink so much as me and stand up. I drank there whole bottle of Grand Marnier they had bought for the ice cream.

[TragicPixie]

the ethonal effect is a werid chemical equation - it takes just the right balance but if you do it right you're screwed. I've only seen it happen once and stupidly I tend to not worry too terribly much in my own life but... it's still there.

My grandmother has decided I'm an alcoholic but I think she's wrong. I only drink *that* much when I'm with my family - they make me go a little crazy.

I wonder what coke and e would be like - but then, that would probably spoil the e as well... E is such a beautiful thing, why would anyone want to spoil it? Blue dolphins are pretty alright (well, I like them at least) but a few friends of mine swear they'll never do it again. Perhaps I'm just strange.

[martino]

pixes, thanks for the great information about drug combinations, i didn't know about that stuff.

tommy, since moving out i don't have a tv so i seldom have an excuse or reason for afternoon drinking. but i have to admit i like to get a buzz at the horse races on sundays.

in response to mc, i agree that sobriety can be cool. due to my recent injury i didn't drink for a week and i felt fit and fine as long as it lasted. my first half-glass of beer after that gave me a headache. generally i am drinking less and feeling better since i got out of a depressing marital situation. but give it up? well, to each his own.

but chose your role models well. in slate.com, the author of the ray charles' biography on which the movie is based criticized the film's sentimentality. sure he kicked the horse but

"for the rest of his life he unapologetically drank large quantities of gin every day and smoked large quantities of pot every night. While working on his autobiography he told me, "Just like smack never got in the way of my working, same goes for booze and reefer. What I do with my own body is my own business." Ray maintained this attitude until his health deteriorated. In 2003 he told me that he had been diagnosed with alcoholic liver disease and hepatitis C. "If I knew I was going to live this long," he added with an ironic smile, "I would have taken better care of myself." Whatever Ray was—headstrong, joyful, courageous, cranky—he was hardly a spokesman for sobriety."

sloth: could it be that the logging-in problems are dependant on browser or OS? when i used OS9 i had all sorts of difficulties with this BB but having switched to OSX, everything is shmoove. perhaps poor ole mc should switch to firefox? or upgrade from windows95?

[mccutcheon]

Martino. I'm just trying to feel healthy. I'm working it all out. In your company I'd love to share a drink. But right now I am on the wagon.

[bfj]

hey Mc, you know Christmas eve we've got a Packer Viking game, and then shit all but getting shit faced in Cedarburt BUT for you, I will gladly ride the wagon with you when you are in town!

[mccutcheon]

thanks. we'll see. and even if I don't drink you can. I would never want to stop the fun.