A soda water with a twist of lime, and a capsule full of strychnine.

I hope you don't mind if we don't put the Christian Rock on the jukebox just yet.  Little early.

Jinnistan wrote:

We have a lovely wagon in Dutch Mahogany.

I'm no better than a bag of turnips. I'll tumble off eventually.

Jinnistan wrote:

So, what's up, crumbs? What's all this bad health business? What can you talk about in public?

In short, my liver is shot. Not like irretrievably. But I need to course correct because they showed me some number I don't understand, and mine were five times what is considered a threat.

My cholesterol is also through the roof. And something else I don't remember is equally terrible. Than the matter of a possible irregular heartbeat and high blood pressure.

Frankly, I don't really care all that much, old age was never something I've ever pursued with any appetite. But after years of feeling untouched by my endlessly bad habits, it made me feel mortal for a moment. And maybe a little less special in somehow living without the pull of reality, and the fact that my body isn't actually impervious to harm. 

And while it is a relief to know I'm not a vampire and damned for an eternity on this nightmare planet, the thought of having a stroke or liver failure and becoming some kind of invalid my girlfriend will have to take care of scares the piss out of me. Or having to have any kind of invasive surgery.

So I'm cutting back. Frankly, my drinking in the last two years has been fairly moderate already, and most of the damage is likely a result of my previous twenty five years of consuming (probably) 100 plus drinks a week. There was no way that wasn't going to haunt me at some point. This leaves me with the game plan of virtually no alcohol for the next month or two, in hopes this will start to stabilize things (along with a severely limited diet). Then I can slowly, and with some sense, introduce a little more over time. The whiskey is probably going to have to go entirely though. Because that's where the trouble really kicks in. But sadly, the only thing that has ever been effective at cutting all the white noise out in my head.

crumbsroom wrote:

Jinnistan wrote:

So, what's up, crumbs? What's all this bad health business? What can you talk about in public?

In short, my liver is shot. Not like irretrievably. But I need to course correct because they showed me some number I don't understand, and mine were five times what is considered a threat.

Yikes.  It's good that you're not at the point of getting on a list or something.  The liver can recover, and, despite all of the "old man" business, we're not quite at the age of no return.  Another 5 or 10 years, that may be a different story.  So maybe it's good timing.

crumbsroom wrote:

Than the matter of a possible irregular heartbeat and high blood pressure.

Again, maybe good timing to catch it now.  Might be a matter for discretion, but I think there's an old saying about "speed is wasted on the young".

crumbsroom wrote:

So I'm cutting back. Frankly, my drinking in the last two years has been fairly moderate already, and most of the damage is likely a result of my previous twenty five years of consuming (probably) 100 plus drinks a week. There was no way that wasn't going to haunt me at some point. This leaves me with the game plan of virtually no alcohol for the next month or two, in hopes this will start to stabilize things (along with a severely limited diet). Then I can slowly, and with some sense, introduce a little more over time. The whiskey is probably going to have to go entirely though. Because that's where the trouble really kicks in. But sadly, the only thing that has ever been effective at cutting all the white noise out in my head.

Well, I don't want to cause any momentary lapses of muscular coordination or anything.  I think alcohol, in all honestly, is pretty useless.  I've realized that boredom is a primary motivator for it for me personally, just something to do that's easily available (compared to other recreations).  I mean, what's the worst thing to happen?  Having to cut out all of those Ben Gazzara and Albert Finney films out of your diet?  Or maybe keep watching them and stop romanticizing them?

Jinnistan wrote:

Yikes.  It's good that you're not at the point of getting on a list or something.  The liver can recover, and, despite all of the "old man" business, we're not quite at the age of no return.  Another 5 or 10 years, that may be a different story.  So maybe it's good timing.

I don't even want to think what would have happened if I had stayed living by myself in Toronto the last two years, with no job or a second pair of eyes to keep me remotely in check. Instead of getting better, the drinking would have gotten even more way out of hand. And I absolutely would have never gone to the doctor without outside encouragement. So things would have definitely been considerably more disordered inside of me, that's for sure. And I would have been still living under the delusion that everything would be completely fine.

But then again, my dream always has been for my cat to eat me. So maybe it was a missed opportunity.

Boredom is actually a big factor in the indulgences. But it is also the old story that I feel a need to tinker with my brain chemistry in order to feel normal. I'm a person with outsized emotions that have nowhere to go in polite society, and the drinking is what allows them to come to the surface. Otherwise, they would curdle in my head, and it would instead be all of the repressed joy and despair inside of me that ends up causing my brain to hemmorage. 

Jinnistan wrote:

]How's the new job going?  Besides being strychnine-inspiring.

It's at a hospital, so is unionized and therefore pays enough that I can likely make enough working part time to get by. Which is all I was feasibly hoping for when I was looking for work. The idea of going back to any kind of 9-5 grind is what would really get me rubbing strychnine into my eyes. So I'm really really lucky, considering the day I applied to this I was also applying to every restaurant in a mall food court down the road from me.

I'm only three shifts in. The first two made me sort of want to die. Disinfecting the rooms of patients in isolation who are infectious with all sorts of fun things. I'm sure I will eventually knock an IV out of some old ladies arms and will feel suitably terrible about it. Also the smell of bleach still lingers in my sinuses nearly a week later.

But I had no idea starting here that there was also a mental health unit on site, and I would one day be allowed to step into the  wondrous pleasure it affords. Apparently everyone else is afraid to work on this wing, but I've never felt more at ease working with people in my life. Things are definitely fairly hairy there at times, so it's not like it's a cakewalk. There are violent offenders (with police guarding their bedroom doors) and you can just tell there is a bit of a pressure cooker going on with all of these conflicting disorders locked together in close proximity, but I fucking loved being there. Not only for the more voyeuristic elements of seeing things you don't normally see, but these are the people I empathize with most of all. As I said to my hiring manager after my shift "that's where I belong, put me there as often as possible". Which I'm sure makes me sound like a bit of a nut myself, but I've never been very good at the politics of making myself seem normal in work environments.

You might even post some thoughts about Johnny and Amber, if you feel you absolutely need to (and I doubt I'll be capable of resisting for much longer).

My opinion of the Depp Heard debacle/hullabaloo/what have you is that it's a pretty weird thing for people to have strong opinions about given that (from my deliberately limited initial exposure) it seemed like a "he said, she said" situation, so I became extremely wary when it began to be twisted into a "me too" story.

Rock wrote:

My opinion of the Depp Heard debacle/hullabaloo/what have you is that it's a pretty weird thing for people to have strong opinions about

I'd agree, and to defensively clarify, I wouldn't call these opinions strong, in the sense for, say, my opinions regarding things like the Bucha massacre, Exxon stock buybacks or the fat uselessness of Miles Teller's sac-face.  Indeed, it is to a slight shame that I bothered at all with the case, and my motives be not proud.  However, I do not watch soap operas, read US Weekly, click on TMZ headlines, or binge-watch celebrity reality game shows.  So, I dunno.  Just gimme this one weakness.  This one opportunity to gawk at the burning vanities.  It's like Lent in reverse.