NO REDEMPTION HERE
Yesterday I was reading the Sunday times and in the Style section there were two books of note mentioned: A Drunkard's Guide and I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Now I know I said I wasn't going to endorse stuff and I haven't read either, but the basic premise of both of these tomes I fully endorse. Endorsing premise is OK. I've completely had it with writers wallowing in all the juicy stuff, only to see the light, stop the madness, clean up, get the adoring wife(or husband), sell the movie rights, and inspire a generation to watch Ophrah. The review of these two little books gave me hope. Life long fuck ups can be marketable too. Of course these books were written by much younger folk. Who knows if they're in it for the long haul. There's plenty of time for them to switch gears and repent. For now I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Welcome on board. Let me fix you a drink.
I've had some experience with 12 steppers. Many friends gave up on the downward slide long ago. They stopped doing whatever their chosen poison was, got a few tattoos, went bungee jumping, found God, did the weekend sweat lodge routine, smoked cigarettes, drank cup after cup of coffee and called each other relentlessly to make sure no one was backsliding. For many of them it worked. They turned from sniveling scumbags and became upright citizens. For some, once a sniveling scumbag...... Sobriety doesn't always change one for the better.
My intimate eyeball onto that world came in the form of a 5'3" 23 year old red headed, ex-junkie stripper working on her doctorate in literature at Barnard. At 39 I was at the top of my game. Whatever that game was. She didn't try to convert me and I was glad not to share any of my stuff. After a few months of what passed for courtship she moved into my place on 7&C. The age difference (the largest span up until then) didn't seem to be an issue. So what if she didn't know the members of Grand Funk Railroad. In fact she was a big fan of 70's nostalgia, mining my frazzled memory banks for fashion tips and anecdotal information. Everything was paizley until she moved in. Then the phone started ringing.
God bless 'em, sober people seem to need to talk amongst themselves at all hours of the day or night. I got so used to saying "It's for you." I started rushing into the bathroom to look in the mirror just to make sure I existed. Then there was the sex thing. No, not between her and I. That was satisfactory, but nothing to write home about. More precisely it was the talking about, philosophizing over, exegeting, deconstructing and otherwise taking the fun out of sex, that got to me. That, and the fact that she had started stripping again and was talking about doing fetish porn films, and happened to be screwing a friend of mine was what bugged me. Short story long, we didn't last a year. I heard she became a bigshot editor in England after marrying a Brit. My point? Oh yeah. Some bottoms can't be reached. That is unless it's in a glass. Cheers.
I've had some experience with 12 steppers. Many friends gave up on the downward slide long ago. They stopped doing whatever their chosen poison was, got a few tattoos, went bungee jumping, found God, did the weekend sweat lodge routine, smoked cigarettes, drank cup after cup of coffee and called each other relentlessly to make sure no one was backsliding. For many of them it worked. They turned from sniveling scumbags and became upright citizens. For some, once a sniveling scumbag...... Sobriety doesn't always change one for the better.
My intimate eyeball onto that world came in the form of a 5'3" 23 year old red headed, ex-junkie stripper working on her doctorate in literature at Barnard. At 39 I was at the top of my game. Whatever that game was. She didn't try to convert me and I was glad not to share any of my stuff. After a few months of what passed for courtship she moved into my place on 7&C. The age difference (the largest span up until then) didn't seem to be an issue. So what if she didn't know the members of Grand Funk Railroad. In fact she was a big fan of 70's nostalgia, mining my frazzled memory banks for fashion tips and anecdotal information. Everything was paizley until she moved in. Then the phone started ringing.
God bless 'em, sober people seem to need to talk amongst themselves at all hours of the day or night. I got so used to saying "It's for you." I started rushing into the bathroom to look in the mirror just to make sure I existed. Then there was the sex thing. No, not between her and I. That was satisfactory, but nothing to write home about. More precisely it was the talking about, philosophizing over, exegeting, deconstructing and otherwise taking the fun out of sex, that got to me. That, and the fact that she had started stripping again and was talking about doing fetish porn films, and happened to be screwing a friend of mine was what bugged me. Short story long, we didn't last a year. I heard she became a bigshot editor in England after marrying a Brit. My point? Oh yeah. Some bottoms can't be reached. That is unless it's in a glass. Cheers.
posted by mike osterhout at 2:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home