Man, I’m tired, but I can finally relax a little, now that I’m down to my one or two nightly cocktails, instead of the caligulan excesses I’ve been subjected to of late. The preceding week was a grueling, besotted blur that I strongly believe will make me rethink my entire position on alcohol. Ok. Yep. Good point, Mr. Oblongata. Ok, I continued, nodding thoughtfully while clamping the unlit pipe between my well-formed incisors, I do believe you’ve got a point after all.

Alcohol is a funny thing, as long as your definition of funny has a lot in common with Hermann Goering’s. For us drunkards, it’s an almost unbearable hit parade of mortifying moments that accompanies even the most insincere, shallow attempts at soul-searching. Again and again, it makes you pose the question to yourself that we’ve all had to try and wrestle at one point or another, namely: What the fuck was I thinking? I lost my goddamn cell phone in the drunken haze last week. I loved that cell phone, sort of. I realize now that I’m in the market fer one a em’s sexy iTunes phones, but, honestly, I’d rather have a Nano. In fact, I’d rather have even a fool’s hope that I’ll have enough money to buy smokes for another glorious month o’ puffin’, but I don’t, so I guess I’m not so much in the market fer as I am up shit creek without a paddle in the absence of.

I lost my phone during a 300-yard long, meandering stumble home from the bachelor party. I know that I didn’t leave it in the night club, because I remember making a phone call or two on my way home. I’d called my lusty companions, asking them if they’d check around the club and see if they could find my digital camera, which was missing, and bring it to safety. I then called my baby, and let her know, in no uncertain terms, that I would be home within an hour, 300 yards being what they are at 5:30 in the morning, and that hopefully she hadn’t forgotten the earplugs I’d recommended she buy, lest my easily-foreseen yet completely unavoidable sawing and clearing of the rainforest disturb her for the 2 or 3 hours that I would actually be allowed to remain in bed, owing to the 9 o’clock meeting I’d cleverly scheduled for the next morning. When I was wrenched from my snoring paradise by Satan’s Alarm Clock, I was sadly without a phone, yet, remarkably, with my digital camera in my pocket. Had I actually been talking to my friends and loved ones on the camera? How very, very David Lynch.

But let’s not forget the human costs. I almost punched out some rummy hobo in a bar for hitting on my sweet baby Saturday night, after a boozy pub crawl. He was drunk, and my sweet baby was looking very sweet indeed, but there ain’t more than one rummy hobo who’s laying on hands around here, and that rummy hobo is me, buddy. I don’t suppose the late hour or the gigantic bar-tab had anything at all to do with my rush to visit justice on this poor, lonely sap.

Alcohol has cost me plenty, but I guess there’s no point in stopping now.