I was going to detail my six-month bender, which I thought I’d pretty accurately documented in my “Moleskine” (a sheaf of liquor store receipts held together by a dirty purple scrunchie), but as I look over my notes here I’m starting to realize that a) they don’t correspond to reality, and b) they don’t even correspond to what I thought was reality, which also turns out to be incorrect.
See, I was under the impression that I spent the last six months as an apprentice to a master electrician, learning his trade and blossoming under his hard-earned wisdom. We rewired the expansive homes of young, fragile widows, sometimes taking a lemonade break and talking of things simple and hearty. I learned respect for what my master called the “White Snake” — electricity.
And each evening I would carefully document the day’s thoughts and events in my Moleskine. Or so I thought. Now that I read through it again I find it to be a kind of sloppily plotted adventure story, with me stealing a Norfolk wherry and taking it to Belize (although I guess I got confused later on and started calling it “Belmar”) and getting in throwing-star fights. In the end I’m betrayed by the very underage prostitute I paid to teach me how to love. It’s all pretty bleccch, but the good news is I’m all covered for NaNoWriMo.
But after a series of interviews with Gonzalo and yourself, and some fairly intense Googling, I’ve been able to determine that not only did I not learn to respect electricity, but I was basically nonverbal and incontinent with drunkenness, and hardly even left my house for those six months. Much of that time was spent either in quiet repose or using After Effects to splice my goddamn maid Thalia into some regrettable home movies I’d made of myself back in my spirited college days. I’m going to not talk about that any more and I have sent YouTube a cease-and-desist.
Point is that now and then I’d head over to the K4T offices for some real heart-to-hearts with Gonzalo. On one momentous afternoon, he got all fed up with my condition and said that I required the immediate intervention of a professional colon hydrotherapist, a job I didn’t even know existed.
But thanks to the delicate touch of Dr. Gretchen Ainsley, my understanding of liquids was taken to staggering new heights. I do not mean to brag about my highly developed senses, and I do not mean to say that they are keener than yours. But I think people who believe that beverages should only go in the mouth-hole are being sort of naive and close-minded.
So even though my beverage-exploration took a pretty severe nosedive in recent months, I have come through this dark time stronger and wiser and with a touch of jaundice and cholestasis. And along the way I found a beverage that got me through my wide-awake nightmare, a beverage that lit up something deep within me, a beverage that will be receiving an extremely highly starred review in this space.