The Scariest Halloween Ever - A True Story

(Settle in, you guys. This shit is scary.)

Once there was a blogger.

She was adorable.

She blogged about drinking, and not drinking, and politics, and monkeys wearing clothes. And CANDY. Oh, she loved to write about candy, because she loved to eat candy. Also cake, pie, cookies, ice cream, donuts...if it was loaded with sugar and calories, the cute li'l blogger nommed it.

And you could tell. By the fat.

Huh?

Then one day, about a month before Halloween, she woke up and her love of sugary foods was gone.

Just like that. She didn't want to eat sweets any more. When she got hungry, she craved things that were savory, salty, or starchy. She didn't want to taste anything sweet.

Noooooo!

She tried. She tried and tried to get worked up about eating sugar. She thought about the creamy filling of Twinkies, about the chocolatey goodness of candy bars. She thought about Snickers Peanut Butter Squared, which was just about her favorite thing in the world behind vodka and the White Album.

But it was no use. Intellectually, she appreciated the remembered flavor of her favorite sweet treats. But her taste buds politely declined to sample them. No matter what she did, the sugar center of her brain remained stubbornly switched off.

No, Pinky.

And then it was Halloween. The stores were full of candy - acres and acres of fun-size candy bars and candy corn, not to mention 300 different pumpkin spice-flavored things. The blogger's co-workers brought treats to the office. A huge bowl of candy stood by the front door of her house, ready to be distributed to the costumed little shits tykes in the neighborhood. Her own Precocious Daughter would be bringing home a huge sack of bounty from trick-or-treating.

And she wouldn't - couldn't - didn't want to eat any of it.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

And now the blogger roams the land with no sugar in her veins. Maybe one day her sweet tooth will return. Until then, she snacks upon cheese and nuts and crackers. And she doesn't miss the taste of chocolate...AT ALL.

I told you it was scary.

Tabitha Takes on the Twelve Steps

Editor's note: It's been 14 days without a drink. I feel great. But my page admin, Tabitha, doesn't like me when I'm sober. She's been trying to undermine me, like the passive-aggressive little bitch she is. Her anti-temperance lectures are getting on my nerves, so I'm letting her write a post about her problems with the 12 Steps. I'm not following them myself, because a) I'm not an alcoholic and b) that shit is way too hard for me to do. But if it will make Tabby feel better, then I'm willing to let her rant. Also, if you don't like what she writes, don't complain to me. The bitch is out of my control.

i'm going to throw your ass down the twelve steps

Page admin Tabitha

by Tabitha


alcohol is tasty. it makes you feel good, and if you do anything crazy while you're drunk you don't remember it. also, it keeps you from forming loving bonds with others and gives you the strength to be mean to people who totally deserve it. it's nature's perfect food.

if you want to stop drinking, go ahead. be a loser. but don't stop because other people decide you have a problem. other people suck balls. when they want you to stop drinking, they call you an alcoholic. they say there's no shame in being one, because it's a disease, and there's no shame in having a disease, although i don't see football players wearing pretty pink shoes to support a cure for alcoholism. probably if you asked tom brady if he prefers boobs or drunk chicks, he would say "drunk chicks with boobs." so that doesn't prove anything except that tom brady is a douche.

anyway, unlike victims (sorry, air quotes survivors air quotes) of other diseases who get drugs and telethons and shit, alcoholics are supposed to cure themselves by talking about being alcoholics to other alcoholics. i mean, can you see a bunch of guys with limp dicks sitting around and talking about having limp dicks, hoping it gives them a boner? no, those dudes go straight for the cialis, because prescription medication is how you take care of a fucking medical condition. nobody thinks you should do a 12-step program to stop having cancer or keep from having a relapse. yet if someone pulls the a-card on you - yeah, alcoholism is the only disease in the world that can be diagnosed by your sanctimonious in-laws instead of a licensed medical professional - they expect you to go to some crappy meeting room at the rec center and blab and listen to others blab until your "disease" is cured. which it never is, because even if you never take a drink again, according to them, you're still an alcoholic. it's just like being a felon.

and they say i'm the one with the problem because i black out a few nights a week.

the 12 steps themselves seem pretty awful to me. let me sum them up in my own words: i drink because i'm a horrible person. i'm a horrible person because i drink. i will pretend that all my problems are due to drinking and not look for any underlying emotional or biological causes. i will tape a "kick me" sign on my genitals and beg other people to validate my existence. i will take personal responsibility for my actions by doing whatever someone tells me god wants me to do. i will become that person who brings everyone down at parties.

if i wanted my life to be a total buzzkill, i never would have started drinking in the first place.

there's a lot of god in the 12 steps. and i'm ok with god. except i don't think my god is the same one that other people talk about, especially in the 12 steps. my god would never call me insane, defective, or wrong. i know a lot of people who would; that's why i keep god around, because god has my himdamn back. also, why is it that when christian scientists try to pray away disease they get injunctions slapped on them, yet alcoholics are expected to do that very thing? is it that god's strong enough to get all up in an individual's free will to drink but too weak to deal with ailments that he himself created when he made us? my god isn't a bully, and he's nobody's fool, and i don't appreciate the 12 steps making him look like one. i will cut a bitch who disses my god.

one more thing. i have an issue with the 12th step, where it's not enough to put down the fucking bottle, but i have to tell other people to do it, too.  i don't give a shit if other people drink. i don't want them to be assholes about it, but being an asshole is far less a drinking problem than it is a being an asshole problem. i'd be happy to go around telling other people not to be assholes. you want to take a moral inventory, go count the ways you can be less of a jerk. if one of the ways is to stop drinking, then go for it. but i'm not going to assume that alcohol makes you a prick. maybe alcohol is the only thing that makes you marginally palatable as a human being. in that case, it would be wrong of me to tell you to stop doing what you do.

Noted killjoy Chuck Baudelaire

in conclusion, the person who writes this blog needs to chill out and have a damn drink already. she's no fun when she's sober. and she doesn't listen to me or let me do stuff. that's ok. i'll wait her out. i always do.

ciao,
tabby

Those Silly, Nagging Fears

Everyone is afraid of something, right?

Robert Redford is afraid his youthful good looks
won't hold out for more than another decade or two.

Many of us have multiple fears.

Like being afraid that the face mask we wear
to avoid germs will make us look like an
albino duck wearing too much eyeliner.

The important thing is that we face our fears so that they don't take over.

Unless you fear this. For God's sake, don't face down that shit.

If we can name our fears, we can move toward coping with them.

Of course, there are exceptions.

And since Halloween is this week, what better time to talk about what we're afraid of?  Remember, this is a judgment-free zone: No matter how big a pussy I might think your fears make you, feel free to share them. After all, here are mine.

Enclosed spaces.

Sculpture by Laura Meredith.

Drowning.

Electric shocks.

ABANDONMENT.

Driving over the side of an overpass.

Biting down on an onion while I eat.

Being stung by a bee.

Losing myself before I've ever had a chance to find myself.  That's terrifying.

So that's mine. What are yours?

It's Friday, and This Is What I've Got

I've got Animals Riding on Other Animals!

Yeah, that's it. The Tea Party, the ACA website, shootings, Kimye's engagement, and I'm not writing about any of it.

Because some days all your writing ability goes into salvaging other people's piece-of-shit reports that are way above your pay grade to fix to the extent they need fixing, but you do it anyway because something that bad shouldn't be allowed to exist in the universe.

So please join me in pretending today's post is brilliant, topical, and insightful, and not simply...Animals Riding on Other Animals!

This tiny monkey riding a baby boar is very concerned about the technical glitches on healthcare.gov.

 

This li'l gator hitching a ride on his mom's scaly head wants to know what Congress is doing to prevent another shutdown in 2014.

 

 

Neither this owl nor her Irish wolfhound mount feels good about the recent wave of student violence.

 

 

These bears are riding swift horses to encourage investors to make like bulls and keep the stock market rally going.

 

Mr. Mouse told Ms. Guinea Pig about Kanye's lavish proposal of marriage to Kim Kardashian during their daily ride, and as you can see, they're both stunned by the news.

 

 

This squirrel is using a snake for a taxi because he's just so tired fro seeing pumpkin spice-flavored stuff EVERYWHERE.

 

This snail knew he would have to ride something faster than he to avoid losing out on an offer in the robust housing market.

 

 

Meanwhile, this monkey boarded the Capybara Express because she didn't want to get home late and miss Game 3 of the World Series.

 

This Chihuahua mix is riding a toy horse to a Halloween party, but his friend the cat thinks they'll never get there before the candy corn Jello shots are all gone without an extra push.

And this penguin who is a-dolphinback hasn't watched the news all week and feels she is all the happier for her limited knowledge of current events.

 

Booyah! Whimsical, adorable, AND topical.

Suck it, Friday.

10 Things Not to Say When I'm Not Drinking

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm not drinking right now.

It's too hard to type and hold a bottle at the same time.
(And yeah, I know I used this .gif yesterday.
In my defense...monkey on a typewriter.)

What I mean is, I'm taking a break from drinking for a while. It's been seven days so far. I may go another seven days, or seven weeks, or seven months. I don't know. There's no timetable. I'm enjoying sobriety. If I stop enjoying it, I'll go back to drinking. If I end up losing some of the vodka weight I've gained, I may stay on the wagon indefinitely.

Unlikely, but not impossible.

Yeah, I'll let you know when I'm a size 4 again.

In the meantime, I'll let you know something else. There is no "we" in "I'm not drinking." For some reason, I've found, the same people who never share when I'm wanting and who abandon me when I need support all want to come sniffing around when I decide to dry out. I don't know what it is about drinking, and not drinking, that brings the meddlers out of the woodwork. I guess it's the lack of financial or emotional investment combined with the possibility of witnessing a sloppy, messy failure if I backslide.

Come to think of it, that does sound pretty great.

Schadenfreude is something we can all enjoy.

Still, to the people who "only want to help," here's how you can help: Shut up. Don't say anything. Don't especially say any of these things while I'm not drinking.

1.  "Are you going to meetings?"
No, I'm not going to fucking meetings. Nothing will make me want to drink more than having to sit in a room full of strangers and share my goddamn feelings. I drink alone, I'll not drink alone.

2.  "It must be hard to quit drinking."
Holy shit, it must be. That's why I'm not quitting. I'm just taking a break. Because never is a long damn time and a recipe for failure. When I was about 12 I went on a diet and promised I would never eat chocolate again. That was an idiotic thing to say about chocolate then, and it's an idiotic thing to say about alcohol now.

3.  "The first step is admitting you have a problem."
I have a ton of problems. Drinking is not one of them, if that's what you're implying.

4.  "I have a wonderful book that may help you."
Is it a cookbook? I could use some new recipes. Otherwise, bugger off with your inspirational pabulum.

5.  "Are you going to follow the 12 steps?"
Only if the 12 steps are "Stop drinking when I feel like it" and "Start drinking when I feel like it," repeated six times.

6.  "I know what it's like."
You know what it's like to have somebody patronize you until you want to scream? Yeah, I know what that's like, too.

7.  "If you ever want to talk, I'm here."
If you promise not to say one goddamn word about the alleged drinking problem about which you desperately want to hear every juicy albeit nonexistent detail, then we can talk. I have a feeling you're not really interested in that case.

8.  "I'm so sorry you're struggling."
I struggle with a lot of things. This is a freaking piece of cake. It's just sobriety, not an impending divorce. Why are you so fascinated by the thought of me struggling?

9.  "I'm praying for you."
OK. I have no idea what to do with that statement. Nanu-nanu.

10.  "Did something finally happen?"
Yes, something finally happened. I realized that my shallowest, most judgmental acquaintances weren't hovering over me and offering me treacly platitudes, and I decided to stop drinking so that they could descend upon me with woefully off-the-mark insights into my soul. Thank you so much for being there when that happened.

I'm very grateful that I'm not an alcoholic. Being in recovery would drive me to drink.

If I Twitch My Nose, Will You Disappear?

So there's this person who works with me as my page admin and right-hand girl. Her name is Tabitha.

Personality-wise, she's sort of a cross between Jessica Rabbit and Cousin Serena from "Bewitched." With a healthy dash of Regan from The Exorcist thrown in.



Picture that, if you will.

I pretty much hate her.

You know the commercials for Cheez-Its, with the immature cheese? That's Tabitha.

She has a foul mouth, a bad temper, a crapload of uncontrolled insecurities, and she likes to take over my blog and my Facebook page and write inappropriate things when I'm not looking.

For some reason her behavior is worse when I've been drinking.

So I've decided to teach her a lesson. I've stopped drinking.

Stop the presses.

That'll show her.

I wonder how long it will take to show her?

Stupid Tabitha.

It's so hard to find good help.

Another Word for "Whore" Is "Professional" [SPONSORED POST]

The traditional difference between an amateur and a professional is that a professional gets paid for her work, and an amateur doesn't. Unless you're an Olympic athlete.

Ryan Lochte, in the spirit of volunteerism.

Therefore, I'm a professional writer, editor, and administrative goddess. On the other hand, I'm an amateur mother. Obviously.

Also, by this definition, I'm an amateur blogger.

BUT NOT ANY MORE.

The good folks at FanDuel.com have kindly offered to place sponsored content right here on little old Always Drunk. That's right - I'm pimping their site. I've turned pro. I'm turning on the red light. I can only imagine the sophisticated metrics that led them to align the target market of "people who like fantasy sports leagues" with a blog written by a "crazy person who drinks too much and rants about stupid shit."

It gets very mathy, I'm sure.

The first entry in what I hope is a long and mutually humiliating relationship between our two websites is a piece about my favorite smirking choke artist, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. And here's the best part: I got to edit it to my liking. So it's not exactly what they sent me. But it does contain a link to my sponsor, and it would be really cool if you would click it, in order to show that Drunkards support fantasizing about grown men in tight pants.

Or not. But please enjoy this sponsored content, which has been professionally written and professionally blogged.

Aww, yeah.

My edits are marked, so you can see how a pro works.

Tony Romo Continues To Be So Tony Romo

Quarterbacks in the NFL are always being labeled fairly early in their careers. Peyton Manning has the reputation of being a regular season quarterback beautiful god among men, while Tom Brady is the playoff master a total douche. Robert Griffin III is already “injury-prone,” while Andrew Luck is known as being cerebral. Aaron Rodgers makes really terrible commercials, but at least he can act a little, unlike that Koepernick guy, who can't even rise to the dramatic challenge of a McDonald's ad.

However, perhaps no quarterback in the NFL has a worse, yet pretty accurate, label than Tony Romo. Simply put, Romo is known as a choker. That's right, he's a simple necklace made to be worn snugly around the neck. I think. I don't know much about football. When an undrafted quarterback out of Eastern Illinois becomes the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, it seems more like a fairy tale the premise of a really implausible porno than anything. Romo has certainly beat the odds to be one of the best fantasy football quarterbacks in the NFL, and that has helped him reach three Pro Bowls while holding the starting job, and that smirk on his face, since 2006.

For all the good Romo has done, he continues to earn his label as a choker simply because he seemingly comes up short in every single important game. He is responsible for losing games played by other teams, in entirely different sports. He's awful. Did I mention the smirk? The narrative is that Romo can’t handle the big stage, and he can’t be the long-term solution for America’s Team. Romo’s 1-3 record in the playoffs doesn’t make him look all that legendary, but a lot of that can be put on the fact that management has not provided him with a very solid running attack to balance out the offense he sort of resembles a constipated marmoset and also tends to suck at moments he really shouldn't suck.  It is a bit much to expect a quarterback to lead a team without a lot of help when everybody thinks he's a wanker, but for most of his career, that is what Romo has had to deal with.

It can't be easy on the marmosets, either.

The Cowboys game against the Broncos was the perfect example of Romo’s career, packaged into one game. He was a fantasy football standout, setting a Cowboys record with 506 passing yards, along with four touchdown passes. And if football games were played in Narnia and the opposing line was composed of goat-men and talking badgers, that would be a good thing. There were times when he actually looked better than Peyton Manning, as he helped Dallas stay in the game just kidding, no one looks better than Peyton mmmmmm Peyton. However, late in the fourth quarter, Romo made his one true mistake, which ended up leading to an interception and a field goal for Denver. What an asshat.

Sometimes in the NFL, the narrative is pushed a bit too much. Quarterbacks are always going to be labeled to help sell the story. Romo's label should read "May Cause Dizziness and Also Will Probably Fumble the Snap." With Romo, he continues to give the doubters ammunition, even when he is in the midst of one of his greatest games ever. But he doesn't give a crap, because he's got millions of dollars and his wife is hotter than yours.

***

Check it out, you guys. Tell 'em Chuck Baudelaire sent you.

The Ticket Taker

The Ticket Taker
by Chuck Baudelaire

This may be what wiser men call fate
Or stronger women name destiny.
Perhaps they spoke together in smoky whispers
At the fire
When everyone was asleep
And passed judgment on the rest of us.

Maybe you and I slept through their verdict.

And you - fellow traveler, stranger,
Not my companion, nor seatmate, nor friend
But only one whose papers are scarred with the same
Soft warm wax as mine -
Cling to my side because there is no other space.
We breathe as if in time yet not in time,
Sharing a destination but not a journey.

I curse every stop
That is not where I planned to be.
You stare empty-eyed at the cloying tourist landmarks.
We are mismatched and disparate.
You are not what I signed on for.
Yet I can only imagine how far I stray
From the carefully mapped coordinates of your dreams.

It's good that we lack knives
Or aspirations
With which to damage one another.
We will ride silently to the end of the line
With our eyes averted,
Perhaps diverted
To a book we brought along
In case the journey dragged on.

Take care not to step on the grass
When you alight.
It doesn't know you mean it no harm.

Inside a Ping-Pong Ball

Forgive me, Drunkards. The title is a secret message, and this is an inside joke. Bear with me and enjoy an awesome Beatles song.




The next post will be for everyone, I promise.

Thank You, Charles Schulz

Sometimes I feel as if there is one person in the history of the world who understands me, and he passed away on February 12, 2000.

Happiness is knowing that just one person, ever, anywhere, knew how you felt. Thanks, Sparky.

Precocious Daughter Apparently Does Not Read My Blog

Actual verbatim conversation between me and Precocious Daughter re: my recent consideration of  getting a tattoo.

(We've just passed an acupuncture place in the mall.)

PD: I can't believe people get needles stuck into them to feel better.

Me: I know. I've considered getting a tattoo, but the thought of the needles in my skin is tough.

PD: Yeah.

Me: I mean, it would just be a little one, but still...needles.

PD: I know, right?

Me: BekS said she'd take me.

PD: What?

Me: To the tattoo place.

PD: What?

Me: BekS said she'd take me to get a tattoo.

PD: You mean you've considered it now?

Me: Yes, now. When else?

PD: I thought you meant you considered it when you were young.

Me: I totally never considered it when I was young! It was out of the question when I was young.

PD: Then why do you want to do it now?

Me: I don't know. I just do. Maybe.

PD: OK, now you're just getting weird.

Me: What's weird? Lots of people get tattoos.

PD: Sure, when they're young.

Me: Your aunt has a tattoo.

PD: Yes, but she didn't get it now.

Me: No, but she didn't get it in her 20s, either. (Actually, I have no idea if this is true. I don't know when my sister got her tattoo. It just showed up one day.)

PD: Where would you put it?

Me: Somewhere inconspicuous, where people couldn't see it.

PD: Then why bother to get one? (Here's the part where I bit my tongue instead of saying, "Well, the right people would see it, duh." TMI for a 13-year-old, probably?)

Me: I don't know, I just think it would be cool.

PD: (Silence as we walk out of the mall.)

Me: I'm thinking of getting a skull with a dagger dripping blood going through its eye socket being carried by an eagle.

PD: Yeah, right.

Me: Or maybe a Pokemon.

PD: That would be cool. (Note, her tone did not in any way convey that she thought it would be cool.)

Me: Anyway, I'm just thinking about it. Needles depositing ink in my flesh and all.

PD: Are you just doing this to satisfy your emotional need to rebel?

Me: No. Maybe. Get in the car.

****

OMG, I love being that mom.

Tattoo Me?

I'm in the very early stages of thinking about considering mulling over the possibility of getting a tattoo.

I will probably look like this by the time
I make up my mind. Which is still
fabulous, apparently.

This must be my midlife crisis getting ready to happen. I can't afford a sports car, I don't want a younger man, and I'm not about to be Real Housewife of Anywhere on This Planet. So if I'm going to do something uncharacteristically impetuous in an effort to recapture my fading youth...uh, sure, tattoo.

I have no tattoos. Other than one simple hole in each ear that I got when I was 10, I have no piercings. They've never been me. Or I've never been them. We've never been each other. It has something to do with my conventional and pretty straitlaced upbringing. It also has something to do with not wanting needles poking holes in any part of my body unless I'm at a blood drive.

This aversion has its benefits. There is no chance I will ever become addicted to any drug that is administered via syringe.

Me to heroin: Eww, gross, get away, yuck. No offense.

Here's how Wikipedia describes the process of getting a tattoo:

Tattooing involves the placement of pigment into the skin's dermis, the layer of dermal tissue underlying the epidermis.... The most common method of tattooing in modern times is the electric tattoo machine, which inserts ink into the skin via a single needle or a group of needles that are soldered onto a bar, which is attached to an oscillating unit. The unit rapidly and repeatedly drives the needles in and out of the skin, usually 80 to 150 times a second.

And then I'm lowered into a vat of flesh-eating bacteria while being forced to listen to Britney Spears songs, is that it? That would maximize the horror of having ink-filled needles plunge into my tender skin 150 times a goddamn second, wouldn't it?

Then we jam one into the old
eye socket, just for grins

So the jury is not exactly in on the subject of me getting inked. But I can think about it. That doesn't hurt or leave permanent marks, right? OK. Gotta start somewhere.

My basic criteria for a tattoo are simple and non-negotiable. It will be small.

We'll call this "not small."

It will be inconspicuous.

This looks great with a collared shirt,
I'm sure.

It will be fact-checked.

Wait...it's Prince, right?
Little Richard?
Chris Tucker?

And it will be cute.

If I want to frighten people, I'll tell them
I switched to the Tea Party. Not this.

It might be a Pokémon.

Little Cubone, why are you sad?
If you were on my arm, we'd be so happy.

Or a squirrel. I like squirrels.

Climbing up my leg for all eternity...
that might be creepy.

I love monkeys, of course.

It would be even better if he were wearing clothes.

There are certain things I'm not willing to do for a tattoo.

This, for example, seems a bit extreme for a
moderately funny punchline.

No matter how clever it seems.

We're just not all lucky enough to have a prosthetic leg.

The trick is to pick something really attractive.

I wonder if getting this tattoo ten-tickled?

Without going overboard.

The truth is, you don't literally
gotta catch 'em all.

And so I ponder. Because pondering doesn't cost anything and doesn't leave permanent marks.

Oh, I also hear that reputable tattoo places won't ink you if you come in drunk. So I have to figure out some way of surviving the process while sober.

Ideas are welcome. Talking me the hell out of this craziness is also good.