They found his head in a driver's wheel, but his body it never was found

[sovay]

I miss being able to drink. I don't mean it jokily, because of the pandemic. I mean that it took me years to discover that I did not categorically dislike the taste of alcohol—what it turns out I like are red wines so tannic they could do you like Tollund Man, whiskies that taste like those same peatlands set on fire, and a broad variety of cocktails so long as they aren't sticky, with a particular fondness for rum and absinthe and a particular revulsion for fernet and a semi-aesthetic non-ironic fascination with tiki drinks—and whenever I had to fill out those medical questionnaires that ask about drinks/drugs/cigarettes I truthfully reported "one to two drinks every two to three months" and in November I had the stupidly novelistic experience of being told by a doctor to cut it out completely for the sake of not dying. (I was also told to cut out coffee, which was no loss, and chocolate, which immediately complicated my relationship with the number of desserts I could order in restaurants.) Of course it's all academic at the moment, since I don't care that Massachusetts has its reported COVID-19 deaths down to zero, I don't consider it safe or ethical to walk into a bar like the setup of a joke whose punch lines number in the hundreds of thousands, I don't even know if any of the places I liked to order drinks are going to survive this never inevitable catastrophe of incompetence and cruelty handwaved as cold equations, but it's been more than six months and I don't know if I'll ever have the option again. I like having options. I drank more ceremonially than socially, but a person has anniversaries. My very first job as a professional storyteller, I was paid in whiskey. Being paid in mocktails wouldn't feel quite the same.

Comments

[asakiyume]

I really, really hope that there is some way to solve the sword-of-Damocles threat to your life. Even without a pandemic, the knowledge of that threat is just awful.

And meanwhile, yes, the pandemic is like like an unwanted, awful-tasting sauce that someone dolloped all over all one's food, unrequested. If there was something on the plate you didn't like, it now tastes worse. If there was something on the plate you did like, hurray, now it tastes like awful-tasting sauce.

That's an awesome first job and first payment. You are a creature of story, yourself. But I would please like to also have you continue to be a creature of reality in this world.

[sovay]

I really, really hope that there is some way to solve the sword-of-Damocles threat to your life. Even without a pandemic, the knowledge of that threat is just awful.

I am supposed to have more information in a couple of weeks. Right now I don't feel like I can expect it to be hopeful, but at least I would like it to be not worse.

If there was something on the plate you didn't like, it now tastes worse. If there was something on the plate you did like, hurray, now it tastes like awful-tasting sauce.

That's well analogized. Someone poured coffee on my entire life.

That's an awesome first job and first payment. You are a creature of story, yourself. But I would please like to also have you continue to be a creature of reality in this world.

I am doing my best!