Things were a lot wilder on that first go-round, but I’ll take my boring routines over being dead any day. I’m not sure how much further this road goes, so I’m just going to enjoy the ride one day at a time.
There was a break in the stormy weather yesterday morning, and that encouraged me to get off my lazy ass and take a walk. It turns out Mother Nature was just fucking with me, because once we got out of the Jeepney in Subic town, the skies opened up again. Oh, well, we had the foresight to bring along our umbrellas. I was also a little surprised at how flooded parts of our chosen path were. So, we did us some wading with our walk. The route I had in mind would have been around 6K, but we’d had enough water in the air and on the ground and bailed after 3K. Here are some scenes from our journey:
When it came time to head into town for the evening imbibing, the rain miraculously let up. It was almost like Jesus turning water into beer!
Instead, I paid a visit to Cheap Charlies. My regular waitress, Gerlie, was there to serve me. I asked her if that made Cheap Charlies a Gerlie bar, and she said, yes, of course. Another waitress who looked familiar sat on the other side of me. She asked how things were going at It Doesn’t Matter, and I said they were doing okay, but not as well as when Cliff and Ashley were running things there. I was curious why she was curious about IDM, and she gave me a funny look and said, “Don’t you remember me? I used to work there.” Damn, my memory ain’t what it used to be. I asked her name, and she told me, Juliet. Ah, now I remember. I reminded her that the first time she introduced herself, I introduced myself as “Romeo.” We both chuckled over that memory.
So, I was enjoying the company enough that I made an exception to my usual rule of no lady drinks that cost more than 200 pesos (CCs are 250) and bought one for both of them. Then I pulled out some old jokes from my repertoire, and they laughed politely at my efforts to be funny. Yep, I made them earn those drinks! Then I ordered some pancit canton and quesadillas from Foodies downstairs, which made all the gals happy. With the crew fed, I finished my beer and headed out. Next stop, Queen Victoria.
I was surprised to see the place so dead on an admittedly early Friday evening. Manager Jake had also attended the gathering at Harley’s, so I missed our usual banter. But Swan joined me about thirty minutes after my arrival, so all was right with the world once more. And when the clock struck 8 p.m., we triked it one home.
Meandering onward through the April 2021 LTG archives, where I post about my dilemma of whether I should stay or go. I’m talking about the house I had been renting for the past three years. I was already overpaying for the place at $900. a month, and the landlord was insisting that the rent be increased by 5%. I could afford that, but as a matter of principle, I was offended, especially since I had paid for all the improvements and repairs and was an ideal tenant. Ultimately, I decided to leave. And now, five years later, the house is still vacant. I inwardly smile every time I walk past the place. I wonder if the greedy bastard regrets his attempt to gouge me.
For today’s YouTube video, we have insights on the value of an afternoon nap. I take one every day since I’m retired, usually in the 30-60 minute range. I wake up feeling refreshed and ready to blog.
Here I go again:
And so it goes. The rain has been on and off most of the day, so maybe the end of this wet madness is in sight. We shall see.
Those chickens in that one pic made me think of something – you hardly ever seem to eat chicken. Is there no KFC or Popeye’s there? What’s the score, J-Dawg? Where ya getting ya fill of fried bird? There has to be a Colonel nearby; how man can live without Zinger Burgers is truly beyond me y’all.
Peas out.
Good to see you looking sober for a bit there, John. It’s been a while for me too. 3-4 days of dry time before falling off the wagon again. In fairness to myself, I knew this was coming. Less one of those “oops, I drank again,” incidents and more controlled demolition. I told myself I’d have a celebratory drink or 12 when I got a job, and get a job I did. Yay!
…only it’s just a temp job, and the assignment is only for four days. That’s not enough to cover rent, and with the accruing late rent fee the landlord recently (re)introduced I’d still be like $400 short by the time I get paid. Boooo!
But it’s the best I can get in this job market. I’ve been carpet-bombing job applications for what feels like forever now, only to be met with silence and the odd rejection.
It’s the same place I worked at last summer, so I know the job and I know the people. It’s easy enough work; I won’t bore you with the minutiae of what it entails so let’s just say it’s medical shit, John. It’s boring as hell – the full-time staff there even describe it as such – but at least you can’t really fuck up the work and there’s no real metrics to measure performance. It’s a nice office and it’s easy for me to get to/from; the staff are all nice and aren’t anal about things like smoke breaks or coming in 2 minutes late. I wouldn’t mind working there full-time but they only call on us temps when they have a seasonal backlog.
The first two days were a breeze. I could have slept through my shifts for how little I was required to do. Getting ready for work in the morning, I was tempted to quaff the mouthwash I was using for its intended purpose. Why not? I thought. Even if I drunkenly zoned out at work the job process is such a piece of piss I could be hammered and still do the work.
But I resisted temptation. I was good. Until I wasn’t.
Maybe it was my hours getting cut – I was expecting 16 and only clocked 10 – or maybe it was the landlord’s ‘friendly’ reminder email that rent was late, but when I finished work for the week I immediately reached for the bottle. I deserved a little treat.
Tolerance reset after the long hours of dry time, reduced liver function, or both, but that shit hit hard. I was passing out early for the night when last month, or even earlier this month, I was staying up until the small hours of the morning.
Fast forward to Thursday, and a thought percolated through to my pickled brain: we have work tomorrow and you’re still junglebunny drinking. Shit. I had not planned this session out well. In times past I used to sacrifice the weekend to dry out and be more functional for work come Monday, and during the week I’d just make sure to pass out early enough to get enough sleep. Too late for that now. I had to be up for work in around 12 hours and I was fucking blasted. I couldn’t just slam the brakes on the boozing train. You know what we’re like, John – once we’re in the boozing mode by God are we in the mode.
I don’t know how some people do it, going into work the next day in full withdrawals. My symptoms are too severe – especially the fucking anxiety – to even pretend to be normal. The only way out is through: I would have to go into work drunk.
I had enough spare change for one last booze cruise. Mouthwash or…vodka. I should have gotten light beer to taper off, really. I’ve said it before that while making the jump off from light beer still sucks, it’s a hell of a lot less unpleasant than white-knuckling it off vodka. But I didn’t have the quids for beer. I’ve been trying my darndest to avoid vodka for like a month now. Something in me has changed when I drink vodka now, and I don’t like that change. I become moody and irritable, surly and argumentative.
But I’ve also been trying to avoid mouthwash. I’ve been drinking the shit for years now and I’m low-key convinced it’s done some serious neurological damage. I have balance issues now, when I’m on the blue stuff, and constantly feel like I’m on the brink of falling over if I move the wrong way. Add to that I recently learned that the methyl salicylate in mouthwash is the equivalent of drinking aspirin, so it’s doing like double damage to the liver above and beyond what ‘normal’ alcohol would do.
I headed to the local Walmart for my sauce and ended up doing laps around the store, dithering on what to get. Vodka and diet soda for mixers to drink at my desk in work, or mouthwash because normies won’t suspect you’re recreationally drinking that shit when they smell it on your breath? I don’t want to drink vodka again, but I don’t want to drink mouthwash again either.
Then something strange happened. I walked into an aisle to find a box of Crown Royal on the ground. There was a trail of fluid leaking from it. Someone tried to steal that and gave up the ghost when it started leaking. I whipped out my phone to take a picture, thinking the gang is gonna love this. A woman walked around the corner and I stuffed my phone in my pocket, thinking I looked a bit dodgy taking a picture of this leaking bottle.
I recognized the woman; she was someone I dated years earlier, from my homeless veterans camp. She turned out to be a meth head and I immediately cut her off when I learned of that because I don’t fuck around with tweekers, but from time to time I have wondered what became of her. I knew the Crown Royal was hers because she exclusively drank that shit when we were together at the camp.
We made eye contact as she shuffled past me in the aisle. “Hey, how ya doin?” she smiled as she went past. There was no glimmer of recognition in her eyes. She didn’t know me from Adam. I turned and watched her go down the aisle. For a moment I expected her to turn around; I wanted to call out, ask “Don’t you recognize me?” I said nothing and just watched her disappear around the corner. What was there to say, really; although I’m the sentimental type her and I were only together for a couple of months, and aside from frighteningly brilliant blowjobs we didn’t exactly build up a history together.
Her and her Crown Royal crystalized the decision for me: vodka it would be.
Friday. I snooze all of my alarms I set the day before for work. I blearily, drunkenly, look at my clock: 06:10. I was supposed to leave the house at 06:01 to make the bus for work. Work starts at 7. For fuck’s sake.
I can’t call out. Never mind the temp agency doesn’t even open until after I’m supposed to be at work, I only have so many hours contracted. If I don’t make it in today I can’t recoup those hours. Lost time, lost money, rent payment is even further away. I have to go in.
I consider reaching out to my brother to ask for $15 for a Lyft. He’s about as poor as I am, but it’s a legitimate excuse, being late for work, and he knows almost as much as you do how long I’ve been struggling to get a full-time job. I don’t know when he’ll respond, though, and I can’t afford to fuck around at home until then. On a lark, I put the order through on the Lyft app, even though I only have like $3 in my bank account, and to my surprise it works.
I don’t have the time to fully get ready. I wash my face and throw on my work clothes that have lain, crumpled, on the bedroom floor since last week. I smash three vodka mixers while getting ready, and fix up a stiff drink in a Gatorade bottle to take into work that should tide me over for the day.
“Whew! You must have partied hard this weekend!” the Lyft driver chuckles, wafting his hand in front of his nose. I reek of booze. “Something like that,” I mumble.
I get into work a little late. First awkward moment of the day, I try to log into a computer someone is already logged into. “Hey Jim,” I say to a friend I made. “Uh, it’s Tim,” he says. Shit. The trainer comes over to tell me someone’s using that computer and I should use one further down. I’m apologizing for being a little late and unintentionally burp in her face. I can taste the vodka/Dr. Thunder mix on the way out; no doubt she would have got it full blast up the nostrils. Fuck.
I should have paced myself better before heading in. I shouldn’t have shotgunned those drinks before leaving home because now I’m fucked. As the morning goes on I feel my eyelids getting heavy and my head nodding down. Shit, shit, shit. I’m right in front of the managers; even though they’re cool with us temps, falling asleep at my desk is no bueno. I was lucky to get away with it last year, doing it again is tempting fate.
Tim keeps talking to me. I don’t want to talk to him. I can hear myself slurring, so I try to keep my responses monosyllabic to hide the drunkenness. “What do you like to do in your spare time?” he asks. That throws me. I drink like a chimney, smoke like a fish, and beat my money like it owes me dick. I don’t know what to say. It occurs to me, then, I may have forgotten how to talk to people. Aside from phone calls with the unemployment agency, my interaction with people has been limited to pleases and thank yous with shop clerks. “I, uh, garden, and stuff”. He nods at that and mercifully shuts up.
I spend a lot of time in the toilet. Maybe 30 minutes of every hour. Both to kill time, and to try and get ‘better’….somehow. How am I still this fucking wasted when it’s been x hours since last drink?
I’m in the disabled stall, because unlike the normal one it’s roomier, and there’s no chance someone could see me folded over, passed out, as I was at one point last year. I hear the bathroom door open and a loud clattering. What the hell? I see metal legs hit the ground, beneath the bathroom door. A ladder. The handyman come to fix the winking light just outside the toilet stall.
Stomp, stomp, stomp. I hear him ascending the ladder. It’s one of those toilets where the privacy doesn’t quite reach to the ceiling or the ground. When he gets to the top of the ladder he’ll see me, sat there pretty taking a shit. I could have said “hey, there’s someone in here,” or “yo, occupied!” Instead I just loudly cough. I expect to hear him stop, or an embarrassed “sorry, didn’t know there’s anyone in there!” Instead I see Groundskeeper Willie’s head clear the top of the stall screen; he nods and smiles “Hey, what’s up?” I’m sat on the throne with legs spread, meat and two veg fully on display. Matey boy just perches atop the ladder and turns around to replace the flickering lightbulb.
Withdrawals creep in as the day wears on. I feel nauseous, ropey as fuck. I’m not hiding in the toilet anymore just to kill time and hide the drunkenness; I’m so queasy I constantly feel like I’m going to puke. I know it’s withdrawals and I know I should drink some of the mixed drink I brought in to combat that, but I also know I’m on the precipice; one more sip of alcohol and I’ll very likely explosively vomit at my desk.
The room feels like it’s spinning and I have to constantly focus and orient on things different distances away to stop the vertigo. I’m constantly taking deep breaths and I keep feeling like ok now we’re going to puke. Alcoholic neuropathy, perhaps, but my fingers go numb and default into the chef’s kiss/Italian hand gesture. The office is fucking freezing and I do not do cold at all. There are women there wearing strappy tops and I don’t know how they hack it; even sober I’m wearing a tank top under my work shirt and still sticking my hands in my armpits or near my crotch to keep warm.
I think I’m on the verge of a panic attack. I just feel this overwhelming sense of panic and dread and doom. The walls are closing in and I want to scream. I’m practically on the verge of hyperventilating, I’m breathing so fast and deep. I want to go home, I want to say “sorry, I’m not feeling too well, I have to go,” and just leave. I want to curl into a ball and die. But I can’t. Time, money, rent.
Only two hours left to go and time stretches to eternity. My internal clock tells me surely an hour has passed but when I look at the computer clock it’s been a mere three minutes. I’m losing my mind. It’s ironic, I think, I was raging at my hours being cut last week but now I’m praying for the day to end early.
When the magic hour passes and my shift is over I try to hang back for a bit. Look good for coming in a bit late, but also avoid all the people milling around at the end of the day. I spot an opening and bolt for the sign-in sheet. I am shaking so badly my sign in/out time is barely legible chicken scratch and I try not to make eye contact with the woman behind me, next up to write on the sheet.
Because I had gotten a Lyft into work and I was in a rush to get out this morn, I wasn’t wearing a tank top. I am wearing my black office-wear shirt on my walk to the bus stop. Full sun and 100+ Tucson heat. I’m still feeling queasy as fuck and thinking I should have taken a bottle of water from the work fridge before setting off.
It’s only a 20 minute walk or so, but I am absolutely drenched in sweat and panting by the time I make it to the bus stop. The sense of incoming puke is more urgent than it was in the office. I pushed myself too hard.
5 minutes before the bus comes. The feeling that I’m going to spew is only getting stronger. I’m not certain I won’t vomit on the bus. Breathe in, breathe out. Slow and low. Deep breaths. Calm. Maybe I should go sit down and get the next bus instead. No, fuck that. It’s another 30 minutes, there’s no shelter from the sun, and I’m dehydrated. Get off the bus if you think you’re going to puke. I need to go home.
The bus is down the road, like a minute away. I feel it, then. A gurgling sound coming from deep within, a stabbing sensation in my guts. My abs painfully contract, I double over, and just fucking heave on the sidewalk. I haven’t eaten, all day, it’s been like 8 hours since my last drink, but the vomit is the red/brown color of Dr. Thunder Chunder from this morning. 5 o’clock, busy road, folks on their way home from work, and then you see me projectile vomiting on to the sidewalk.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid. Somehow I white-knuckled it through work on Friday and lived to tale the tell. I also managed to get thirty bucks sent to me (don’t ask how, John – you really don’t want to know), and now have a handle of vodka powering me through the day. Here’s to working four days a year.
Cheers!