Reunited with an old friend--Booze

By the time you reach my age, nearly 25, you are supposed to have grown out of the desire to drunk dial. It’s cute in college when you call your high school friends who are 400 miles away to say that you wish they were enjoying a beer with you, it’s getting a tad old but still appreciated when you are a young professional and you call your college friends who now live 2000 miles away to say that you wish they were enjoying a martini with you, however it is downright inexcusable to be three years out of college and still make the phone call.

No kids, we are not cute when we are slurring our words into the phone, calling people at 2am to tell them how much we love them. Nor will we be rewarded for our ability to create emotional intimacy only when helped by the Grey Goose---it is not sexy to slur into the phone the phrases, “I just wish you loved me” followed by “I want you to fuck my ass like a two dollar whore” in the same breath. Granted, your booty call will probably show up at the end of the night, but do you really want to have to explain why you want him to love you, the following morning? And in all seriousness, did you really want him to love you or was that just the Goose exacerbating already complicated emotions?

See, when I go out drinking with my close friends, they know that after drink #5 they are to confiscate the cell phone and only allow me to access it for legitimate emergencies. This works. I don’t wake up with a cold sweat in the morning questioning who I called or texted proclaiming my love to. It prevents waking my friends up at 3am on a Tues to say, “I lufff yoooh. Aye with you were heeere wiff me now.”

It also prevents that horrible habit of mine where I interrupt people’s conversations and tell them to scream “Hi” as I leave a voicemail for my victim. And with this healthy living kick, I haven’t had committed the deed in a while.

So last night, when I was properly Shannon drunk for the first time in about a few months, the phone came out. And off I hid into a corner and started to scroll down my address book. And the first few of them were light hearted—leaving playful messages saying how much I loved them. But, as I continued to sip on the (very) warm Amstel light, augmenting the effects of the two bottles of wine I consumed earlier, my mood took a note for the somber. I began the drunk dial therapy sessions, which ended with me calling my friend in California telling her about my hopes and fears about leaving for the Ox in the next few months, but then how grateful I was for her friendship.

Because, sober, I am an emotionally repressed individual. If I didn’t repress these emotions, I would be how I am drunk—a loud attention whoring gal who needs to feel constant validation all the time. And the only reason why my “exuberant” behavior is tolerable in those situations is because you are drunk too.

But why have we programmed ourselves that whatever is said during the drunk dial is ok? It’s like the permission to be an ass. “Oh well, you know, I was drunk and I called you. I’m sorry”. If I am going to tell you that I love you after five martinis and about my hopes and fears, I better be able to do that sober. And if I can’t, well then Houston, we may have a fucking problem.

If I meant all of this at 2am, shouldn’t I be able to say it at 2pm?

So, it was a great feeling getting in touch with that out of control gal that has been hiding. Because, seriously, healthy living is fucking boring! In fact, I even started smoking again.


Last week I has a physical by a real doctor for the first time since I was 17 and heading off to college. Evidently, having a physical entails a lung screening, where you puff on a tube and it tells you your lung capacity. Keeping in mind that I used to treat my body like a trashcan, I was expecting the doctor to prescribe me an inhaler and tell me how lucky I was to make the appointment when I did or I would have accidentally killed myself.

She told me the opposite:

“Wow, very good!”

Wait, my lung capacity is very good?

So, instead of taking that as a sign that all of the good work I am doing is paying off, I allowed it to give me carte blanch and take up smoking again. I mean, it appears that my lungs are pretty resilient fuckers.

So if you haven’t figured out, Saturday night I reverted back to chain smoking, alcohol guzzling, booby revealing shirt wearing Shannon. I missed her. I really have. Although I am loving this healthy living kick, and look better, am happier, feel fantastic all around and cultivating healthy relationships with people—IT ISN’T FUCKING ME. Well, it is becoming me, but I am not through the transformation yet. There are days that I crave the hangover.

Yes, I said that correctly, I have been craving a hangover ever since this whole kick began. Granted hangovers suck and make you feel like shit all night but, there’s also a symbolism, that stays with you the entire day. When you get a hangover it means you reveled in decadence for an evening. Went to excess. Let yourself and your emotions go.

And after last night, here I am on my couch watching my fourth episode of extreme makeover for the day, suppressing my desire to vomit, feeling the tar in my lungs, and nursing a headache that makes focusing on the TV difficult.

God I fucking missed this feeling. I was even able to catch up with my movie watching too. In this apt I have all of the premium movie channels. Which fucking rocks for days like this.

And with the post-drinking depression setting in, I wrote today. A little that was fucking great, and a lot that was eh (I am thinking it could get shoved in the middle), but I wrote. So now I can tell people that I am working on my first autobiographical novel. You know, I can’t call it a memoir because I don’t want people to Frey my ass.