Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

(A Cautionary Tale for the Young, or the Not-So-Young and Temporarily Stupid)

I'm going to go home and go to sleep soon, even though it's just after 5 PM here, because this morning's (really this noon's) breakfast of coffee and strudel has entirely worn off, and I'm falling asleep in my office. "Why?" you may ask. Because I got drunker last night than I've ever been before -- drunk enough to throw up at bedtime (ewwwww!) and have my first-ever sort-of hangover this morning.

Apparently, a bottle and a half of red wine is more than ample to incapacitate me, especially when I drink it on a mostly empty stomach -- a fact I hadn't realized before, because I normally get so sleepy after I've had a drink or two that I stop drinking and go to bed. But yesterday, thinking (on the conscious level) that I really needed to catch up on some of the sleep I've been missing for the past couple of weeks and that I normally find it impossible to sleep in the daytime, I started to drink up the last half of a bottle of shiraz in the middle of the afternoon, planning to segue into a nap or really early bedtime. Instead (possibly as a result of all the medications I'm on right now for this vitamin D/calcium thing, plus the asthma meds and usual suspects), I just felt mellower and happier with myself than at any time during the past month or more. So, when I finished that bottle, I opened another . . .

And here's where I made my NEXT big mistake: instead of pouring a glass, then leaving the re-corked bottle in the kitchen and taking the glass back with me to my chaise in the living room as I normally do, I just brought the whole corkless bottle with me to my chaise, where I didn't even have to move from a reclining position in order to keep refilling my glass. By 8 PM I was plenty sleepy and decided to head for bed, and only THEN discovered that I had become incapable of walking without staggering into every piece of furniture and each wall between me and the bathroom. (Suddenly, Charles Laughton's drunken stagger and gallop up the stairs in an attempt to reach his bedroom through sheer momentum every night in "Hobson's Choice" doesn't look exaggerated at all. And I may have to fast-forward through those scenes next time I watch that tape, for fear of getting nauseous all over again.) After careening my way from the bath to the bed, I discovered that my head was spinning so wildly that even closing my eyes had no effect, and that I was likely to be distinctly 'unwell' in the immediate future. I'll skip over the details of what happened next, except to say that a LOT of comedians' routines about stupid bouts of over-indulgence and their aftermath, insisted on coming to mind and making me feel even sicker (knowing I'd just walked into a clearly marked "hazard", like the dopiest undergraduate alive, and without their youth or stupidity as an excuse -- aaargh!).

What had started as a really dumb way to try to catch up on some sleep ended up with me waking up in the wee small hours of this morning and feeling too queasy and dizzy to go back to sleep until almost dawn. So, all told, I STILL didn't even get 8 hours of sleep last night, much less make up for the two or three or more hours I've been shorting myself every night recently. Idiocy upon idiocy. I don't know how I made it through my class this afternoon (adrenaline and effrontery, I guess), but since today was our last class meeting before the final and the day I'd scheduled for course evaluations as well as final exam review, I shudder to think what my students may end up saying about me on those evaluation sheets. On the other hand, it would be almost worse if it turns out they didn't notice the slightest bit of difference in my teaching today. Oh, well -- Whatever.

But the part of the puzzle that I didn't put together until around noon today was that this had been the first weekend in May, a weekend which I normally spend at a science fiction convention in Iowa (I've only missed that con one other year since 1990) as my reward for having finished taking or grading exams and the start of my annual two-week visit with dear friends in Nebraska and Iowa. Due to the first weekend coming so early in the month this year, and both the universities at which I teach having started their semesters later than usual this year, I had to give up any notion of being able to get away for the con, much less fitting in any visiting. I wasn't happy at all about skipping the convention, about not getting to hang out in the con-suite and get tipsy (one of only a couple of times in the year when I usually give myself that luxury) while wearing my 'wench' costume with my triple D's propped up over the top of my bodice for all the world to admire, not being able to re-connect with friends and acquaintances that I may only run into at the convention each year, not getting to spend lots of quality face-to-face time with friends who've known me for 10 to 20 years, etc.. That certainly sucks, and may be why I spent every spare moment when I wasn't grading papers or proctoring an exam on Friday and Saturday updating my LJ (trying to make up for the lack of face-to-face conversations about the sci-fi stuff that I love).

But the final push that sent me looking for a wine bottle to finish off wasn't provided until Sunday afternoon, when my sister called me up to chat. It was her birthday (my little sister turned 40 yesterday) and she wanted to thank me for the gift I'd sent, as well as catch me up on everything. Since she ended up telling me about all the time she'd been spending with the rest of the family lately -- celebrating Mom's birthday and her birthday and a successful surgery, etc. -- and with her friends, I think I may have gotten just a little depressed and envious. Normally, she wouldn't have been able to reach me to talk about her birthday, because I would have been at the con or celebrating with MY friends. But instead, I got to sit at home, alone, working three jobs (counting the preaching) and not feeling that I was doing any of them particularly well just now, short of sleep, stressed-out, and with a mountain of dirty dishes in the kitchen that I had absolutely no desire to wash. So, I guess my unconscious mind thought that my conscious mind and body would be better off completely numbed, rather than alert and really pissed off about anyone else having a good time when I'm not.

Remind me never, EVER to do that again.