Oh internet, I've missed you. Let's not stay away that long again, ok?

A lot has been going on these past two weeks, mostly me sitting at home and working on homework. (Which roughly translates to me hugging myself and sobbing "why didn't I start this research/paper/project earlier?! Fuuuuck!") So instead of telling you the dozen versions of that story that went down just about every single day for the past few weeks, let's instead focus on the positive, shall we?

Gin
Last Thursday I went out to dinner with my parents. My thoughts were something along the lines of Drink! Drink! Drink! They’re totally paying! Drink!

However, since we were at a nice restaurant and not a dive bar, I was a bit at a loss of what to order. (I would really prefer not to enlighten my parents to the fact that I generally drink like a middle-aged man. Who works with iron. Or lumber.) Most of the drinks on the drink menu were excessively fruity and sweet, and I just wasn’t in the mood. And then I saw it.

It was basically a fancy gin and tonic, dressed up with a little cucumber water (or something. It's hard for me to read a drink menu as the the tears of joy generally blur my vision). At any rate, it sounded delicious. The diehards among you may remember I had stayed away from gin for quite some time. (Over 4 years, actually. I can hold a grudge.)

Again, you may recall that gin is the only alcohol which I, for some time, absolutely could not drink (unlike my lovely, lovely vodka). Although why I waited over a whole 4 years to try gin again, I don't know. Oh. Wait. Yes...I do. Whiskey. Turns out - whiskey and I? Pretty much made for each other.

However, everyone likes something different now and then. So gin it was. I ordered the drink, quickly followed by another, and (you know where this is going) another. (I would have certainly had more had I not been with the parents. It's a balancing act trying to get them to believe that I don't have a drinking problem.)

So just like that, with three drinks down the hatch, my alcoholic Achilles' heel was gone for good.

This is very important - it means that I can now definitively kill in a drinking contest.

Most people have that a drink or drinks that they are absolutely defeated by. For most it is tequila or whiskey, for some, it's Jager shots. In a drinking contest where each participant takes turns calling the rounds, the goal is to find your opponent's weak spot and exploit the hell out of it. And as I discoverd last week, I no longer have a weak spot.

(You're going down.)

Beer
I have consumed more beer this past month than I did all of last year. (It's still not that much, but it's something.) Baseball season being in full swing will likely increase this trend, as there is nothing better than coming home from work, turning on the game, and having a cold beer.

(I don't know how I became an old man, but I'm not fighting it.)

School
I said I wouldn't bore you with tales of homework, but I didn't say the same for school. I have stayed in and had to miss out on so many social functions (ie, going to the bar) as of late that my laptop's keyboard no longer works properly from the torrent of tears that I have rained down on it.

(Staying in, especially when I really, really don't want to and really, really dislike what I'm working on, kills me just a little bit inside.)

I have a two-week break coming up between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of the summer semester, which I will be attending (!), full time (!!).

This is not good.

The light at the end of the tunnel: I will graduate next spring with a master's degree in library and information science. (How this actually seems to be working out ok, I have no fucking clue. Oh, and I have a 4.0. Again, no fucking clue.)

At this point I can but dream of how magical it will be to not be in school. Due to the near-constant drinking that this will allow, I give it a week, max, before I'm passed out in a gutter somewhere. This vision is the only thing keeping me going at this point. (That and the gin and the beer.)

And now we're back up to speed. Sorry to be so predictable, but the upside is that instead of waiting for updates on the site you can pretty much write this stuff yourself. "Blah blah blah drinking, blah blah blah crying while doing homework because I wish I was drinking blah blah blah."

Really, I'm a very consistent person. Except with, you know, posting.