Day One- No Drinking

Okay, so yesterday was really day one, but I didn't know it then. Last Friday I got a pimple on my neck. At first it just felt like a pimple, but then it started growing and hurting. It felt like it was growing legs into my neck. I’m very squeamish about my neck.

The pain became familiar to me because in the spring I’d had what I thought was a pimple, then a mosquito bite under my right boob. Then it got big and burst and was gross and I went to the doctor and he gave me the same antibiotics because I had a staph infection. I’d first felt the “bite” right after getting out of the pool and steam with my ladies on a Friday. By Wednesday I was at the doctors office. I couldn’t drink for a week and it was hell (and I didn’t quite make it… apparently I believe Coors light isn’t really an alcoholic beverage since it’s not one I partake of …ever.). I also didn’t swim as much this year.

So after the doctors yesterday, with a bandaged neck and on antibiotics, I decided to think about it differently. See, I’m up writing and not too drunk to string coherent sentences. I’ve decided to really take this time and take stock of my situation.

I’ve been applying to jobs all day and getting to the cover letter stage and freaking out because cover letters scare the shit out of me. So I have a bunch of tabs open with my résumé uploaded waiting for me to grace the page with some witticisms about how I want this bullshit job so I can show a judge that I shouldn’t be evicted and convince my landlady to give me another lease. At least until I can figure out if I’m really going to throw things in a bag and move to Paris. It wouldn’t be so hard if I could just get a commercial. And the thought of trying to get more work makes me want to drink. Not that I mind production work, I mind the fact that no one’s calling me to work. I’d love to do another commercial like the one I just did. Or like the movie, but the Marshall is scheduled to put me out January 7, and I don’t really have all the money I need to make that not happen. I’ve sold some mutual funds, but what if I give her all the money and she still evicts me? Then I’m really broke. And I’m just figuring out what I’m going to do here now that I’ve given up on production. I’m so close and just need like 6 months. I might not have it. So, I must write cover letters.

But I’ve gotta tell ya- it’s certainly put another kind of fire in my belly. I’m not so much saying what I won’t do, but look at what I really want to do. And not just write to make money. That puts too much pressure on my writing right now. It’s going somewhere I really like and, like me, tenses up under pressure. My personality changes and is not the creative soul I’ve sold myself on.
So I really want to bartend, but it’s the holidays and I’m waiting for the dust to settle before I go out and hit that. I don’t know the first thing about how bartenders make the magic that lives in my glass. I mean, I know, but I never know how much I owe or how much cocktails cost. I want to take a bartending class to get comfortable back there. And bartending classes aren’t free.

The thing about it all is- Money!

Every sidestep I want to take takes money and it’s keeping me up at night. All this education and I don’t feel like I’m qualified to do anything. I’ve never gotten a job with my résumé ever. I believe this is so because I have my crazy cover letters attached. I can be professional, but I’ve never really worked in a professional environment. I don’t have the clothes for it. I’d have to take out a loan to go to work and I am not what they call credit worthy right now.

So today on day one of my not drinking, I gave myself a little schedule and as of now, I’ve completed the big tasks. But I had to write down to eat yogurt with honey (check), journal writing (check), drinking tea (check) then working out (check). Shower (check), lunch (check), write on blog (check), read (I’m on it now).

So I’ve given myself a gold star day. I always like to keep the momentum of gold star days. Days when I’ve done exactly what I set out to do. There aren’t many of them, which keeps the gold star special. (I should get some more colored stars that way I have some kind of grading system. Make it not so all or nothing.) Yet, it’s Christmas now- an actual event day. Then it’s Saturday then… Then nothing. Then Saturday I can do the same exact thing and make it to class.

But see how the alcoholics can’t think about Saturday. So I’m going to follow their sage examples and just think about tomorrow. I’m going to keep it even simpler and just think about today. Because 10 days from now, I’m getting it in!

Reading: "It's Six A.M., Do You Know Where You Are?" by Jay McInerney in the Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, The Art of Writing, And Everything Else in the World since 1953