Abstention Project 2: February – Temperance

 “It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth.” - George Burns

“Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors ... and miss.” - Robert Heinlein

Prelude: My last drink before this challenge – Date: January 31^st. I’d say that I really deserved this one, and thus had to make it special. Beverage of choice: Single Malt Scotch on the rocks (Jura), a double, pulled from my stock. I consumed and enjoyed it consciously, in a manner that allows it to linger and flirt with my senses to the max, as I always do with scotch. It was enjoyed after coming home from a good and convivial Union facility meeting earlier in the evening. A private and silent toast was made in recapping my day, to thank whatever Creator we have for allowing me to witness the rare and spectacular Blue Moon eclipse earlier that morning, to the much welcomed end of a month that was quite taxing to me in many ways, for (so far) lasting through exposure to sick people without getting ill myself, to a new and happier phase of life for a retired co-worker, and also for a moment to offer some thoughts and prayers of peace and solace to a soul that passed today, a person for whom we gave care to, who will now suffer no longer.

I’m probably shocking some people who think they know me better with my acceptance of a challenge like this. Drinking is certainly a fact of my life, and although I’m honestly not a lush, nor fall anywhere on the heavy side of doing it, I still can’t deny either that after any particularly taxing, stressful, and drama-laden day, that one potential inclination after coming home and trying to put such days behind me may be to relax with a beer or cocktail sometimes. Still, it’s not a frequent or automatic first response; and thankfully, I’m not having too many of days like those anymore where it could be. The truth is that my drinking has already declined markedly since November 2014, because after that date I needed to be mindful that over-imbibing to levels which I could have previously happily tolerated before that time can now lead to some serious complications. I can still drink daily if I wanted to, but within a limited range of moderation, of course. I’m not a barfly, but I do poke my nose into such places the odd time when I do get those rare urges to crawl out of my shell, and at least pretend to be social.

My overall opinion of exercising temperance is as such - I don’t look down on people who choose not to drink, nor do I pressure them to join me whenever I do. Their choice and their reasons, be they medical, or moral, are their own and respected. If they teetotal, I often do comply with accepting a non-potent potable as a refreshment in their company. My non-drinking friends that I have (I have more than just one of them), don’t judge me harshly just because I do drink every now and then. If it’s not a vice for which one totally abuses or allows to be an all-encompassing obsession in one’s life, I don’t regard it as one to totally discount the better parts of a person’s entire character for. However, I don’t put up with the sanctimony of others trying to tell me how inherently worthless and sinful I am because I like the odd nip now and then. I think can recover more easily from drinking than they probably can from being stupid from whatever puritanical religious or moral platform they are pontificating from. I’ve witnessed such confrontations before between casual social drinkers and some hardcore temperance adherents: be they Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or ultra-purist vegan atheist hipsters, or whoever else takes a staunch unwavering stance against alcohol. If a person like this chose to engage with me this way, I would honestly attack back. Not by showing anger, or being rude, but by being tough on them with simple logic. I have a canned response against that sort of self-righteous approach. I would ask them which of the two people they would rather have being the major player in governance and setting a future course in the history the world: a determined sort who is an absolute teetotaller vegetarian, who is artistic and who loves animals; or a steadfast guy who rigorously defends and inspires his people, but also tends to occasionally overuse alcohol. If they respond with the vehement and absolute support for the former mentioned teetotaller, I would then ask them why their right arm isn’t shooting up in front of them with a Nazi salute after they answered that way, because I’d then indicate, that by their flawed thinking, that they then would have rather liked to have seen Adolf Hitler emerge victorious from the Second World War instead of Winston Churchill*. I do confess that I’d get a sense of schadenfreude as I’d watch them try to process this factoid, with the gears of cognitive dissonance grinding in their skulls. However, I’m not so spiteful as to disincline myself from the challenge of not drinking for a while, although I did get more selective as to when I would commit to this process than with the other abstention projects.

Alcohol doesn’t necessarily have to be bad for you. If one is physically/genetically well-suited enough to tolerate and metabolize it, there are countless medical reports out there expounding benefits of using it (in moderation). It was funny - back at my last physical when my blood work results were being reviewed with me by my physician. After already feeling sheepish after confessing to my doctor my steady decline in healthier food choices, he leaned towards me, raising an eyebrow, and said, “You drink beer regularly, don’t you? I would guess some sort of unfiltered micro-brewed or craft brand?” Shocked to hear him correctly identify and get that specific about my habit of homebrew consumption just from my blood sample, I was then noticeably rolling my eyes, automatically thinking dreadful thoughts of something preachy and prohibitive coming along for me; another possible loss of one of the few pleasures I have in life. I was then stuck there trying to think about I was going to dance around the next questions of how much and how often. Instead, he shocked me again by just saying, “That’s good! Because there’s no other way to explain these elevated Vitamin B levels of yours with the kind of diet that you just told me about.” He said that he wished that other patients had levels that were so good. I took it as a compliment. He didn’t even warn me to drink less. In fact, he listed a limit figure off to me of what he deemed passable as moderation, that was actually higher than what I was already consuming; so long as it didn’t veer too far over into more commercial beer (where yeast nutrients get lost through filtering and pasteurization) I was OK. Still needing to be mindful of quantity of course, my choices and pattern of drinking apparently weren’t harming me now. A big sigh of relieve there.

This doesn’t happen to all non-drinkers of course, but I have noticed that among those who opt to decline or totally abstain from alcohol, that many often just more frequently pick out/abuse another socially acceptable/permissible potentially addictive neuro-chemical substance, from which they may be finding hard to part from in the same way a heavy habitual drinker would from alcohol. With the alcohol gone at a dry social event, what you’ll most likely find instead is just other more common addiction substitute modals being served, like caffeinated beverages and sugar/carb rich drinks, treats, and confections. I’m also going to try to not fall into that trap. It was interesting to study how much of a huge influence our toxins of choice played as tidal motions and memes for determining our global history, in terms of colonisations and trade economics, through one documentary series I found¹.

Mission: No alcohol consumption in any form for the entire month of February. This includes even the so called de-alcoholised wines and beers (that slop, for the illusion of drinking alcohol, is still overall pretty costly).

Exceptions: None

Reasons, Facts, and Figures:

·         Reason 1 – I’m not quitting drinking based on some new found moral reason; I do so more out of economy after processing the actual cost of it all after reviewing 2017’s expenditures from last month’s abstention challenge. It’s one more of my wasteful expenses that I could do without for a while. I also do this to establish some sort of historical baseline for myself, because I honestly don’t know what the actual longest period of being alcohol-free has been for me at any time during my life as an independent adult. I know it sure hasn’t been a whole month, or exceeded that. I don’t consume alcohol problematically, thus it has never been something that I ever had a conscious need to monitor before. I certainly don’t expect some medal for going dry for one month, especially with the knowledge that expectant mothers are relegated to go for at least nine without alcohol, with some supportive husbands joining them on the wagon for that duration. What I do expect of myself while I’m being my own experimental guinea pig is to study and learn how I may and could change by doing so.

·         Reason 2 – Generally, because I remind myself that February is the worst month of the year for me to endure: when the deepest trough of the winter blues seems to afflict me almost to my wits’ end. Little good ever comes of living around here through this month, and for this year, it is proving to be nothing else different from other past Februarys at the time that I write this. I usually encounter at least one or two crises to manage within this wretched cycle of 28 days. Thus, this month doesn’t need to be miserably accentuated or worsened further through consuming a neuro-chemical depressant. Drinking around this time of the year obviously doesn’t accord to the overall year’s mission resolution of somehow trying to be happier.

·         Reason 3 – Because I didn’t want to do this challenge next month, and not be able to enjoy a couple pints of Guinness for St. Patrick’s Day in March. Nor would I want to be doing this in May, when the much beloved and anticipated Top of the Hops event comes to town (a beer, wine and spirit expo that is a great beginning to my summer), and any part of a hot summer without some cold beer would seem a little too unnatural for me.

·         Reason 4 – There is a movement going on to try going dry for the month of February to support cancer research. I could be on board for that.

·         Reason 5 – Alcohol is the next most toxic substance that I willingly take into my body. See next month to find out what the worst is. It would probably do me some good to have a bit of a prolonged break from it and monitor for some of the potential physical and mental changes from not imbibing, if any.

·         Reason 6 - Memory Skill Retention/ Improvement – Given that I live alone (and may possibly die alone), I have no one else around to pester and rely on to keep track of things and life tasks for myself. It’s perhaps the other reason I task and trouble myself to write out stuff like this through blogging: because these entries serve as guideposts in my own life, and without any one else around to remember any of my life for me, this is all I have left to show and prove that I once existed, or at least show in all honesty the character that I once had sometime down the road should I ever start showing signs of slipping gears cognitively. Being more proactive in keeping up with brain fitness is a more important priority for me to be mindful about than it is with most other people who are coupled. I can’t afford to be declining into cognitive impairment and decay with things like dementia as I age if I want to still live independently in my senior years. Using brain training apps like Luminosity™, puzzles, or playing the odd video game with heavy emphasis for remembering maps and spatial orientation may be beneficial. Using time like this right now to make efforts to find the words to chronicle things through writing, and learning alternate languages is a help also, at least on a lexical/language level of memory skill retention and intelligence. If alcohol is indeed a great impairment for all these things, I could stand to learn other ways to be content with using less of it.

·         Random Fact 1 – The city I inhabit, Saskatoon, was originally founded in the latter 1800’s as a Methodist temperance colony. I guess that didn’t work out so well for them, seeing how now the Broadway area, the original site of the settlement, has one of the bigger concentrations of bars, taverns, and licensed restaurants in the city.

·         Random Fact 2 – February is Roll up the Rim Month promotion from Tim Hortons, where my money ordinarily used on liquor can be gambled with in getting a possible prize by consuming more of their coffee. You have to hand it to Tim Hortons: they took the shittiest month to be alive in Canada, and turned it into a coffee lover’s dream, although very much exploiting the strained hopes of their customers through a contest to sell more coffee by getting people to wander outside into the frozen misery to get it, for the odds of winning a big ticket prize that possibly match those of surviving a nuclear war. I can’t tell if this is brilliant marketing genius, or a sick and sadistic cruelty. Because that’s what you want around here: to keep being depressed during this season and be yet even more awake and alert to reflect upon it <sarcasm>.

·         Random Fact 3 –Initial temperance movements in the early 1800’s in Britain weren’t even meant to outlaw drinking at all, but just to control it to limit public intoxication, associated more the evils of “strong drink”, i.e. distilled alcohol like gin, rum, and whiskey. The initial movements didn’t even exclude all alcoholic beverages. Non-distilled fermented drinks, like beer, wine, and cider, weren’t considered to be in the same league as “strong drink” and were fine, initially. Those were even promoted more for consumption to dissuade the working man away from using spirits. However, as the Industrial Revolution took hold, and demanded a more punctual and efficient workforce, it placed less tolerance for workers being hungover on any form of alcohol, and temperance was then redefined to mean no alcohol at all, and this is when social and religious promoters of temperance and prohibition movements gained some leverage (Party-poopers!). As temperance movements grew in momentum, the institution of afternoon tea also took hold in Victorian Britain, to accommodate for their caffeine habit from their other substitute addictive beverage, along with the addictive substance of sugar to add to it, as trade for both commodities and mass production to process and refine them began to flourish in the empire. Their temperance movements also had no problem introducing things like laudanum (an opiate derivative) to cure people of alcoholism and delirium tremens, and cocaine was used as a supposed treatment for liver disease from alcoholism. Addictions don’t really stop; they just change forms. As easy and as tempting as it would be for me to opt and appreciate the earlier definition of temperance, I decided to commit to the complete disuse of all alcohol for this month.

Substitution Materials, Activities, and Alternate Behaviours:

·         Kvass – A carbonated, grain-based drink to serve as my substitute for beer; it’s also mildly healthier than pop is. Though technically a fermented beverage, it is a probiotic elixir made with a dominant lacto-bacillus culture, not primarily yeast. The homemade stuff is very low in alcohol (a fraction of a percent by volume), while the commercial stuff has no alcohol in it at all (however, the trade off is that it’s also then typically sweetened, sterilized, and filtered of any probiotic benefits). I’ve been using the latter. My source for it in town is Slavianka, a Ukrainian and Russian food shop.

·         Milk – Moo juice, beneficial because of the added boost up of vitamin D: good to have extra of for this time of the year.

·         Clamato juice – My favourite virgin cocktail is a V-Caesar. Again, as it isn’t a sugary drink, it’s a healthier alternative than pop or other fruit juices.

·         Lemon Water/ Mint infused Water – Detox essentials

·         Tisanes – Herbal tea hot drinks, trying not to swap lessened alcohol with too much increased caffeine intake.

·         Social venues centred around coffeehouses, if any such things exist here.

·         The Winter Olympics

·         Exercise at home and skiing

·         Scheming and planning for next month’s project

Feedback Mechanisms:

·         The number of emptied liquor bottles shouldn’t change in my recycling bin between Feb 1^st and Feb 28^th

·         Weight change (due to over/under consumption of other things in lieu of booze)

·         Clarity of mind, sleep changes, regained energy, etc. (see below)

Violations (Stakes and Penalties): Opening and consuming from any bottle of liquor during this month means a monetary fine, a donation equal to the value of the retail price of said bottle of liquor**** to be made out any one of the many wretchedly despicable and awful institutions I’d hate to support with any monetary funding: i.e. any of the several ridiculous ultra right-wing-conservative, anti-science, anti-union, political movements out there (including this current provincial government). The penalty amount is tripled if any of that liquor has been acquired through any of the new privatized (non-SLBS) vendors.

Progress: It would probably just be easier for me to recap and summarize this effort by focusing on a week by week progression through the month, mostly confined to the weekend activity since most of my drinking is confined to Friday through Sunday anyway, outside of my work hours.

·        Feb 1^st – Feb 7^th: Every day has had a notice an extreme cold warning from the Weather Network during some part of each day. Thursday, uneventful . . . and dry. Tuned into TV and texting Friday evening, felling asleep on my chesterfield (getting old) – no booze then. Initial INR test done Saturday morning (1.9). Bought some groceries after my shopping hiatus. Devoted energies to restocking my kitchen, processing a lot of stuff in a manic fashion. I admit right now that this was no doubt due to too much coffee in the morning, followed by too much sugary kvass. The combination of the two seemed to have worked on me physically like a two-stage rocket fuel system. If I had a beer or two, I may have levelled out; I didn’t yield though. My heart was pounding, and I was going super-hyper and crazy, barely able to keep focused. Working like mad in the kitchen to process my pantry supplies was probably a subconscious effort to clear stuff away for my next month’s challenge. I crashed hard later, followed by blogging about the previous month’s challenge. Sunday – still booze free. Monday – Ironically, I resorted to making beer (no violation can happen since it won’t be ready to consume for over a month). Tuesday – still good. On Wednesday the 7^th, I was shaken a bit with some emotional things. It was a complicated sort of paradox to process with a few strange ironies blended in it for even more awkwardness. It was a silly thing now that I look at it clearly: dealing with a sense of loss for something I never really had. It was an odd situation where no one even did anything wrong, and everyone involved was acting on the best of intentions, and there was no one to blame. I was still very harsh on myself though. Being a hapless and hopeless loser was about the kindest thing I could say for myself then. There could have been an excuse to take to a bottle as a reaction to this. But I never did that before in similar situations, so why do that now? Luckily, I’m not too impulsive by nature. Those feelings were short-lived, and maturity prevailed. It was just a thing that was beyond my control, and it was as useless to complain and lament about, as one passing day of bad weather in a week. Nothing really happened to be ashamed of, and yet nothing resulted to be proud of either. One could argue that avoiding alcohol for the week maybe was even a help for me in managing to pull my senses together to reframe things and make peace with the issue. Fate is how you are dealt the hand, but how you play the cards is choice. I chose the most honest and amicable way, because the other people involved are ones who I inherently like, and they deserved that much. I at least tried to walk my way through this with some dignity and maybe making better, trusting, and hopefully more strengthened friendships. I at least hope that they can understand that I have no resentments at all. I realize now that I didn't lose anything, but actually gained more in other aspects. The lesson itself was harsh and sobering in its own way, but it really ended better than I could have hoped for. I can’t speculate if opting to drink would have shifted my perception of the matter for the worse, even if it was used to just to allow me to somehow escape into sleep. However, I didn’t break my vow and succumb to that action. When all was said and done, things worked out for the best for everyone. I then felt quite lucky. I thank the sweet angel who helped carry me through this time, before and after.

·        Feb 8^th – Feb 13^th: Thursday – I struggled all day at work trying to keep my mind right from the insomnia I had from the unrest from the night before, trying not to trip over my own feet. No drinks taken later when I got home from work, as tempting as it was to seek that out for some sort of practical sedation. I’m glad I didn’t because, somehow, a long-lasting migraine was triggered later; I was fearing as well that I may have been coming down with the flu. It pretty much cancelled out any appetite for alcohol, plus anything else consumable for that matter. Though it was on the milder side**, it was bad enough to keep me from sleeping well, and it left me trying to function through a dulled and blurred state for many hours. Could alcohol have prevented all that misery to begin with when used at a strategically placed time? I doubt it. Was avoiding alcohol the culprit for creating an imbalance that put me in such a state. I doubt that too. And the migraine did phase into Friday - I finally fell asleep at early morning (4:00 AM), waking fitfully throughout, arising at 7:30 AM. Things relaxed head-wise fully at about 12:30 PM. I tried watching some Olympics coverage, but I couldn’t focus, and I was too still low to be primed by any interest in it. I invested some time to check out the Wellness Expo at Prairieland in late afternoon, to do something practical and proactive in dealing with what I had experienced throughout the evening, night, and day of the pain I had, plus I attended a seminar of a relevant subject for next month’s mission. The rest of evening was a boring affair of reading, watching TV, and periodically needing to rest my eyes. Nothing more potent was consumed than decaf tea.  Saturday and Sunday – I stuck to being Mr. Fix It***. It was rewarding to complete such things and clear them off a list, but they were not accomplishments to be celebrated with any beer. I joined a friend for a belated birthday lunch on Saturday after her fitness class. Even though I did kettlebells and some core work that morning, and skied in the afternoon, her workout routine makes me feel slothful and puts me to shame. Since we ate at a health food joint, it would have been senseless to ruin whatever benefits there were of dining there with alcohol, if having a drink even crossed my mind that is (which it didn’t). I skied on Sunday, through harsher conditions than the day previous. As tempting as it could have been to have a lovely frothy apres-ski pint after that laborious affair, I managed to be disciplined for all the rest of that day. Monday and Tuesday, both days uneventful after work – just watching Olympics, skiing, and taking time to install and configure a Bluetooth system in my car . . . still staying dry.  

·        Special Note, Feb 14^th: Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day – the midpoint of this wretched month. It started to storm with blowing snow, as well as plummeted in temperature as the workday ended, as if to correctly punctuate just how awful and abysmal such a day is for me. If Valentine’s Day had me already feeling beat up and thrown out into a crap-festered gutter in a funk of depression, the weather change came along to stomp an extra boot down on my throat to take away anything else of the remains of the day that could have been pleasurable. It was the same sort of stupid day as it is for me every year, but seemingly worse with it being even more laden with anomie and isolation as a single this time around. Except for sending out a few critical texts and responding to a couple of emails, I just kept my cellphone off for most of that day; tuning out and ignoring all other media for the day as well. I was just feeling too low in spirits to want to deal with anyone, and yet at the same time I didn’t want to be sitting around at home all evening later either; making things worse by brooding and fueling the feelings of defeatism. I also realized that it’s all well and fine for me to quit drinking at home, but to really test myself I needed to leave the beach and wade into shark-filled waters. My last month’s review had shown that I averaged between 2 or 3 visits to a tavern, or licensed restaurant per month, and I thought I would keep that frequency now. Again, fate cards dealt, but how to play them is a choice. I chose not to mope around at home. I dared myself to go to a licensed establishment, not even considering if my resolve would remain or crumble after actual exposure to the presence of liquor, in a leisurely environment. Ideally for that evening, I learned that there was the Anti-Valentine’s party at Winston’s Pub: perfect for the equivalent of the grinches of St. Val’s like me, and other singles who are in simpatico out there, who have their own reasons for loathing this observance. It was thus a perfectly acceptable place to enter alone and dine on a later supper, hopefully in peace. If I had any heart left for this Valentine’s Day, I was probably trying to put it out of its misery by inducing infarction with the contents on my pub food dinner platter: a huge prime rib burger with tasty fries, which shouldn’t have been so good given how greasy they were. However, the only ale I had there was ginger ale, plus a passable V-Caesar. At the risk of looking a little dorky to those who seen me there, I remained resolute. It wasn’t really that much fun; certainly not healthy, but it was just good to be out, even if not for the sake of being sociable, and it was probably less destructive to my psyche than rotting away idle at home alone for that evening. There were some augmented pressures during this stretch of seven days, but I ended this second week without one drop of alcohol consumed. I then thought about writing, and I asked myself, “How would Anthony Bourdain (a guy who struggled with addictions/finding sobriety) capture an evening like this in words?” I then headed on my way home and wrote this point of entry for the day as you see it here; hearing his narration veering to the crusty, smart-ass tone in my head as I write this. The only other thing I did to keep me from being buried completely in the blues was to bring to mind all the women who came into my life who have made me happy in their own special way. All of them now are either coupled already, or living far away from me, or otherwise had just saw fit not to be with me as a partner for other reasons. I extended a general greeting to all of them on social media. It was the only small glimmer I had left in me to share that evening to make something that may have looked like love shine on.

·        Feb 15^th – Feb 21^st: Thursday- I’m seeing how I’m becoming more mindful of the ways that I’m finding more alternate things to escape into in lieu of alcohol. They are listed below, some positives as well as things that were negative over-compensations: like playing video games for an obscenely long time once or twice. Another of the downsides is that I’m ashamed to say that I find myself doing is wasting more time on being entertained by more banal and frivolous things on social media and television than I should . . . well . . . more than I already usual do. It’s not stuff I’m learning much from for my betterment; I sense another future mission in the making. Instead I turned to Pinterest to be inspired and to find motivators for my next challenges and projects. I don’t want to draw out and dwell on the other trivialities of this week, except that momentum was being kept where I remained on the wagon. The truth is that throughout this month, drinking didn’t even consciously enter my mind for most of it. I didn’t crave it, nor did I look around to score the stuff on my odd weekday evening or the weekend, which is my usual frequency and pattern of consumption for it. It was a good validation to prove to myself that I have no real addiction to it. The only time I consciously dwell on the subject is when I come and sit down here to write about my activity for the weeks of this month in a piecemeal fashion. Even then, there is no urge to get up and grab any afterward. This weekend’s events included touring a giant indoor Flea Market near where I live. More skiing was done despite the wretched wind chill. After reflecting on the misery of Valentine’s Day, there followed the ultimate, bordering-on-insanity, writing exercise: crafting a good online dating profile for myself. I found that especially taxing in that I had to pull out all the stops to present myself as a suave, silver-tongued devil to compensate for me outwardly looking like some sort of rough-around-the-edges, silver-haired, goofball. As tempting as it was to have help from Comrade Vodka for some extra creative writing prowess, and to maybe make myself feel sexy somehow with some liquid confidence for that whole mess, there was none taken. Midway through that process though, I still felt hapless and hopeless, feeling nothing better coming from me to apply to it - project terminated. I had a tougher Wednesday: dealing with a couple urgencies, and trying with no success later in the day to get either tickets or company for an upcoming weekend Rush game. To be fair, I didn’t give anyone enough notice; which was just as well, because I was getting sick. But then, as if manifesting magically and mysteriously, some interesting things started to develop (see next point). Three of four weeks accomplished in staying dry.

·        Feb 22^nd – Feb 28^th: The physical changes are becoming noticeable now. I don’t know if it’s from three weeks of the detoxifying effects of the lemon infused water (later to include garlic to fight infection holistically), or if my own liver was indeed becoming healthier, regenerating, and starting to reset its function better hormonally and metabolically from the disuse of alcohol, but I’ve been having wicked surges and spells of voracious hunger midway through the waking hours of my remaining days of this month’s challenge. I’ll spare the more vivid details, but after some abdominal pain, there was evidence of my body ridding itself of old gall stones. A throat infection was afflicting me since Tuesday evening. It was a motivator to keep me from drinking actually: knowing that it would probably not only just be painful, but also dehydrating my throat further and making things worse when I don’t have much for other remedies available for me to use. Physically (before getting ill), I seemed to have a little more energy, but that may be due to a boost in metabolism from more exercise. Mentally, I don’t feel much different; still the same problems with sleeplessness at night, or wasteful times when nap attacks strike me in mid-afternoon which then corrupt my nightly sleep hygiene later. My throat worsened throughout Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, I forced myself into at least work out indoors if skiing wasn’t feasible with the throat issue, and I used the steam room for a while afterward hoping it would cook this damn bug out of me. I hopefully got rid of what I prayed would be the last of that affliction. I could have just planted myself at home for the rest of Saturday, stewing in my failure for finding company for the game that night, but again I fought this brooding-in-isolation instinct, like I did for Valentine’s Day. I was receptive to the gentle persuasion and coaxing of someone to meet up with her before she headed out on her own holiday. Her approach to me was through that very thing that I was initially going to abandon out a sense of futility. I dared myself to go, and got myself collected into the group she was in. An uncharacteristic maneuver for shy little me. She and her company were doing rounds of beer and shots while I remained steadfast on just having some ginger ale and feasting on cough drops. As tempting as it was to join them, I found an even better reason not to mess up whatever healing was happening. I managed to lose my creepy, raspy, virus-afflicted voice just in the nick of time. Throughout that evening, I ended up not being really happy at all . . . I would say rather that I ended up being quite delightfully overjoyed! Sunday – boozeless, followed by the sweetest Monday evening I’ve ever had in a long while, if ever (still no drinking). Tuesday – no booze. I hit the finish line on Wednesday, Feb 28^th and went even beyond without touching a drop of any alcohol, as I wrap up writing this on March 1^st . . . Mission accomplished!

Rewards and Final Words: Instead of viewing consuming alcohol as a problem (which it isn’t on an addiction perspective for me), the real premise of this exercise perhaps was to see what sorts of problematic things were/are entering my life that spark and trigger me to want to drink for relief. I think I have a clearer picture of what those are now. They tend to be people centred/related stressors: dealing with the (potential) loss of whatever or whoever is the precious good in this world for me, if I had to gauge things honestly. Thankfully, I’m not driven to drink by anger. Being introverted as I am most times, I really see now that if I am ever reliant on alcohol for any one thing it’s to draw me out of that shell, and sometimes that doesn’t even do the trick. Mostly though, I drink to relax, and to dare myself to be more disinhibited to find more humour in things than to really escape from them. After all, it is a big sad scary world out there sometimes. I’m also discovering that brooding for me can incite using alcohol; not usually the other way around. Upon reviewing a broader picture of life, I reconciled with another truth: that it has occurred at times that I’ve just buckled and drank out of being plain old lonely and feeling like a rejected misfit. Of my reasons for drinking, it’s the rarer occurring one, but nevertheless, it has come to pass at times that way. Upon reflection, if I’ve ever approached inebriation at times long before this exercise, it thankfully was never inching towards the side of being mean, vulgar, boorish, angry, or aggressive. These are exactly the kinds of drunken behaviours I despise seeing in other people. Sure, there are things I did during this shift to sobriety during the month that made me feel and perhaps even appear a little crazy (including writing all this as a summary as an example), but all in all in the bigger picture, that’s not even a fraction as bad as abusing a substance to give oneself a license and an excuse to be mean, vulgar, and abusive, as some people I know/knew have done. The rewards for me giving up drinking for a while are as such:

·         One reward for this period of temperance was saving the money I could have used on liquor to instead acquire myself a new passport. To welcome and invite a chance for new experiences abroad. It seemed like a prudent measure to do. I’m more compelled than ever to fly away from this place. It’s a bittersweet move though. I’ll have this thing to permit me some freedom to travel, but as things like Valentine’s Day painfully drove home, there’s no one for me to travel with. Everyone I know is coupled, or can’t afford to travel, or wouldn’t be interested in most of the places I would opt to go to on my travel wish list. *****

·         Not wasting away all my time being immersed in dejected self-loathing/self-pity for something like Valentine’s Day. Perhaps staying away from alcohol helped. I broke away from the usual annual tradition of moping and brooding around home. I also didn’t yield to doing something ridiculous for the sake of quelling loneliness. Drawing back from the past at a time when I was in a role of being a mediator/counsellor to victims, it amazes me now what kind of nonsensical abuse and torment (escalating at times to violence) people will surrender to in their domestic and intimate affairs, all in the name of being less lonely. Even though I was amongst an indifferent crowd, still alone that evening, I made better use of the alone time being in sober solitude doing some people watching.

·         The crisis level for this month, compared to other past Februarys, has been relatively low thankfully. Being more proactively focused on maintaining some soundness of mind through substance avoidance may have contributed; or maybe I was just finally lucky for a change in that regard.

·         I exercised more, getting a good sweat going to detox me, and a lot of fresh air to rejuvenate me and re-condition my lungs, forcing myself to do so even on the harsher days outside. I finally made it to doing 10 km skiing. Something impossible for me even just a month ago. 

·         Writing more, improving some skill in it; by taking this piecemeal approach to it, by exploiting kaizen (progressive shifts in improvement through small changes), it was an awakening for me in varying my style. The downside may be that I’ve been perhaps overly candid with the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly truth of it all. I won’t learn anything though if I’m not honest with myself. Communication, it seems, is always a skill I need to improve on. I’ll say now that writing with a clearer, soberer, mind can lead one to get nailed with some harder truths about one's personal reality. However, it will also give a better sense on how to deal with them.

·         I tried to renew some old friendships.

·         I lost some weight through the month (2.72 kg/6.00 lbs).

·         I became a little more mindful of what sort of private hell people with bona fide hardcore addictions must go through, especially when that said particular addiction isn’t something seedy and hidden in the back alleys of life, but right there out in front of that person at any public establishment, out in the open and ready to tempt such people.

·         The complete success in this means no penalties, thus no punishments of financing causes I don’t support, respect, or believe in.

Greatest Triumph: finding that one good final Saturday of February, where the course of the lonely hell of this month ended and actually yielded to something good, and hopefully will progress into something even better. If it was due to me following the strange winding trail of cause and effect throughout this challenge, so be it, and I’ll just be grateful for it. It didn’t need to be as crazy as a mad-cap adventure. It just involved being honest, and open, and taming and pushing past the impulse to brood, (which is hard to do when you have the mentality and predilection of a writer) and someone who could appreciate all that. I hope she will be as grateful as I am for this too.

I also realize that this trial of temperance actually isn’t going to stop 100% immediately after Feb 28^th, since there are stipulations for my next challenge in March which necessarily include disuse of most alcohol, or at least an adjusted level of moderation than from what was recently normal for me. If I had to rate the difficulty of this challenge between 1 and 10, with 1 being the least and 10 being the most challenging in difficulty, I would honestly rate it as between a 2 and a 3. Doing some liver-cleaning hopefully will give me an advantage to deal with what is coming to task in March. I’m not going to preach temperance, but I would endorse anyone who would want to give it a try for a prolonged while. If gaining some clearer insight into some matters is all you’d get from it, that’s more than worth it. I might make this a tradition for every February now.

The greater part of February was still characteristically harsh on my wits. If I could address this month anthropomorphically, like it was the dirty old malicious bastard that it always has been to me, I would tell February that it’s about bloody time that I’ve been given some reprieve from the ordinary round of nastiness. The last few days of it were a small step towards redeeming itself. I at least leave this month better than I entered it. It took patience and calm to overcome moments of obvious depression, and the will to be empathetic, forgiving, and bidding peace to not only others, but to myself as well. Alcohol itself, or rather the lack of it, didn’t do much to change my innate character. Life was just as challenging for me without it. I am thankful that the task wasn’t too hard to commit to. However, given next month’s challenge, and the outrageous amount of prep and planning for it, I don’t think it will come anywhere close to being as easy as it was for this month . . . 

Bibliography and Resources

1.       Addicted to Pleasure – (BBC production) seen on Netflix, hosted by Brian Cox

*- “I have taken more good from alcohol than alcohol has taken from me.” - Winston Churchill

**- Although it is hard to differentiate what is “milder” in severity with such a thing. It’s like saying that getting hit by a bus is relatively milder in severity than getting hit by a train.

***- Using some hacks to fix and refurbish a broken office chair, rewiring my entertainment centre, editing and reprogramming variables in the script code of a spreadsheet. 

****- If it’s a beer, then the fine is the SLBS retail price of a 12 pack of that same or corresponding brand. 

*****- This was written prior to Feb 24^th ; I will hope that the dynamic will change now where I’d be able to retract this. We’ll see.

Autumn Equinox Weekend 2017: Getting Bitter, Getting Sour

Friday

It was actually one of my more pleasant Fridays of this year, and counting in last weekend’s effort to re-organize stuff from Fall cleaning, and successfully riding out a storm of some other bad karma, I feel more able to do some steps toward other forms of betterment. I thought if I’m going to do more Fall brewing of beer in the days ahead, I should make an effort to craft it in such a way where it’s more therapeutic. Google flashed a dedication to Asima Chatterjee, a noted medicinal plant researcher and organic chemist from India, as it would have been her 100^th birthday today, and it strangely coincided with my recent interest in researching the healing power of hops: the getting bitter part of the weekend.

Back in the days when I was on a property on which I had access to garden space, my efforts to cultivate things were pretty much reduced and restricted to plants that were necessary staples for

bachelorhood, i.e. the crop outputs were the elemental ingredients for making pizza and beer. I was hit and miss with growing my tomatoes; a complete failure with herbs like basil and oregano. The only thing that I really had success at growing there were hop vines, which came from cultivars that I mail ordered from the Richter’s seed catalogue. I was tempted to go by the old place a few days ago and see if the plants were still there, and to perhaps snip a few away that were straggling into the public space of the back alley. I remembered though that a friend of mine said that she had some vines at her place, and she offered me a few cones. I happily accepted. She didn’t know what variety they were, but after some research on the visual and aroma profile (low bitterness, earthy, herbal, no real citrus notes to them) plus the elimination of varieties that wouldn’t thrive in this wretched climate of ours, and memories from previous experience, I think I narrowed them down to being maybe Hallertau or Saaz hops; either variety is most likely used for lighter lagers and Pilsners. Thankfully, the cones were not touched by frost yet*, and I got them at their peak ripeness. They needed to be dried before I can use them. I picked, sorted, and checked them for insect hitchhikers, and so now I’m experimenting with using a food dehydrator setting for a milder desiccation temperature rate: starting at 50 degrees Centigrade. Too low and slow risks incubation of molds; too high and dry risks the same sort of damage to the oil glands as freezing them.

If I am already regulating myself on the amount of alcohol I’m allowed to drink, then enhancing the sedating properties of beer in other ways has to be done if drinking more of it isn’t an option. Hops are supposed to have the natural properties of reducing anxiety and eliminating insomnia. Adding more to my brew kits seems to be the way to receive the benefits of them. For flavour, I’m targeting for somewhere a third of the way between the bitterness of what I remember Big Rock Traditional Ale tastes like, and that kicked-in-the-face-by-Satan-himself kind of bitterness found in Double India Pale Ales. There is no doubt about the medical potential of hops because they belong in the phytochemically super-rich botanical family of Cannabaceae, the same family as that of Cannabis Sativa, which is of course marijuana. I’m surprised that, or I at least don’t understand why, there is not more research done on hops, because we’ve only been using them since beer was invented 6000 years ago; it being such a pivotal beverage for civilization and all. The priority for research attention between the two plants shifts to hemp because there is more pressure to either discover more benefits of the plant by pro-hemp/marijuana legalization institutions, or for taking a contrarian stance for more research dollars focused to find evil in it by the forces that want to justify keeping it suppressed and criminalized. Either way, hops aren’t controversial enough to get the same attention. The side effects of higher intake of hop extracts, from what I’ve read, is like that of using too much refined soy products: a greater potential of overconsuming phytoestrogen. It seems growing beer titties might be more of a risk than growing a beer belly if your ale is infused with more hops.

Saturday

The getting sour part of the weekend. I made cabbage rolls today, with soured cabbage leaves and pressure preserved the sauerkraut that was being brewed under them in my fermentation crock. I already described the process involved in the previous entry, Fermentation Experimentation (On Baba’s Magic Rocks). The effort to clear out older bulk dry stock from my pantry is almost complete. Other results from that: Dutch Style Split Green Pea Soup with my remaining bacon, and my rendition of chili con carne with the remaining beef, tomatoes, onions, beans and other odds and ends. 

Sunday

I wanted to get sweet today, but I can’t let go of sour quite yet. I was gifted some sour apples (Battleford variety) I need to use and not waste, and there’s sour cream in the fridge, plus some raisins in the pantry. This means aggravation, because I settled on making pies with this stuff, which means messing around with goddamned pastry dough. I don’t know why I have no patience for it. Making regular bread or pizza dough isn’t a big deal for me. However, if there is any one thing I do in the kitchen that has me so challenged that I’m swearing like a salty sailor, it’s trying to mix and feel out that right interplay between flour, lard/shortening, and the exact amount of moisture and temperature It needs to bind it all together perfectly to allow it to be rolled out right for a pie. It’s somehow too technical for me. I committed to it today in the spirit of practice and persistence. If I screwed up the pastry, I at least have a crack at redemption in trying to craft a good filling. My sour apples were doctored up with plenty of cinnamon, and the sour cream and raisin filling for my other pie was spiced up with vanilla, cardamom, and cloves, and minimal of brown sugar was used for both.

My Sour Cream and Raisin Pie, so far my best attempt at

using a meringue. My apple pie was OK too taste-wise, but an

embarrassment to the visual aesthetic, and far too damn

fugly to add to this gallery.

The proof of how infrequently I cook with sugar, i.e.

brown sugar that looks like it needs to be dynamited out of the jar.

That's what the good old mortar and pestle is for.

Maybe my waning interest and ability in baking dessert-like things is perhaps a sobering and humbling indication that I’m aging. It’s a scientific fact that the taste palette shifts more from the sweet to the bitter and sour as we mature and approach middle age and beyond. I can only concur given that my taste for beer is stronger now than it was when I was a younger adult (I was more into rye whiskey at that age). I try more bitter things and am more forgiving of the pungency of other things now (like certain cheeses with their sudoriferous, or even fecal-like, stenches) that I would have been revolted by as a teen. I suppose I made pies to feel younger and spark a sense of a sweet tooth that I'm losing. At least I’m finding out that the aging tongue is nothing to be afraid of, it just gives cause to make one more adventurous. Coming to a point of appreciating things like more bitter beers, astringent wines, and smellier cheeses may be a sign of maturity.

*- I shouldn’t have to mention this to experienced brewers, though I suppose it could be done, but never should one use frozen hops for brewing, or store them in a freezer for later use, even if they are in pellet form. The humulone and lupulin glands in the flowers that produce their characteristic bitterness profile are essentially ruined when crystalized and then ruptured by frost and ice. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t do it myself. What’s the point of going through all the effort of searching for an ingredient with a specific aroma and flavour profile, a rarer commodity at that, only to destroy that which you’re seeking for the greedy act of preservation? After drying them and letting them cool to room temperature, refrigerate them for a short while in a vacuum pack if you can if their usage will be delayed, but don’t freeze them.

Old Dead Drunken Authors and on Writing while (somewhat) Impaired

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with fools. -- For Whom the Bell Tolls  

What the hell do adults do alone in Saskatoon after 10:00 PM on a showery May evening: something that's somewhat stimulating outside of the regular home life, yet not too abnormal? If one isn't into the NHL playoffs and generally dissatisfied with all other television programming, plus no appetite to speak of, with the bookshops being closed (not that I'm really in the mood to read anyway); when one doesn't care to waste coin visiting bars, or a cacophonous casino; when the cinemas have nothing special to show, and when it seems too late and unsettling to abuse caffeine and sugar at donut and dessert shops, there really isn't much else to do by oneself at this hour enduring sleeplessness*. So, one tours around cyberspace, while at the same time retreating inside one's own head; it's doing me no favours. It seems to be too busy in there as it is. I only have more insomnia to contend with later it seems: if I don't do something about it. It's times like these when I reflect and speculate on what notable people did in the past: those who didn't have such options for entertainment and yet were creating it for others, and who have suffered relatively more than I have. The topic is also spurred by a strange fact in a posting thread I read earlier, and stunning myself with noticing strange connections.**

I couldn't think of much else to do for now but to remain at home; propping myself in front of my computer keyboard, with a tumbler glass full of whiskey, starting this entry, and perhaps pretending for a while that I can pull off a Hemingway, i.e. having something profound exit my mind and onto a page whilst I'm half lit, that is if I am not made sleepy first by my libation. Whatever gets crafted as a result afterward, for better or worse, I'll credit to the liquid inspiration. As much as I choose to avoid drunken outlandish storytellers in bars, I am however intrigued by some of them when they end up committing their words to paper

Ernest Hemingway could at least verbally draw something fantastically vivid out of a scene that others would ordinarily find trivial. The copious amounts of alcohol he used for fuelling his process was his gimmick modus operandi. The question about whether he was a writer with a drinking issue, or a drunkard with a writing issue, still remains debatable amongst his critics. One can't fault Hemingway much for becoming a drunk though. After all, he did witness the worst of the resulting suffering from the savagery along the frontlines during the first World War as an ambulance driver, until he was wounded himself. Booze was probably the most convenient tool around for dealing with what was called "shell shock" at the time. I suppose he made the best with it as he could.

Edgar Allen Poe is another example who comes to mind, who has my respect as being another writer, who was a hopeless sot, yet who was still able slap together sentences well enough to make them stir one's senses with eloquent, yet macabre, diction relating to things intriguingly mysterious. He was a sickly and melancholy fellow for most of his forty odd years of an odd life. Drinking lots surely didn't help him, except only to be probably more disinhibited to find the right words for him to express with ink and pen. To write literature well, I suppose some sorts need to reach a certain degree of pathos. There's no shortage of that stirred up from excess imbibing of liquor. There's a fine line as to when it turns from a help to a hindrance.

It's interesting, and yet kind of sad, to know just how many of the best critically acclaimed literary works out there are products of someone's neurons being basted in ethanol, or other narcotics and psychedelics. Perhaps, when it comes to writing on a level that's appealing and impactful to all sectors of society, it's just proof that if you are intelligent and keen enough to use grammar effectively, one has to contort the mind such chemically to observe how weird, warped, and surreal the rest of society is as to give it a fair and accurate commentary as well. Probably that's what Hemingway was alluding to in the quote above. He also said that he drank for the sake of making other people look better. That definitely doesn't work for me. It's not the kind of writer I'd want to be. Again, using the examples of Poe and Hemingway: Poe ultimately died alone and penniless, wearing someone else's clothing under mysterious circumstances, and Papa Hemingway sank to such a low that he cancelled himself off with shotgun blast to the head. There's no glamour there I must say.

My whiskey is finished . . . enough about that. I'm not so seasoned as either a hardcore boozer or a writer, so I'll choose to stick with just this one glass. After reviewing what I just wrote, I still seem to be rather lucid.

This reminds me that the Top of the Hops season approaches, and I'm debating if I should go this year. For now, I see no reason to this time.

*- My only other feasible entertainment options for the evening were non-adult things: like videogames. We laugh at our house pets and think how kooky it is when we pull out a laser pointer and make them chase a projected dot, but isn't that what we ourselves are essentially doing when we try to chase and maneuver around sets of pixels on a screen with some control interface? In that perspective, playing videogames isn't exactly very creative or intellectual either. Contraband things could then be listed after this I'm sure.

**- An article about E.A. Poe, and about how he sort of predicted a shipwreck with the name of one of his characters in one of his stories (The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket) being identical to one of the victims who suffered the same fate under the same circumstances in real life (cannibalized on a lifeboat) occurring several years later. The name of the character was Richard Parker. It struck me then that it was also the same name given to the tiger on the lifeboat in Yann Martel's book Life of Pi. This wasn't coincidental. I found out that Yann Martel purposely chose that name for the tiger in his story based on these uncannily identical, yet temporally separate literary/actual events. It's like Poe time travelled.

Ending 2016/Beginning 2017

I did what I could to make the final day of 2016 be an additional day that didn't suck balls, as I already summed up, so eloquently, in a previous entry about the rest of the year. The only good thing that happened during the weeks off work, being not able to fully function physically or participate socially while being injured, is the fact that I've had time for myself to do lots of navel-gazing for some more important life questions. Some made me very grateful, while others made me quite regretful. They are too private to list and post here. A great dump of snow finally arrived yesterday, and I'm not keen on traveling anywhere to be in some crowded place with strangers, despite the free transit service for the evening. Being at home in peace to ruminate and contemplate for the rest of the evening is fine enough for me.

Beginning a review and a rant about how abominable the state of 2016 was would be pointless. I can't find any heart to use in chronicling any of it. It can be simply summed up with the facts that too many good people passed away, more amoral and genuinely rotten people gained more power and have become emboldened, irresponsible, and abusive with it; my state of health went backward instead of forward with some pain, impairment, and suffering, and the news has not just been a stream, but an inundation of one disaster after another. Any good that appeared throughout the year was greatly overshadowed by a lot of evil and disasters.

So, with mindfulness, and some attempt to not let things become any worse, here is how I transitioned between the last hours of the last day of the wretched year, 2016, and the first few hours of 2017 . . .

Last Five Purchases of 2016:

• Groceries/foodstuffs (including a variety 12 pack of lagers and ales)*
• A haircut
• A lottery ticket ($20.00 richer from it)
• Service for my Nordic skis to be refinished/waxed properly
• A Virtual Reality headset - because, after this year's news, actual reality is apparently something I want to be less of a part of. It wasn't bought today, but it seemed significant.

Last Five Activities of 2016:

• Physiotherapy exercises
• Housecleaning, bookkeeping, decluttering and trashing stuff
• Fixing and refitting a shelving unit insert (thanks again, Mom and Dad)
• Nordic skiing - thankfully, my arm isn't buggered up from doing it, followed by a long cozy nap with the pooch and I by the fireplace, lit with the tinder of torn up 2016 calendars
• Drinking and snacking between IIHF hockey games (watching the fucking USA team beat Canada - another 2016 disaster), watching TV shows (historical and science documentaries mostly) and reading my chosen book (see below)

First Five Activities of 2017:

• Writing this entry
• Reading my past entries for the year
• Thinking about the people I miss most
• A sipping and savouring some fine Scotch (see below)
• Opening my first resolution envelope (January 2017) . . . too personal to post.

Last Meal of 2016/First Meal of 2017 (a huge deli snack platter to graze on, including):

• Rice Crackers
• Brie Cheese
• Liver and Herb Pâté
• Calamari Ring Ceviche**
• Cocktail Shrimp marinated in seasoned Lemon Oil**
• Smoked Oysters**
• Medley Mix of Cocktail Olives
• Celery Sticks
• Virgin Caesars** (this might surprise and shock some of you, but believe it or not, there are actually some cocktails I do prefer to drink without the alcohol)*** 

Scotch of the Year for 2017***: Twelve year old Aberfeldy, single malt. Definitely a lust element of Lists, Lusts, and Lost Precious Thoughts. Heavily endowed with a heathery floral aroma, entwined with a less-like-caramel and more-like-honey note in its sweetness, and a slight wafting of a secondary ester that's kind of reminiscent of banana. There is a slightly almond characteristic in the body of the base malt in the liquor as the other notes dissipate. There's no discernable smokiness, like some other Scotches have. Superb, delightful, and smoooooooth.

Last Project of 2016/First Project of 2017: Formulating my own Gin Infusion Recipe*** - the ingredients used are:

• Neutral spirit alcohol
• Juniper berries (dried)
• Jasmine blossoms (dried)
• Lemon peel
• Coriander seed
• Six more botanicals that I'm keeping a secret (if it turns out good, it will be my signature blend; if it turns out bad, it wouldn't be worth sharing anyway.) P.S. No matter what the outcome, I certainly won't be calling it "Victory Gin" (see below).

Last Book of 2016/First Book of 2017: A re-read of Nineteen Eighty Four, by George Orwell. It should be a prerequisite read for those who are so gullible and mistakenly/carelessly making and spreading fake news on social media, inciting fear-mongering with baseless conspiracy theories, picking out some unseen enemy to blame for [their] current troubles, and who blindly side with any political authority with a "might is right" (fascist) agenda that preaches isolationism, farcical economic bullshit, war for the sake of peace , and production for the sake of all of that, whilst at the same time cheapening and destroying the welfare of both human beings and the environment. As I re-read this with a more literary mind than I had the last time I read it ten years ago, I find more and more layers of meaning to this satire, which, sadly, is becoming more and more reflective, cautionary, and frighteningly truthful about the times we are living in now, and possibly approaching in the times ahead, as free speech and right to assemble is getting attacked more and more often, and technology is making us become more and more estranged from each other. If I was ever put in the role of an English teacher again, this book would definitely be in the curriculum, because I realize now that there is a whole generation of people who were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and never witnessed or experienced the posturing and fear of total domination by of totalitarian governments like the Soviet Union, or generally blissfully ignorant or the mechanisms of entities like the KGB or the Stasi, who like Thought Police, surveilled and invaded every element of people's lives. That era is completely out of the collective consciousness and historical memory of the Millennials, and that's what I believe the currant establishments are counting on, so this generation can be more easily controlled, as they are trying to bring privacy to extinction, and afflicting more corporate control through propaganda memes, and advertising. That's why I believe that this book needs to reach them most of all. It's a book that I would hope would challenge people to think and question motives beyond a three word slogan, than mindlessly complying to it, whatever it is. It's a reminder of how governments suppress and oppress with words, and language itself is twisted, corrupted, and perverted to obfuscate and hide more insidious measures and actions, like the real life examples of "right to work" in the anti-labour movements, or the term "transformational change"**** in the health care system in this province. It's a read for anyone living under a government who is expounding and touting how great and prosperous we all are, while at the same time is cutting and selling off services, hiking up fees and taxes, and clawing back wages as measures of austerity, putting us closer to enslavement to debt. I can only read about 10 - 15 pages at each sitting because there is so much more to digest of it now that I have more of it revealed to me with a mindset of a more engaged Unionist. Sorry for turning this into a long book review, but 1984 is a pivotal and profound piece of literature of the science fiction/alternative history/political satire genres that is still very relevant today.

Five Things I'm Looking Forward to in 2017:

• Our Nation's 150th Birthday, there's going to be a good time had around here somewhere
• The Possible Decriminalization/Legalization of Marijuana in Canada - not for an excuse to get high (I really am not interested in that; it's not my thing), but to lay stronger inroads for a hemp economy, for commercial/industrial purposes and switching to fibres, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and oils that veer away from using toxic petrochemicals, and that will do more to protect the environment, along with maximizing diversity of production usage per hectare of arable land.
• Getting healed up enough to get the full use of my arm back
• A possible trip I'm planning to Eastern Canada
• Being able to commit to even 10% of the wild things and projects I've set out for myself in 2017 that I've randomly and secretly assigned for myself for each month of this year

Happy Year 2017, everyone. Let the adventure begin . . .

*- Beer is simply a liquefied form of bread, derived from generally the same basic ingredients of yeast, grain and water; a potable version of the staff of life. Therefore, according to my judgement, it's an item I categorize to be included along with groceries/foodstuffs
**- It seems I've rendered this place a veritable zone of death for anyone with a severe seafood/shellfish allergy.
***- Even though I'm experimenting with spirit infusions, I've actually cut down a lot on drinking hard liquor. I've substituted quantity for quality. I've made it my tradition now to have one glass of single malt Scotch on the first day of each month for the year, New Year's Day inclusive. I never really fancied Scotch for a long while, because the first time I ever sampled it, I was offered some cheap and absolutely gross and terrible blended crap. Distillers who blend Scotch should all be hanged. I got to recently starting to love it after trying a single malt (10 year old Talisker at the time). After testing and exploring every note and nuance of that, I found it to be a fabulously delectable libation that gave a sensation that could only be best described as a some sort of sensual simultaneous orgasm shared together between the nose and the tongue. The 750 mL bottle of single malt during 2016 was 10 year old Auchentoshen . . . almost as sublime. I'll stop prattling on about drink-lore now.
**** - The term "transformational change" in itself goes to show how stupid the people are who dreamt up this ridiculous tautology. The word "transformational" already indicates that there is already a process of change happening, so why include the word "change" after it? I wish George Carlin was still alive to be all over this one. 

On Small Things of Decadence

I've finally made it back to a state of health that is allowing me to return to work, although I must say that the cold I had last week kind of threw me down on the mat harder than I thought. Re-adapting to the rigours of a typical work day after it has been a bit of a trial. Recovery from the sinus thing was made more troublesome because I can't use my conventional arsenal of over-the-counter cold medications to combat such things anymore.

Consequently, I got into exploring the uses of more benign alternative tonics and bitters with aromatic properties to use as special elixirs. In other words, I was experimenting with the art of making cocktails. I blew the dust off of my long neglected stainless steel shaker and started to use it again. Thankfully, having alcohol in moderation isn't (yet) a problem for me¹. It has at least helped me to sleep a little better. At the risk of taking what may sound like a new adventure in snobbery, I've been exploring other avenues of bartending beyond the relatively low-brow dumping together of pop and a spirit, and having it recklessly chugged down, as it is most commonly done around this region (no offense to those who prefer to do it this way). The cost of what it would have taken for the required dosages of Neo Citron and other remedies was diverted to purchasing some special ingredients for fashioning the somewhat more obscure and unusual libations I've been curious to try out. Mixology and making cocktails kind of fascinates me now. There is a definite skill and finesse required to do it, or at the very least one could say: you still can't train a monkey to make you a decent martini. It's both scientific and sensual: in getting proportions, temperatures, aeration; the interplays of sweetness, dryness, acidity, astringency, and other flavourful notes, and getting the blending and timing of it all right to make something aromatically exciting and truly pleasing to the taste buds. With knowing the statistical popularity/prevalence of ingredients and combinatorial measures and substitutions, even a limited number and variety of bottles of spirits and aperitifs, like I have, can make hundreds of different cocktails. It's as at least as interesting to me, on a mathematical basis, as playing around with the varieties of possible pizza topping combinations, or kinds of sandwich fillings in the culinary sphere. I proudly tackle this endeavour in the name of science!

However, around these parts, getting some of the more exotic bar stock, like Kina Lillet, necessarily needed some dabbling with darker forces to procure; but now I can mix together a Vesper². Some Žubrówka (bison grass infused vodka from Poland) was also acquired by the same wretched means. Of the only two options I was given to use, I at least chose the lesser of the two evils³. Speaking of evil: while in this one liquor store, I found more things to ridicule, as I usual do when I go shopping, about how crazy our conspicuous consumption is getting to be for some of the things on which we use our disposable income. Maybe I'm just a rural bumpkin at heart, maybe my palate is yet unrefined, or perhaps I still lack some cultural wherewithal to be cognisant of that marginal line that divides the goods that are considered luxurious and those which are for the rest of the vulgar masses. Forgive me for what may seem like ignorance, but I would call it being sensible enough to drop the pretentious bullshit. I fail to see much difference in taste and aroma between a so-called cheap wine and a more expensive one, or why there is such an astronomical variation in the range of prices between certain scotches and other whiskeys. From this last time liquor shopping however, some bewilderment really made my jaw drop, and hyper-activated the ridicule circuits in my brain.
 
I encountered the most expensive bottle of liquor I have ever seen in physical form in my lifetime. It was something crazy that one would expect to find being gavelled off at a Sotheby's auction in London, but instead it was right there in the relatively unsophisticated boonies of the West side of Saskatoon. It was a bottle of French cognac of some special reserve that was listed at $3099.99. That was not a misprint, that's over . . . THREE THOUSAND <long stream of expletives here> DOLLARS CANADIAN!!! The sticker shock was enough to do a total memory wipe on me as to what particular brand it was. It doesn't much matter because I certainly won't be buying any no matter how rich I'd ever become. No liquor in a 750 mL bottle, even if it came from Mars never mind France, should ever cost that much. My surprise actually doesn't really come from discovering that there is cognac out there that is this expensive, and I seriously doubt that the price of this bottle even comes close to that of the actual most expensive cognac that's for retail sale, because I surely and truly doubt very much that human stupidity for the sake of being pompous has a set price limit. Those bottles more expensive than this one would be found in luxury hotels, or in the secret meeting rooms of the Illuminati or some other such place. I'd really rather not research it. However, what did surprise me was this detail that left me wondering: What the hell was it doing there! . . . in an area where a large percentage of the typical cars in the surrounding neighbourhood have a red book value equal to or cheaper than that particular bottle of brandy? Also: what special, mysterious, bizarre, or perverse qualities or properties, either through its historical significance or in its production, could have inspired a person to have so much audacity and gall, to mark up a bottle of this French stuff so outrageously high? Is it infused with cocaine? Did Rodin himself sculpt the mold that made the bottle? Was the juice fermented in a Fabergé Easter egg? Was the final distillation of that brandy filtered through the basket that collected King Louis XVI's freshly guillotined head? Were the grapes picked by virgins and placed in the solid gold chamber pot once belonging to Marie Antoinette, and then lovingly crushed by the hooves of unicorns to the rhythm and beat of La Marseillaise? Were the staves of the oak barrel it was aged in made from the repurposed wood stripped off of Napoleon's private battlefield latrine? What makes this priced more like an artifact and less like regular liquor? What is the bullshit story that makes this somehow better than any other brandy? It is either through the workings of the grand poohbah of all sales reps, or the dumbest of dumb wholesale purchasers for that store with this demographic that this bottle was there in the first place. All I can say is if one is paying three grand plus for a bottle of liquor, that stuff had better damn well be able to cure cancer or something. I would expect it to give me all the good things far beyond the satisfaction of merely being just pleasantly pissed like what regular liquor can already do. This potion should be like a whole weekend of entertainment in a single snifter: drinking it should be like being under the influence of cannabis, Ecstasy, and Viagra simultaneously, or else it should biochemically supercharge a body to exude some sort of pheromones to give one an aura to be like the most attractive creature on the planet (kind of like creating a reversed beer-goggles effect). As for now, I don't believe the difference between that stuff and something like Courvoisier, the last most expensive brandy I've actually sampled (under $50 a bottle), is worth an extra $3000. Frankly, it's like a criminal act to hyper-inflate a price like that. However, we don't really challenge this because we certainly don't feel sorry for the filthy rich asshole who has that kind money to carelessly throw around, and is idiotically conceited enough to buy such a thing just to put on airs and to show off affluence . . . or at least I don't anyway.
 
I had no intention of poking jest specifically at the French, or to mock them about any reputed pomposity and over-extravagance, although after reading through my last paragraph it might look that way. An apology to those who thought so, as I know I have a few readers from France. Lord knows they are going through enough right now with the recent Charlie Hebdo incident. I don't want to kick them when they're down. I stand in solidarity with them in being against those sort of treacherous, barbaric acts. I'm thankful to have and share the same kind of freedom of expression that enables me to write this blog. I do, however, find it ironic that in a society that proclaims and prides itself to be on the side of equality, liberty, and fraternity, that there still is this glaring example of a holdover of the days when despotism, tyranny by elitism, and segregation of the classes in that country was institutional. They, of all people, should find this to be as outrageous as anyone else. There is no equality with marketing a commodity with an exaggerated price that no one can acquire except the extremely wealthy. Maybe it's not even their fault, maybe it's the purchasers, marketers, and wholesale vendors right here in North America who should be guillotined for such blatant and audacious greed.

I do have to commend the French for at least a couple of other things (besides the Lillet) that I did indulge in as frugal, yet decadent, treats this weekend: cheese and pâté. It swings my thoughts over to the stupid things we do in North America in our own way with the abomination that is called fast food, while there are available alternatives that are so much more pleasantly decadent that are more affordable. On Friday evening, strayed away from home, famished from not having any supper, and I felt a need to pick my spirits up after feeling bad about a foolish mistake I made. I went to my favourite pub, but it was full; the next place I wanted to try was closed down. I was thankful that my favourite cheese and deli shop was still open. I got some Saint-Paulin cheese ($8.00, but ate only a quarter of it, so really $2.00), and a marvelous pork and duck liver pâté blended with pistachios ($3.50). Though the cheese was from Québec, and the pâté was made locally, both were descended from French tradition. Adding some pickles and olives and crackers to that with a glass of wine (less than $2.00) at home, I had what I thought was an amazing little feast. Accounting for the portions I ate, chewing slowly and savouring it, I was eating better and cheaper than if I had scarfed down a stupid burger and fries with a pop from elsewhere, even friggin' McDonalds. I never felt that I ever had a richer experience by eating fast food, just indigestion.

Taking away the more snobbish elements of them, I concede that things like cocktails and deli food, in their own way, are very important things to have now and again. Small, yet affordable bits of luxury and decadence, where quality, and not quantity, matters. Bits of razzle-dazzle to remind us that life should never be boring, even with the smaller things and morsels of it. They are a reminder that for the good things to happen, It's best to be patient, and take things slowly, through sipping, sampling, and savouring; not through mindless and hurried gluttonous gobbling and guzzling, like there will be no tomorrow, and veering off into a whole other realm of over-indulgent sinning. They are reminders to balance out our lives. Not so much for the tastes and flavours themselves, but also to value some ritualized time to use to enjoy them.

That's what ultimately I think makes a person feel richer and blessed through food and drink.

1. Given my medications, I can only consume a maximum of 2-3 alcoholic drinks within a given day I choose to do it, which is not every day. Therefore, now when I'm in the mood to drink, the onus has shifted a little more towards making something that is kind of visually appealing, can be sipped slowly, and savored for an extended period. So, I can't binge drink even if I wanted to, not that it was ever my habit to begin with. Despite having some Slavic heritage, I actually find the manner and amount of hard liquor like many Russians and Ukrainians (in the old country) can dump down at one sitting to be quite distasteful, even when there is the guise of sophistication of the tradition of zakushki (a table full of appetizers and delicacies) present to take the edge off all that straight vodka (horilka).

2. The cocktail in the Bond film Casino Royale. It is a damn fine and tasty one too I find. Of course, I make mine without the digitalis poison. My Žubrówka will be used for making something nice I learned about from Top of the Hops a few years back.

3. I sullied myself finding these two ingredients in one of the private stores here, only because I couldn't find them in the public stores. It was in the Co-op owned one, and I am a member/share holder, so that is a forgivable sin to some extent. At least I didn't use Sobeys. I'm happy to say that all other potent potables I need for my personal liquor cabinet can be collected from the public liquor board store.