In case anyone’s wondering why I haven’t written anything this week, my brain is fried. I mean seriously fried.
If this were an episode of iZombie, Rose “Olivia” McIver would be piling lettuce, tomatoes, onions, mayo and hot sauce on a toasted bun and chowing down like it was the last brain burger on earth.
You see I’ve been jamming on some work for three days solid and all I want to do right now is lay here sweltering in the baking heatwave and drink that entire bottle of sauvignon blanc I’ve got sitting in the freezer. But I can’t, cause tomorrow’s Thursday and, guess what? More work.
Aw, who am I kidding. That’s what I say every night. Right before I float the bottle.
There’s no rest for the wicked folks, not even in a lockdown.
At least it’s springtime in Silly Valley. The flowers are blooming, my butt is sweating and I’ve still got several hundred bottles of vino that should get me at least through the next couple of weeks. Then it’s on to the hard liquor, the cordials and finally, the bottom of the barrel … the beer.
Whatever. I’ve got enough booze and wine to get through the summer. I can beat this thing.
Reminds me of the summer my college roommate Jason drove me back to Brooklyn at the end of spring semester. We spent a couple hours hanging out with the boys at Trump Village shopping center and that was all I could take. We walked back to my building, went up the elevator to my folks’ apartment, got the rest of my things, went back downstairs, loaded up Jason’s car and drove right back to school, never to return.
What’s that got to do with the story?
I forgot about one thing. I had no money and no job waiting for me back on Long Island. Turns out neither did Jason or the couple other guys squatting in our dormitory that summer. What we did have, however, was some mattresses and a bar. A rather large fully stocked bar, actually. Called the Saloon. We had big imagination back then.
We spent the summer methodically going through that bar, day by day, bottle by bottle. I think the last stuff to go was the sloe gin. Or maybe it was the cherry brandy. Yuk. We learned a lot that summer. We learned that the only real hangover cure was to get up, start drinking and don’t stop until Labor Day. We learned that you could pay for gas with pennies from a piggy bank. That you could blow through the toll booth on the Southern State Parkway over and over if you didn’t have a quarter to your name. That you could survive weekends in the Hamptons sleeping on friend’s floors — friends who actually had jobs — eating free happy hour hot dogs and pizza at the Bawdy Barn and partying all night at Marrakesh, where the stars play, as long as you had some weed and pills to bribe your way in.
As you can see, I’ve had a lot of practice at this sort of thing.
Back to the all-too-real here and now:
Had a business meeting at someone’s house last Friday afternoon. Oh yes I did. A very productive meeting, thank you very much. Then, after a quick happy hour drink and a half I was rudely instructed by the wife via iPhone to get my ass home for dinner and pick up the mail.
On my way out the door I turned to my associate and her husband and said, “So what are you guys gonna do tonight?”
The dude shrugged and said, “Drink.”
Work. Drink. Rinse. Repeat.
That’s my life. Covid America, “Leaving Las Vegas Style.”
What can I say? Life is good.