2009-03-14 - 2:55 p.m.
Fact: when I have hangovers, they are substantial. Too many fancy hoppy beers at Dionysus last night, and too many (just one, but still too many) large pours of Maker's Mark, a few cigarettes and that's too many, talks about the Watchmen, about Chinese pottery, about expensive bicycles, about soccer, about other bars, about girls, about It All, I suppose. Bigness, then, expansiveness, drinks and talking and laughing and even largesse (I got a bonus at work and so bought some glasses of shiraz, some fancy hoppy beers, some "generous pours" of Maker's Mark, according to the guy sitting next to me). So that, at the end, when I got the wobbles, the walk home was not done in a straight-ahead fashion.
Decision: I don't know when exactly this happened, but at some point I stopped taking so many photographs of actual people. I've gravitated toward stuff: rooflines, street signs, shadows. And I'd like to gravitate elsewhere, toward smiles, frowns, claps-on-the-back, kisses, maybe. I hereby vow. I know it's a small thing, but it feels important, warm, subtly vibrating, the place in which I ought to be.
So much music, food, hoppy beers, wonderful things to read, to put in our bellies, in our heads, words on our tongues. It's not just me, is it? The feeling of the embarrassment of riches? That perhaps we don't deserve all of it? I think for the first time I understand fasting, or the giving up of something, the casting aside of one or two things, the decision of I've Already Got Enough.
It really is a beautiful world, though, in the end. Even now, mid-March, everything gray in this gray city, the sidewalk planters nothing but bare, packed soil. In spite of that, still, it's nice to be around.
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