Happy St Skeletor's Day. You know that you prefer it to Valentine's. It's way better.
I have to accept that my toleration for alcohol has really withered and died. I haven't drunk much since the holiday, but now two days of fairly tame consumption have destroyed me. I only had a gin and tonic, half a bottle of wine and a pint of Guinness on Wednesday and a cocktail and half a bottle of champagne and two small whiskies last night and I am a mess. Admittedly there was a bit of drink mixing involved with that, but back in the glory days of my twenties and thirties I would have drunk that much in the first hour and still been largely unaffected. For the last two nights I have woken up in the middle of the night feeling like I am on the edge of mild psychosis: confused and frightened by something unspecified. It passed fairly quickly and was nothing as intense as the effects that I experienced the last time I heavily drank for an extended period of time during my 50 dates in 50 days. That pretty much broke me as a serious drinker and looking back I now realise that I woke up in the middle of the night filled with existential angst a lot of the time. I don't think I really equated that with the drinking at the time. I just thought it was something that could happen and the only way to get down from it all was to watch Balamory and Big Cook, Little Cook until the panic subsided. Though those insane kids shows probably pushed me closer to the edge.
I a glad that I am no longer capable of drinking that much, but as with many of the lost pleasures and skills of youth I still miss being able to do it. My drunkenness and libido meant that I spent my thirties chained to an idiot who made all the wrong decisions for me and it's a massive relief to have got rid of him. But still I pine for the days that he was there. Not so I can do the same again, just so that the possibility would be there. For me to reject. It's crazy really, but none of us want to grow old. Even if life really becomes better in nearly every regard when we do. What's wrong with the human brain? I should be delighted that my body is rejecting alcohol and forcing me to stay alive by not drinking it and yet I want to be able to drink myself into oblivion with minimal physical effects, even though that nearly always ended in mortification and embarrassment.
It would still be nice to have a few drinks with my wife and not have to write off the next day though.
We miss what we can't have even though we don't actually want it.
Meanwhile as the world prepared for the near miss of a massive asteroid, God played a cool joke on us all by sending an unexpected meteor the other way and crashing down on the edge of a city in Russia. I think He was probably angry about gay marriage and this was His tangential way of letting us know. Or maybe He was angry about the opposition to gay marriage. Or maybe He just wanted to provide some work for glaziers in the Chelyabinsk region. He's so hard to read. With all the powers at His command you'd think He'd be able to be a lot clearer about what He's angry about, but like a slightly more creepy version of Kit Williams He wants to make us work out His impossible puzzle ourselves. When He could just spend his time magicking it so that everyone is happy and free from harm and has enough glazing work without random meteorites. Also He could just appear in the sky and say, "Listen, I am homophobic, that's just the way it is, so no gay marriage, all right?" and also let us know which God he is and which religions are wrong. Or in the unlikely event that He is as into love and non-judgement as He pretends He could say, "C'mon guys, all that matters is that two people are in love, what kind of horrible, twisted person could object to that? To two people they don't even know sharing their lives together and trying to make each other happy. I am amazed I even have to materialize to point that out. It should be common sense. Sometimes I think the people who believe in me don't have the slightest clue about what I am trying to say. Do I really have to clarify every single thing for you? Just try and be nice to each other you dickwads and maybe concentrate on chastising the people spreading hate and murder than the ones spreading love and bumming. I deliberately invented the bum hole so a cock would fit into it, didn't I? It's just another optional extra for you. You don't all have to do it, but you can if you like. Where's the harm in that?"
If He really had a sense of humour He could have exploded the meteor right over Moscow and doubtless some trigger-happy general would have had to decide if the country was under nuclear attack and the whole thing could have precipitated the destruction of the planet. You'd have to be quite a po-faced deity to not find that kind of funny. Plus you could have a right laugh because all the scientists and astronomers who've been going on about how you don't exist had been so sure that they could spot and track any potential dangers that it would be satisfying to see them completely miss this massive rock of doom. Though maybe you just get enough satisfaction from seeing them burning in Hell for all eternity. That will teach them for not believing in you and is in no way a massively disproportionate response to a crime that is at worst entrapment. God has after all made it look like He doesn't exist, so it seems a bit off to burn people forever for falling for his trick.
But that's the kind of joker He is. I can't wait to meet the guy. Or at least stare up at Him from the flames of Hell, presuming my eyeballs still work in that kind of environment. I presume they do. If the flames of Hell can actually burn you up then it's not going to be a very infinite punishment. But if they can't burn you up then can they do you any harm? I think Hell-fire might just be like being licked by kittens for all time, which will be annoying after a while, but not so bad. God loves us after all. At least I won't have to be in Heaven with the homophobes.
