Waiting for Merlot

I'm quitting drinking. For 21 days, at least. Yes, not yet a girl, not ever to be a wino will not be consuming the alcoholic beverages for the next three weeks. I have made a pact with the beau, as part of our seemingly never-ending and ever unsuccessful attempts to better ourselves Oprah style, to stop drinking. This ban includes the consumption of boxed, bottled, cooking and Communion wines, beer, gooey chocolates with liqueur centers, the notorious Zima, frat boys, as well as an assortment of colorful cough syrups and mouthwashes. In return, the beau is giving up bread and potatoes, which he says is rumored to be life threatening to an Irishman like himself.

But damn it, I love to drink! I savor the wonderful feeling of being tipsy in a black dress, my hair actually tinted the correct color for once and my heels the only comfortable pair I own. I love the feeling of a mild beer buzz while watching football in the fall; the wings taste better and losing a game is just that little bit easier. Wine livens conversations and encourages laughter. Meals are taken to a new level; even a house red livens pasta and bread and makes your cannoli that much sweeter. And frankly, I love to sit with a glass (or a few) of white wine at my computer, writing about my day and laughing at all of yours.

If only drinking didn't cause so many problems. It is truly a shame that the centers of my brain responsible for intoxication and hunger never fully developed independent of one another; repeated clinical trials at Kris Laboratories in Washington, DC have shown that within seconds of consuming any one of the aforementioned alcoholic nectars, I must devour all things within a five-foot radius. (The cats have even developed a Pavlovian running response to me simply reaching for the wine glass.) I simply cannot be trusted to make good nutritional decisions while I have been drinking. And frankly, the chins and I have decided that we aren't going to take it anymore.

Not to mention how awful I sometimes feel. I have been blessed with being one of those highly-irritating people who loves the morning and seizing the day and all of that crap. But at the ripe old age of 31, it is harder and harder to wake up feeling kissed by the doves and the dew when eight hours earlier you've downed the better part of a 750 ml bottle of corner store wine. I've reached a point where my weekend consumption of Advil alone warrants a considerable stock purchase in the pain killer market. Not to mention that drinking makes me accost unsuspecting old people leaving 7-11 for the reward a single cigarette, leaving my lungs and my head in a partnership of pain.

And then there's the issue of dialing. I don't just drunk dial, I first glass dial, I tipsy dial, and I pass out dial. I call parents, friends, and friends' parents. I have purposely not programmed my boss' number into my cell and am on the very verge of removing all blood relatives from the directory hopper. While drinking, I have what are reportedly full and lively conversations about weddings and promotions and funerals and bake sales and leave them without any recollection. At the time, I am (once again, reportedly) perfectly coherent. But even a glass or two of alcohol, coupled with my "strange-it's-so-bad-as-there-isn't-evidence-of-a-head-trauma" memory, and I lose the ability to recapture conversations and bold statements. You know, ones like, "Baby, I've reconsidered. I really do think I want to have your babies right now."

So yes, I'm quitting drinking. For now. But stand by, world. At the end of September 2005, I will once again resume my spot as both the most fun and forgetful woman on the planet.