99 bottles of beer on the wall...

When I got dry as a desert, I got mean. I was as lonely and empty as a canteen. With no anesthetic, you're bound to be sore. But tonight I am drinkin' all peaceful and warm.
- Bright Eyes “Well Whiskey”

So, weekend two of my personal “no booze” challenge has come and gone. Obviously, the weekends are the toughest. Especially when you have days like Saturday – the sun was shining, it was around 75 degrees...I mean…day-drinking was invented for days like this past Saturday! But! I stayed strong. This was not easy.

In fact, I went to a work happy hour Friday night, and drank nothing but club soda. It’s true. We were at a bar called Porch Swing (imagine picnic tables, wood floors, neon signs). I walked up to the bar (which was crowded) and yelled my order over the heads of some people. “Can I get a club soda?” The bartender kinda rolled his eyes and poured my drink, and then proceeded to ridicule me, much to the delight of the crusty old barflies sitting at the bar. At first I got angry (“Oh, nice. Okay, fine. Make it a triple whiskey and I’ll just go ahead and wrap my car around a tree!”). Then I wrote it off as “he’s just having a little fun at my expense.” Asshole.

I had a good time Friday night, but I did get a little bored toward the end. As the night wore on, everyone was talking louder and louder and revealing things about themselves that they probably shouldn’t have. Usually, that would've been me. So it was strange to see it through sober eyes. Like having an out-of-body experience or something. But it was kinda boring being the only sober guy around a bunch of drunks.

Saturday, I woke up early (8:30ish) and was pretty productive. I made breakfast, I worked out, I went to the grocery store, I walked over to a bookstore to buy a Sydney guidebook(!), I bought some refrigerator magnets…yeah. Thrilling.

I didn’t have any plans Saturday night. In fact, it’s possible I would’ve stayed in that night even without this self-imposed sobriety challenge. I read some (finally finished “Cider House Rules!” Great book, by the way), I flipped through the channels. And, unfortunately, I landed on Comedy Central, which was showing (you guessed it), “Beerfest.” The plot (from IMDB):

After the death of their grandfather Johann von Wolfhause, the brothers Jan and Todd Wolfhouse travel to Munich to fulfill a family tradition, spreading the ashes of Johann during the Oktoberfest. Their contact brings them to a secret beer competition, the Beerfest", where they are offended by Baron Wolfgang von Wolfhausen and the German branch of their family that accuse their grand grandmother of being a prostitute and their grandfather of stealing an old receipt of the best beer in Germany. Jan and Todd returns to USA humiliated and decide to organize a beer team to dispute the next Beerfest. They join Landfill, Barry and Fink and train long the year to participate in the competition. When they find the lost receipt hidden in a dummy, they feel that their German relatives told the truth. But the team is ready for the tough dispute.

First off, “receipt” should actually be “recipe.” Not that this movie really had a plot anyway (in fact, having a plot synopsis for this movie is like having one for a porno. It should either say “beer!” or “fuckin’!”) But…well, it makes even less sense with our heroes having a secret “receipt” as leverage against the German team. Anyway, the point is, they drank a lot during this movie. A lot. I was practically frothing at the mouth. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But…well, you know how after you watch “Half Baked,” you kinda want to go home and get super stoned? Same thing here. It made me want a beer. Badly. On top of that, I’ve got 20 beers in my fridge right now. I bought them a few weeks ago and never got around to drinking them. They were practically singing to me from the kitchen.

But anyway, I feel good. I haven’t had a hangover since January 25th. I think I’m losing a little weight. And I'm clear-headed enough to write a blog entry on a Monday…so far, so good. This next weekend is Valentine’s Day. It falls on a Saturday. And I don’t have a Valentine. Umm…it’s possible I might be denying myself one of the most enjoyable drinking nights of the year. But we soldier on! The end date for my little challenge (tentatively) is March 15th. Why March 15th? Well, I may be going out to California for a few days with Richard for a corporate rah-rah weekend/retreat/vacation. I’m very excited about this. And that first drink will be heavenly.