productive things accomplished this weekend:

• Checked out new bar/gastropub The Village Idiot on Melrose and Martel. I like. Except that it's a little too bright/ loud for me to be sipping on the Arnold Palmer I was denied earlier in the week. We leave before last call.


• Picked up new desk from furniture store downtown w/ help of generous truck-owning comrade. It looks so good in my room, all my existing furniture feels embarrassed by comparison.


• Attended baby shower. With gift. Très responsible. Fortuitously, I missed this part of the party:Yep, it's beer in those baby bottles. Does anyone else find it the least bit disturbing that only men are competing in this contest? Totally sexist. Things would be soo different if I were not teetotaling this month... sigh...

• Stayed in to read on Saturday night. Who says abstaining from alcohol affects your social life!


• Got a facial! Thank you, ex-lover-I-no-longer-talk-to, for the gift certificate to Burke Williams which I would like you to know I have been enjoying immensely.


• Attended a small Academy Award gathering complete with cucumber sandwiches and hyperactive dog aptly named Oscar.


• aaaand still sober.

Day 7.

The Other Side

Day 2 of the Sobriety Manifesto. So far, so good.

Last night I went to Kenne's birthday party at the new Busby's on Wilshire just west of La Brea.

btw, I'm purportedly stone cold sober in the pic above. I know. Frightening, isn't it.

Anyway, back to Busby's. In my mind, no argument is strong enough to convince me that Busby's was a franchise that deserved to be cloned from its fratty incarnation in Santa Monica. But the bar was admittedly, fine, not overly crowded, and (here's the important part): they had a foosball table!

More establishments should have foosball tables. You don't see them very often in LA. I know of one at Barney's Beanery, which I generally try to avoid because I feel it represents evil. The problem is, some people mistake Barney's Beanery for a "cool" dive bar. People: it's not. I like dive bars. Barney's Beanery is a Hollywoodesque faux-dive that falls under the same classification as such offensive establishments as Miyagis and Saddle Ranch. You should already be familiar with the client base; girls who carry dogs in purses do not go to dive bars. It is my theory that between the three bars in this cheesy trifecta exists the exact location where the Von Dutch trucker hat rose to power back in 2002. (Who remembers 2002! I do!)

Anyway, so I am in Busby's, completely sober, and not even convinced that alcohol would improve my opinon of the place. I try to keep my spirits up by ordering an Arnold Palmer (a "fun" sober bevvie! caffeine and sugar!). They can not accomodate me. I get a sparkling water. Yay.

And then, we spot it: the foosball table! That will be my salvation!

I'm really good at foosball. No, really. I am. Challenge me. I will beat you. I beat boys. Overconfident ones, at that. I beat rugby players in Scotland. I cannot throw darts, I cannot play pool, but I can kick your ass at foosball. Let me put it this way, I am more confident about my foosball skills than my bowling skills, and by now if you have been reading The Heathernet AT ALL, you should know I take my bowling very seriously.

So foosball! I love it. It saved me. I got thoroughly hydrated, played a few rounds, and destroyed the morale of my competitors. All without the benefit of alcohol!

So what's the moral of the story? Well, Kenne didn't make it into work this morning. And good for him, it was his damn birthday, after all. But me? I went home, read a script, and woke up at my normal time, 20 minutes after the alarm goes off. So... success! 1 night down, just 39 to go...

brace yourself: The Sobriety Manifesto!

Supportive Heathernet readers, a day you thought might never come. It is a new era, and continuing the newest phase of my life (namely, total all-encompassing maturity) I have made an important decision:


I am giving up alcohol for Lent!

Yes, everything. No beer. No wine. No vodka. (ohh, delicious vodka!) Not even soju, tho I agree, it hardly counts... Now, you may wonder, what brought on this extreme exercise in piety? Well, as much as I love Jesus, this isn't really about him. I actually don't think JC minds terribly if I have a drink; after all, you may remember him from such fame as Turning-Water-Into-Wine!, and referring to that infamous goblet of wine as "the cup of my blood". By contrast, when my blood has turned to wine, it's more in reference to my BAC rendering me incapable of operating an automobile than any sign of divinity...

I am taking a break from the sauce for reasons beyond the Catholic mandate of sacrifice for the 40 days of Lent. To me, Lent is actually providing a handy little frame of time for something I would like to try anyway: getting by without alcohol. As you may have inferred from numerous other posts on The Heathernet, I have had an intimate relationship with the drink through the years. And over that period of time, we've certainly had our ups and downs. When it's good, it's great, but when it's bad, it's very, VERY bad. Like the time I told that officer in Santa Barbara that I didn't give a Fuck if he called my parents to tell them how I was spending my college education... Or the time I very publicly yelled at a former flame and accused him of being completely devoid of feelings... Or that time in San Diego/ Las Vegas/ Yourtown, USA... see, somehow I'm not convinced I would do these things if I were sober.

I use alcohol all the time, for my social life, my love life, professionally (no, not at work - yet - but certainly networking, etc.), to relax, to improve my dancing... I just want to know I can get by without it.

Drastic? I don't think so. I'm looking forward to my experiment as a teetotaler. I hope it will bring an interesting change in perspective. I hope I can trade my hangovers for increased productivity. I hope I can save money, lose the beer gut, sleep better, and maybe, just maybe, gain some focus. But not, of course, without sacrifice...

This delightful period of time begins on Wed, Feb 21st. So if you are on the lookout for a designated driver, feel free to give me a call after that point! But not before. After all, its a 3-day weekend, and I'll probably be at the bar mentally preparing for the journey ahead. ;)