Alcohol Aspirations

7.30pm – You will just go for one quick drink then you will go home and read Roberto Bolano and get up early tomorrow morning and do yoga before work.

8pm – Second drink.

9pm – Someone says something problematic, someone else laughs, you look at the floor awkwardly and partly wish you’d said something but at the same time think you may be over-reacting.

9.15pm – You worry that you may have said something problematic because no one responded. You think you might just be over-reacting or maybe they’re over-reacting, even if they’re not reacting. Visibly that is. Either way drinking more seems like the best way to proceed.

10pm – Drink number four or five. You are very drunk now and talking about politics loudly and passionately. Sadly you are too drunk to construct coherent arguments and everything you say sounds like a Socialist Worker placard slogan.

11pm – You really hate the Tories and the military, you have been making this point repeatedly for the last hour and even though everyone agrees with you, or those that don’t are diplomatically keeping their mouths shut, you still proceed as though you’re arguing with someone.

12.05am – You need to go home now as you are very drunk and can’t stand upright. You feel very happy. Everyone is so nice. Well, you don’t feel very happy but you feel more able to ignore all the things that make you unhappy which is a victory of sorts. You are hungry.

12.30am - You cycled home. Well done. Only once, twice maybe, did you get beeped at for doing something irresponsible. It was probably their fault. You are invincible.

12.40am – Your culinary skills stretch to making toast. Make toast and watch a bad reality TV show on your laptop in bed whilst getting crumbs everywhere. Except don’t really watch it. Go on Facebook and spy on people, spy on your ex, spy on people whom you speculate your ex may now be shagging. Realise the futility and loneliness of it all. Leave a passive aggressive but heavily veiled melodramatic status update perhaps with a music video to accompany.

7.45am – Alarm goes off. Fuck that. Snooze.

7.55am – Beep Beep Beep. Snooze.

8.05am – Beep Beep Beep. Snooze.

8.15am – Beep Beep Beep. Snooze.

8.25am – Beep Beep Beep. Bollocks you actually have to get up now. Try to remind yourself where you were last night and why. There is a lot you don’t remember, an empty space in which you could have potentially said and done terrible things, realise you don’t care as much about this as you used to, another victory. Or does it just mean you have become the selfish arsehole you always feared you would become? Oh well. Just a little lie down on the pillow NO! The only thing that will make you awake and alert to the world is checking Facebook on your mobile phone. Stimulation. People! You see your thinly veiled passive aggressive status update and feel embarrassed, you consider deleting but don’t because to do so would highlight the secret hidden significance.

10am – The sun is shining! You managed to get into work. The hangover has not yet set in but the alcohol is still in your body and this makes you cheerful, upbeat and friendly to your colleagues.

11am – Ditto, still full of booze yet not drunk and not hungover. You are having an epiphany. What are you doing in this job in the fascist art world? You should be using your considerable positive qualities for good. You should be doing something constructive and community-based or you should work in mental health. You have always been too hard on yourself. You are truly on the road to recovery from every mental illness you’ve ever been diagnosed with. Your life can finally begin.

2pm – Hangover sets in. You are doomed. You’re going to die alone and crazy.

4pm – Why isn’t work over yet? Need to go home and sleep.

5pm – You’re never drinking again.

6.30pm – Text message from friend asking to meet for a drink.

7.30pm – You will just go for one quick drink and then you will go home and read Roberto Bolano and get up early tomorrow morning and do yoga before work.