Twenty Times I Drank Two Fingers of Makers in My Kitchen While Listening to My Favorite Song from 'Small Change,' or Similar

Trigger Warning: High Alcohol Content

1. After my son’s high school graduation party.
   

2. A bottle, a bottle-and-a-half, two bottles of Boone’s Farm wine in McNutt dormitory in 1992, feeling (and being) drunk for the first time ever, throwing up for the first time ever, and nearly hurling myself out of my third-floor window whilst doing so for the first time ever. 
   

3. Kegstands, upside-down-margaritas and crushed cans of beer before racing our bicycles down the long hill on 17th Street in the middle of the night, and later realizing how absolutely stupid all of that was, thanking my better angels and never riding a bike without a helmet again. 
   

4. Macro-domestics and cigarettes, before realizing that the 1998 Winter Olympics were on tape-delay and my parents would still be awake watching Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan vie for the Gold in women’s figure skating late that one night when I came home drunk and puked on their bathroom wall. 
   

5. Getting cut-off, shut-down and escorted back to the hotel early, after the wedding reception in Key West. And then getting cut-off, shut-down and escorted back home early, after the mid-afternoon reception in Fort Wayne for those who couldn’t travel to the Keys, or just wanted to attend both and get shickered at both. 
   

6. A bottle of Amstel Light and a shot of tequila at a bar before each Bruce Springsteen concert, because we’d read a profile of him in a magazine where the journalist said that’s what Bruce himself ordered at a bar. Which was a lot better advised than the time we mixed Tanqueray and wine because that’s what the character Johnny did in Bruce Springsteen’s song “Johnny 99” from the Nebraska record. 
   

7. Landing at Austin-Bergstrom and ordering and opening a bottle of Lone Star, a bottle that over the next five days seemed to be bottomless, never less than half-full, and never not ice-cold; once a year for ten years. 
   

8. A bevy of old-fashioneds because it was the era of the Mad Men TV show, and it was the night of the AdFed ‘Addy’ Honors, and the Addy theme that year was Mad Men, which seemed to both a) make sense and b) be alarmingly dangerous; and it all leading to a sad night in jail which was the most indirectly cruel thing I ever did to those who love(d) me. 
   

9. After about a year of not drinking, everything I could get my hands on and more to earn the worst hangover of my life after a dumb day and dumb night at Riot Fest in Chicago in 2013. “The shit hits the fans,” indeed.
   

10. A bundle of backstage beers before kissing Jon Ross (lead drums) on the lips during our set on the Three Rivers Festival main stage, and most other Trainhopper or Go Dog Go shows (backstage beers, not kissing Jon), because I treated band gigs like I treat my YMCA class, which is to say I wanted to participate in all the fun and if I couldn’t, then I didn’t really want to do it, and because I prioritized having fun over playing well, or was so misguided that I thought those were two separate things. 
    

11. Becoming quite fond of “good beer”—specifically IPAs from Lagunitas, Stone, Ballast Point, Sierra Nevada, Modern Times, and so on—with a running partner who opened my eyes to what good beer is, and so on. 
    

12. At the Rumba Café in Columbus, OH, nursing our disappointment about the canceled concert with enough local IPAs that I slept straight through our alarms and wake-up calls, missing the chance to demonstrate a semblance of dependability, as we missed our flight to Boston the next morning. 
    

13. Vodka lemonade by the pitchers in the kitchen, on the patio, about the porch, around the pool, always with the grandparents on a hot summer birthday in her hometown. 
    

14. A little bit of everything—no no, a lot of everything—before thankfully drifting off on the loveseat in the wrong hotel room. 
    

15. Enough Bell’s Two-Hearteds before, at, after, and after-after the fundraiser in Fort Wayne, IN, that it took a few years to not feel shame about it. Wait—I still do feel shame about it. But at least we’ve found forgiveness. 
    

16. Two large mugs of beer at The Creekside Lodge in Crawfordsville, IN before arguing with my daughter on a dark, sad, endless night.
    

17. Sneaking an Elijah Craig before a kiss, and getting called on it—fairly and appropriately. 
    

18. Going halfway around the world to do a thing, and being so happy to have made it halfway around the world that I celebrated with a couple drinks before the thing, and then actually dozed off during the thing—because of the travel, yeah, but mostly because of the drinks celebrating the travel. 
    

19. Splitting one of those pre-made margaritas that come in a frozen pouch with my mom in her kitchen and watching her coyly conceal it from my brother’s family. 
    
    And a million more memories of passing joy and knowing smiles. 
    

20. Like alternating between Mike’s Lite and Miller Lite with steaks on the grill, while my kids laughed and played on a perfect July night.
    
    Listen: it wasn’t all bad. 
    
    

---

With Acknowledgement to FSF.