hooray, cooking!

Forgive my literary hiatus, but I've been busy making dinner for thousands of people. It is sad, also, that these days it is a challenge to conjure up anything at all to write. Mostly I come up with, "Today I worked for the greater part of the day, came home and drank tea, then went to bed." But then again, I enjoy the seemingly mundane. I woudn't be doing it if it were monotonous.

Tonight I went down to the bar for a bit after work. As usual, the whole restaurant crew was there, singing and celebrating and unlikely to remember any of it the next day. I had a drink and chatted with some colleagues for awhile but didn't stick around long. It was, in the most literal sense, not my scene. Not that I don't get along with my co-workers or that I haven't had my share of drunken revelry (Ole!), but it's no secret that I'm not a big drinker, and I don't do marijuana. There are those who seem to live merely to be drunk, high, etc, or only seem happy when they are. It really saddens me that some people live to experience that, a state of mind that's simply different from what they usually feel like, as if the everyday isn't worth really living through. Not to mention I'm a smart motherfucker, and I'd like to stay that way. Whether it's a six-pack of Coors Light a or a bottle of vodka, it will destroy you. There are men who have taught me this.

Don't get me wrong. I love my wine, my beer, my spirits (though perhaps in more of an Epicurean sense), and perhaps in some cases it is true, as the Marquis de Sade said, "Conversation, like other bodily functions, goes better with lubrication." But I don't drink to escape my life. I drink because a good Chardonnay, a Straub or a nice bottle of rum are wonderful parts of my life. Despite the obvious physical pain, occasional anger, arguable social isolation that what I'm dedicated to brings me, I'm rather fond of it and if it ever becomes something I merely have to get through every day in order to feel better afterwards, I'll quit.