Moustaches are neither classy, cool, or sophisticated. I don’t care if you’re Tom Selleck, a US Highway Patrolman, or a 19th Century Country Gentlemen. There has never been an excuse.
Until now. Because Prostates Rock! So in addition to not drinking this month I’m sporting an embryonic fuzzclump, currently clinging to my top lip like a doubtful lemming. It’s a cause I agree with- the only time most men discuss men’s issues such as Prostates and Depression are in between hits of Amyl in gay sex clubs, and from the furthest recesses of the damp pit of the subsequent chemical comedown... respectively. As I hardly expect to be getting any action this month anyway, I may as well get sponsored to do my bit for one of my favourite glands.
In other news, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover that Sobriety= Enhanced Productivity. After a fifteen hour stretch at the office yesterday (during which time I accomplished more than in the preceding fortnight) I was still able to drag myself out of bed at 830 this morning without feeling the need to defenestrate my cat. This is encouraging.
I did find myself trying to think back to the days before I become the booze fuelled man-about-town I am today- was there ever a time when Alcohol did not form the cornerstone of my social life?
I got back as far as 18- it was the Year 2000, Y2k was the biggest let down since Tony Blair and airport security didn’t involve full body scanners, anal probes, and the National Guard feeling up all that junk locked away in everyone’s trunk. I was so optimistic about the world, my adult life, the new millennium (Zeit and Geist).
Until I discovered subsidised drinks at the U.C.L. Student Bar, that is. Looking back, there appears to be a direct correlation between cheap beer, proximity to Soho and my overall academic performance, but that’s beside the point. Ultimately it distracted me from the reality that I was out of my depth, lost in a public school playground where the ‘always present, never voting’ mummified head of Jeremy Bentham was routinely busted out (pardon the pun) at any semi important occasion. I don’t even think I drank that much anyway- back in those days, cheap Ecstasy was the poison of choice for the discerning, cash strapped London Student. Due to the strength of the pound at the time I certainly couldn’t afford the choice Colombian Export Products favoured by my fellow Trust Fund Brats.
Choice in poison aside, the result was the same- I still woke up one morning in Johannesburg, South Africa, and not entirely sure how I got there (I know it was via a darkroom bar in London’s East End but that's about it).
I’ve now come to my first major milestone- Friday. When thinking about it in the cold light of day, here’s what I’ll be missing tonight. Not much. Gay Sydney is in fact the one part of this city I really could live without, and here’s why. THE PEOPLE.
10% of those who you meet in Oxford Street were actually born here and are pleasant, polite, well mannered, intelligent, and slightly smug (which is just how I like them). The other 90% have flocked here from god awful regional cesspits such as Wagga Wagga, Dubbo, and Albury, where they were guided through adolescence by fathers who did nothing other than sit on the front porch, drink beer, swat flies, and complain about immigration. Is it any wonder these country kids go on to spend their 20s and 30s imitating 2009’s Prêt à Porter castoffs while administering random head jobs in Oxford Street’s many toilet cubicles in the hope boys will like them? ‘It Gets Better’ does not mean once you leave school you can start bullying other people and generally turn into a cruel (and tasteless) douche. Even if you are the Senior Shop Assistant and Deputy Display Manager at Zara.
I generally don’t do well with regional types anyway- I’ve always had a rule that I’d never live in a city with fewer than 5 million people (Sydney just scrapes it when I count Wollongong and Newcastle). Last time I was in Vancouver I was agoraphobic. Whereas the incessant teeming coziness of Hong Kong relaxes me in ways a beach holiday never could.
So my plan for the first Sober Friday of NOvember? Finishing my work day by giving a two hour training seminar, followed by an hour with the punching bag and 7K run home, all capped off with a nice cup of tea and the World Movies Channel.
It doesn’t get any better than this.
*Runs crying to the bathroom*
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