NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

[MyOwnWoman]

Good morning to the hangover-free!!

Carrying on with jane jane's suggestion of starting out with a question each day, here's one for you.
What is your first memory of getting drunk?

Mine: Senior skip day (way too long ago)
Shortly before graduation, I was 17, and never really drank before. It was a tradition at our school that all the seniors "skip" school one day before graduation, and most went canoeing. Most of the kids went to one river; I was with another group - the smart kids, those of us in all the advanced placement classes. I don't think many of us had much experience with drinking.
Well, all the girls got wasted, and all the boys had to paddle us as we languished in the canoes and sang and said things we'd never dream of saying.

Good day to you all!
(I'm not going to drink today.)

[betty boop]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

I was 15, it was a party at home with family, my parents were drinking and my cousin bought a bottle of Pernod and we were drinking it with blackcurrant all night, My mum still reminds that I managed to do an excorcist impression by being sick (bright red) on every wall in the bathroom!!!!!!

Even in my worst drinking spells I can never touch the stuff ........ yuck .....

[jane jane]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

MOW, good question! I didn't drink in high school, and was just a glass-or-two wine drinker in college and early marriage/motherhood, soooo....hmm, let's see...I believe it was when my girls were small (2-4-ish) and our summer morning ritual was to get up, have breakfast, Sesame Street for them while I straightened the house, then we'd pack up our pool things and head to the country club, where several other moms and their tots would spend a couple of hours gossiping (moms) and splashing (tots.) Well, it wasn't long before we realized that there was a nice man in a crisp white jacket who would bring us gin and tonics or Bloody Marys on a tray! What a NICE man! And they were FREE (well, a bill came at the end of the month, but you know...no need to fumble for dollar bills or swipe a card.) My goodness, they were cold and delicious. One day I had not eaten breakfast, and we stayed a bit too long in the broiling sun, and I (think) I had 3 g&ts. I do not remember driving home or feeding the girls lunch (maybe I ordered them a grilled cheese at the club, oh I pray I did!) I do vaguely remember putting them down for a nap, and taking a LONG one myself (let's not call it PASSING OUT...when we all woke up, I felt SO ashamed, and swore never to do gin again. Then I discovered white wine...

[jane jane]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

...meant to say, discovered white wine in a BOX. I already knew about the bottled variety, and was moderate with it, but somehow the Box is what got me started down that path. I suppose it was just too easy---like juice!

I'm certainly not drinking today. Thanks for the boost! Boopers, your turn tomorrow. Be thinking of your question! I'll try not to be too long-winded (a disease with me...)

[Finding My Self]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

At a party on the Isle of Wight when I was about 17! I didn't like drinking; I didn't like any sense of being 'out-of-control; I didn't like the feeling of even one glass; I didn't like anything except one pure vodka and ice coz it didn't taste of alcohol; I didn't have more than a glass of wine; I didn't like it...then I nearly passed out.... My drink had been spiked. I felt so sick - I can still see the garden I was taken out in to now!! I am soooh scared of being sick. I wasn't sick. I never have been from booze... YET!!! (Just a crossed-fingers there!) But I never wanted to feel like that again. So, I got to 48 and felt sick most of the time with too much drink to take away 'too much life' and feeling sick and life and....until I drip-fed drink for 18 hours a day for a month to stop feeling sick (aka anything at all!)....

Until I got here. 5.5 months ago. I don't feel sick anymore and life's ...just lovely life!

How just totally crazy it that one!!!???!!!

Love Duh-Brain!!! :h :H :h

[MyOwnWoman]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

Hey jane jane - I too am from the south. That is, geographically south but now a haven for millions of "snowbirds". Florida. Many people don't think of Florida as "the South" - but if you'd known my mom and her family... well, they were definitely Southern. Crackers, actually. For instance, the food - swamp cabbage, armadillo, soft-shelled turtles, cow lungs (forgot what my Aunt Ruby called them), alligator balls, frog legs... and of course a big pot of mustard or collard greens cooked to death with a big ole' ham hock , pickled pigs feet, smoked mullet... oh my. No wonder I became a vegetarian later in life.
I was surrounded by racist, pig-headed rednecks (yes, they really do have red necks).
Oh, and the aforementioned Aunt Ruby... I remember visiting her house once as a kid. She was huge and sat in a big worn chair, with a genuine spittoon on a stand next to her (into which she spit the juices of the snuff she kept tucked into her cheek). Her spittoon was a piece of her furniture!

I could go on, but I'm getting the creeps... I feel so far removed from that history (thank god).

I reckon you're from more genteel Southern society.

[betty boop]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

Jane Jane, red wineboxes were the start of my demise too, I could drink as many as I wanted without anyone seeing how much was left ........... Bad memories there ..........

[jane jane]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

MOW, good to know you're a "Neighbor" of sorts by birth (couple of states away, but I count Florida as definitely Southern (despite the snowbirds.) Have you ever read *Cross Creek* by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings? One of my very, very favorite books, and it will make you sad for the disappearing "authenticity" of Florida. If that's the word I want? By the way, MKR was a terrible, tragic alcoholic; I found a biography website after reading her book and read that she really poured down the ol' "home brew" (this was during Prohibition days.)

Your menu of downhome Florida delicacies was---intriguing! You should go to the "Recipes" category (which I just discovered yesterday) and post that list on the "Really Bad Southern Stuff" thread!

I'm a vegetarian, too! Have been for about 15 years. Why was it so easy to give up meat, chicken, pork and (most) fish, with nary a backward glance...never a "slip"...and so HARD to do the same with you-know what? I didn't give up meat because of nasty experiences (in fact, I come from a background of drop-dead-divine cooks, and I can remember the fat tender fried drumsticks and thighs as big as softballs, from chickens grown on our place, killed by our cook that very day (she wrung their necks) after a good life roaming free! The stringy puny little plastic-wrapped poultry-parts in the stores today (chock full of God-knows-what chemicals) are hardly worth putting in a skillet!

FMS, yes, we are duh-brains to have done this to ourselves. I have to laugh at our behavior, or I'd start crying and never stop! Yes, we did wrong, we were stupid, we went on our merry way doing self-destructive things and disappointing/frightening those who love us, but---hey, that was THEN, this is NOW! It is a lovely life. DAMN straight as we Southerners say!

[jane jane]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

Boop, oh, those boxes. I gave them up because they were too hard to hide (took up loads of space in the trash can) once I "graduated" to Big Bottles and slightly classier wines. Also, I found them too sweet, and I have never been a sugar fan. I wish they'd never been invented; they really allowed me to hide my increasing consumption too long, from myself and others. If I'd been able to see that level getting lower in the bottle, I might have stopped myself sooner. But then I'd never have met you all here, so...well, God works in mysterious ways, I guess.

[MyOwnWoman]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

JJ - What grossed me out about meat was eating those farm-fresh chickens, and the rabbits, cows and pigs - that roamed in our yard (well, the rabbits in cages and the pigs in a pen) -- with whom I always bonded. The other stuff I wouldn't touch - even when my mom tried to tell me a frog leg was a chicken leg (I remember thinking - "I may only be 8 years old, but I ain't stupid!!")

[jane jane]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

MOW, I see your point! The beef cattle and chicken yard/coops were far away from our house (it was a pretty big place) so I never bonded with the cows and poultry, or gave them names, or anything. We did not have pigs. And I never actually witnessed the wringing of a chicken's neck; Reeny (that's what I called Esterine, who practically raised my siblings and me) just described it once, pantomimng the quick "snap" (shudder!) I never had a frog leg, nor any rabbit, nor venison (Daddy thought hunting was a "damned waste of time and money.") Reen stewed squirrel, coon, and possum for Big Joe, but need I even say that she would have been "put in the road" by my mother if she'd served them to us!

Gosh, I know it sounds as though I grew up in the 19th century...in so many ways, I think I had an anachronistic childhood, one that simply could not happen today. When I went to college up "Nawth" I soon learned not to even tell my dorm-mates this stuff---their jaws would drop, and thought I was lying!

[MyOwnWoman]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

I hear ya.
My dad killed chickens by cutting off their heads with a hatchet. I'd never watch that, but sometimes would watch them flop all over the yard with their heads off!!

[jane jane]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

MOW! (I really should stop putting exclamation points after your name, but everything you say just VIBRATES in my head! He killed them with an AX? Probably just as well Reen didn't know about that method; she was a wonderful, talented cook but a tad clumsy (her hands were simply a knot of scars from knife cuts; she'd get all excited, start singing gospel with the kitchen radio, and slice herself up. There were always bloody cotton tea-towels wadded up on the counter near the sink.) If she'd known about the ax method we'd have found her dead one day for sure. She'd have whacked off her own foot. I do remember her telling me that the "dead" chickens would thrash a bit before expiring. Who needs ghost stories at bedtime with stuff like this happening every day? I kind of miss childhood...

[MyOwnWoman]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

LOL!
Ewww, here's a good story... So my dad would butcher a bunch of chickens on some chosen Saturday. He'd sit next to the head-chopping stump, always a cold Busch beer at his side. My brothers would catch chickens and hand them over. CHOP! Then the poor bird goes into a huge barrel of simmering water (that's been over a fire since dawn). The hot water make the feathers easier to pluck.

SO one chicken-chopping day, Dad had a pretty good beer buzz going on (like he ever didn't have one). So he'd chop and plunge, chop and plunge, one chicken after another. Then this one time he got out of synch and skipped the chop - and plunged a fully live chicken in the boiling water!!!

Oh, I've got more stories.... Damn, haven't thought of this shit for years. Maybe this is the black comedy I should be writing, eh?

[jane jane]

NovAbs (Nov 5 club)

YES! YES! YES! MOW, you have got a best-sellin' book in that ol' punkin haid of yourn, honey chile! I think that perhaps we BOTH grew up in another century! A boiled live chicken...oooooh. Bon appetit!

*Beer Buzz on Chickin-Choppin' Day*. There's your title...go from there. Memoir? Fiction? Your choice! But you have a writing assignment! Seriously, I'm not making light of your issues with depression and malaise you've expressed, but I think that if you could focus on the humor, you'd approach your "demons" a whole new way, one that might just provide the redemption and release that has eluded you.

Are you a Flannery O'Connor fan? If so, have you read her published letters, "The Habit of Being*? I can see you becoming the Flannery of the 21st century---I love your dark wit, and I'll bet millions of readers would, too.

All I ask is a signed copy of your first book...