Alcohol.

I'm not a real big drinker.

One of the things about being a kid, is that you get a choice in whether you participate in the real world. When you grow up, that's it, you're there, you have to have an opinion, you have to make a choice, and if you don't you're on a downward spiral to general chaos and existential angst.

My first taste of alcohol was white wine at a batshit Christian woman's house (hey, Joe, if you want a gay moment - did your mother ever dress you as a little girl - white frilly dresses, patent leather shoes, long curly blonde hair - until the socially obvious because apparent? She did exactly that to her two year old son. I bet he grew up just a little faggy) . Neither of my parents drank on an even remotely regular basis: the first time I ever saw my father drink was when I was ten years old, some weak-assed beer, after years of unemployment and being off the road because he had no car. My mother, she was an occasional. But neither of them really brought alcohol into the house. For some reason I haven't paid attention to television/billboard/magazine advertising like I should have, because that never weedled it's way into my head in order to create the equation that alcohol = fun!

For sure, I did the social experimentation of drinking until my bladder/gut/brain was on the point of mass explosion, but that was as an acknowledged social experiment. I hung around a bunch of kids from the years below/above me at school, drank to excess, got bored, went home to pee and do something else. It lasted...a weekend? Maybe four?

And now I'm in the adult world, and I see that pretty much any kind of social life involves the damn thing. Getting drunk! Wooh! Uh...yeh. Alcohol doesn't do much for me. It makes me pee, it makes my gut clench and churn, it gives me a headache. I'm not really complaining, moreso failing to understand the overwhelming drink culture in the country that I live in. Not even the binge drinking - the social conventions which lead people to use alcohol as a tool to meet people and establish relationships. I'm not anti-drug either, there's nothing like a caffiene kick when I want to get things done, and...well...let's not go down that path on a public, google-accessible blog. But you know what I'm talking about. Let's just say I support the legalisation of all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. But...when it comes to alcohol, I wonder...is there a space in reality for me, or do I have to down a shot to find one?