ALCOHOL

My first few tastes of alcohol were my father's beers, most of the time Milwaukee's Best or Gennesee. They tasted awful but I had wanted to see why my father drank so much and had no idea about its effects. The little tastes I could gather did nothing to me.

Then I started to find out negative effects of alcohol firsthand through my father's increasing drinking and high school health class. My father would sit on the couch and watch TV, beer in hand perpetually, and once in a while would make a very loud odd comment. Closer to the end of my high school years, he would drink enough to make himself throw up and then pass out on the couch.

Needless to say, I did not have a good opinion of alcohol. I met Richard Gomez, a recovering alcoholic, and we had a night of drinking champagne shots and I did get a little silly that time. However, Richard felt horrible the next day and I didn't drink again until I had moved out to California. The lesbian couple I moved in with partied responsibly and I started getting a taste for Coronas.

After moving back to New York and into my father's apartment, I went to the college and chatted on the computers there once again and on a gay chat site I began talking with someone who knew a high school friend of mine. I got back in touch with her and we went on a trip to visit this guy in Watertown. The guy that I chatted with ignored me and we still went on a trip to Cornwall, Canada since I was of legal drinking age there. I had two big drinks called Purple Foxes which no one has ever heard of here in the states. It was loud in there, so I might have heard him wrong, but it was a purple something. I had fun that night and slept in the car on the way back.

The next big drinking binge I had was the night of my dad's birthday in 1996 when my dad, his girlfriend, and I drank a jug of wine and then went skinny dipping in a quarry outside of Homer. That was a fun night. I didn't drink much until I moved to Ithaca and then it was Coke and brandies for a while, which made me shudder but it got me to sleep quite effectively.

Then I turned 21 and my drinking got crazy for two days. I had started Paxil two weeks before and they had said that it would take at least 4 weeks to start working. I called the doctor's office to see if I could still drink and they said yes but don't overdo it. I ignored the last part apparently. The night of July 3, I had fun with 4 people: Paul Contento, Richard Recchia, a co-worker named Elaine and her boyfriend Ty. Richard and I started singing "Yellow Submarine" after three martinis and he also carried me on his back over to Dino's where I did a few shots. I came home very giggly and went to sleep.

The next night was yet another drinking binge, this time at the Common Ground. I hit on a lot of people that night and had my last drink taken away from me. Around that time I also had a very bad taste for alcohol, buying things like Sour Apple Schnapps and Gold Rush, a highly potent Cinnamon Schnapps.

After that I toned down a bit and got hooked on Amaretto sours and would drink sparingly on the weekends. Once I got very drunk at the old Haunt and ended up peeing on the Sports Bar on the corner of Albany and Green St. It was corner closest to the intersection in case I ever become famous and you more obsessive fans choose to go and lick it or something. That night marked the first time I ever threw up from drinking and my first hangover the next day, which actually lasted almost two days. I also developed a taste for beer from my friends Tom and Dan and chose to stick with that once I moved back to Ithaca for the third time and tried to do three Long Island Ice Teas in one night, making myself very sick in the process.

Since then Corona or Heinken is my drink of choice, and once in a while a slightly sweet wine. I'll do shots if people offer but will never try the maraschino cherries soaked in vodka ever, ever again. About four beers gets me high enough to start feeling like a Superman.

Some good alcohol songs:

"Say it Ain't So" - Weezer

"Tubthumping" - Chumbawumba

"I Want to Par-Tay!" - Crash Test Dummies

"Alabama Song" - the Doors

Float on to more higher places