The thing about alcohol

There's so little to write about yesteday, largely because I opted not to set my alarm and managed to sleep until mid day. It was a late one the night before. I came home after the quiz and instantly felt the need to get on with some more writing. I still feel there's a massive hill to climb, and can't afford to take my foot off the accelerator for more than half a day at a time. I'm presently about eleven songs out of seventeen down, but have to keep telling myself that there's still a somewhat enormous song to compose from scratch. I am still hoping to have finished all of my piano vocal scores by the end of the month but I can feel myself tiring, and am wondering if I'm tending to get to a certain point before thinking "it'll do for now." I hope not.

My neighbours in the basement of the house a few doors up the road were being incredibly noisy last night. They were having some kind of party, and alcohol was plainly been consumed in large quantities because they were making the aggressive and intrusive noises which only young, drunk, people are capable of making. The women were screeching like fish wives at the tops of their lungs. The men were goading, their subconsciouses yelling to anyone who might have been passing: "listen to me, world... I'm drunk, and I'm feeling a bit edgy and angry as a result, and I want someone to try and judge me, or tell me to shut up, so that I can get aggressive with them and take this anger out on someone." I hate alcohol. It's the cause of so many problems in the world. People have such unhealthy relationships with it. They can get so upset at the concept of drinking alone, and then really belligerent when others don't want to drink at the same pace. There's this weird belief that people can't have fun without alcohol, or somehow that the non drinker, in the company of drinkers, is either judging them, or not having as much fun as everyone else, so therefore wrecking the ambience of a night. And, of course, if you're a non-drinker, the idea that you might just not like the taste, or hate the feeling of a hangover, is miles down the list of the reasons why people assume you're not drinking. Normally, you garner one of those condescending looks which assumes you've a drinking problem. Or someone will tell you repeatedly that you don't know what you're missing. You'll be having a lovely chat with them, and then they'll hit the point of no return, their eyes will narrow, and they'll turn from being utterly delightful into some sort of raving lunatic, who delights in saying the most astoundingly rude things. There was a girl at our university who would drink herself to this point and then turn into a monster. "It's just how she gets when she's drunk" people would say, "she's not really like that." Thing is, if that's how she gets when she lets her guard down, that's EXACTLY what she's like. In vino veritas.

I totally understand people who drink for the taste, although I think the world of wine can get a bit up its own arse with talk of chocolatey hints and "can you taste the strawberry?" I personally think sommeliers could find more appropriate ways of describing the taste of wine, like "cloying", "bitter", "nasty", or "so filled with tannin that it strips the moisture from your mouth." I quite like it when my friends get excited about real ales, and find the names of these locally brewed beers incredibly appealing. I often wish I could appreciate the taste of beer but, for me, it's like someone's smeared Marmite on a piece of brown bread, added water and then shoved the residue liquid into a Sodastream.

So there we have it...

I told you I had nothing to write about.