#147. or, Less than I was

 Recent developments have led me to believe that I may have been misleading you for some time now. That I may have been painting a picture in your mind, that I'm this cool, happening dude, with a heightened sense of fashion, who can roll into a party, drink to my hearts content and come out the next morning, none the worse for wear. Actually, I might have done this inadvertently, because I think part of me had convinced myself that's who I was.

  Ya, well.........not so much.

  First off, I don't dress all that fashionably. I'd like to. I think I dress well. I'm just not that guy in the crowd that captures your attention when he strolls in, looking like he sauntered off the pages of some fashion magazine. I see that guy every now and then. I'm not him.

  The truth is, I'm sitting here typing this with at least 2 days growth of beard, wearing pajama pants, a zip up hoodie, and flip flops. When I go out to feed cows in half an hour, I'm going to be wearing my bib-overalls. Chances are, if you drove into my yard unannounced, you'd  find me in bib-overalls. Probably even if you drove in completely announced. It's how I roll.

  But when we go out, my wife picks out really nice things for me to wear. I'm thankful for that.

  Last weekend we went to help my wife's sister celebrate her birthday. Her and her husband live about an hour away and because of that, we were invited to spend the night there. So I had a few drinks. To be a little more specific, I had 2 beer, switched to Scotch and had 2 of those. At least that's what I remembered having as I was laying in bed the next morning, as I took a mental inventory,  trying to figure out why I was feeling a little worse for wear.

  Now it wasn't a hangover in the sense of, "God, get me through this and I promise, I'll never, ever, never drink again, as long as I live!", sort of hangover. But I felt a bit uncomfortable. Maybe a little more than a bit. But 4 drinks? That's rather pathetic. I remember everything. I remember my wife coming into the room where my brother-in-law and I were having a friendly chat, to tell us we needed to quiet it down because our conversation was overpowering the ones going on in the other room. I remember looking at bathroom renovation pictures of work my brother-in-law had done. I remember making jokes and having a good time. I remember sitting around watching curling. The thing that I don't seem to remember all that well, and it's only come back to me in flashes over the 3 or 4 days since, is there may have been a 5th drink. One that was about half booze and about half mix. But I'm not entirely certain that happened.

  It's becoming more apparent to me, that at 45, and just barely 45, I'm going to have to be a lot more careful in regards to alcohol consumption. Which is a bit sad, considering how much I like the stuff. Or more accurately, I'm going to have to be a little more moderate. I know there's going to be occasions left in my life, like when my boys get married and those type of things, that I think I'm going to have to save up the few good hangovers I have left in me for. Because they seem to hurt quite a bit more than they used to. And they take far longer to recover from.

  And this is all a little sad because these days you're more likely to find me drinking a cup of tea before I go to bed than you are to find me drinking a beer. But if you stop for a visit, I'm still going to offer you the beer.

  However, on the off chance that I can blame this all on the time change, you're welcome to go on believing that I'm still remarkably awesome, and a wonderful addition to your party.

   .............who am I to argue with any of you?