I am dirty and tawdry and foolish and flawed. Or maybe that’s just the toxins from excess tequila talking. Las night I broke a few of mypersonal commandments.

I figuratively let my hair down with a couple of co-workers, breaking commandment 1. Since coming here my plan on co-worker camraderie was to remain shallow, aloof, cordial and pleasant, but no more, not a bit more. The more people knew me at the last job, my human foibles and warts and whatnot were completely used against me. Teflon has to stay on the surface.

Worse, there was commandment #2, the one in which I acknowledge the evils of the devil rum and keep my drinking to almost non-existent levels. For a variety of reasons, such as my enzyme-deficient partner who can’t drink, the hellishly longer recovery time after drinking (and my desire to not waste any remaining days on the planet rolling on the couch moaning in pain, if I can avoid it) and weight issues, I just don’t drink like I once did.

Additionally. a long, long, long, long, long, long, dark, despairing night of time ago, I realized too late to damp the effects of a shot of booze that I was constitutionally better off with the “softer” spirits, like beer and wine. The volume ratio of a 12-ounce beer to a 1-ounce shot was just the kind of buffer that kept me from shitting myself in the gutter. Worst in the self-shitting, gutter-sit scenario was tequila, cactus fermented poison.

Seriously, some of the stupidest, horrible, bad ideas of “fun” were for me tequila laced.

So, last night I learned while on the West Coast never, ever, ever start drinking margaritas with a woman who hangs out at the restaurant and knows the owner. The kindness and generosity of the owner with margarita deliver almost killed me.

But, I also learned that I am living with a prince. He came and got me, after I slurred a cry for help into my cell phone. I never had rescue fantasies, but that gesture has me re-thinking.

Not only that, but as I was swilling booze and undoubtedly making an ass of myself (my levee of my light-weightedness was more than breached), he had a nice dinner/movie night with the guys an managed to have some time to tidy up the place.

Unfortunately for him, he’s living with some awful Cat/Stella/Blanche crazed shrew, boozehounding and pathetic.

Man, oh, fucking man. Right now is the first time in weeks, I think, where I’m almost relaxed and unvexed by a pile of shit to do.

Actually, I should be mildly vexed at the pile of bills I have to pay, which I should be doing instead of updating this crap. But, I pay on the Internet thang, and right now, I’m procrastinating. (I love that word. In my head, I say it with the same kind of emphasis as the old joke about a guy wearing a tux to his vasectomy operation. “If I’m gonna be impotent, I want to look impotent!”)

Fully related to procrastination, January is almost upon us. January is the month where my gravy train pretty much pulls into the station and says “Get the fuck off deadbeat, and find yourself a job.” It was fun while it lasted, and at least with most of the home improvements done, moving seems more possible.

Last year, I spent New Year’s in the Bay Area on a last minute whim, buying a ticket days before the holiday. If you are superstitious and believe what you are doing New Year’s Eve/Day is indicative about how the year will go, I should have moved in 2004. Although, maybe last year was just the toe test for the relationship, which seems to thrive. (I’m such a dick, that I write “…seems to thrive.” How goddamn hopeful and romantic is that?)

Speaking of both superstition and thriving, I historically have killed all living things in my apartment. By that I mean houseplants, despite the fantasy being a particular ex-boyfriend. However, when I met M., he helped me spiff up the front room into a nice bedroom, and I bought a spider plant and bamboo as finishing touches. Both plants still live over a year and a half later.

I’m a fucking nurturer. I hope if I come home from my trip I don’t find them dead and then read into their mortality symbolism and despair about the whole relationship thing. Even for me, it might be a tad shallow to be weeping inconsolably over dead plants.

Not to make an overly light juxtaposition, but in the world of real tragedy, I’m trying to figure out what/how/who to donate to for the tsunami relief efforts. Happily, M. called home on Christmas and everyone in his family is fine with some flooding around their neighborhood in Panang but nothing big.