When You Are With People

When you are with people the first drink of the day needs to be blessed with ceremony or detail, such as is supplied by the dash of horseradish and Worchestershire in your mixed drink, the swirl of celery, salt on the rim.

When you are with people you need to justify your movements and annotate every comment or be ready to if you want to continue to be with people.

When you are with people the people you are with are with people who are with people and so forth. We are like a house of fleshy mirrors.

When you are with people your first drink is dedicated to a very specific concept of a person or hypothetical outcome in an action and you may as well pour half of your cup out on the ground like Telemachus to a god before you delicately gently speakingly like a horsethief taking horseflesh from some no good ones nuzzle the rim with your lips.

When you are with people you cannot do certain things such as snicker out loud or show disinterest when they speak of the living.

When you are with people you are no longer a drinker of wine but a drinker of words.

When you are with people the people go on and on about people but today I am alone.

I crack this first beer and suck it back without ceremony or a single thought of people, looking grimly at the wall without moving my mouth to show I like what the wall is saying, to ask the wall to defend what it has said.

Today is a good day.