More Homework

As with the previous post, I'm continuing the habit of posting homework assignments to my journal.  Having returned to college after fucking around for ten years a somewhat long hiatus, I am now buried in assignments, and I've had to put poetry and novels on hold for a short while.  All of my writing attention is being taken by homework.  There is little I can do with these assignments once written, so I've decided to post them here, along with the grade they received.  

This next one was a simple assignment to write a short paper outlining how to do something.  A process with a few supporting elements.  A few hundred words, tops.  While the majority of the class tended to write papers dealing with the preparation of brownies or the changing of a flat tire, I decided to go a different route.  I considered submitting this to my pals over at Modern Drunkard, but they're currently not taking on any new articles, so I've decided to post it here.

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How to Better Support Your Descent into Alcoholism

   

While there are many impediments to becoming an alcoholic, focusing on regimen, role models, “get-me-bys”, and a compelling atmosphere can help keep you on track and successfully guide you toward your goal of lifelong inebriation.  Becoming an alcoholic is not easy, and many have given up on their goal due to exhaustion, monetary trouble, and even at the urgings of loved ones, but an introductory knowledge of how to get around these impediments can provide some much-needed support on the path to drunkenness. 

The first major roadblock to becoming an alcoholic is a lax regimen.  Many people fail at this milestone by not keeping up their intake of alcohol.  It is important to have a daily regimen of drink, and not fall back on self-defeating excuses like “It’s okay if I don’t drink today, because I’ll make up for it by drinking twice as much tomorrow.”  The trick is to push the envelope further and further, making sure you are never far from an alcoholic beverage.  There will come a point when you simply do not want to drink any more alcohol, likely due to incessant vomiting, dizziness, and a general feeling of misery.  All goals require effort, however, and you must persist.  It helps to develop an altered sense of logic, like “When I throw up, it’s just my body getting rid of the bad alcohol to make room for more good alcohol,” or “I need to drink just to feel normal.”  These mindsets and a healthy regimen of drink are important in the forming of ‘drunk walls’, a key aspect of keeping yourself drinking when you want to give up. 

Many find that it helps to have a role model with regards alcoholism.  In your favor are a variety of celebrities and figures that have all shown the great things that can be accomplished while being an alcoholic.  History has a great many role models that you can look to in admiration.  President Ulysses S. Grant, infamous literary figure Ernest Hemingway, and the brilliant military strategist Alexander the Great, are but a few of the iconic figures you can look to for guidance.  Remember, you’re not alone!  You’re joining into the ranks of some of the most important individuals in history. 

Even with a variety of role models, however, the problem of monetary expense can still be a constant frustration, and at times can severely interfere with a drinking regimen.  A major impediment to fostering a strong alcohol addiction is monetary expense, and many budding drunks simply cannot afford the supply of alcohol necessary to compel addiction.  With this problem, however, there are a variety of “get-me-bys”, or, simple solutions that prove cost-effective in carrying an alcoholic during times of little income:  Cooking wine is often quite inexpensive, as are some brands of mouthwash, all of these providing enough alcohol to get you by until pay day.  Also, scraping off and swallowing the detergent foam in unspent cans of Sterno can provide a hearty drunkenness, and even give the added bonus of brain damage from caustic chemicals, which, in turn, can help you with your perspective and heighten your need for release through intoxication.

Perhaps most important in compelling your drinking habit is the creation of an alcoholic-friendly atmosphere.  Surround yourself with items that depress you, or remind you of more troubling times.  Keep these things visible and always within reach:  Termination slips, images of loved ones that have passed on, or divorce papers.  Remember, you’re not shooting for the top of the world, you’re diving for the bottom of a glass.  Keep this in mind as you stagger toward achieving your goal.  It helps to develop associations and friendships with others who share your goal of alcoholism.  They will come and go, and you’ll find them highly unpredictable, but their occasional support can be empowering when the hangovers are getting to you.  Atmosphere is everything, and once you’ve reached your goal of drinking daily, it’s important that you begin distancing yourself from friends and family.  They will try to help you stay sober, and they will certainly mean well, but help and well-meaning will not further your goal of alcoholism, and in fact, these benevolent forces will actually hinder your progress.  The atmosphere you create for yourself cannot contain people that interfere with your drinking.  Many potential drunks find that it is useful, during the transitional phase between heavy-drinker and alcoholic, to spend less time with people who do not drink, and more time in bars alone.  A very large milestone for the emergence of alcoholism is that turning point between drinking with others for fun, and drinking alone out of desperation.  Desperation is your best friend, and will become a crucial element in nurturing your inner drunkard and helping you achieve your goal of lifelong inebriety. 

Remember, sobriety is your enemy, and it’s everywhere, but if you can maintain a strong drinking regimen, use a variety of “get-me-bys”, have role models to admire, and live in an atmosphere you’ve carefully made conducive to your drinking, the goal of alcoholism is within your reach.

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A+

Because I'd Like to Post More Often

Due to my hectic regimen, and trying to shoehorn this blog into my schedule along with all the novels, poetry, publication, the full-time college routine, and being an overtime dad, I haven't been able to post much this last year or so.  To remedy this, I'm going to start posting random bits of things from school.  Why?  Because I spend all my damn mind there, and I tend to have fun with my assignments.  It's not as if I can ever publish my homework, but I have a ton of it and I need things to post, so I've decided to throw the occasional, finished assignment onto this blog from time to time.

So here goes:

The following is an assignment in which I was given several statements regarding a husband named 'Roger' being selfish, and I was to supply supporting evidence, as his wife, to qualify those statements in paragraph format.  You know... finish the paragraph.  That sort of thing.  We were asked to provide specific details that reinforce that 'Roger' is selfish.

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Specific Support – Roger’s Selfishness

(BOLD denotes provided starting material)

My husband Roger is a selfish person.  For one thing, he refuses to move out of the city, even though it is a bad place to raise the children.  We inherited some money when my parents died, and it might be enough for a down-payment on a small house in a nearby town.  But Roger says he would miss his buddies in the neighborhood.  He walks around with his shirt off quite often, flexing his pectoral muscles at me, and when I try to say anything about this behavior, he only flexes them faster and interrupts me, saying, “Oh, stop it.  They don’t need your words.”  His buddies are a strange sort, and they all seem to speak in an odd, indecipherable language, but last month, when I asked Roger what language his friends were speaking, he only laughed and said, “You don’t have to hog your way into everything.  Just accept that some things are mine.  Because guess who knows more than you?  That’s right, me.  And everyone.”

            Also, when we go on vacation, we always go where Roger wants to go.  When I proposed the idea of going to Epcot Center early last Summer, Roger forbade it.  This would have been a fun vacation and also allowed me to visit my mother at the retirement home Roger had forced her to live in, but when I asked, he merely frowned and told me “Florida’s where families go when they have no imagination of their own.  People rot in Florida.  And they should.”  My husband then chose to take the family on a tour of pubs, and brought one of his friends with him over our six-state tour of these particular places.  Night after night, Roger would leave the family, drink pints of cheap beer, and return to the RV barely able to walk.  Our family vacation was more of a vacation for Roger and his alcoholic friend, with myself and the children allowed to tag along and sit in the stolen RV while he drank himself into multiple arrests.  When I bailed him out of jail the first time, he didn’t even thank me, but instead muttered “These cops nag almost as much as you do.”  At one point, near the end of the vacation, he returned to the RV at three in the morning without his friend, and instead had with him another woman.  When I inquired just what it was he thought he was doing, he gave me three dollars and told me to go find a Denny’s.  I took the kids and as we left, he said he’d meet up with us later, and to order him a Moon Over My Hammy, once we'd been there an hour.  

“Oh, and waffles for the pair,” he added, indicating the other woman. 

            Another example of Roger’s selfishness is that he always spends any budget money that is left over.  Once our bills are paid and we’re out of the hole for the month, whatever is left should go toward family-oriented activity, maybe a nicer grade of meals for us, and any number of other things that most would consider important and useful wants.  Roger made money ice-cream by first withdrawing the excess money we had at the end of the month and then churning it with scalded milk in an ice-trough.  He bought his own private mini-fridge to store his ice cream and beer in, and when I complained that we couldn’t afford to make money ice-cream, he then barred me from having any and purchased an expensive lock to put on his refrigerator.  He wrote ‘No Ice Cream for Nags’ on the white, front wall of the appliance.  Whenever I see this message, my mood plummets into a dire, recurring guilt, somewhat matching in scope the acute  drop of our finances into suffocating, inescapable debt.

            Finally, Roger leaves all the work of caring for the children to me.  While I know that we do not have children in the traditional sense, the dolls are most certainly conscious and if their whims are not met, they will cause me horrid thoughts and sing that terrible song of theirs.  I resent Roger for it, but he does not seem to care.  He knows how important it is to keep the dolls pleased, and that when their eyes light up and cast red on the walls of the room, it only means trouble for me and that more pictures of me will spontaneously catch fire around the house, but Roger will do nothing to aid me in sating the dolls.  When the children give me nightmares, he only laughs and purchases more of the awful dolls for me to take care of.  They sit on a shelf labeled Roger’s Babies.  The few times I’ve asked him to do his share of doll-rearing, he simply waves his hand and tells me that children are for girls, even though the dolls have made it clear to both of us that they belong to Roger, and not myself.  They call me ‘The Interloper’, and Roger ‘Daddy’, and when they want more blood poured onto the sacrificial anvil they had us build under the house, Roger can never be bothered to go out and find it for them.  Honestly, how does he expect us all to ascend into the Realm of Black Torpor, a place the dolls have promised to take us, if he doesn’t do his share of the work?  Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one keeping our church alive at all.

            Also, he recently painted the image of his face on all the mirrors in the house so when I try to look at myself, I see only him.  Roger is so selfish.  Sometimes when I talk with him, I become so exasperated that I find myself wondering if he might fit in the oven or not.  I think he would if he were unconscious. 

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A+ 

I think I'll post more homework throughout the next few terms.  I'm somewhat interested in what I can get away with.

YouKidz

This is an image I put together and submitted to a Cracked Photoplasty contest. The constraint/theme was "If Everything was Designed by 5-Year Olds." I centered mine around what it might look like if a five-year old designed the site Youporn. What would it look like, if the focus was no longer on what adults think is naughty, but on things a child might consider naughty. You know, like eating too many cookies, or hearing dad say a bad word.  Playground cams. Silly stuff, really. I figured you'd end up with a much more innocent and friendly site, of course, catered to kid interests, rather than adult interests, but while still keeping the weird porn 'vibe' that sites like Youporn give off.

Submitted it.  Didn't win.  Didn't place.  The image wasn't even chosen to see the public.  Oh well.  I have nowhere else to put it, so I'm posting it here for anyone bored.  Clicking the image should bring up a larger size.

Because there's nothing wrong with mentioning porn and children in the same joke, right?

The results of the contest can be found here, if you're in the mood for more of this sort of thing:  http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_162_if-everything-was-designed-by-5-year-olds/