Change in the House of Bourbon

It's been a minute since I last posted on the ole blog... so let's fucking do this thing.

Things have been a little different in the Bourbon household as of late. Lady Bourbon has taken on new work responsibilities that have drastically changed her schedule and the everyday flow in the house.

Which is fine. We still manage and everything flows...

But my day job revolves around scheduling and planning and while I can roll with things like the best of them - I am not taking to this as well as I'd hoped.

Ever seen the Bob's Burgers episode where his landlord, Mr. Fischoeder, wants to pretend Linda and the kids are HIS wife and kids on Thanksgiving? And it should go well, but Bob is the one stuck in the kitchen still working, getting drunk on Absinthe, and wanting things to be normal... but they just aren't?

Yeah... I'm Bob right now. Only without the Absinthe. And without alcohol... and without carbs... It's a lot of things changing all at the same time. And it's rough, man. Really rough.

While Lady Bourbon now gets to spend her afternoon with the kids, she is gone in the mornings. It's just me and the kids prior to school... and it's not a problem. I love the kids. But I miss the adult interaction before I have to go to work and deal with the morons there. So once I've dropped the kids off, I have nothing to do at home, so I've been coming into work early. 9-hour days with another 90 minutes in the car... then I come home to a late dinner at 7:00 in time to TRY to play with the kids when I'm in a decent enough mood to do so before they go to bed at 8 or 8:30.

She's also working at least one day every weekend now... which means it's just me and the kids again for most of the day...

I love my kids - please don't misunderstand - it's just that out of my entire week, I really only see or interact with my kids and people at work. I hate the people at work and love my kids. But I actually spend WAY more time with the people I hate and not the people I love. And the people I hate are so invasive to my life and mental well-being, they imprint so much anger on me and I am often unhappy when I get home. Debbie is really the least of my problems at work. She's an awful human being, but she's nothing compared to my super racist, homophobic GM, the owner who wants to micromanage everyone, and everyone else there with the mentality of a 12 year old... It's infuriating.

I am left with little or no time to decompress outside of my drive home... I have no alone time that isn't in the car to and from work. And my non-work adult interaction time is limited to a few meager hours at night before Lady Bourbon goes to bed before waking up at 5:30 the next morning for her new shift.

I guess I'm just really bitching and whining more than anything. Remember that post I made about wanting to just spend every day stuck in a loop? Well, I feel like I'm still stuck in that loop... but with less Lady Bourbon in it now and less opportunity for my own free time. And I sometimes feel like I am forgetting how to interact with adults.

So, instead of not having the time to have a social life... I now have less of one because Lady Bourbon is slightly less present in my day to day routine.

And it just sucks. Right now - it sucks to be me. And not in some emo bullshit way... I'm just so goddamn lonely. In a world full of people - I just feel fucking alone.

The Anxiety of Sleep

Sometimes dreams are awesome. Lady Bourbon is a hyper-vivid dreamer with all sorts of cool shit in her dreams... like Voltron. My dreams are not so cool.

It's been a long time since I've had "fun" dreams. My dreams over the last 10 years or so have all been, more or less, real life while I'm sleeping. Which, as you can imagine, sucks balls. And not in the fun "yeah baby, I like the way you do that" way. More of the "I accidentally fell on the vacuum hose and my balls are being sucked into oblivion and I think I'd rather be dead" kind of way.

Last night's dream though... Holy shit. That was a doozy.

I had a dream in which I was driving my car to the hospital. I called them on the phone to let them know I was coming and that I was having a stroke. In the mirror I could see my face slacken and go lifeless and I lost control of the car as I pulled into the hospital lot. Then I dreamed in 3rd person POV for a while and then back to being me as they tried to fix me. This involved them sticking some sort of needle-like probe into my ear and having fluid run through my brain and out the other ear.

It hurt.

The abduction Of The Human Known As Todd Marcum Part 1 - A serial by @BourbonSex

Chapter One:

Everyone Talks About Being Probed, But Nobody Does Anything About It.

(3,000 words +/- 100 words - mentions of nudity)

  Todd Marcum regretted his decision to socialize as soon as he walked into Mark’s apartment. Why in the name of all that is good and holy would anyone want to subject themselves to this? Somewhere between nineteen and two-hundred people were crammed into a small apartment. The thermostat was set to "broil" and shitty music was blaring out of the tiny, Walmart brand speakers making it an exercise in futility to talk to anyone. The only food available were several bowls of off-brand chips and pretzels... And those were somewhere in the Hellish labyrinth that is Mark’s tiny-ass kitchen, surrounded by throngs of drunk people. Todd had been here for an hour now and it was fast approaching “time to cut your losses” for him.

  To make things even better - it was a costume party. A costume party where only half of the people there were in costume. And only half of THEM were in legit costumes. The rest were all dressed as “Oh, I’m a serial killer” coming to the party in what they wore to work that day. And Todd’s least favorite part of the costumed people were the group of women in the “sexy” costumes. There were an assortment of things wondering around the place with boobs and skin to spare... he saw, or thought he saw, sexy Chewbacca, a sexy Ketchup bottle, and a sexy Swedish Chef… from the muppets. None of these things should ever be sexy in Todd’s opinion. Chewbacca maybe... but that stemmed from a really troubling brush with fanfiction in the early 90s.

  Todd, on the other hand, was in a full-on set of custom Mandalorian armor that he’d worked on for two years. It was perfect and he was very pleased with himself about it. Or, he had been for the first thirty minutes. Now, in his perfect armor, he sat alone on the couch, sweating his balls off for no reason that he could fathom. He looked at the gin and tonic in his hand, debated if a trip through the hall of “sexy halloween costumes” was worth the refill, and decided to sit exactly where he was, finish this fucking drink, and go home. At least home was quiet. Home was a normal and acceptable temperature. Home was… 

At the station

Whatever drugs were in Todd’s system weren’t making him twitchy - that would be the understatement of the year. He was positively vibrating with whatever the hell was coursing through his veins. Everything was bright and loud. Some people and things seemed to move in slow-motion while others, for no reason Todd could come up with, seemed to move in fast-forward. To put it bluntly - Todd was tripping his balls off. 

He wasn’t sure of the day. He damn sure wasn’t sure of what time it was. And there was a nagging sense in the back of his brain that told him he wasn’t in Ohio anymore. The fact the signs weren’t written in English helped to back this last theory up. Well, that and the fact that everyone around him was shorter than him and lacked that clearly midwestern American look. 

“Holy shit, I’ve been kidnapped.” He blurted. 

“What?” Came a barking laugh from over his shoulder. Todd jumped at the sound. The voice was familiar, yet strange all at the same time. He turned to see a woman with bright, white hair that had been cropped short against her head. Her eyes were neon green and she had a tattoo running up her neck that coiled around her right ear. 

“I… uh…” Sweat poured down his body in the afternoon heat. “Where the fuck am I?” He finally managed. 

And now... a serious(ish) post...

Alcohol... The sweet nectar of the gods...


I like drinking. It's an important aspect of my life. It's one of those things where I would do it all day, every day, if I wouldn't, you know, die in a month from dehydration and liver failure.

Not going to lie - I am a huge fan of bourbon, scotch, top-shelf tequila, rum, vodka, gin, bourbon again, and beer... But the problem is that alcohol is basically a 4th Macro in the grand "weight-loss" and "healthy" aspect of living and you can't really do "diet and exercise" if you're pissing it all away by drinking every night.

As far as calories go - per macro that is - you've got the following:

Protein: 4 calories per gram
Carbs: 4 calories per gram
Fat: 9 calories per gram
Alcohol: 7 calories per gram

So - you're looking at 64 calories per ounce roughly.

And you're thinking - well, fuck, that's not too bad. That's only 200 calories or so for a few drinks... And while true - here is the problem: Alcohol will interfere with the body's processing and burning of FAT...  Normally, the liver metabolizes fats, but you drink, alcohol takes preference. The liver breaks down alcohol for energy first, causing a build-up of fatty acids... Thus counteracting all that cool fat-loss stuff you've been working on and then fucking you up.

This makes me sad. Because there are few things better than coming home, having a drink, and chilling out on the couch with Lady Bourbon... and then, potentially, having sex.

But then I see things like this - Reddit User /u/Klamsykrawl gave up alcohol for a year... He lost 53 lbs and claims to feel better than he ever felt before.

And I'm all "Well, fuck, dude. That looks AMAZING! WHY CAN'T I DO THAT??!"

And the answer is: "Because you like drinking, dumbass." And then I'm all "Oh, right... duh."

So - I WANT to be all sexy for Lady Bourbon when we hit our 10th anniversary. I WANT to not die by the age of 45. I WANT to see my kids graduate high school and college... But I am a horrible person and I drink because I have PTSD and a fetish for alcohol. Okay, not a fetish, but a SERIOUS liking of the substance that make putting it down a "less than easy" thing to do for me. Lady Bourbon also likes drinking. And if she's going to watch tv and have a drink, there's not a chance in HELL I can sit there and NOT drink.

But... I am going to try. I am going to try to get back to my post-army days where Lady Bourbon would look at me and start thinking about doing horribly awesome things to my semi-well-sculpted body. It's still sculpted... but it seems that it's sculpted out of Play-Doh these days.

I'm going to get me one of those fancy calorie counter apps, stop drinking my weight in bourbon, eat more sushi, drink more water, have more sex, and do the thing! Or so I am telling myself.

Wish me luck. I suck at following through on long, life-changing ideologies. Last time I did this was when I ran a spartan race. I lost a ton of weight, got super sexy, ran the race... then rediscovered pizza. And, well, here we are. What? I fucking love pizza.

That's it. I'm off to eat vegetables and chicken! I'm going to spend my days asking "WHAT THE FUCK IS A MACRO AND WHY DO I CARE?!?!" I'm going to go from being 6'1"/240 lbs to being 6'1"/and hopefully around 215 lbs? I think that's a good goal. That would put me in the "oh jesus, I want to fuck that guy" category I think...

We shall see.

Check back in like... I don't know... 6 months?

Date Night... or "How I stopped worrying and learned to love pre-dinner sex"

That's right... I'm 40. I feel old. My body aches and makes noises on its own... I'm not 90... and I'm sure 90 year olds have and love sex too. This isn't a knock on age. I'm not an ageist. I have friends who are aged.

Wait, what?

Right...

I LOVE 2 things... Sex and food. Well, technically I love a lot of things... but I REALLY love sex and food. Not sex WITH food. But eating and getting my fuck on. The problem is - I'm not 20 anymore. Hell, I'm not even 30 anymore. I'm borderline old and not getting any younger. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to eat - both food and Lady Bourbon... But...

There's always a but. And that "but" is that sex is awesome... food is awesome... but sometimes too much food BEFORE sex is NOT awesome.

Let me just lay it out for you.

Her father's daughter - short story

It was the wind that bothered her most. It cut through the fabric of her clothing and clawed at her skin beneath. It made her feel the cold all the way to her bones. And she fucking hated being cold.

She wasn't sure why she was out here. Some misplaced sense of moral responsibility? Some life-debt to a man who kept betraying her trust again and again and again... She just couldn't fathom why she stood here, shoulder to shoulder with the three people she'd swore never to see again.

When the coroner moved the sheet and displayed the face, none of that mattered.

Paul's lifeless body looked up, cold, white, and lifeless from the edge of the field. He'd been stripped of every stitch of clothing. Bruises and scrapes marred his body from the neck down. She shook her head slowly from side to side as she looked at him. No, not him... his body. His empty shell of a body. Devoid of a soul now in death as his soul had been devoid of emotion in life. An empty shell that once housed an empty soul.

"Yeah." She finally said. "That's Paul Becker."
"You're sure."
"I'm fucking sure." She said. "Can I go now?"
"Sure." The cop said. "Just leave your info with officer Smith in case we need to reach you."
"Whatever, man."

Kelly turned and walked away. Debbie and Mark turned and walked with her towards their waiting cars. She did not speak as she walked. She thrust her hands deeper into her pockets and willed herself to be warm.

Anxiety - A Guest Post by Lady Bourbon

We're back with another amazing guest author post... 

Today's Guest post doesn't need an introduction... I've done that already here.

ANXIETY

A Guest Post by Lady Bourbon

It was a dark and stormy night...

Actually, no, it wasn't. It was beautiful, sunny, and unseasonably warm for October. It was only dark and stormy inside my head, but the whole world might as well have been covered in in darkness as far as I was concerned at the moment.

So, I'm standing there, in my kitchen, trying to find the will to walk out my door and go to the sarlaac pit I call work. I was staring out the window at the garage. I was alone. The kids were at school and Bourbon was at work. I thought, maaaaaaaybe I could just... quit.


Not my job... My life.


No more work. No more overbearing mom. No more fear that every tiny thing I do is being judged and picked apart. No more feeling like a failure. That sounded pretty damn nice. Then, my mind wandered... as my mind is wont to do. I thought about ways to achieve this state of restful bliss.

Dude looks like a lady...

So... let's do some honesty therapy, shall we?

One night in, probably 2005(?) I got to dress in drag for a party. Complete with makeup... and that shit was hot. I think it is safe to say that since that moment, I've held a small, but growing desire to wear that type of outfit again.

Women are lucky... if they're feeling down or sad - they can spruce up with makeup. A little eyeliner, some blush, a little lipstick... bam. All the tiredness is gone. Men - we have to look good with soap, poorly managed beards, and... that's about it.

This weekend Lady Bourbon and I tried something new... She went to the store and picked me out a nice top and some very nice satin panties to match the skirt she gave me. We went out to dinner in normal, gender approved clothing... with the exception of the purple, satin panties I wore under my jeans... They felt amazing.

Lady Bourbon

I call her "Lady Bourbon" because she is the other half of what makes me whole. I do not like to call her "My wife" because it sounds possessive. A mutual friend only refers to his spouse as "My wife" in conversation and that drives me fucking insane. She's not property, man... she's your partner.  Lady Bourbon is a force of nature and she chooses to be with me, and I with her. We are partners in life. Have been ALMOST since we met... She's been a model, muse, lover, wife, and, most important, a  friend... and I would never want it any other way...

In February of 2004 I returned from my final tour in Iraq... In June of 2004 I moved back to my apartment on campus and returned to school for the summer session in hopes of getting "reacclimatized" to civilian life before the rush of Freshmen in the fall... I thought it would be good for me to be there with LESS people.

I was right... and wrong.

Being there with less people was nice, but it also meant I spent a lot of time at the bar drinking to forget my final tour in Iraq... or spending a lot of time on my couch with a bottle of something doing the same thing for less and with greater quantities. And drank I did.

When I was at a low point during the following winter I started to keep an online journal. I tried to reach out into the void of the internet and see if anyone was there who felt the same way about life. That's when I stumbled upon the future Lady Bourbon.