"Cheers"

You know it was only a few months ago I found myself sitting hunched over one of those big, mahogany-looking group tables on the bottom floor at Patty Boland's in the Ottawa Byward Market, staring at the ice cubes jostling silently with each other the bottom of another empty gin & tonic and feeling perhaps lonelier and more miserable than any one person could condense inside a frail human body all at once. A week or so later I would find myself back in Afghanistan, which, much like the life and times I'd left behind, had already become a much different place anyway. That night, like virtually every night of my chaotic vacation-time, all in different cities and provinces, I spent thinking of a beautiful girl in a blue dress who would wear her house-key around her neck on a bath-chain, because otherwise she would 'probably' lose it. I thought about other things, like why I wasn't being shot at and wondering if I ever had been, but mostly I thought about dark eyes and a smile that made me feel like I was six-years-fucking-old-happy and playing in cardboard-box castles. And more importantly I brooded on how amazing I was at fucking up, the one thing I seemed to get so right, along with the boozing, debauchery, womanizing, death-defying and the occasional game of Mario Party. I have no fucking idea why I'm writing this. Mostly, I think, because I am currently sitting alone - which is an important detail - in a shitty hotel room in Montreal, watching drifts of snow float lazily around the orange glowing of street-lamps, I have to wake up three hours from now, and I'm still thinking about that girl and hating myself for weeping and wanting everything back when I think a more sober part of knows it never will be.

I guess I'm starting this little 'journal of a gentleman bastard' on a bit of a down note, but take that with a grain of salt - I'm in a down fucking mood, I'm listening to "Swelling", a song by Sarah Jaffe, and the riffs and vocals are cutting me like razors, and I want to get more drunk and fuck something but North America has this thing about serving alcohol passed two-am unlike it's more civilized counterparts in Europe. I'm reveling in being a lush. The laws I broke vindictively in the impossible hours of the morning on the island of Cyprus would really just be scraping the service. And you'll hear about that, and you'll hear about a ton of shit, I expect.

I'm a writer, I guess. I say 'I guess' because I have this thing where I've never even attempted to publish anything or even finish anything in order to get it published. I may just be a soldier, but I don't even do that full-time. I'm a man of enormous appetites and inflated virtues and amorphous commitments. I love to learn and procrastinate, fight and converse, write and destroy, drink and fuck and all the while wishing I was married (which was, I'll bite, a very new wish to my ears) and had a kid on the way. I never really thought about writing a blog, either. Not until I read 'Confessions of a College Call Girl', which is a visceral and ironic window into exactly what it advertises. I dated a call girl, and related deeply. Fuck me, right? I used to love reading about the shenanigans of 'Tucker Max' until I realized that nothing he did was really extravagant at all and quite a few people could compete with that debauch story-telling, myself among them (and I suspect, that really is why everyone loves it). This whole thing is probably going to end up sounding pretentious, I'm only 22 for crying out loud; but let it, if it does, and if it doesn't thank God someone else is convinced.

In any case... this is me. I went to university as an English major, spent two years in Lethbridge, Alberta basically pursuing every vice I could and hemorrhaging as much money as I could towards everything but the pursuit of a Bachelor's degree, the resulting tens of thousands in student debt landing me on a combat-tour of the Middle East with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment, from which I only recently returned. I can be a borderline alcoholic, have spent my share of nights vomiting uproariously into toilets, boudoirs, bathtubs, gutters, and occasionally all over myself. My drink, is gin. Bombay Sapphire. With tonic, a slice of lime, and a slice of lemon. I think every man should have 'his' drink, maybe not something he limits himself to but at least something he can comfortably start off a night with. I smoke. I smoke 'John Player Standard', because my dad smokes 'John Player Standard' and I will never forget the smell. But, if I feel like a smooth ride, 'Belmonts' will always be the Cadillac of cigarettes. I love women, and I love sex, and I pursue and will continue to pursue sexuality until I probably get run over by an ambulance. I love travelling - I've been all across Canada, lived in more cities than I can ever manage to squeeze into the 'past residences' section of any job or school application. I've been overseas, into the United States, and god willing I'll see the rest of the planet one bar at a time. I engage in astronomical highs and morbid lows, I seem completely unable to ever do the right thing at the right moment, am spectacular at fucking up and somehow coming off as charming while doing so. I can be petty and vindictive, passive-aggressive when I should speak my mind and an emotional time-bomb when I should restrain myself. I'm about as big a klutz in relationships as I am in real life.

All this to say I'm going to talk about sex, I'm going to talk about drinking, war, rage, jealousy, relationships, sex, and drinking. And I'm curious as to who is going to give a fuck and read it.

In any case, ladies and gentlemen, it's Gin O'clock, so let's get started. Just let me light up, first.