Choppy Rivers

The river was choppy in the process of flowing under the bridge, with the heat and madness of summer over. It was time for things to get cold and start freezing over. It was about goddamned time.

Sorry

I’m sorry. You’re sorry. We’re all sorry. Everybody’s sorry! Let’s drink to sorry! If apologies were gold, we would all be rich, and the booze would be free. If apologies were pussy, this would be an orgy. Nobody’s got answers or solutions, but fuck if we don’t have “sorry” by the bucket load. It has never inspired any great art, cured any diseases, or launched a thousand ships. Sorry leaves you all alone in front of something giant and unloving. Sorry is a rubber check, written for millions of dollars, meaningless and unlimited in its falsity. It’s utterly useless and we’ve got tons of it. Good, honest reasons are a rare commodity.

Consolation Prize

Tonight has got me in the mood to drink myself into a mild coma. I’m losing on all fronts. The whiskey can’t change that, but it can change the way I feel about it. It isn’t the cure, but it will treat the symptoms. It can make a loss feel like a victory. It’s the consolation prize. It helps. It kills some of the sting. Whiskey is nice, though it’s not as nice as watching her naked ass walking in front of you, leading you across the room to the couch. Hips swinging like a boat listing side to side, without a stitch on her. I think, though, that even if I had her here, I might still be drinking whiskey tonight. Whiskey is good then, too. Then, it’s even better.

The Last to Know

It’s hard to forgive when you’re the last to know. It’s hard to respect people who manipulated you by withholding information. It’s hard to overlook all of the various points in time when you should have been informed and were not. It’s hard to know what an ass you looked like, sincerely operating under false assumptions. It’s hard being betrayed by people who are supposed to have your back. It’s hard to live with yourself, knowing that you’ve been used. It’s hard to be the only honest man in a house full of liars. It’s hard being a martyr to honesty.

Honor Among Thieves

There’s no clear, consistent, defined honor among thieves. It’s all very relative and subjective and complicated and discretionary. There’s no definitive code, rulebook or instruction manual. That ambiguity will bite you in the ass, and sometimes you’ll do the biting and deny it. Like an attorney, you’ll build up a shield of complex technical arguments that protect and justify your actions, proving to yourself that you’re somehow a noble thief, perhaps not even a thief at all.