Christmas Flashback

Its Thursday afternoon and while I patiently wait to go see, "The Interview" , in Pittsburg tonight, here is a quick Christmas memory that I would like to share with you guys.

1995 - Thats when Michelle was living in the Bay Area, she was stationed in Alameda off Coast Guard Island.  I met Michelle thru some friends while living in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So while Michelle was living here in the Bay, we would hang out and get to know each other really well.  And her girlfriend, Mary would come up from San Diego from time to time to visit when she was enlisted in the Navy.  I also met Mary in Albuquerque.  So anyhoo, on one night when Michelle had to work, me and Mary twirled off to SF to get hammered, this was when I was a big drinker.

I remember us going to the Depot, which was a cruisy leather bar in the Castro, the Depot is no longer there but when it was, it was fun.  The Depot was known for hanging their plastic Christmas trees upside down from the ceiling during the holidays and I remember this one queen commenting about them, "this is very New York" .

That year, me and Mary got fucked up at the Depot.  We hobbled around the Castro getting more and more fucked up and thats when it hit me, "whose going to drive us home"  ?

Like a dumb ass, it eventually ended up being me.

I had some experience drunk driving so I was up for it.  I told myself that I would never do it and somehow I did it many times from 1994 - 1998 without hurting myself or anyone else on the road.
Don't get it twisted, I'm not proud of this feat.

The thing that I remember most about that night was driving carefully driving around the Duboce/S.Van Ness curve ramp in SF.  That had to be the longest curve ever.  I guess when you're drunk, time slows down and what normally would only take 8 seconds to drive around the curve ramp seemed like eternity.

And while the constant loop never seem to end, I remember looking at my co-pilot for help and Mary passed out completely, I knew it was on me to get us back home safely.

We made it home safe that night.

In 1998, thats when I decided to give up the bottle because my life was getting out of hand.

I knew another lady who sobered up because she was involved in a DUI car crash, I'm just grateful I was able to stop before I was able to do harm to other people and myself.

#learning #to #walk #the #red #road

Happy Holidays everyone.

xoxo