-----Ah, yes, what could be better than a coupla heavy shots of Stolie's mixed with a monster splash of Martini & Rossi's dry all chilled and cool and shaken (swirled) with ice, poured into an appropriate glass with a couple of fat buttery olives, and imbibed. Already today looks way better than it did. The silly concerns of mundane necessity gag in the dust of an ego cut free. Look out, angels, Icarus has discovered modern polymers and is on his way to extract revenge. Heavenly hubris knoweth not the extremes of human folly when fully rushing in. Hitler could not have felt this good when he ordered the invasion of Russia.
-----It has been months since I have had a martini. The exigencies of existance often push this little pleasure down the list to below the level of relative poverty. Ah, but the fatness of summer comes and sweet temptation whips out her green breasts with pimento nipples and I succumb. What does it matter to me that the grain was probably grown in Minnesota, since the label has convinced me that the vat steamed back where the Great Dream festered. Oh, let us pity those babushkas cheated out of their pensions by freedom, but then babushkas have always been smarter than Czars or commisars, let us hope they are smarter than entrepeneurs as well.
-----Sometimes, like now, I find myself wishing I could do this shit all the time. But then I have had enough adventures with alchoholism to know of the dreaded diminishing returns which inflict all the fun drugs. There is no steady escape from life's pains. Moderation is its own punishment. Everyday has a way of coming back, even if it isn't everyday. But tomorrow slithers in, "What? they haven't dropped the bomb yet? Oh, shit, you mean I have to go back to work, again? It's still there?" And the mix has yielded three glasses and a watery dribble. And I find the choice looming. Now or later, eskimo style or do I drink like white man? Should I compromise and make another mix now, saving the rest for... mice are gnawing on cables in North Dakota, rats are gnawing on cables deep beneath the sea, there may be NO TOMORROW!!!
-----Har, Matey, so mix up one more glass and feel the icy fire melt that thing you call a mind. It's been a long time since I tried to type drunk, and never with the bloody code. Love this fucking computer. Can correct everything eventually... after the mist has turned to pain and the beautiful wings are like a worms nostril... after the other thirst, for that ultimate solvent which causes our little ball to look so blue, has caked my tounge with arid salival jetsum and left me gagging a hellish reveille. But now, baby, it's the frogs motherfuckin' lily pad. The fluffy sky jumps back from the surface of the deep, and long old trees are reflected therein. Now imperfection is perfect and the void is filled with the laughter of plump goddesses kissing the softer places of the clouds. Now some silly joy rakes the strings of my hearts guitar and bellows an asses song in trans harmonic symphony.

-----It is wonderful to feel like a genius even if I know better.

-----Actually, the olives are everything. Sure, some folks like a twist, others a Gibson, and others still a bottle of Popov taken with a not to chilly night, the chilly always seasonally adjusted. But the olives are, a moi, what truly makes the martini. Bad olives can render a martini just more swill to be gagged between beers. Waste being the only sin. And a really bad olive can insult the god of the drain the dreck is poured down. But today the olives were fine, not too droopy, not too wooden, just plump and tasting of the sun like a happy wine.
-----How do you suppose old Bacchus feels about the still? Where once some grapes and heady feet were enough to render excellence, and even water was a requisite addition to smooth the flavor and keep the fool from too hasty an entrance? Now we have the Water of Life, sweet Vodka, the piss of a new god, steaming, stumbling off to Golgatha to be hungover.