That Feeling Of, Er, Accomplishment???

      "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a drunkard. There's a difference. Drunkards don't like to go to meetings." -- Jackie Gleason

      Oh, the period surrounding St. Paddy's Day is always brutal, for a number of reasons. One is that it's a naturally busy time (March) for work, birthdays, and the lot. Another is that, well, the amount of sleep one gets at this time of year is just less than a Haitian labourer's daily income. Yet another is that with the coming of the Irishman's Holiday, the number of events and festivities multiply, often exponentially. And another, quite particular to Doctor J, is that March brings out the worst in him, particularly the melancholic dimension he tries to suppress most of the time. Oh, March always feels like the last leg of that demolished Spanish Armada, barely making its way around Scotland through frigid temperatures with only the barest idea of making the return home, all the while sporting as broad a facade of contentment as possible. Oh, March, you dastardly fiend you. Worse, in Canada, you've got a wintry chip on your shoulder. Contemptible beast!

      But today, of course, I stumbled on this. Doctor J confesses that he's done numbers 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12 (though there was no conspiring involved: Oh, the days of getting pissed with a Scotsman in an Irish bar), 15, 19, 21, 24 (before the job but not during the job, unless I've taken the whole class to the pub) and 32. Could possibly have done #17 had circumstances been different: instead, it just became a rare instance of Doc J acting as bouncer and intimidating an abusive customer to leave a bar some years ago. But, geez, I've done 12 of the 40 things-- 30%. I'm not sure what I should think about that, even if some of them are pretty minor. Doc J, though, has done some more interesting ones:

• Playing checkers with shots in a bar. Worst part: my opponent and I kept drinking after the game was over.
  
• Typical madness of the moonlight that results in rather egregious displays of, ahem, affection in public places.
  
• Drinking an entire pitcher of beer in one gesture-- that is, one giant gulp.
  
• Swillins: mixing a hefty drink out of the remnants of an entire liquor cabinet. Disgusting, yes. Especially with red wine and dark rum in the mix.
  
• A various assortment of drinking games, none worth mentioning here.
  
• Taken over behind the bar when hands were short.
  
• Makin' the news?: Found myself quoted in a newspaper with, supposedly, the pickup line of the night. (It wasn't a pickup line: it was an old, old Doctor J joke that just found its way through to press.)
  
• Danced at the epicentre of a half-dozen or more young ladies, playing the central part in enacting "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" and/or "Brown-Eyed Girl." Imagine Dr J having a dozen young women pointing at him and singing "Will you love me forever?" Oh, dems were da days.
  
• Closed a bar. That is, cleaned it up, locked the door, and so on and so forth.
  
• Danced on top of a bar. (At that particular establishment, it was a common staff-party and New Year's occurrence among staff and patrons.)
  
• Been a regular-friend of a bar such that I drank for free in that establishment. Not just one night, but every night I went in there.

Some things Doctor J hasn't done yet:

• Been immortalized in song. Oh, the revelry...
  
• Had a chair/stool named after me.
  
• Played chess with shots. Now *that* would be interesting, to say nothing of semantically difficult.
  
• Had a drink named after me. (Gee, what would go into a Doctor J? Wait a second, don't get Freudian on me here, people.)
  
• Run up a tab of more than $300 Canadian. ($50 American)
  
• Had a bar renamed in my honour. As if I had much honour left....

I've also never sang karaoke in a bar, which is part of my contract with the universe: as long as I don't actually sing, I am allowed to live; violation of this will, I'm told, lead to immediate immolation.

      Seriously, though, this is the dark time of the year, as the sun finally seems nearest. March. Evil, evil March. Frankly, I'm not as young as I used to be, and I'm just not as impressive as I used to be. And yet, I'm too damned stubborn to let myself believe such facts entirely, and I find myself Lear-fully railing against limitation. Stupidity usually ensues. Oh, to be twenty again....

      Alas, I'm just a bad, bad lad. But at least I'm not Dylan Thomas.