(This is the third of three posts from one of my darkest hours, January 2008, when I decided to abstain from booze for a full month. To fill the void – or create a deeper, darker one – I decided to use the time freed up by teetotaling to read War and Peace. Was I successful? Yes! The following month I was back to my old ways, however. C’est la vie.)
Well, I may have inadvertently stumbled on the worst pickup line in the history of the world, or at least in the history of Russian literature. “Hey, I just finished reading War and Peace. Want to help me celebrate?”
But give me a break – you try reading a 1,215 page Russian novel while staying COMPLETELY SOBER, and then not talk about it endlessly, even at a birthday bash for a 23-year-old.
Erin, who turns 23
It was Saturday night, and I’d finally finished the Tolstoy classic I had started reading Jan. 1. Diligent adherence to a regimen of 40-50 pages a day had kept me on track, with a few days to spare before reaching my goal of Jan. 31. The thing was, I’d made a deal with myself to stay sober for all of January; then I decided well, 28 days should do the trick. Then I realized, I deserve a reward for finishing this doorstop, and so the bargain was made – when I finished reading the Russian epic I could have a drink.
Well, the joke was on me in more ways than one. I mean, have you ever read War and Peace? Not only is it long but – okay, here’s the thing. It’s really good. I mean, obviously. It’s great. Some parts require more concentration than others – the battle scenes, for instance.
But the drawing-room stuff, the relationships between family members and lovers and friends, all that stuff’s a breeze and a joy to read. Tolstoy was a master, after all. But and so. There you are reading this big book and enjoying the characters and everything, and then the main story ends and there’s an epilogue of about 70 pages.
Keep in mind at this point you just want to finish the damn thing and have a big glass of vodka. And then you realize that nearly all of that last 70 pages is a dense, practically unreadable discourse on history, how we can never really know the causes of an event, and on the nature of free will.
The nature of free will
But I persevered. And, upon finishing, I had that drink. And then another. By the time the Wingman picked me up I already had a buzz on. But again, this being a night when fate decided to play a big old joke on me, my first buzz in nearly a month came crashing down when I encountered, upon reaching our destination, Wingy’s completely tanked, giggly, and Taser-worthy buddy Ivan (a Russian! how fateful is that?) and his equally messy date.
We found ourselves at the Lamplighter, a nightspot in cobblestoned, tourist-y Gastown that has undergone more facelifts than Courtney Love – from a drug bar with classic rock cover bands to an indie-rock club with live original music. Now it’s part of a local entertainment chain and features DJs not old enough to shave and spinning Electric Light Orchestra.
Anyway, to bring it all back home… we were there for Erin S., a co-worker of Wingy’s celebrating her 23rd birthday. She introduced me to a few of her cute friends but I could only talk about War and Peace. For some reason this doesn’t seem to be a turn-on for girls! Wingy spotted a locally-based VJ and we went over to talk to her and her friends, but then drunk Ivan, who’d been sitting in a corner with his date the whole time, insisted on going to another dance club up the street.
To cut a long story short, a few minutes later, after Wingy had left to get Ivan into the other place, I found myself experiencing one of those moments where, if it had been a movie, the room would have been spinning around while distorted faces laughed and fingers pointed in my general direction and Rod Stewart’s “Young Turks” played on the soundtrack.
If all that wasn’t enough to prove a Tolstoy kind of fate wasn’t on my side, I woke up the next day hung over – and determined to not drink again. At least until I’ve finished Remembrance of Things Past.