HOW DRY I AM, HOW DRY I AM, NOBODY KNOWS.....*

Since January 4th I've been totally dry, the day a good friend sent out a gentle challenge to a few of us to try Dry January, and without really thinking about it I said yes, and then downloaded a British app for the occasion. It's an app you use to test how many units of alcohol you are consuming per week, assigning a grade out of 10 (I won't tell), and offers of many 'astuces' as the French would call them for how you handle those moments when a glass of wine seems like the best idea you've come up with all day and it's only 5 pm. And not fall back on the usual Covid excuse?

No, I'm not addicted, I had no physical withdrawal symptoms, and the first days were easy, even heady with how easy it was. 

Second week not so great, as I began to realize how my day gravitated toward an evening rendez-vous with some fairly decent red wine. I was becoming a bit of a connoisseur, comparing grape varietals with interesting names and the flavors that rolled over the tongue and up into the nostrils. And a subject of my online research and offers of good Bordeaux from French wine distributors which arrive in my inbox daily. 1jour1vin, La Grande Cave, Bodeboca.....

Wine porn? Sort of. I invested in some vins primeurs, which should be delivered to me in a couple of years, after they've aged gracefully in a French cave.

Mindfulness, replacing one habit (reflex) with another, being aware of how/where/when you're missing it (the wine fix) and why. There are countless (boring) recommendations of candles, hot baths, naps, chocolate, more chocolate....

These days I'm browsing online for cashmere instead of cabernet, buying ginger ale for the intense tongue-buzz.

Is today's blog a journal of alcohol-free experience? Well yes, sort of - if it helps why not?

I'd been feeling that some neurons were firing more slowly. Brain sludge. Even this week while I was doing the Quick Crossword in the Guardian I didn't get the clue to which the answer was 'filet mignon' - a cut of beef beneath the sirloin...The week before I didn't get 'deuce' in tennis....I mean really!! I want to stay sharp as long as possible.

I gave up my pack and a half smoking addiction years ago,, I can do this.

But does it mean no wine forever or just resetting the......er.. bar?

I think I'll stay dry  for a couple of months and see if I can write the great expat novel.

One can always see....

*"'The Near Future' is the name of a song written by Irving Berlin in 1919. It is better known for the small part of its lyric that took on a life of its own: 'How Dry I Am'.

The term 'Dry' in that time period meant abstinence from alcohol, and support of Prohibition. Those who took the opposite approach and/or view were often called 'Wet'. Prohibition became fact in 1920, in 'the near future' after the song was issued.

This portion of the song...

How dry I am, how dry I am
It's plain to see just why I am
No alcohol in my highball
And that is why so dry I am

...became known for its ironic use, by people getting drunk and singing it, sometimes in harmony, in all manner of popular media, especially Warner Bros. cartoons. That usage necessitated removing the parts that overtly denied drinking, which tended to reduce the song to these two lines:

How dry I am, how dry I am
Nobody knows how dry I am... Hooow dryyy I aaaaaam!"

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Near_Future

Also:

The phrase "how dry I am" had become structured into song and referred specifically to drinking alcohol by at least 1898, as one journal describes a college drinking song that goes:

   'How dry I am, How dry I am!/God only knows How dry I am'