The Case of the Bloody Ass

If you’re one of my ex-wives, you’re no doubt wondering where my alimony check has been. Listen, it’s not something I want to talk about at the dinner table, but I got hemorrhoids the size of kielbasa. That’s a pretty picture on a cold winter night, innit? I spent the last few weeks sleeping on my stomach and drinking standing up in the hopes that the south of Baltimore would right itself, but nothing seemed to work. I finally got around to talking to a doctor, or as close to a doctor as I’ll get – Doc Ettinger, one of the finer barkeeps you’ll ever encounter. Doc’s advice on the subject was to stay outside with my ass-end facing the North wind. “Freeze ´em up and chip ´em off, Baltimore,” the Doctor ordered.
I took him up on half his prescription. I stopped wearing longjohns, tried changing my pants every couple days, and basically stayed outside as much as possible. My ass has never been colder – but it is drier, and everything seems to have tightened up and gone back inside the hole like a good little groundhog. I’ll take another six weeks of winter if it means that “soupy” and “loopy” will no longer describe my nether regions. Standing at the bar just makes it easier to hit the falling down drunk part of my job description.

The Case of the Post-Yule Burnout

Goddamn. I'm tired beyond all belief. Let's not talk about gambling, or football, or the fact that I'm drowning in a backwash of sour luck and hopeless flailing. I've swum out about as far as I've ever swum -- the coastline of safety is not even a pale band on the horizon of the world at these distances. It's darker out here with my eyes open than it is with 'em shut. If the cold doesn't snap my lower extremities off, my spasmodic churning is sure to do it. Probably for the best, anyway. My legs are just deadweight, another thing that could drag me under. I'll add them to the tally of "things that are pulling me down," right under empty optimism, plans and whatever that hunk was I coughed up a while back.