Legacy data suggests drinking only improves my spelling, and with 1.5 mojitos down the chute, I fully expect tonight’s post to sing as adverbs fly off the assembly line in fine fashion. One refrain I’ve heard in the past few months claims alcohol, much like coffee, is an acquired taste, though in this case I’m not exactly sure what I’m acquiring, or whether I can possibly give it back. Coffee at least smells good, which biologically informs my other senses, but who can argue with 10-proof logic?
What I’m trying to cultivate is the illusion of enjoying alcohol, a simulation of normalcy that requires, I imagine, being able to enumerate two or three beverages I “like.” Unfortunately most drinks have that rich, oaky shit flavor, circa 2008. A very good year, I’m told. People deal with far more dire problems, however, and I’m well aware of this. I’ll keep you appraised of my findings.
Figuring out what can and cannot be imbibed aside, this whole skill acquisition campaign has been draining, and after you mix in golf along with the new site, I’m certifiably burnt out, apathy coursing freely through my arteries. It’s a terrible feeling made worse by constantly thinking about it, and what I’m intent on finding, here at these tired crossroads, is renewal. I’d like nothing more than to take a long nap and then, two to three weeks later, wake up refreshed, a completely different person. Perhaps I just need a vacation. But how do you take a vacation from yourself?
There I was, standing on the fairway under a darkening sky, wondering whether any scenario existed in which it’d be intelligent to wave shards of metal around as lightning loomed nigh. I didn’t have much time to ruminate on this, however, because my thoughts promptly turned to what would happen if I were electrified mid-swing, and how depressing it’d be to die on a golf course playing the sport I hate most. The best thing to do in this case would be to float me out onto a water trap in a burning rowboat, trusty 7-iron laid across my chest, in the style befitting Viking lords.
Tonight was my second golf outing, and whereas the first time was an unmitigated disaster, these 18 holes were slightly better. Let’s call it a local crisis, then. Folk wisdom says the amateur golfer can traverse the godforsaken wasteland in about 100 strokes. This round clocked in somewhere around 150 to 175, so you can only imagine how I performed previously. It occurred to me this was the textbook case of doing something for its own sake rather than for some purpose. If I were learning golf for enjoyment, the equity of blood and sweat would be willingly invested, not extracted.
I’m in too deep now to quit, though, and to this end I’ve established some short-term goals. First, always drive past the women’s tee box. Second, get half my shots into the air. And finally, arguably most importantly, to refrain from shouting expletives that rhyme with “fuck” whenever I trade my Tiger for Farmer Fitzgibbons and begin harvesting the grass with my 5-wood.
Nature, I told King Calm in the thick of Frisbee golf today, is best experienced in screensaver format, and to this assertion I hold. My ninth-grade social studies teacher once expounded on the idea of culturally specific hells: whereas creatures of warmer climes envision a roiling inferno, for instance, Eskimos believe in a terribly cold place. I’m neither an Eskimo nor a fan of the sun, more of a devout proponent of air conditioning, and so my personal torment resembles precisely a 12-“hole” trek through the woods.
Secretly I had hoped the layout would be similar to a golf course, since the game certainly shares the etymology, albeit with unkempt grass and maybe a rattier clubhouse. It’s free to play, though, and accordingly it’s a hike through a forest, with concrete slabs as tee boxes, ancient caches of empty beer bottles, strange plants, trunks scattered every which way, and inclines greater than 45 degrees. Nature, in a word. A place filled with the weeping of birds and gnashing of branches.
And you know what? After adjusting my mindset, the hiking part was exactly what I had always imagined hiking would be like, path barely discernible, ambient insect noise interspersed with silence, sun flitting through the trees. Pound Cake used to reprimand me for not being more experiential. She would argue that any experience, this one included, is a treasure trove of self-discovery, during which I would clutch my compass and walking stick resolutely at a fork in the path, perhaps in the throes of revelation or something.
I would contend there are no truly unique experiences these days, simply by virtue of physical law and the amount of experiences documented, and most events can be imagined accurately. It’s a hike, you know? Not a realm of infinite possibility. There will be dirt, bugs, and a predictable spread. Best-case scenario? Some chick clothed entirely in AMEX giftcards dislodges from a tree limb up high and falls into my arms. Worst-case? A bear in a frock with a scorching case of the clap leaps out of the shrubbery and mauls me.