My family hates me. Last night, I’m sitting in the den after dinner watching Bob Newhart run his inn in Vermont. I have two fingers of vodka left on my second drink but I’m lucid and everything’s in evening susurrus. The phone rings. Anne answers and it’s her sister. Now, my wife had a couple drinks too, and I can tell she’s tired, so maybe that set her off. But it doesn’t take but two minutes before she spirals into this full Cassandra routine. I can only hear her half of the conversation but I’m instantly annoyed because it’s clear they spoke recently and she told her sister that I lost my job at American. The thought of Anne’s jackass brother-in-law nodding gravely at that news started to burn me. Then he would say “to be expected” or some other self-righteous bullshit.

So I can hear all this coming in from the kitchen and my better half starts broadcasting this tale of woe about how we are running out of money, and she’ll let Catherine know if they need a loan, but thank you, thank you for your prayers and your offers to help, and all this other horseshit like we’re completely broke. She’s making no sense and has this panicked, worked-up tone and is ignoring the fact that I’m ten feet away and can hear her throw out possibilities like having to send Dan to go live with the Hurleys because I’m at death’s door. I turn off the TV and escape to the back room. But now I can’t hear her and I’m just replaying the tape—why did she have to go and tell those assholes our business? Suddenly I’m so furious I find myself in the garage taking pops off a fifth of vodka and I’m just so fucking sick of it.

And so half an hour later she finds me shitfaced in the garage and starts screaming at me because I’m just proving her point now. I don’t say a word. I’m too tired to argue. Sure, this is all my fault, just go with that and leave me alone. She starts sobbing and slamming doors and Dan peeks into the garage and sees we’re back to square one and he starts slamming doors too and I’m fucking alone now.

February 17

Throbbing pain in my leg now. I took all my doses but feel like crap. I drank way past the lighthouse last night. I woke up on the couch and Dan was off at school and Anne was out, and the house was empty and silent, and I just lay there like I was shipwrecked and washed up on the beach of a desert island.

A couple thoughts kept occurring to me. The first was: Stop doing stupid shit. The second was: Is this it? Is this all there is?