I think I have a problem with booze. One becomes too many too often. And maybe it’s the MS but the hangovers and comebacks are torture and practically forcing me to go with hair of the dog. Something—my liver maybe—ain’t right, and I drink like it’s going out of style, and I’m always thirsty, always thinking about it, even though there’s no pleasure in it anymore and there’s seemingly no end to it.

When I drink, all I want to do is quit, and when I quit, all I want to do is drink.

February 18

Took doses, nothing bad or good to report—stiff and hobbled as usual. Since no one in the house is talking to me, I made a baloney sandwich for dinner and got good and drunk on the dregs of an old handle of Clan MacGregor, which, let me tell you, will burn a hole through your tartan. So I’m officially off my two drinks a night regimen and not sure I care—I feel like this has to run its course like it always does. That sounds like I have a fever, and that’s funny because last night while gagging on shots of Clan MacGregor paint thinner I came across a body snatcher movie on channel 39. The old one from the 50s. And it’s weird but that’s what it’s like now with the drinking. Like I’m contaminated, and it takes over and I become this different person. And I’m strangely removed from it, like it’s no longer part of me, but then I wake up and I don’t know what happened and start thinking about drinking again.

February 19

Ten o’clock news reports: American Eagle flight 3378, scheduled domestic from Raleigh/Durham to Richmond, departed during low ceiling, low visibility, and night conditions. The aircraft ascended to about 300 feet but shortly thereafter crashed into a nearby reservoir. Both crew members and all ten passengers were killed.

I morbidly expected the phone to ring. I was the one who liaised with the NTSB. Instead I’m lying on this couch, imagining how the Pharaoh Crandall is taking all of this.

Fuck you, Bob. With your cigarette gloom, your snaggleteeth, your gnawed fingernails, your coffee breath, your frat row haircut. Fuck your operating profit. Fuck your 12,000-square-foot house with marble floors, an indoor swimming pool, a moat—a fucking moat—around the dinner table, and a pink toilet you flush by stepping on a button in the floor.