Wine Woes

Everyone who knows me knows I like wine. Not in a crazed, unhealthy way (unless you're talking about my budget after I've been wine tasting), and not in a snobby, wine connoisseur way, either (mainly because I'm too lazy and underfunded.) I simply enjoy it (mainly reds, with the occasional white dessert wine). Plus, I'm a lightweight, so give me the doctor-prescribed, healthy 5 ounces, and I'm tipsy and talking in accents. Everything is funnier and some of those pesky inhibitors have been sloshed aside. I'm even usually warmer, which has its own charm on these cold (80 degrees and below) evenings when my fingers and toes can turn to icicles. All in all, this logically seems like it would make a good state to write in, right? Funny, uninhibited, and warm. The perfect combo for the next great American fantasy.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work. I've tried. Multiple times. I'll be sitting at my desk, writing away, and think, "You know what would make this better? Wine. And chocolate. Oooh, wine and chocolate." After that rattles around in the back of my thoughts for a while, until it becomes louder than the story in my head, I get a glass, break off a hunk of Hershey's dark chocolate, and return to the desk.

Here is where I always expect some drunken inspiration to take hold, and in some Hunter Thompson-esque (minus-all-the-drugs) haze of creativity, I would pound out page after page of mind-boggling brilliance. In actuality, what happens is I get tipsy, completely lose my focus, lose my drive to stay seated in my chair and write, accidentally smear chocolate on the keyboard, and eventually decide that something (the book I'm reading, a TV show I never usually watch) is vastly more appealing, and that's the end of my wine-induced genius.

For a while, I found it vaguely depressing. I mean, I love wine, and I LOVE to write. I should be able to combine these great things for exponentially greater enjoyment. Or was it just a recipe for alcoholism? Maybe it's not so depressing after all.