Trip

When not drinking, he was a nerd.  A nerd who is getting his MA in Military History.  He collected portraits of Wellington and was painting a portrait of Nelson.  He claimed to be a portraitist and had a BA in fine art.  Anyway, Admiral Nelson appeared to have been carved from that deli meat where cheese bits are worked into a bologna.  His other portraits appeared to be of half-flounderpeople whose eyes were slowly migrating to one side of their head or the other.  He only talked with one side of his mouth, which I have never seen a man of 33 accomplish.  Most of his media horde consisted of post-punk, opera, historical nonfiction movies about war, and 19th C. costume dramas. He hated porn and strip clubs. He was an eccentric trust fund baby... and a super-nerd.

When drunk, he became Baltimore's Most Racist Person.  There was nothing that a person of color or a non-Protestant could do that would escape the rubber/iron trap of is mind. Also when drunk, he told me in detail about how he ogled waitresses and the chick that cut his hair.  I guess it's a good thing that he hated strip clubs because he brought a strip club mentality into all of his tipping arrangements with women.  He told me these things because I was not really a woman.  I was more than that.  He'd never DATE any of those girls.  Check.  Add misogynist to the racist.  Ever see someone drunk rant about things?  Well, up the volume and make it everything that you've ever wanted to punch someone in the mouth about.  Bad drunk.

Let me explain: 2pm on a Sunday.  He was down a 1.75 liter "big" bottle of white wine.  Then he opened a regular sized red wine, and we finished that.  Then he opened A 2 LITER of cheap scotch.   He couldn't walk and was running into things when he decided that it was time to grill some steaks.  He put some coals in and squirted them liberally with lighter fluid (yes, he WAS smoking a cigarette while doing this) and then put the steaks on and closed the lid.  In five minutes, the fire was running low (he hadn't put enough coals in) so he picked up one of the steaks and then squirted more lighter fluid on them.   Then he put the steak down and squirted more lighter fluid IN BETWEEN THE STEAKS.   I didn't have steak that night.  He passed out in his living room and when I walked him up to bed he apologized for getting drunk.  Then got all frustrated because he couldn't get it up.  That was the last night I saw him.

He wasn't on anti-depressants because you "can't drink and be on anti-depressants."  As to the upswings: One weekend I stood by and watched him spend about two thousand dollars.  Over five hundred of it was on food and drinks... and four hundred of it was on jeans and music.  Three hundred on a hotel.  Two hundred on our train tickets.  This was planned the day before because he suddenly felt like going to NYC.

Diagnosis: Mollycoddle. Bipolar and impotent co-morbid with alcoholism.