The Lost Weekend, Abbreviated

I think it’s over for now. Fortunately, there were no limousines, no bills for a dozen bottles of Dom Perignon, no Hyatt Regency tabs in a strange city, no gifts for friends and strangers, or urgent phone calls in the middle of the night with new insights or sure-fire business strategies. I got off easy this time. (Maybe my friends and family don’t think so.) You see, if I emailed Syd one time in the last ten days, I emailed him 50. All of them were important, (or so I thought), and were written with a sense of urgency and flight. For this year’s outburst, Syd, I am sorry. (That also goes for John, my family, and any other poor soul who was in my path.)

If it’s going to happen, it usually happens in the fall or early Spring, when light, temperature, and barometric pressure begin to change dramatically. For most people, it’s no big deal, but for me and folks like me, it’s a powderkeg. My reality of The Lost Weekend wasn’t the 1945 movie with Ray Milland and Jane Wyman, nor the 18-month drinking, record-producing, and trysting binge by John Lennon between 1973-1975. My tour de force was in 1989, which was documented in part here, in: Syd's Journal. After dodging fate for a few months, that Lost Weekend ended up, (like they always do if not checked early on). with Tom and Syd visiting me in the locked unit of yonder hospital. This Year, I got lucky.