Week number three...

I woke up this Saturday with my first headache in years.  I can't remember the last headache I had, and of course, I blame this exclusively on teetotaling. Yes, I was experiencing an unhangover.  In the very recent past, I could have easily had 2+ bottles of wine and woke up the next morning at 7 am ready to go to the gym.  Now I sleep until 10 am and wake up with a headache.  WTF!?!  I don't doubt that most (including scientists) would agree that it should be the other way around.  I suppose my body was so used to drinking red wine that it just sort of expected it, like a baby expects to get fed.  And now that it doesn't get it, I'm being punished like a baby throwing a tantrum because it hadn't been fed.  Really though, some people rely on actual nutrients for energy.  It appears that I relied on red wine.  It had become my lifeblood.  And after Saturday morning, I was even more convinced.

Imagine...

Three weeks have passed since alcohol has touched these lips, tarnished this liver, and further deteriorated my blood brain barrier.  I feel better, have more energy, am sleeping more, and I'm losing weight.  However, I have noticed one other side effect (yes, these horrible things are apparent side effects of teetotaling).  I am beginning to forget.  I have had many internal conversations with myself over this discovery.  Is it that I have become much more forgetful?  Or is it that my brain remembered how to work, and I am actually thinking about more things now-a-days that there have become more opportunities to forget?  My vote is for the latter, for I am way too young to be worrying about the early onset of Alzheimer's.  It does get me to thinking though.  My Uncle George died at at a young age of Alzheimer's, and he drank a lot of wine.  Mr. Howarth, a family friend, neighbor, and a man that I admired deeply (you'll soon find out why), also died at a relatively young age of Alzheimer's - and he was never without a cigar and a glass of red wine.  (If you couldn't tell, this is why I adored Mr. Howarth.  He was on my paper route, and whenever I would run into him, he would greet me with, "Well, Hello Matthew...", cigar and glass of wine in hand.  Always.  He truly was one of the best.) 

Maybe not as hot as this.

Back to being forgetful (and possibly allowing certain friends to assume that they are correct in diagnosing me with Asperger's Syndrome).  I am one of those people who puts things in place so as to not forget things, especially when normal routines change, like when they changed our trash day from Monday to Friday.  I put a reminder on my phone to remind me to put the garbage out on Thursday night.  That was over a year ago, and to this day when the reminder goes off every Thursday night at 9 pm, I always think, "What now?".  Then I look at the phone and it says, "Put out garbage".  I also tend to put my keys on things that I need to take with me as I leave the house, such as mail, or something I need to bring to work.  But I only do this with non-routine items.  Well...the other day, I went to McDonald's for lunch with one of my students.  Just as I was about to order, reached for my wallet and noticed that I didn't have it.  I never forget my wallet.  It must have been lost or stolen.  I was convinced.  I never forget my wallet.  This made me go crazy for about a half hour.  It made me go even crazier about a week later when I forgot it again.  I never forget my wallet.  I am not developing Alzheimer's.  In both instances, after freaking out, I came to my senses and remembered that I also do not lose things.  I somehow assured myself that it was at home, and I got over freaking out about it.  And it was at home in both instances.  I never forget my wallet.  Now, I put my keys next to my wallet.  Next step: set a reminder on my phone.

Well then, set a reminder...

Recently, I have become obsessed with setting reminders on my phone for everything.  It has been the best advice (in my professional opinion) that I have been giving out to everyone who asks me to remind them to do something or if they say they have to do something, like make an appointment or call someone later that day.  Set a reminder.  You all have a smart phone.  Make it work to make your life easier.  Make that smart phone prove it is smart by reminding you of your tasks at hand.  Cuz we all know you're gonna forget. You're gonna get distracted by something shiny and totally blow off picking up your friend from the hospital after having heart surgery, like I did.  And if it wasn't for Carley's smart phone, I would have turned out to be the worst person in the world.  And I was, but for just a short while.  Here's what happened (it involves wine, of course):

Our friend Larry went in for a preventative procedure on his heart.  He was in the hospital for a day or two down in Mountainview, or someplace near San Jose.  I received a call the night before confirming that I was going to pick him up the next day.  Well, I had been watching TV and drinking red wine, and to be completely honest, I don't remember the call at all.  I know.  Bad.  Right?  I went to bed that night, woke up, went out with Carley for breakfast, and then I received a call from Larry.  I thought to myself, "What could Larry want?".  "Hi Matt, where are you?  We're ready and waiting."  Holy Shit.  Right then and there I had been voted as THE worst person in the world by a landslide.  The directions were somewhere at my house in Oakland, and I was in San Francisco.  Larry was in San Jose, and I was sinking deeper into a pile of shit as I realized I was the crappiest friend ever.  Luckily, I remembered one tidbit of information from that drunken conversation the night before.  Larry was at Kaiser Permanente.  Carley was able to pull up the directions on her smart phone and I was able to minimize the damage.  In hindsight, I probably should have stopped drinking that very day, but it wasn't red wine's fault.  Oh no.  It was the fact that I didn't have a smart phone to remind me.  Needless-to-say, that fall, I gave up my dumb phone and joined the revolution.  And I feel just as dumb as ever.