~Thursday~  I haven't had a drink yet, but that doesn't mean I haven't been out, or that I haven't thought about it—sometimes at the strangest of times.

Let me first articulate the opportunities I've had to drink, and by that I mean "social situations outside the home," because there are always opportunities to drink at home with my stash in the cupboard:


So, these are the social opportunities I've had to drink since my last posting, which was Dry January (Day 3):

• Tuesday night I went to The Borough for a while to work on some action items assigned to me from our last homeowners association board of directors meeting.


• Wednesday night I met my friend Todd at The Borough, and afterward, we checked out the bar at the top of the downtown Raleigh Holiday Inn, as a potential future place to drink when The Borough closes, and then we went to Flex.


• Thursday night I went to a play at Manbites Dog Theater in Durham, and then had coffee at Cocoa Cinnamon across the street from the theater. (A complete aside: Here's a blog entry about the play I saw, Love and Information, which I really enjoyed.)

And here are some of the times I thought about drinks or drinking:

• I'm currently reading Circling the Sun, and I found myself salivating a little at the alcohols scenes, seemingly spaced just far enough apart to be parched when the subsequent taste was served. Here's an example of a few:
  
  
  • "Jim had made a pitcher of cocktails with whisky and crushed lemons. He stirred the pitcher with a glass rod, rare ice tinkling like crystal teardrops."
  
  
  • "My father was paying through the nose for the champagne, so I drank as much as I could, every time it came round."
  
  
  • "Jock had washed and was inside at our bar cart, doctoring a whisky."


• After working out late one afternoon, I thought about how good it would be to have a cocktail with some hors d'oeuvres when I got home.


• My friend Todd (who is having a Dry January with me) was coming to meet me at our house to go to a play in Durham, and I said, "If you get here early, come on in and we'll have a glass of water before we go." So sad, isn't it?


• Said play that we saw consisted of 65 scenes, and I found myself counting the scenes that had alcohol in them.


• After the play, we stopped in Cocoa Cinnamon to have some coffee, and since I'm also dieting and am always hungry, when I saw this dessert in the display case, I said to Todd, "Mmmm. That looks good."
  
  
  To which he replied, "You just want it to get the alcohol out of it." That's some funny shit; I don't care who you are.

7 days down, 24 more to go.