So today I took the day off work to research a term paper that’s due one week from now. Left that early to take Mr. Puppy to the vet. Between that and upcoming class, I stopped for two martinis. Quite glad I did.

Lately all those dearest to me are suffering horribly and I can do nothing but pray. My wife is in fear for the upcoming biopsy. My father slips farther into madness, absolute dependence on others and, ultimately, the grave. My dearest friend finds himself faced with apparently insurmountable marital difficulties. Even the dog has mysterious health problems. And on and on. Consequently, my prayers are a clamor of supplication. Tonight I took a bit of time to quiet myself.

You see, when I drink, my voice is quieted in that I speak less (though some say I speak more loudly when I do speak and I have no reason to doubt them). Also when I drink the internal narrative (and my fingers, for that matter) are enlivened. For the first time, I blog under the influence. I rather like it.

I had my two favorite martinis and Cana style in that I had the better of the two last. I started with a Belvedere garnished with olives and concluded with a Chopin garnished with onion. When I drink Polish vodkas I always silently toast St. Faustina and St. Maximilian Kolbe. Should I live to be a good bit older, I shall then toast St. John Paul II as well when I drink Polish vodka. The Poles have been good to the Church of late. Would that other nations would follow their example!

I stopped at one of Denver’s most sophisticated martini bars – a place with which I’m acquainted, though not as closely as I might like to be. The music, the lighting, the décor all assist the elixir in anesthetizing that which bothers one on arrival. The servers would do well to excite other botherments (a word that ought to be in everyone’s vocabulary!). In fact the servers were quite sophisticated, sexy and even slutty. There was no beauty, though, as the tenderness that animates feminine beauty was in them replaced with calculation and severity. ‘Twas as mercy that they weren’t beautiful, as they were pretty enough that should I have stayed much longer it would have been a near occasion of sin and, should they have been beautiful, the near occasion of sin would have come nearer much more quickly.

My Victorian tone is inspired, at least in part, by the fine book recently recommended by Mr. Shea -- that book being Lord of the World. It was the first novel I’d read in a while and it did nearly everything one could ask of a novel. It wasn’t quite The Brothers Karamazov or The Sun Also Rises, but what is?

I thank God for you, my dear readers – particularly those of you who have contacted me by comments or e-mail. Your kindness to me is touching. It is deeply humbling that anyone would read what I have to say and I desperately need the humility you inculcate.