Time passes in funny ways. Looking backward, I don’t remember a point in time by the where the hands were lined up on the clock but rather by what clock I was using.

Most things in my life stay constant: the daily changing relationship with my mother, my close friends (I’m living with one of my best friends from nine years ago), my favorite female musicians, my reoccurring urges to write.

So I keep track of time through boys. I know the Backstreet Boys CD came out when I was in 8th grade because that was the year I had a crush on Ryan, a squirrely little skater boy obsessed with boy bands. I know I started working at the pool the summer before I entered high school because I drooled over one of the lifeguards my entire freshman year. (He threw a Sweet Tart at me during school one day. I saved it until I graduated.) I remember my junior year in college was the first year our football team went to a bowl game because that was the year I was single and Chris — a Sinatra-esque sex god — left the hotel he had already paid for in the bowl game city and drove home to see me.

I ran into Ed last week at a coffee house, outside of our usual work encounters, and a flash of memories whipped quickly through my senses. He was with a new girl and refused to make eye contact with me.

As when I see any of those boys from my past, I took a step back in time and a weird feeling crept up in me. It wasn’t jealously or regret. But I glimpsed a piece of my past walking by, and I felt overlooked because it was indifferent to the mark it left on the time line of my life.

I should be writing a 20-page paper. But after getting stuck on the second page, it was time to take a break. I just glanced over the posts on first page of my blog and noticed a trend — alcohol.

Writing and liquor…it gives of a feeling of romanticism, an image of the starving writer who spends her limited funds on paper and alcohol. (Usually cigarettes too, but this starving writer doesn’t smoke). I would say that it’s simply the lucidity of the tipsy mind, the swirls of thoughts that explode on paper without hesitancancy. Because that characteristic of drunken behavior that usually gets people in trouble, the loss of inhibition, suddenly becomes a godsend when the pen hits a blank piece of paper. (Or in this case, when the fingertips hit a keyboad).

But it’s something more than the behavior — it’s the drink itself. Bourbon, gin and tonic, a glass of wine…you can imagine all of those in a dim-light room with red-toned walls, accompanying the writer who is concentrating intently on the words in front of her. But beer? It ruins it. Beer belongs at a fraternity party, a football tailgate, a crowded bar or accompanying a cheeseburger. Beer is a social drink. Writing is not a social habit.

After such a melancholy post on alcohol, you must be wondering what my drink of choice is today. In fact, I am not drinking alcohol, but this cup of dark roast steaming coffee is a solitary drink, and when it comes to writing, it is closer to bourbon, gin or wine than beer will ever be.

The weather was gorgeous, the horse races were exciting and expensive as always, the baseball team had a fantastic game. But nature has to go and throw her usual curve ball.

Ruining a perfect day seems to be her majesty’s finest art. She rules a woman’s body when she wants to and yesterday, she shattered all of my nice thoughts and replaced them with frustration.

My best friend couldn’t say anything that wasn’t uncouth or insulting. And my boyfriend seemed to ignore my comment that I’d like to rent a movie, because by the time we got back from the baseball game, he wanted to eat his McDonalds and then go to bed. So at 10:30 p.m. I threw some veggies, sausage and pasta together in a frying pan and isolated myself in the kitchen, fuming as much as the pan on the stove as my roommate flirted with my boyfriend in the other room, cursing him for not coming to keep me company.

Of course neither of them knew I was angry. And I knew that. Amidst my fuming at them I was mentally kicking myself for these disastrous thoughts that were ruining the end of what would have been a perfect day.

I picked up a book and turned to the next short story, where I had left off: “The Twenty-Eighth Day.” I laughed at its appropriateness and smiled with empathy as I read through the pages.

“The narkiness is not directed toward her or even him, but I am powerless…It will do exactly as it pleases and I will be completely at its mercy for the whole day…I contemplate taking a large dose of sleeping pills that will knock me unconscious for the waiting duration until blessed period arrives.”

My boyfriend walked into the room and I smiled up at him. He was even observant enough to ask what was wrong. I apologized for my earlier silence and explained to him all the things that had been bothering me. When he threw his hands up in helplessness I laughed.

I laughed at him for his clueless nature that didn’t pick up on my mood sooner, and I laughed at nature, for even she could not stop me from smiling at him at the end of a perfect day.

It’s 1:30 in the morning, and I just got back from work.

My cheek won’t stop twitching — who knew that cheeks twitched?

I don’t remember the last time I got more than five hours of sleep.

My roommate informed me that she didn’t pay the rent and she doesn’t have any checks.

I still stink of the cigarette I smoked a few hours ago. (No, I’m not a smoker, not even a social smoker. But on nights like this I envy the sense of calm that falls over agitated smoker after that first drag. I try it every six months or so when I’m desperate for something to calm my nerves. Maybe if it worked I would try it more often.)

I have recently neglected this dear piece of my soul. But tonight is a night for blogging. It’s also a night for bourbon, and Alanis Morsette.

Within the next few days, I will reject my carefully laid summer plans, back out on writing a story I once described as a story worth giving up everything else for, and dress up in a ridiculous Dutch costume with a bustline from the 18th century. I will do all of these ridiculous things for my own good — and for once in my life I will do them against the good of others.

I’m throwing away all my plans…and in a certain way, I know exactly what I’m doing. Yet, as exhilarating as that is, I can’t be excited about it. I’m so used to following the mold — no, I’m used to leading the mold. Breaking away from it isn’t my thing.

So why do it? Because the idea of following the mold this time makes me sick to my stomach. Because at some point I have to stop reaching others’ expectations and start setting and reaching my own. Because if I continue at this rate I’ll either die from lack of passion for what I do or from lack of sleep.

After about 5 hours in an airplane I feel that I’ve been very restrained in only just now finishing my first gin and tonic. Honestly, flying can be so terribly tedious. Which is why I’m about to change my topic.

I’ve spent the past four days on the beach in Naples, Florida. Sounds glorious doesn’t it? Yet the best time I had was at dinner with a couple in their 70s. As my sister says, in Naples, the old people have been let out of their cage.

We were the only bikini-donning creatures on the beach. Not that anyone would have been looking. Troves of people walked along the shore, but almost all of them were at least 55 years old.

I began to think about the retirement habit of moving to warmer water, and I couldn’t decide ─ when I am old and grey and join a Red Hat society, will I move to Florida?

“Why wouldn’t you want to move to Florida when you’re old?” My boyfriend asked in disbelief when I vowed not to be among those who flew South for the winter. “You don’t have to put up with cold weather, and being surrounded by old people won’t be such a bad thing if you’re old also.”

It seems pleasant but slightly unrealistic, as if at that point people have had enough of reality, the harsh ways of the world and the wisdom those ways have helped them to attain. Taking walks on the beach, playing golf and shopping take away the otherwise depressing situation of growing old as your neighbors become younger and your children become parents and grandparents.

But people who flock to Florida for retirement are analogous in my mind to the popular kids in high school who flocked to college parties. Instead of getting ahead of myself and reaching paradise before I’m due, I’d rather relax in my home, visit my family and enjoy the right now and not what could be better. Call me crazy, but I’m just ideological.