Welcome to Dear Queer Diary, a column about the joys (and occasionally, the pains) of journaling. We’ll be cracking open our tiny notebooks and breaking out the rainbow-colored pens on the regular, so get ready to limber up your writing hands and document all your beautiful feelings!
Header by Rory Midhani
We’ve been reading a lot about altered states of consciousness lately, between Chelsea’s High Femme column and Ali’s latest liquor-related post. Perhaps you were feeling a little left out, my dear queer diarists? Well, let me reassure you: Dear Queer Diary is every bit as capable of having a rollicking good time as any other column on Autostraddle!
That’s right, my beloved journal-writers. It has recently come to my attention that drunkenness and journaling are two great tastes that taste great together, sort of like Jennifer Lawrence and alternative lifestyle haircuts or leftover Halloween candy and every meal that I have eaten this week.
What? You didn’t photograph the fun-size Snickers bar you ate at your desk before lunchtime?
The best news is that journaling while intoxicated can get you arrested in exactly zero states (assuming, of course, that your state of intoxication was arrived at through legal means), and statistics show that journaling under the influence is less likely to result in injury than other popular activities like jumping rope while high and making grilled cheese while tipsy.
Though the aforementioned pastimes have almost certainly been known to result in tragically scraped knees and horribly burnt toast, the only negative side effects associated with drunk journaling are atrocious handwriting and the inability to form a coherent sentence—symptoms that have also been known to result from journaling while aboard a moving vehicle and journaling during periods of intense exhaustion and/or emotional upheaval.
The man who owned this journal apparently had “famously illegible” handwriting. He was also gay
(via Queerty)
Now that I’ve convinced you that drunk journaling is, in fact, the pinnacle of what Michael Scott (and also my girlfriend) refer to as funtivities, I have a confession to make. I, personally, have never engaged in drunk journaling. In fact, I have never even been drunk.
This is the kind of declaration that is often met with shock and awe, and yet, I can assure you that it is true. The one and only boyfriend in my personal dating history (it didn’t work out, although not for the reasons with which this readership is probably familiar) once described me as a “teetotaler,” and although since turning twenty-one, I have been known to occasionally sip upon an alcoholic beverage, I am so unused to the flavor of booze that I rarely make it through an entire glass of fill-in-the-blank if it is not at least as fruity as our new friend Tiny Pineapple.
Indeed, the closest I have ever come to being drunk involved a pint glass of cider, 6,181 feet in altitude, and only the slightest dizziness, which dissipated before I could get anywhere near a writing utensil and paper.
The cider in question.
Because of my own inexperience in the realm of drunk journaling, I have contacted several—okay, one—expert in the field, who has consulted in the assemblage of this post. Said expert, whose drunk journaling beverage of choice is an authentic Kentucky whiskey, has nothing but good things to say about her experiences writing in her journal while something other than sober, and as a result of her testimonial, I can now state with confidence that if/when I do decide to get drunk, I will be rushing to my journal posthaste in order to scribble incomprehensible sentences and sketch hilariously odd line drawings.
In the meantime, if you, like me, prefer a steaming cup of peppermint tea to a gin and tonic, worry not! I am confident that by the year 2020, it will be a scientifically proven fact that the effects of journal-writing on one’s brain chemistry produce sensations of relaxation and euphoria very similar to those associated with tipping back a few cool ones. And your pen can’t even give you a hangover!
Unless, perhaps, it is this whiskey-themed pen, paired with this whiskey-themed notebook (the perfect gift for the queer who has everything?) (via Merrily Made)
Are there any experienced drunk diarists out there in the Straddleverse? Determinedly sober journal writers like me? Tell us about your adventures with drinking, journaling, and the combination thereof!
Drunk journalist’s the best. It’s like drunk texting but way way WAY less dangerous and full of regret
i have, only once decided to write in my journal, while drunk on a whole bottle of merlot. my handwriting was indeed terrifying, but really, the rest was a big fest of late-night self-loathing. i don’t think i recommend it. although, maybe others are not “depressed drunks” as i’ve been proven to be.
I am more of a drunk facebook messager. This always leads to me proclaiming my undying love for my best friends and reassuring people that we will be bffs for life.
my favorite drunken journal entry I’ve written is a poem called Ode to Sarah Michelle Gellar.
This is relevant to my interests.
I spent the whole weekend writing (lots of poetry!) while drunk and/or high. It was necessary :)
the last time i drunk journaled i ended up writing all over myself instead of the paper? i also woke up with a sharpie in my mouth.
JUST GOING TO ADD THIS SMALL CAUTIONARY TALE, GUYS
(the time before that, however, was v successful–i created a “field guide to butts” complete with illustrations.)
I once drunkenly created a visual representation of all 12 zodiac signs… using crudely drawn penises. It was a thing of beauty that I have since misplaced in my giant box of collaging stuff, but one day I will find it and it shall be GLORIOUS!
not much of a drunk journaler,no. drunk blogger, sure. maybe i should try drunk journaling instead.
I seriously need to start writing things down in a journal instead of drunk texting/facebooking them. And then I can look back at what I wrote in the morning and breathe a sigh of relief that my overly emotional words did not leave the confines of the journal.
I kinda remember my drunk journal entry. I don’t think I ever got to write it. I sort of did a vid journal instead and I”m not sure if i deleted that file. Drunk times, great times. Because no good story ever starts with ‘once I had a salad and…’
I can read his handwriting….
Kind of concerned as to how atrocious my own penmanship is in that case…
The only journal-able surface I have in my bedroom is a tiny, gorgeous notebook my girlfriend gave me which is definitely too precious for me to ruin by writing drunk – as a result, after a bottle of €0.95 wine I can usually be found writing long emotional blog entries and saving them to my drafts to reread, cringe and occasionally cherry-pick any good bits at a later date (once the hangover’s gone…)
i’ve definitely drunk-composed! there’s a few pitches and the word “fuck” written across the top a couple times. not my best work. i was at a party.
I am also a non-drink and write kinda gal!
Despite that, my friend Hugh and I have built our own web space based on the very notion that truth is spilt most often over a glass or two (sayitwithsangria.com)!
Hugh recently posted a journal while somewhat inebriated with alarmingly honest results (check him out at http://sayitwithsangria.com/drunk-soliloquy/)
this is not about writing but i totally just made tipsy grilled cheese! HOW DO YOU KNOW MY LIFE
I have never journaled while drunk, but I have written myself notes while stoned. The most memorable was a notable addition to my “To Do” list on my whiteboard in college. Before getting stoned, the list read something along the lines of “laundry, dishes, call Mom, find a job, homework.” When I woke up the next day, after a lovely evening smoking far too much pot, I discovered that I not only felt completely at peace with myself, but I also had added to the bottom of my list: “Break up with your boyfriend.”
Looking back on it, I think if I’d smoked more pot and left myself more notes, I might have figured out I was gay a lot sooner.