The Mezzanine

‰ЫПI drink milk very rarely now; in fact, the half-pint carton I bought at Papa Gino‰ЫЄs to go with the cookie was one of the very last times: it was a sort of test to see whether I still could drink it with the old pleasure. (You have to spot-check your likes and dislikes every so often in this way to see whether your reactions have altered, I think.)‰Ыќ

‰ЫПUsed with care, substances that harm neural tissues, such as alcohol, can aid intelligence: you corrode the chromium, giggly, crossword puzzle‰ЫТsolving parts of your mind with pain and poison, forcing the neurons to take responsibility for themselves and those around them, toughening themselves against the accelerated wear of these artificial solvents. After a night of poison, your brain wakes up in the morning saying, ‰ЫчNo, I don‰ЫЄt give a shit who introduced the sweet potato into North America.‰ЫЄ The damage that you have inflicted heals over, and the scarred places left behind have unusual surface areas, roughnesses enough to become the nodes around which wisdom weaves its fibrils.‰Ыќ