Today would have been my brother’s 44th birthday. Yes indeed, he was a St. Patrick’s baby in 1979.

He embodied the luck of the Irish, which is always said in jest as a kind of backhanded compliment. He’d have kept up with any local legend on the Emerald Isle and drank with them under any table they’d like. He woke up to drink, used it to get through the day, and went to bed every day with it. It’s a large part of the reason he’s not around to talk about it.

Josh was nothing if not interesting. Since I don’t drink any more, I’ll let everyone else raise their glasses in his honor. They’ll be unironically toasting with the thing that probably killed him. It helps people mourn, remember, numb themselves, and eventually move on.

Alcohol’s a proper painkiller: effective at small doses, better at medium doses, and large doses will kill you. The side effects are endless and the addiction potential is top 5. It’s the drug we’ve all agreed should stay legal since that silly war started in 1970.

I digress as I am want to do…

We’ll miss you and forever be vexed by your descent into madness and death. You could have stuck around longer, but have it your way, dead king.