Excuses to drink.

A bit back, I had cut out liquor entirely for a while, and that's been going well for me. I think it's been healthy. Looking into going completely dry for a spell here, which means cutting wine too.

A few years ago, I had originally tried to impose a restriction of "just holidays", which at the time seemed to make sense.

Holidays are about once a month, it's a time set aside specifically for celebration, etc.

Of course, I was soon pulling up a "holiday of the day" site, and toasting, you know... "National Chicken Nuggets Day" or whatever silly thing fell on the day I wanted to be an exception.

I heard a similar story from American history for the first time this morning. Back in the day, the supreme court justices lived together and had taken to day drinking. Recognizing this was a problem for not just them, but the country, they looked to stop drinking during deliberations, but settled on "usually".. instituting a rule that they could only drink during deliberations on days that it was raining.

The rule wasn't in effect for very long before Chief Justice John Marshall asked a clerk to open a window to see if it was raining, on a day he really wanted it to be. Seeing it wasn't raining, he declared "our jurisdiction is so vast, that it's probably raining somewhere in the country, so let's have some madeira."

This might help explain why they didn't strike down the Alien and Sedition Acts, now that I think about the timing of this.