From the Bookshelf of Around the Year in 52 Books …

I looked out the window into the alley, where a plastic bag and a flattened soda bottle were being whipped into a miniature urban tornado. Rain was coming, and I wanted a drink.

I quickly poured a shot and downed it, annoyed at myself but so, so happy.

I liked whiskey. I liked the taste of it, the burn, the way it muffled the edges of things. I didn't have a problem with drinking, I told myself, but with everything else. I had an unhappiness problem. A loneliness one. I stood in my silent kitch

I looked out the window into the alley, where a plastic bag and a flattened soda bottle were being whipped into a miniature urban tornado. Rain was coming, and I wanted a drink.

I quickly poured a shot and downed it, annoyed at myself but so, so happy.

I liked whiskey. I liked the taste of it, the burn, the way it muffled the edges of things. I didn't have a problem with drinking, I told myself, but with everything else. I had an unhappiness problem. A loneliness one. I stood in my silent kitchen, shot glass in hand, as I had too many times before. "I'm lonely," I said, trying it on for size.

I didn't like it.

I dropped the glass in the sink harder than I intended to, and it shattered.

I left the hospital with something needling me, like an itchy tag sewn into the back of a shirt.

I checked.

That wasn't it. I'd already cut the tag out of my shirt.

Suzy led me over to the front porch, where we sat in those plastic Adirondack chairs that make you lean back awkwardly.