holiday recap, part 1: evaluating excess

let's quantify!

it was during my asian walkabout two years back that i first heard asians use the word "holiday" to refer to what americans call a "vacation" or a "trip". it's a little bit of british diction preserved by the queen's former colonies, such as malaysia, hong kong, singapore, etc. but unlike "please form a queue" (instead of making a line) and "mind the gap" (watch your step), i'm afraid that "holiday" in its commonwealth meaning has been integrated into my american talk. that lengthy intro was to explain the "holiday" in this post's title. other than that, it has nothing to do with anything.

nevertheless, let's kick-off an ocd-inspired, celebratory retrospective of my 16-day "teasing jesus" tour. for our first look back, the above chart represents 18 nights: 16 abroad + the nights before and after. the primary purpose of this graphic is to represent level of excess. as you can see, dates and locations are accompanied by a letter/number combo and a color.

letter/number explanation:

the letter indicates the approximate number of alcoholic drinks consumed between 10 pm on the date listed until 10 am the next morning (please note: brunchtime bloody mary's are not included):

H: heavy consumption (7+ drinks)
M: moderate consumption (4-6)
L: light consumption (1-3)

the number indicates the number of hours slept between the same 10-to-10 span mentioned above (please note: afternoon naps are not included).

color explanation:

red indicates 7+ drinks drunk and 7+ hours slept.
yellow indicates 4-7 drinks dranked and 4-7 hours slept.
blue indicates 0-3 drinks drank and 0-3 hours slept.

as you might imagine, when colors for both drinks and sleep are combined, red, yellow and blue render secondary colors like orange, purple and green. so, red and orange represent the highest combined levels of excess (red+red, red+yellow). purple and yellow represent moderate excess (red+blue, yellow+yellow), while green and blue indicate low levels of excess (yellow+blue, blue+blue).

since the chart is not primarily concerned with quantifying naughtiness, heavy drinking (red) + minimal sleep (blue) and the much less reproachable, minimal drinks (blue) + tons o' sleep (red), are both rendered purple. but since humans are terribly judgmental creatures, i've shaded the greens and purples to also indicate which combo is naughtier ...call me neo-colonial, but darker is naughtier.

conclusions:

1) i'm not a terribly excessive person (only one red or orange day).
2) i don't sleep much after becoming shit-faced drunk (just 3.6 hours on average).
3) conversely, being sober makes me sleepy (7 hours on average).
4) with the exception of san francisco (no surprise there), i like one day of moderation per location.
5) i was practically swimming in alcohol by the time i left sf (which explains this).

overall, this is great news. if there was a high incidence of heavy drinking and copious sleep, it would mean that i was incoherent while awake and fast asleep when my wits were (theoretically) about me.

please stay tuned for another holiday recap, coming soon.