Oh Ernest...

"My training was to never drink after dinner nor before I wrote nor while I was writing." - Hemingway, A Moveable Fest

I am often in awe of the Papa Hemingway. I also wonder whether he actually followed that training of his or whether this was a late attempt of his to reconcile the drink with his life. Either way I follow a decidedly different training. I too do not drink before and rarely while I write. But after dinner is certainly fair game. I do wonder what it would have been like to sit on a bar stool in Spain in 1924 and drink in the afternoon. Or to have shiny drinks in the post noon hours in pre-war Paris.

For me it is India Pale Ale in the dark of night after a dinner full of rice and beans. Or a bowl of pasta with some brightly colored sauce: green, pink, even the brightness of the white is amazing.

Do we entertain the idea of reality as one which is subjective? Is the reality that I see the same as Benjamin's? In the end are we both striving for the same goal? If I don't believe in the afterlife am I inherently doomed for eternal damnation?

Oh Ernest give me words and punctuation to explain it all! Simplicity please!