Midnight reflections in a tequila mirror.

For starters, never drink tequila if you have been suffering from particularly bad mood swings for the past month or so. That in itself is a recipe for disaster, and if not disaster, at least a series of unfortunate events that you will probably wish you could undo the next morning. Secondly, make sure that if you do proceed with the afore mentioned activities, someone else is there to take responsibility for your cell phone for at least a couple of hours. Sort of like a "save me from myself" mentality, if you will. Even if you won't give it to someone else, at least think about turning your phone off and throwing it in a pond or the ocean. Trust me. You'll be glad later on. Drunken conversations are never, never, never worth it the next day. While you're having it, it seems like the best thing in the world, like you can finally say things you have wanted to say forever. Which is exactly my point. There is a reason you never said any of those things before, and that's because your prefrontal cortex is usually acting as a buffer to the lower parts of your brain, the parts that scream "YEA LET'S GO BUNGEE JUMP WITHOUT A ROPE!" In short, the prefrontal regulates stupidity. Unfortunately, when you drink tequila at midnight, it overwhelms that small portion of your brain and the other parts surge forth unchecked and uninhibited, so suddenly, driving to Dunkin Donuts with your little brother's friend for stale pastries at 12:14 am sounds like the greatest idea ever, bar none, and even worse, you find yourself texting with someone for a retarded amount of time, someone you know you shouldn't be talking to late at night after consuming tequila. Good grief.

I just wonder to myself what it is that flips the switch in our brain so that after a certain hour of the night, we become way less inhibited, even if we haven't been shooting tequila. I finally established a rule for myself a few years back that pretty much goes like "any email I write after midnight will be saved to my draft box until I review it the next morning and can declare it legally sane". Obviously, that rule does not nor has it ever applied to this blog. On one hand, late night conversations have a way of bringing out an openess and honesty in people's thoughts and emotions that never sees the light of day, and for good reason. 99% of those interactions are regretted the next day, normally with the party in question going "why...oh why did I ever say that? I feel so stupid!"

On the other hand...it can be way easier to talk so someone at midnight because the overall silence and darkness act like a security blanket,making it easier to finally open up. Unforftunately, I still have to side with the fact that opening up at midnight about something you can't talk about in daylight normally has nothing but regretful thought attached to it the next day.