I could blame it on Mardi Gras, I could blame it on the down-sizing of my job, I could blame it on a downward shame spiral, I could blame the impeachment hearings or I could just blame myself. I've been doing many acts and thinking many thoughts of late that will do nothing but help a soul to crumble into a heap of goo that the government would rather sweep under the rug than solve.

There was not a day last week when I wasn't wallowing in some disagreeable activity or another (speaking in double negatives, evil!). Smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol beyond the recommended one or two a day, reading Samuel Beckett short stories about wasted and dying old men, staying up until three or four in the morning in blurry hazes, watching bands with no message or entertainment value, eyeing girls far too young for my age, cheering and jeering college basketball teams for which I've never seen their institutions, and waking up every day to realize that it didn't matter what I did the day before. And Lent has begun.

Lent has been a strange part of my existence. Even after organized Christianity stopped being appealing to me (a man without religion, add that to the bad list), the season of Lent held some sort of merit. Did I have the willpower to give up one or more of my habitual acts of excess? Could I make through six weeks of late winter/early spring giving up something I had assumed I couldn't live without? The answer is sometimes.

I gave up pork and pot a few years back when it was much harder for me to give up the former than the latter, and except for one accidental piece of pepperoni pizza, I achieved my goal. Of course, I still partake in both as much as before or more so, but I had the short-term willpower. Gold star on the Lent bulletin board for Chris.

My success rate for Lent has been pretty spotty. I gave up ice cream, but that wasn't too difficult since it was cold outside. I gave up pornography, sex and masturbation one year, but I failed fairly quickly. Sodas were part of my mission once, and I think I only had a few slip ups. TV was next to impossible. I did succeed at giving up drinking, but I wasn't of legal age yet. Foods and drinks were fairly easy for me to give up. Drugs and dirty activities were not.

Basically, what all of the bingeing and purging of "undesirable habits" has shown me is that my willpower is selective. If I really want to go through the suffering of giving up any of my vices, then I can accomplish it. Do I want to go through the suffering? The answer is sometimes.

As I've grown older, I've realized that the number of my vices have grown, and I still haven't lost many of my old ones. I once thought of myself as a good person, and while I'm still polite to people I hardly know, a friend recently described me as "slightly evil." The scary thing is that I may have many more years before I'm all done on this planet. Slightly evil could turn to moderately evil and then to just plain bitter old man.

While I wallow in my form of excess, I don't envy the pious. I have no ambition to mend my ways and become part of the predictable, honest-to-goodness middle class. I don't want to work hard to pay off the mortgage, get that shiny used Lexus sedan everyone seems to be getting and still have enough money to go out to eat at an overpriced, underflavored food chain. I never liked to pay for the ambiance.

So I've been bad this week. Not as bad as the wicked, but most scholarly folk would look at my track record and deem me unnecessary and unproductive. The unscholarly are too busy covering themselves in filth in an attempt to feel important, but they have promised to ignore my failings for as long as they live. Nice people, the unscholarly, but they just have nothing to say.

So good luck on Lent for those of you who are Christian or just testing your willpower. Maybe you'll cut out a vice or two, or maybe just take a needed vacation from them. The evil will be waiting when you're ready to come back. And if you return, tell them Chris sent you. I get a discounted rate on my evil for every soul I bring back.

Chris Jungle tried to give up his SUIT columns for Lent. The editors, however, found no merit in attempting to give up that vice and talked him out of it.