Every year, around this time, I find myself engaged in a battle of will, gnawing at my own tongue to keep from losing the few friendships that have survived the waning years of my 20s, a few cross-continental moves and the abrupt decision that I already have too many friends.

The battle begins in late February, with the first of their well-intentioned invitations. Would I like to do the Running of the Green, an Irish-style 10K race, the Sunday before St. Patrick's Day? Would I like to drink green food coloring in the cheap beer they sell down at Paddy O'Clanahans (or some stupid name like that) for merely $2 per plastic glass, starting at 1 p.m. March 17? Wouldn't I love an all-boiled meal of strangely processed meat and limp cabbage on St. Paddy's Day? Like fuck I would.

I've already seen ads claiming that "we're all a little bit Irish" on this day, America's most recognized celebration of a foreign land. I want to cut them out, crumple them up and cram them up someone's kilt -- an opportunity I know I'd come across within the first 2 meters of the Running of the Green.

Don't get me wrong. I love Ireland. I've spent a few very beautiful, drunken weeks there. I, like pretty much every anglo-American I know, have some percentage of Irish blood. My grandfather calls the goddamn place the Old Country.

I also love a good holiday honoring a foreign land: On May Day, I raise my glass to hard-working Cuban comrades; On July 14, which I like to call "Quatorze Juillet," I drink wine with nearly the same abandon that I drank Coors just 10 days earlier; And just a few weeks ago, on Jan. 26, I was quite sincere in wishing the young Aussie manning my chairlift a "Happy Australia Day"!

The main thing is that I just don't get why everybody and their mother is so cranked up over Irish pride, even if they're 2 percent Irish and 98 percent German, or Dutch, or French... My feelings toward this nationalistic trend are comparable to how I feel about driving around with a Free Tibet sticker on one's car. Sure, free Tibet. But how did the place become the geographic equivalent of the baby seal?

The best way I know to make you (who probably already have some corned-beef-eatin', Guinness-drinkin' plans of your own) understand where I'm coming from is to tell the story of a friend I used to have. (I kept my mouth in check; our friendship just didn't survive the aforementioned events in my life.)

Jim tended bar at Corbett McGee's, a ubiquitous wood-paneled Irish pub that looked just like the one in your neighborhood or my neighborhood. This wacky-tacky place could have been in any city in the western world, but it was in Anderson, South Carolina. And in that little town of about 25,000 people living near the foothills of the Appalachians and across the river from where the film Deliverance was made, it was about the only non-private (i.e. creepy) drinkin' place to go. In my three years as an Andersonian, I spent many evenings at Corbett's, eating shepherd's pie, drinking ciders and trying not to give the evil eye to the rednecks that played "traditional Irish folksongs" on stage, in kilts, nearly every goddamn night. Jim's boss, the owner, swore to be a descendent of Corbett McGee's. I tried to believe her -- the South attracted tons of Irish immigrants -- but always had a hard time getting over her first name, Dixie.

The place wore off on Jim. Although I had never heard about his Irish heritage before, it became a point of fierce pride. So much so, that during an overnight trip to Atlanta, Jim decided to get a tattoo -- of the Irish flag inside a shamrock. Tattooing is illegal in South Carolina. When residents of that lush and enchanting state want to get inked, they go southwest and cross the Savannah River into Georgia. The opposite occurs when a denizen of the Peach State wants some high-powered fireworks.

Anyhow, we were in Atlanta and far enough away from home that sleeping on the decision didn't seem like a good idea. Jim marched into the tiny tattoo parlor, upstairs from a head shop in an old Victorian house, and demanded his shamrock -- filled with the vertical bands of orange, white and green that symbolize that most beloved of the British Isles. He asked if that was the right order. I had no fucking idea, and neither did the Georgia hippy loading his tattoo gun. Jim went for it. Which is why he has the flag of a small African nation tattooed on his left bicep inside of a shamrock. Turns out the Ivory Coast's flag is a mirror-image of Ireland's green-white-and-orange banner.

Jim was fairly bummed, but is was nothing a few nights of rowdy drinking and backyard firework displays didn't cure. I, however, felt permanently scarred. Why do we as Americans cling so fervently to something we know so little about?

Are we, on some deep genetic level, reminiscent for a way of life that we've lost since so many of our ancestors fled the "old country"? In my two weeks in Ireland, I hitch-hiked a fair bit, and the majority of those trips ended with the incredibly friendly stranger dropping me and my boyfriend off at a pub to share a few pints before we went on our way. From what I can tell of my own country, the majority of hitch-hiking trips back in the U.S. end in a body bag.

Or are we all still mad at the English? I know the piss me off, especially when I watch Rob Roy. But just as many Americans go to London as Dublin; everyone likes the Beatles just fine; and the Union Jack's certainly had its hey-day on this side of the Atlantic. So that seems an unlikely reason.

Maybe it's the leprechauns, the pots o' gold, or the corned beef, but if so I just don't get it.

My guess is that it's probably all about the booze, which is fine with me but it does seem a little shallow. Just because the Ivory Coast hasn't exported as many pubs, it probably has some damn fine barley wines or home brews.

So go on, enjoy your drunken holiday and misguided Irish pride. Me, I'll be making excuses to my friends and going to bed early. I'm saving my energy for next month, when the Fete du Dipri starts. I don't know what that means, but according to africaguide.com, it's marked by the women and children of the Cote d'Ivoire sneaking out of their huts naked to "carry out nocturnal rites to exorcise the village of evil spells." Then they go into trances when the chief appears before sunrise and pounds on drums.

Break out the orange and green food coloring, because that sounds pretty kickass.