99 bottles of wine in the fall

This has been our everyday wine since the days have been mostly night. Though the ratio will begin its slow inversion today, I'm sure to drink dark through the equinox.

A toast to the reds and umbers to come in winter. Happy solstice.

The new way

Cider, bitches.

Thanks, Mom!

Young's Double Chocolate Stout ice cream floats in adorable vintage frosty mugs.

anticipation

I can't wait for Emily to write about our trip to The Aviary.

Drinking the Kool-aid at Hot Doug's

When you have true and great company like Emily, an hour wait is nothing for these gourmet dogs and duck fat fries. I recommend a 3/4 diet and 1/4 cherry coke blend to accompany the feast. Breakfast of champions.

the comforts of home

My mom's tuna casserole and everyday wine, Woodbridge Chardonnay. Like a hug wrapped in cozy.

Note to self

Always get a shot and a beer at Delilah's before getting your hair did.

Indian summer

My family came to town and brought with them even better than days of wine and roses. Settling into fall, we were tickled with sunny outdoor drinking in October. Call them days of Malibu and mums.

i feel pamplemousse

another reason to love fall

It's tea season again.

You can still see the steam on my morning steep.

I always think that Earl Grey smells like Fruit Loops. I love it.

Implicit complicit

Spring, summer, fall...

Zubrowka is a bison grass vodka distilled from rye and served (traditionally, so I'm told) chilled. It sips of almond and herbs. A bracing sweetness. Goose-bumped and pinched-nipple anticipation of getting out and in trouble.

Daisy Cutter is a local favorite. Cut green grass synethesia and lawn chair low key. Zinc oxide. Skeeter bites you scratch 'til they bleed.

Post Road Pumpkin was my first one of the season that I drank at my first trip to a neighborhood bar on my new side of town. Pleasant punkin pie spices leaning toward creaminess. Easy comfort. Reminiscence rolled and molded by reticence.

Making it better?

Sniffles and soar throat. My co-worker gave me this not Emergen-C dissolvable vitamin packet. Intense!

The real celebration

A Michelob Ultra is not good enough. I'm celebrating with a Negroni, book, and new bar.

I will bring you to Wee Gee's Lounge when you visit for classic cocktails and shuffleboard.

Two new records (perhaps)

I drank this Michelob Ultra at 9:30 this morning. This may be my earliest breakfast beer. Though, let's be adults here, MU is hardly beer. I wouldn't normally drink the stuff (except for that short rendezvous I had with the Tuscan Orange Grapefruit flavor but I certainly never confused that with beer) but I got a free one with with the registration for the Chicago Half Marathon and 5k.

The record I know I set was running my first 5k ever. I ran it all. I'm really fucking proud of myself. When I was in high school and was forced to run, I couldn't and wouldn't do it - nothing close to a mile. Today I ran 3.1 miles.

I felt tough. And strong. I passed people on the course. I repeat, I passed people on the course. This made me feel like a bad ass and true to myself. As I shuffled around folks, I wished them well and cheered em on in my head.

We have bodies.

though i haven't said it

I think of you when I'm feeling healthy and drink guava kombucha. Thought of you when I the best cold potent margarita after moving furniture up to a third floor walk up. When I had the first autumnal seasonal beer. Had a pickleback at a wedding. Iced tea - I forgot. Water water water.

related

I'm keeping another blog for a few months. Scandalous, I know. I may well write here because this, along with letters, are my creative writing outlets. This other blog is about preparing for a 5K to raise funds for Open Books. I'm excited about writing about my body and the fears I hold in it as I try running.

remember, reflect, refer

I've had some amazing drinking experience that I didn't capture here in the past month or so. Let's remember.



Early this month, my dear friends Eben and Anna got married. For four days, we celebrated with Natty Bohs, bloody marys, and wine. So many of my best friends were all in one place at the same time! Not only did we celebrate with booze, we celebrated with love and exuberant joy. We were excited for the new couple and just to be together. These are people who knew me and know me. They, like family, shape who I am and how I see myself.



I also got to spend some quality time with Eryn at her grandmother's sweeeet house on lake Michigan. Part of what made that lakehouse so incredible, aside from the QT with Eryn, was the massive collection of booze grandma keeps for entertaining. From the high-end scotch in crystal decanters to Coors Light cans, this woman can meet any guest's boozey needs. Also, she takes the time to make imbibing an experience. For example, she keeps Waterford crystal around for Sunday bloody marys in case she's feeling luxurious. She is truly an inspiration.



Both of these weekends of booze got all shaken (not stirred) in my head with what I'm doing, where I am, where I've been, and who I want to be. Generally, I've been preoccupied with the shifting notions of identity. Is there some essential part of us that remains and sustains over time or is everything about us malleable? Am I who I think I am? What I do? Who others think I am?



This sums it up and stabilizes me.

hangover reveries

I woke in my party dress this morning. And party earrings. And party mascara. It's the most beautiful sunshiney day in Chicago. Perfect for a pool party but the pools aren't open. It hurts, but it's worth it.

I love the vulnerability of a hangover. I'm so susceptible to joys and sadness. The ebbulience of brunch well-chosen! And now, air-conditioner on and curtains drawn, in bed with a new Bitch magazine, I heart Your Style by Amanda Brooks, and a piece of coconut tres leches cake. My only plan for the day is dancing.

A few days ago, I got the best haircut. It's short and curly and wild and makes me feel like my best self. Concurrently, I decided if I don't love my job, I can at least look damn good at it. This is important. "Let me begin by saying that find your personal style is really about discovering yourself." This is important.

Here's to: Things that Sparkle

- The California sunshine
- Elizabeth Taylor's eyes
- The above pictured Elizabeth Taylor tribute cocktail which was sipped in the California sun (the single large ice cube suggesting white diamonds)

neighborhoods and community

Sun and warmth are finally meandering their way into Chicago. This means that people are uncurling from their apartments and remembering that there is pleasant living beyond the sofa.

I sometimes worry that I don't have friends in the winter.

I have been more social in the last week than the last four months combined.  A super fun outing that I just embarked on with my friends Betsy and Sara was a neighborhood exchange. I went up to their 'hood to see their favorite everyday places. Saw their bar, coffee shop, bookstore, and Swedish pastry shop. Soon I'll have them down to our lands between lands to walk my walks, snack my snacks, and drink my drinks. Maybe we'll swim in the community pool and eat popsicles from the paleta man with his wandering bells. I'm excited to show them my space.

I wonder what will be lost by having them down for the free and easy sunshine versus the trapped, stilted winter. Because that's when we really live in these places -the mile radius around the house is our whole world.

Next year I'll make snowshoes.

to many happy returns

I'm not sure how I heard, but I had to go to Lillie's Q. They have boiled peanuts! I love those little nibblers. Your fingers get all salty, pruney from popping 'em open so you can slurp 'em out of the half shell. Lillie's also had mighty tasty pimento cheese and thick cut fried pickles just how I like them.

I will come back this summer to sit on their patio, sip moonshine-spiked Arnold Palmers, and snack on the peanuts.

I miss the Latham Mart's vats of regular and cajun style boiled peanuts. They were perfect to bring to a potluck.

isn't she

Big walks on beaches Long and Venice with a stop for a passion fruit bellini. I said, "I'm just a bit red," as we headed back out. Enjoying the California sun left me a deeper blush than the rose sangria we shared at dinner.

satisfied yet longing

I bought this big red because my honey's been on a wine kick, and I thought he'd like it. Too bad he won't be able to try it. He's gone of to London for work, and I'm alone doing what I do when I'm alone - eating pizza and drinkng wine. I'm not in with my other boyfriend, the Red Baron, tonight though. I'm doing a whole wheat, white bean, and kale pizza by candlelight with Beach House as background. A special treat for one but ultimately true to what I do when I'm with or missin my boo. Here's to the spaces where how we romance ourselves and romance others kiss.

the last days of detox

left me with lots of questions. What is the making of a woman? Is she what she has done? What she does? Who she thinks she is? All of this is to say that I missed drinking booze. Desperately sometimes. During the detox. Drinking is a part of so many of my social activities. As this blog implies, it's what I do when I celebrate. What I do when I lament. What I do in groups to party. What I do alone along with introspection. And while clove and sage tea and spicy beet juice are delicious, amazing even,

they are but an amusing sidebar of the narrative I care to create.

Learning new things

One of my favorite bars in Chicago sells soda water and a lime wedge for $ 1.

Awesome or rip-off?

'tis the gift to be simple

I'm going from this

to this

for the next three weeks.

Vegan, caffeine-free, booze-free, gluten-free, soy-free, sugar-free. I'm charged with slowing down, spending time mindfully paying attention to my breath, and getting a full 8 hours of sleep each night. Less time multi-tasking, more time detached from all my technologies, and moving my body without much attention to time at all. It's a kind of freedom. Pause.

Airport logic

I just thought very seriously about getting a shamrock shake.

bourbon and bitters

A Saturday night at home rewarded. I am the medium as two artists communicate 'cross the fuzzy post humous divide. The doc above reminds me of Gravity and Grace below.

"Literature and morality. Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating. Therefore, 'imaginative literature' is either boring or immoral (or a mixture of both). It only escapes from this alternative if in some way it passes over to the side of reality through the power of art - and only genius can do that."

Hank, Simone, and I will sit on the beach where reality and imaginary lap against each other. In the wet, on the sand, let's raise our naked Manhattans 'til the tides turn around.

much ado

about something.

more importantly

Overdue...

A giant dirty gin martini and crab spinach dip. More importantly, a giant gin martini and pulled pork sandwich. Casually, a winter coat and scarf strewn over a chair at Mc Cabe's (leaves me wondering about the Misses).

More importantly, we listen to big dreams between hand claps.

Champagne of beers

This is something worth cheers-ing over. A tight Belgian beer with an after-taste of champagne while having a progressive dinner with mom and sis. Abby pointed out when the three of us are together it's like anything is possible. Here's to flames not smoke.

I love the holidays

I had chestnuts roasted on the open fire with mulled wine. They are as good as the holiday mythology suggests.