The Drinking Game.

Rainy days are for staying in. Curling under the covers with the window open as rain patters rhythmically outside, they are sleepy days of comfort and staying in. 

Not if you’re visiting some of the best wine country around though. Oh no- rainy days here in Amador County, California are for wine tasting and tipsy times.  

See, I love me a good ole fashioned drink. 

French Gimlets, Moscow Mules, Lemon Drops, Baileys on the rocks, Guinness, a fancy glass of wine, and anything with champagne are some of my special beverages of choice.  

Like anything though, I find them best when they’re drunk in moderation.  Anything in excess causes the greatest pleasures (and in this case, drinking) to cease and become ordinary. 

There’s another reason I don’t drink excessively: I don’t like how my body feels after it’s been drowning in spirits.

I’ve never been quote on quote “drunk” before, but the other night, I had a taste of what it felt like to be past tipsy and dangerously close to losing my inhibition.  

I was with my roomies, we were at home, and we played a Harry Potter drinking game. It sounded innocent enough, but after about four/five shots of vodka and a lemonade chaser, I was beginning to lose my senses.  

When I’ve been at this stage before, I become painfully aware of the fact that I am no longer in complete control. I fight against this uncontrollable weight that fogs my ability to think clearly and I halt drinking at once to avoid the inevitable change in mood and oncoming sickly sensation. 

I get called a party pooper and a sore loser for not being “loose enough”, but I simply stand my ground and continue playing my own character in this drinking game.  

They say you’re a prude when you deem yourself designated driver night after night, a drunk when you’ve drunk too much, a loose cannon when you can’t hold your liquor, and you’re made to feel left out of you’re not as hammered as everyone else at the party/bar/club. 

Forgive me if I choose to avoid awkward situations where I’m not in control of my body, or hungover mornings, or a bank account that reminded me of how much money I spent the night before on drinks.  

I’m not saying I don’t like drinking or I don’t care for alcohol, I’m just saying that in this drinking game, I’ll chose how I want to play, what I want to drink, and how much I want to drink.  

I don’t need to be drunk to “have a good time” and I certainly won’t fall privy to society’s pressures to drink a certain amount to fit in and have fun. I know what limits my body has and I know what I’m comfortable with, and I’m sorry but six shots isn’t good on my mind, and it certainly isn’t good on my body. 

To that, I’ll toast you with my fancy glass of Nuee Ardente from local winery Lava Cap, and go about my rainy day.  

Something to Say.

I was sitting outside of a café yesterday, journal splayed before me, iced coffee just a reach away, with the spring sun shining down on my bare skin, when a stylish older woman approached me.

In a world so apparently afraid to approach strangers, hesitant to start a conversation without fear of being shied away or ignored, it was a welcome gesture that I happily reciprocated.

See, I am currently writing this from my new home in California. 

Yes, I've been here near a week now and it's taken me this long to sit down and catch up.

I can't say I've been busy. Yes, there's the whole moving in project and acclimating myself in a new environment, but I don't have my job interviews until later this week so I've been... free.

And it wasn't until this woman approached me that I felt compelled to catch up with you. 

See, I’ve been waiting. Waiting for what? Well, good copy. I kept saving my first post until I felt there was an adventure worth talking about, continually searching for something to inspire me. 

Really though, the content was there all along. It's been inside me since the moment I said my bittersweet and heartfelt goodbye to Alaska and all I love in it, it was with me as I made the drive across the state with my grandma, taking myself one step closer to my new home, and it has since been with me through the multiple (yes, multiple) cry sessions I've had in my room (and in public) as I went through what it felt like to be an adult. 

It was this lady, this chic, wise, older lady, that reminded me of why I write in the first place. 

Writing is therapeutic. It's good old-fashioned storytelling, and it brings me peace and comfort in a world where I sometimes feel alone. The second I whip out my pen, or the second my fingers take their position on the keyboard, the faucet turns on and the words come tumbling out. Sometimes, they don't make sense. Sometimes what's inside of me causes my vision to blur as I put my thoughts into words, and sometimes, I can't write fast enough, overwhelming excitement taking over the slower than accepted rate at which I can keep up. 

There's all this pressure in the world to be someone, to act a certain way, and I fear that sometimes, I curl into myself and hold whatever's inside of me in this dark little corner and simmer in the decision to keep quiet. 

Well if you haven't heard me perform onstage, I've got a voice, and it's a pretty loud one! One that deserves to be heard, in whatever capacity that may be. Could be for my eyes, and my eyes only, but the point is, it needs to come out, and writing is the best outlet for me to do so. 

I don't need a moment in which to inspire me to sit down and catch up, I need the mindset that when there's a thought inside of me worth sharing, it deserves to come out in written form. 

And golly, it feels so gooooood when it's out there. Like a professional session with a therapist, I feel peace and walk away just a little bit wiser from my revelation. 

I don’t write because I want to say something for the sake of saying something. I write because I have something to say. 

If there’s ever any doubt in these next few months, doubt about my future and fear of not pursuing my real dream (my magazine), I have to remind myself that small progress is still progress and that there are other ways in which I’m nurturing my soul for what’s to come.  

Being surrounded by passionate people, living in an entrepreneurial area, and continually writing, the most encouraging and healing activity of all.