bourbon | little sarah Big World

Booze

~OR~

Do I drink too much? Very well then, I drink too much. I am large, I contain multitudes of reasons for drinking.

Tuesday. I love that the liquor store is still open when I get off work. (All the way ’til 7pm! Way to be, Utah!). I like feeling grown-up for buying Bulleit instead of Jack Daniel’s. I like cradling my brown paper wrapped bourbon in the crook of my arm like a baby on the walk home walk home. I like putting on my PJs as soon as I get home and drinking bourbon with water. I love a long bath with a stiff drink to keep me company and Tibetan take-out. I love closing the blinds, pushing back all the furniture and turning up my sweet new speakers for maximum danceability.

I don’t like working from 6am to 6pm with an hour-and-a-half lunch break that I use to run errands and bike home, where I arrive sweating and immediately begin to dread returning to work.

I don’t like puking in my mouth a little bit on the way to Second Job, because I have stress-induced acid reflux and spit up like a damned baby. Because I ate too fast and then drank water (breaking all the reflux rules!), and because I have developed a Pavlovian response to Second Job that causes stomach cramping and increased bile.

I don’t like feeling that my boss could not be happier to see me go, or rid of me soon enough.

I don’t like crying on desk, having to dry my eyes with tissues and pretend it’s allergies (in November? Really?). Because I’m never sure that I’ve made the right decision. Because breaking up is hard to do, after 5 long years of service. Because I just want a familiar face, a friend, a warm tight hug…but instead there are children screaming and crying, and it pierces my thin skin, and it grates my nerves, and it doesn’t stop.

I don’t like that at all, Friends.

But I do like drinking. And the liquor store is still open.

4 Comments

September 4, 2012

History

I remember:

-Giant fake sequoias and a rising sense of panic, an urgent text–“I feel supremely un-okay”–and then reassurance, caring

-A long drive that turned out to be so much more perfect than a short one

-Your hand on my leg

-Almost crashing, over and over, but not really feeling scared

-Drinking bourbon straight from the bottle

-Holding each other, frantically, because this was finally real. It was touchable.

-Crying in the bathroom; missing my friends

-3 hours of sleep

-Watching you drink a mug of coffee, black

-A drive that I never wanted to end

-Waiting for you outside the bathroom

-Your hand on my back

-A long lazy lunch

-“Where does he think I’m from?”

-Stealing kisses in the car

-2 hours behind a budget truck (high centered), and absolutely not caring. Being content, just to be there. Just to be near you.

-Skipping a nap and dinner in favor of tall glasses of whiskey

-Being unable to get up off the couch

-A ridiculous party, never-ending laughs, running home, pretending to be asleep

-Piecing together the night before

-Popcorn for breakfast

-Coming home sweaty after a run to your smiling face

-Changing with the door wide open

-Screaming Turkish music, and meeting new people

-Feeling like I ought to live up to expectations; feeling unable to do so

-Being so, so cold all of the time

-Long walks

-A secret spot

-Saving the end of the story for later

-The Giggles

-A night in with mota, wine, and The Tip of the Iceberg

-Waking up earlier

-Talking for hours in bed, and an internal sigh of relief

-Teaching each other

-A complete meal (bet you anything those pancakes weren’t vegan)

-A walk on the beach

-Watching you watch me watch you smoke

-Hanging out, looking at pictures, smoking, talking

-Meeting my twin!

-SLAYING IT at karaoke

-After being so nervous and anxious that I was about to ask to leave

-Because karaoke is infinitely scarier to me than any other performance

-Because you were drunk and instantly so comfortable with me, while I felt uneasy. And guilty.

-Out of my element

-A failed dance party of two

-Your eyes

-A quick drive to the airport, and goodbye for now

* * *

I don’t remember perfection, but I remember everything. The amazing parts, the scary parts, the anxious parts, the hunger, the hangovers. It wasn’t perfect, and I am not perfect. I am real, and so are you, and so is this.

As real as the pain of its absence.

As real as the relief of its return.

August 12, 2012

Overhang

~OR~

“You have 15 to 20 minutes before you are bombarded with friendship. Be prepared.”

Last night. I was cleaning house, listening to the Broadway Showstoppers station on Pandora, wearing striped underwear and mom’s embroidered halter top from the 70s, and baking banana bourbon chocolate chip bread.

I turned down plans with a friend, a “friend date,” to do this. “I’ve got a date with myself,” I told her.

But…turns out you can’t just text your Stephanies a picture of you in your underwear and halter top and expect them not to show up at your house. I was making guacamole, anyways.

Told them I was in the middle of cleaning/dancing/baking, that I couldn’t be a great hostess for very long…but in the end it turned out not to matter. Because I don’t need to host them. There is no courting here, just epic hanging out and talking, laughing, complete honesty…

And whiskey gingers. Lots and lots of whiskey gingers.

(I call them that even when I use bourbon. True story).

Incidentally, I started the day off with sauteed chard.

We call that detox, friends. But it was totally worth it.

little sarah Big World

Tag: bourbon

November 15, 2012