boozin' | ThisihT

Roughing it:

130223

So last Friday night I stayed over at a friend’s house. It was later on in the evening when I got there – 8:30, maybe – and she and I had a great time eating delicious food, drinking delicious wine, paraffin waxing our hands, and dancing to music on her iPod. She passed out around 11 or 12, but I, ever the night owl, decided to stay up and do some work.

And finish the wine.

Whatever.

After about an hour or so of Lightroom and Pinot Noir, I decided to go outside for a cigarette. And you know that feeling you have, sometimes, right before something goes completely wrong? Like, that moment where you catch your breath and realize a mistake is in the works, JUST AFTER it becomes too late to stop the pendulum from swinging braggishly toward disaster? It’s a little hiccup, a certain slowing of time, before everything clicks back into place and you realize you’ve just locked yourself out of the condo.

Locked. Out.

The doorbell was no use – my dear friend, it seems, is a very sound sleeper – and anyway the buzzer is two floors down from her bedroom. To make matters worse, I could SEE her cell phone on the granite countertop just inside the door. My options were limited.

Inside the condo were my purse, license, cash, credit cards, laptop, hair elastics, and the rest of the wine. Outside, I had my car keys, a pack and a half of Camels, my iPhone, and a case of Diet Coke. Also a bottle of vodka and a jar of tomato sauce. But I didn’t see how those last two things were helpful. I retreated to the car to think things through.

My parents lived nearby, but it was almost 2am. And I was kind of drunk. Plus I didn’t have my license. For the same reasons, driving home to Revere wasn’t a viable option. As if to concretize the situation, I turned on the Yaris and realized I was running on fumes – the gas light blinked eyelessly from the dash as my phone buzzed it’s 20% battery warning. I lit another smoke and contemplated my fate. I’d done this before, I thought, that time in the hospital, with less battery life and certainly less Diet Coke. People bivouac on the sides of mountaintops. Come on, we’re just in the suburbs here. We can do this. It’s like a vision quest, but without the peyote.

After a moment of rummaging I came up with an iPhone charging cable and my trusty DC converter with dual USB out, but the gas situation was problematic and it was really, really cold. Plus, I figured I wouldn’t be able to get inside until at least 6am. I browsed idly through my apps, trying to find something to occupy my mind for the next 4-6 hours. Music would be nice, I thought.

And then, it happened. I downloaded Spotify. And somehow, by some miracle, I got a free upgrade to a premium account. For the uninitiated, this basically means that not only did I have “some music”, I had *ALL THE MUSIC*. I mean, almost all the music. But still, SO MUCH MUSIC. Feverishly, I began to search. I found a Bassnectar remix of Underworld’s “Rez“, which led me through both their entire catalogues, which somehow led me to my old favorite Akufen, which brought me to a multi-disc mix called Up All Night, which brought me back to Bassnectar. And then, dear friends, then it was sunrise.

The snow was falling gently as I clomped through the drifts up to my friend’s doorstep. I rang the bell, firmly, once every three seconds until finally I heard her start to stumble down the stairs.

“What the – “

I grinned like a moron, shaking snowflakes out of my hair.

“How long have you BEEN out there?”

Best night ever? MAYBE.

Leave a Comment » | aberrant behavior, best week ever, boozin', how i am awesome | Permalink
Posted by erinire

(Not) Getting a Cab in Austin: Part 1

120315

So I just got back from SXSW, which it’s actually difficult for me to type without a hashtag, and I had like, an 85% great time.

Only 85%? But SXSW (#) is supposed to be, like, Geek Mecca! Nirvana for the nerd set! Hipster heaven!

And it was all that – and more! It was awesome like a music festival, minus the sleeping outside and the mud, and it was inspiring like church (if you’re into that sort of thing). Late nights, early mornings, and a wealth of information it’ll take me weeks to sort through. But I can break that other 15% down for you in four simple words: The cabs there? SUCK.

The first day was fine, actually. Totally cool. I went online and ordered a cab for 8:45am, and, at about 9am one showed up. Perfect! That night, I booked a cab for 8:30, just to be safe, and drifted to sleep thinking how convenient the whole thing had been.

At 9:15 the following morning, I was not finding it so very convenient. My friend’s husband, roused from bed by his groggy wife for the purpose of driving me to the convention, was not finding it very convenient either.

I’d called the cab company at 8:45 to inquire as to the status of my cab, and was told, in a slow Texas drawl, that there were no cabs avaliable.

“But I booked online!” I said, my heart rate accelerating. “You HAVE to have a cab for me!” I’d been so nervous about this very thing – the cab just never coming, being late to my first session – and here it was, happening! The power of negative thinking? SHUT UP.

“Ma’am, I don’t know what you want me to do,” answered the dispatcher.

“What do I want you to do? What do I want you to DO?” Practically shrieking, for sure: “I WANT YOU TO GET ME A CAB IS WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO!”

“I am doing my best, ma’am, but there are no cabs available.”

And that’s about when my head exploded. By the time got to the 9:30 session “The State of Social Marketing“, there was a full house and a line out the door for seats. But, bonus, the session I wound up going to instead had mimosas. That didn’t really make up for it, though. I’d really been looking forward to the social marketing session.

TBC dudes -

Leave a Comment » | best week ever, boozin', car-ma, travellin', work | Permalink
Posted by erinire

Carpe Diem?

120207

From this article, which trumpets the value of morning time.

Savor Something.Whether you like a big breakfast omelet or prefer toast and tea, eating food you enjoy can’t help but affect your mood for the better. Stock up on the ingredients you need to create your favorite breakfast, so they’re always in your cupboard first thing to lift your mood. But more important, take a few minutes to really experience and savor breakfast, even if it’s just a glass of juice. Allowing yourself to be absorbed in something you enjoy is a wonderful way to begin the day.

And I just had to think: would drinking wine count? I enjoy that QUITE a bit.

Leave a Comment » | aberrant behavior, anecdotal, boozin', how i am awesome, progress? | Permalink
Posted by erinire

is Busy with Things

111130

So go look at my Tumblr.

Leave a Comment » | boozin' | Permalink
Posted by erinire

Is glad she didn’t spend any more time at the bar.

111119

I heard this thing on the radio the other day about how people drink and drive too frequently, and how a full stomach (and moderation) are the keys to successfully staying under the limit. This occurred to me tonight, sitting barside with my sister sipping a particularly strong vodka cocktail. I was not just hungry, suddenly, but STARVING, and it was nigh on 1am. Predictably, the kitchen had closed, and our route back to her apartment was completely devoid of pizza shops. ”I’ll just make pasta at home,” I told her, and wished her pleasant dreams.

Now, after such a night of merriment, the last thing one wants to encounter is a sobriety checkpoint. Especially when one has an inspection sticker that expired in July. It was on Rte 16, near the gas fields, and I swung an overly enthusiastic right turn into the industrial complex just in time to see a police officer parked on the curb.

He flashed his lights. I rolled down my window.

“Live around here?” he asked, with a knowing grin.

“No,” I confessed, heart pounding in my throat. “It’s just – my inspection sticker is expired.” I smiled what I hoped was a charming smile and tried to act casual.

“Ah, a guilty one!” exclaimed the officer. “I don’t think they’re looking for that. Anyway, you can’t get out this way – it’s all dead end streets. If they give you any trouble, just tell em your brother in law is stationed down the alley here, eh?”

I thanked the kind sir and proceeded through the gauntlet – a flashlight in your face and an uncomfortable exchange of pleasantries wherein you know the other party is trying to smell your breath. A stranger’s face pushed up inside your personal space. I made it through (no surprise, really), and smoked a victory cigarette to celebrate. Then, when I got home, I cracked a High Life and wrote this post. Cheers, weekend – you’ve started out in splendid fashion.

Leave a Comment » | best week ever, boozin', car-ma, city livin', how i am awesome, I enjoy being a girl | Permalink
Posted by erinire

@Kate Dixon, this one’s for you.

110916

Back in the day, I used to visit my sister at college in DC. She’s five years younger than me, and we’re different as sunshine and rain. My college days involved Simpsons and Phish concerts, while hers involved… clubbing. And not the type of clubbing where people offer you little white pills.

It was quite common, on such evenings, for me to be the only legal drinker, and I would gamely swill vodka while fending off heavily-perfumed men. They all wore dress shirts, it seemed, and sweater vests, and medium wash jeans. They would appear out of nowhere, taking form on all sides, and coax you, in a heavily-accented voice, to dance with them. Now, number one, I’m not a great dancer, and, number two, I prefer to dance alone. So I grew quite adept at extricating myself from such would-be advances.

One night, at a bar called Hawk n’ Dove (“It’s a MARINE bar!” squealed my sister, as though this should be meaningful), I was approached by a large, heavily perfumed black man. He asked me if I’d dance.

“No thanks,” I replied, “I’m gay.”

“You WHAT?”

“Gay. Lesbian. Sorry!”

“You mean, you don’t like DICK?”

“Not really. No offense.”

He was so intrigued by the notion that a woman might actually NOT LIKE DICK that we wound up spending a good twenty minutes talking about it – much longer than I would have spent dancing with him. And then, in the end, he asked me if I’d like some cocaine. So maybe my sister’s ‘clubbing’ *was* the kind where people offered you drugs, after all.

1 Comment | anecdotal, boozin', life story, phish | Permalink
Posted by erinire

They call me E Money. At least, some of them do.

110526

So this started out as a comment over at DefineFunctioning, but it got really long and awkward and then I was like, hey, why don’t I just make it a blog post and link back. So that’s what I’m doing.

To paraphrase, we are talking about how mental illness may or may not have impacted our ability to care for ourselves (and others) financially. So here’s my deal:

Katsu and I were making good money, towards the end there. Like, GOOD money. It was nice. We ate fancy food, I wore beautiful shoes, and we were paying down debt hand over fist. Then, you know, I lost it. I quit my job, I went to The Bin, and I was there for six weeks. During those six weeks, of course, I was ineligible for unemployment, and it took another four weeks after that for the state to approve my check. So ten weeks with no income.

(Very) Thankfully, I had my husband to take care of the rent and utilities, and our health insurance covered most of the costs associated with my hospitalization. But it was a hit nonetheless, and we had to take a very uncomfortable look at our budget. But I wondered, you know, what do other people do? People who don’t have a Katsu to float them when they’re waiting for the dole? People with families? People without insurance? I was thankful.

Then, of course, Katsu and I split up. Making only a fraction of my previous income, I chose to move back in with my parents rather than continue squatting in the apartment we once shared. Having second-interviewed for many jobs and gotten no offers, in April 2010, as an experiment, I posted an ad on Craigslist for wedding videography. Within a week, I’d booked my first gig. So that helped out. Living at home, I was able to save money like who knows what – especially after I landed two part-time summer jobs with two local producers.

Meanwhile, as we all know, I was planning to drag B! across the country. I’d saved enough to get us an apartment, and I’d saved enough to allow us to make it our own. One of my part-time jobs turned full, which was awesome, but somewhere around Christmas I realized that the money I was making wasn’t actually… enough. Not saying anything bad about my pay rate, mind you, but footing the bill for two smokers can really drain one’s resources. Then there was the whole insurance deductible thing, which definitely brought the rain to my already-soggy parade.

Now, I’m not complaining. I’m comfortable. I have two cats, I have wine when I want it, and I smoke as many cigarettes as I please. Far be it from me to cry poverty. But in terms of mental health, I’m very aware that what happened to me in summer ’09 had a severe impact on my financial status and my earning potential. Like, my name is totally on this site, which one could count as questionable, and a google search of me links back to some weird old ghost page that somebody hacked and reformatted. Also, I’m aware that my particular blend of crazies can be as limiting as it is prolific.

My therapist asked me, the other week, if I ever hoped to reattain the standard of living I enjoyed before my breakdown.

“No,” I answered, not blinking a lash.

I’d rather be happy than rich.

3 Comments | aberrant behavior, boozin', charming neurosis, Depression, eatin', matrimony, money, moving home, therapy, tiniest violin, work | Permalink
Posted by erinire

The flesh, it is weak.

100708

I had this notion back in May that I might stop drinking for a month, from June 11 through July 11, making my birthday, July 12, an illustrious return to form. This wasn’t so much for health reasons as it was a great impetus for daily blogging – ErinirE’s adventures on the wagon. As a side benefit, I’d save money, lose weight, and give my liver a much-needed respite from abuse. Clearly, this never happened. In fact, I’m drinking a PBR right now.

I also think about quitting smoking. I’m not the type to nic fit or whatever, I smoke mostly because I’m bored. Cigarettes are a great diversion from whatever you’re doing, be it an uninteresting conversation at a house party or a maddening excel spreadsheet at work. And in the car? I mean, there’s nothing to DO but smoke. A costly hobby to be sure, but, as they say, it’s better than crack.

Today I went to Starbucks. I’m totally cash-strapped, to the point where I’m asking whether or not this soda comes with free refills, but nevertheless I couldn’t bring myself to order something cheap. I wanted an earl grey tea latte, dammit, and even though it’s a dollar more expensive than iced coffee, an earl grey tea latte I did have. One could make the point that if I’m so broke I probably shouldn’t be going to Starbucks in the first place, to which I would say: point taken. But I REALLY WANTED that earl grey tea latte.

The point? I’m completely unable to do anything I don’t feel like doing. This generally isn’t a problem in a workplace sense, ’cause damn if I don’t love to work, but in every other sense it’s a huge hindrance. From my bad habits to my penchant for Target tank tops, I should absolutely be exercising a modicum of self-control… but hey, what can I say. I’m a hedonist. And honestly, I like it that way.

5 Comments | aberrant behavior, boozin', confession | Permalink
Posted by erinire

I’m not a good traveller, apparently.

100614

My day started off early – like 6am early – which is truly a very early hour for me to be starting off at. I said goodbye to my darling sister, hooked up her new BluRay player, and headed out the door. I was a little groggy, not having had very much coffee, and also a little nauseous for reasons I still can’t ascertain. Luckily, there was a shuttle available to take me from her apartment complex to the Metro, saving me a one-mile walk with my rolly bag, but, even with this small luxury at my disposal, things quickly started to flag southward.

Things about the shuttle that annoyed me:
- it was freezing. FUCKING freezing. Like, I don’t know how the driver was getting by without a parka
- everybody was wearing massive amounts of perfume, which didn’t help my nausea one bit
- nobody wanted to let me get OFF the shuttle, because I had my rolly bag and I would have taken an extra five seconds to arrange myself and move on.

But I soldiered through and onto the Metro, where I was packed like a sad little sardine between a woman reading the Wall Street Journal out loud to her husband and a very unimpressed girl scout.

Things about the Metro that annoyed me:
- the color. Orange? Anyone? Who decided this?
- the smell.
- the heat.
- every single person on the goddamn train, especially the ones who touched me and/or gave me and my rolly bag dirty looks. I’m being as small as I can, you know? It’s not MY fault I’m going to the airport!

Finally, two train lines and one particularly pungent elevator later, I arrived at Union Station, where I was to take the MARC train to BWI.

Things about Union Station that annoyed me:
- total lack of signage re: the MARC system.
- shitty internet (FREE Wifi, Amtrak? I think NOT.)
- the line at Starbucks, which was a mile long,
- and the people that thought it was actually WORTHWHILE to wait in a line a mile long for Starbucks.
- the guy behind me who wouldn’t stop sucking his teeth.

The ride to BWI was easy enough – I got my own seat and did some editing – but then I had to take a shuttle bus from the train station to the airport.

Things about the shuttle ride that annoyed me:
- the fact that no shuttle arrived for a good ten minutes
- the well-meaning woman from the midwest who kept on pressing her denim-clad thigh into mine
- the well-meaning man from the midwest who didn’t hold on and crumpled like a house of cards when the shuttle finally stopped
- the girl with the spoon bag who kept on STARING at me
- the driver, whom I couldn’t understand. Air Tran? American? They’re two different words, MAKE THEM SOUND THAT WAY

It’s no surprise, then, that as soon as I got through security (also annoying, but that goes without saying) I found myself a seat barside and dove headfirst into a Corona. By this time it was noon, and therefore somewhat acceptable. Corona makes everything better.

1 Comment | aberrant behavior, boozin', travellin' | Permalink
Posted by erinire

“Noxious” is the word I was looking for.

100607

B! loves Mai Tais. Like, Loooves mai tais. Like, he’s had mai tais in at least seven states, he goes hunting for them. I don’t particularly care for mai tais – I’m really not a rum girl, except for the occasional mojito – but, things being as they are, I often drink mai tais when I’m with him and often feel compelled to order them when we’re apart. it’s not something that I’m proud of, but it’s something that happens.

Flying to Charlotte last Friday, I opened up my tray table and was greeted with an ad for Stirrings mixers, the Venerable Mai Tai as the featured cocktail. I thought of B!, thought how funny he’d find it if I drank one at 30,000 feet, and sheepishly placed my drink order. It was 8:30 in the morning, give or take. The stewardess didn’t bat an eyelash, instead taking the opportunity to slip me an extra on the sly. I imagine she thought that I needed it. I felt weird about that.

What made me feel weirder, though, was the smell that emanated from the Stirrings bottle when I cracked the seal. Limey and sweet, with an unctuous chemical undertone, it was actually even WORSE than opening the nip of Bacardi. My seatmate politely ignored my apparent debauchery and undisguised disgust as I daintily poured first the rum then the mai tai into my extra-large glass. I opened up my laptop and started working, trying hard to maintain a patina of normalcy while taking the first gentle sip of my cocktail. And,

GOD.

Was it disgusting. Absolutely unspeakable! It was the oral equivalent of the BP oil explosion, a slithering slick on the skin of my throat. I restrained myself from gagging and tried again. Maybe it’s just the early hour, I thought, because NOTHING could be this bad – not even breakfast rum.

Oop.

I was wrong.

It was worse.

It seemed to me like giving me that extra mai tai was like giving me mono, starting as innocent as a handshake or a kiss but ending in tears. And what do we want when we’re in tears? For other people to feel our pain, of course! I happily presented my dearest B! with my remaining cocktail upon our check in to the hotel, and absolutely lost my shit laughing when he drank down that first brave gulp. I thought he might die.

Moral of the story? Play to your enemy’s strength. Don’t order mai tais on airplanes, and don’t order martinis in dive bars. Free advice, from me to you. Cheers!

1 Comment | boozin', free advice, travellin', vacation | Permalink
Posted by erinire

ThisihT