I know, I know.
I still live here, don’t worry. I miss this space. think I might do some things a bit differently (like say “fuck,” because I say “fuck” in real life and if that’s not your jam, well, consider this your heads-up. If it is, HI! Welcome. I’m nice, I promise, most of the time, but I like my share of four-letter words and something about turning 30 and honeybadgering and well, you know what? That’s going to happen here. Let’s just stop pretending that it’s not).
Cool, thanks. I don’t know what else “do something different” means exactly, but I know I miss things here. And I know it’s been a really crazy (but ultimately pretty decent) summer. Here are a few things that have happened and/or are just generally true:
Chris and I broke up (we even had a ‘dissolving of the relationship’ ceremony, which was really, really special and sad and beautiful and maybe I’ll blog about that later, but there were candles and champagne and it was kind of amazing).
I chopped all of my hair off, which I’ve been wanting to do forever. I also really like it and think it looks pretty badass.
I ran around the country for a bit (a month, to be exact). “Ran around” means I spent time in Minnesota, Alabama, DC, and Richmond. Yeah, it was so that I could see family, and yeah, it was so that I could see friends, and it was absolutely so that I could see Ke$ha throw glitter at me and sing and be just generally awesome, and it was also so that Chris and I could get some space and perspective about that whole “what do we really want out of life/a relationship/each other/ourselves” thing. Which we did.
And then we got back together when I came home.
I dyed my hair purple (which I’ve done before, and just wanted to do again because I don’t know, color is fun). So, now my hair is really short and really purple and I really like it.
(Someone once told me that using “really” in writing is bad form because there are better qualifiers (more specific, appropriate, descriptive) than that, but it’s my blog, not the next great novel, sooooooo, I’m really not sorry.)
I’m more obsessed with Portland than I have ever been and ever thought possible. It’s the best place, with the best food, and the coolest bridges, and some really awesome people, and the best weather, and I’m in love.
I thought I was going to scrap just about everything in my life and start from scratch (actually, I believe the term I was using at the time was “light my life on fire and run the opposite direction“, but as it turns out, I didn’t do that. Instead, I’ve been letting go of things I don’t love (anything that’s not a “FUCK YES,” really), and really, really building on the things I do.
I’ve drank a LOT of whiskey since we last talked. You guys. I don’t even. And not in that way where I buried my feelings in whiskey (more than once) or soaked my problems in whiskey (more than twice), but in that I seriously have educated myself in whiskey (in mind-knowledge and in taste-knowledge), and I am better because of it.
Here’s the thing about DC. There’s this place, Jack Rose (Layne, if you’re reading this… hi! You’re pretty.), and I have these friends and we all just… we’re kiiiind of into whiskey and two of us have pretty similar taste in whiskey (TAKE ME TO ISLAY OR LEAVE ME FOREVER) and the other one is (not-surprisingly) more refined (his whiskey wears pocket squares and fancy shoe-laces… on Saturdays) and prefers a “hint” or something of smoke instead of inhaling everything moss in one giant, enthusiastic inhale that’s going to leave you bruised from the bitemarks, but my point is, whiskey-tasting with these guys is the most fun, and I highly recommend you all try it sometime, or don’t because please don’t ever leave me.
Here’s the thing about whiskey, you guys.
I’ve always liked it just fine (my first whiskey memory is Johnny Red, around a campfire, and yes it absolutely pairs with s’mores and chilly Minnesota summer nights), but there are two defining moments in my life where whiskey really dug its dirty claws in. The first was this date with this girl I met when I was 21 and living in the Twin Cities. On our first date, she ordered two Glenlivets, rocks, with a twist of orange and a cherry, and I swear, that was the moment (the first of many) that scotch got sexy. Except, then there was a guy during the summer of 2009 in a Wicker Park bar who taught me how to drink it neat, and after that it was all over. I was a whiskey girl.
Fast forward to the past couple of years when I started sampling Bulleit and Bulleit Rye and Bulleit 10 year and Makers and Woodford Reserve and Basil Hayden and Buffalo Trace and a few others, in a fit of bourbon, vehemently rejecting the smoky stuff, remembering a Talisker I’d tried a few years back that just didn’t work for me after the sweet and smooth Macallans I was brought in on.
(I totally started this post to be all “I’m here! And I miss you!” I swear, I had zero intentions of this devolving (evolving? evolving.) into a post about my whiskey history, but here we are.)
And then we went to Vegas and there was The Whisky Attic and a tasting like no other tasting, and I met my new friend Ardbeg and it was game over.
GAME. OVER.
Ever since then, it’s pretty much been a race to Islay that has peaked (or continues to peak) with Bruichladdich Octomore /5_169, which is literally billed as “The Peatiest Scotch in All of the Land.” (Ok, that’s not true, but it is supposedly the peatiest Scotch in the world, and is actually described as containing “Olympic levels of peat,” which excites me, even as I write this I’m shaking a little.)
I went from someone who might keep a bottle of Bulleit in the house, sometimes, to someone with a bar stocked with Glenlivet (nostalgia, amirite?), Ardbeg 10, and the Lagavulin 12-Year Cask Strength, which is the most expensive Thing You Can Consume By Eating or Drinking that I have ever bought and I don’t care).
So, in a nutshell.
Chris and I took a break. I took a trip. I’ve been on a whiskey adventure that’s landed me square in the middle of a burning pile of peat (and I like it that way). Oh! I’ve been running! There’s that. I’ve run a lot lately. So much so that I think I might try to run a big race this weekend. I’ll let you know how that goes when I’m done.
But here’s the bottom line — I’m in a more content and stable place in my life right now than I have been in the past couple of years, even if the disjointed, disorganized, all-over-the-place feeling this accidental update might lead you to believe otherwise.
You guys. I like me. I like me a lot. And I like you. And that’s where we are.
