by Laurelin

Fucking YES! It’s almost here, that holiday we all know and love. The holiday where those in relationships are made to outdo last year’s crock of god knows what and those who are single are bitch slapped with loneliness from the second they wake up in the morning until the second they close their eyes at night. God, I fucking love Valentine’s Day.

I suppose I do like the concept. A day for love, a day to be thankful for the one you love and the one who loves you. A day meant to remind us all that unless we’re in solid, committed relationships, we are alone and unloved. I never understood why Valentine’s Day couldn’t just be marketed as a holiday to appreciate the little things as well as your amazing momentous relationship. What about everything else? I think you should find something to fall in love with every day. There are so many things to love, and yet with the hustle bustle of every day life these things are often forgotten.

I love so many things I sometimes feel like my heart could just burst through my ribs, like that scene in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. This year, I’m going to take Valentine’s Day and remember all the things I love about my life even though I don’t have anyone besides a cat to wake up to every morning. Speaking of that, I love the way my cat never wants me to get out of bed. She’ll meow and stretch out on my face to get me to scratch her just a second longer. I love my coffee maker. I love my WWE sweatshirt; it fits perfectly and is still warm and fuzzy even after being washed over and over. I love coffee from Refuge Café down the street from my apartment, and I love catching the sun at the perfect moment as it goes down and perfectly silhouettes the Boston city skyline as I start to walk to work.

I love noticing how every day I’m getting a little better at my pull-ups. I love finally reaching that point in running when I find the perfect clip and I don’t feel like I’m going to die anymore. I love wrestling. I love to write, to read, I love bartending and I love beer. I especially love that first sip of a cold Coors Banquet once everyone is finally out of my bar and I can catch my breath, shut off the fucking jukebox and regain my sanity.

I love the way this one guy smiles: his eyes squint just a bit and I love his dimples. I love the tiny tattoo another has on his left wrist underneath his watch; I love the freckle another has on his left shoulder blade. I love pulling into the driveway of the house I grew up in on Christmas Eve. I love eggs over-easy and French toast, never pancakes. I love Tuesday nights and the sound of the ocean.

Valentine’s Day is February 14th, but there are also 364 others in the year and so much beauty in every day. What’s not to love?

[..]

by Laurelin

I remember in high school being obsessed with this one guy. Jackson was the epitome of everything I thought was cool: he rode BMX bikes and wore baggy jeans and flannel t-shirts with different band shirts underneath like NOFX and Pennywise. He didn’t drink or do drugs or hang out with the cool kids, but he was always smiling and surrounded by people. He was different and I liked that.

We wound up dating for a while (it seems like a long time, but in retrospect it might have only been a few months; time is different now). He broke up with me at the end of my freshman year and I was devastated. My first heartbreak, my first bitter taste of a feeling I would in time become so familiar with. That being said, there is nothing to be done but move on, keep going to class, keep on smiling like nothing was wrong. Eventually I lost interest in Jackson and the feeling faded. I was moving on and Jackson was nothing more than a blip on my radar. That is, until Jackson started dating Jill.

Suddenly I missed him with a fierceness that can only be likened to the hunger a vampire feels after waking, born as a creature of the night for the first time. Suddenly it seemed like there was no one else, that Jackson was the only one for me, no one else should have him, especially not Jill. Who was Jill? Where the hell did she even come from? She was nothing like him; she didn’t even LIKE the music that he liked, the music that he and I liked. It was all consuming, and soon Jackson was all I could think about. I wanted him back. I remember that feeling like it was yesterday; unhealthy obsession.

My cell phone buzzes and I glance down. My heartbeat increases when I see his name. This one I think I’ll write back to, this intriguing man who isn’t really like anyone I’ve ever met before. This has been one hell of a week for me and my buzzing cell phone, which is filled with messages from people I never expected to hear from. I have spent a lot of the past year unable to move forward constructively when it comes to a few kinds of relationships in my life and for whatever reason I have just totally and completely moved on. I simply woke up one day and stopped texting, stopped calling, stopped inviting these guys out with hopes of rekindling romance. I just stopped chasing them. And the second I stopped, all of a sudden they noticed.

If anyone had told me that these guys would be saying the things that they have been saying to me in the past few weeks I would have laughed. If you had told me they would be showing up at my bar, sitting and hanging out until closing and then asking to walk me home, I wouldn’t have believed it for a second. Now, as I choose to go home alone, I acknowledge that they only want me the way I wanted Jackson back once I saw him with Jill. They liked me chasing them and once I stopped they finally looked back, circling back like a dog with a lost bone, sad that the game is finally over.

[..]

by Laurelin

One of the perks of having an online column is literally being able to go back in time. Exactly a week, month, and year to the date your words are still there and you can instantly remember what was going on in that moment. So many times those memories are just… lost, and I realize suddenly how lucky I am to write the truth, to write with honesty and more often than not, pain, because I can look back see how I’ve progressed. Tonight I look for last year’s post, and I am a bit squeamish. I have a sinking suspicion that nothing has changed. I don’t feel different. I feel… used up and empty. To quote Bilbo Baggins, “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

On this day last year I wrote “Life Beyond the Bar Scene: Winter is Coming.” I was clearly not over my ex and I was using other people in an attempt to replace him. It wasn’t working. I remember feeling lost, confused, alone. Fast forward one year, and I have managed to actually get over the ex I was writing about. He and I didn’t speak for about six months, and while I think part of me will always look at him as the one that got away, they were the best and most needed six months of my life. Erased. Deleted from everything, hidden from Facebook, he quit working at my bar, simply… gone. I ached, and then one day I didn’t. Life goes on, what do you know!

He walked into the bar two months ago, after all that time, and I remember stopping dead in my tracks. I had almost forgotten what he looked like and that moment of recognition hit me like a wave crashing into a small vessel in a storm. I hugged him and said I was happy to see him, and for once, I was.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you on your birthday,” he said. And I knew he had remembered it and had not called because it really didn’t matter.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I didn’t call you on yours either,” and my lower lip didn’t tremble when I turned away. I couldn’t believe it. I smiled, and when he left I waved, turned back to my bar and carried on. He was never really far from my mind, but it was almost like he had finally found a place in the archives, a place that didn’t hurt.

A new year is coming and I don’t feel any different, but I am. I think I only feel used up because I think I should feel that way. Looking back I’m suddenly pretty sure I just lived the best year of my life. I went on a ten day Caribbean cruise in January. I scuba dived shipwrecks, got over my fear of karaoke, and held baby monkeys in diapers. I danced like no one was watching even when everyone was watching and I screamed “Discount Double Check” and did Aaron Rodger’s touchdown move zip lining across the rainforest in Antigua.

I dated. I discovered dating was not for me and I discovered that while men can be mean and break my heart, I can be mean and break their hearts. And I was sorry, sometimes more than others. I got up on stage and I read stories naked for the first time in March and again in October. The first time I was so scared I could have just peed right there on stage and the second time I walked with confidence, read with pride, and now I can’t wait to do it again.

In April I ran my first Tough Mudder and it was a ten mile muddy uphill journey of insanity. I didn’t train much and when I got back, that was it. I started running. I joined a Crossfit gym and I vowed that I would no longer blame every aspect of my hectic life for the wobbly parts of my body I didn’t care for.

I got promoted at all of my jobs, I turned 30, my friends are brilliant and I still find time for the little things: cat naps, cuddling with pets, reading, movies, martinis, and the occasional misstep into romance, which as my readers know has yet to work out. Used up and empty is often a result of this; but it’s not all I am. It can’t be.

When you think about it, each day since that post one year ago is just that: one day. It’s just another ordinary day, when added up makes an ordinary week, ordinary month, and yet somehow… a totally extraordinary year.

[..]

by Laurelin

I hung his picture last week. I hung it in the kitchen above the stove, the space was perfect and as I pounded the nail into the wall I wondered if this was the right thing to do. It had been shoved in the back of my closet for one year and two months and today I hung it up, finally ready to not vomit when I looked at it. It’s a nice picture. It’s not a photograph: the kid fucking painted it. It’s hands down, the best gift I have ever received in my whole life, and for one year and two months after my 29th birthday the only creature that saw it was my cat when she tried to climb the vertical plastic shoe rack from Target in the back of my closet.

So, last week I hung the picture. I hung it, and when I walked in to the kitchen today to make tacos there it was above the stove as I sautéed the onions. I made tacos. I ate the tacos at the black and silver high top 50s diner style table in my kitchen and they were delicious. The painting watched, and when I was done I smiled and I knew that I had finally done the right thing. That chapter of my life was in plain sight and finally over.

It’s weird not having anything to harp on. Not having that nagging feeling of heartbreak, not having that sinking feeling as I lock the house and head to work or to the bar I hang out at. This feeling of freedom, to see these men and actually be happy to see them, to no longer have to fake it till I make it. My smile is genuine, my invites to events aren’t because I want to win them over but because once we were all friends and finally I am not a fucking idiot, and I can take this for what it always should have been: friends, co-workers, anything but what it was.

It’s like a veil has been lifted from my eyes and I can finally see, and I pray that I can constructively move forward. What did I learn from that last relationship? What did I learn from the last bartenders who broke my heart and what did I learn from the bartenders whose hearts I know I broke? As much as we think we can’t, we always put the pieces back together. We are able to one day not make the same mistakes over again, finally able to look at the bigger picture. And one day, hopefully, we can take that picture out of the closet and hang it in the perfect spot in the kitchen, right above the stove.

[..]

by The Wine Guy

Spirits are funny, because people tend to drink them illicitly before they turn twenty-one, but then a lot of people leave them behind, only to rediscover them as an adult. You have bad memories of Jäger bombs, Everclear punch, and Cuervo tequila. These memories get burned into your brain and you write off certain drinks because of the follies of your youth.

So lets break down the field and find some lovely cocktails for you, so you can enjoy your adulthood with an adult beverage. Wine and beer are great. They are each in their own right a wonderful playground with all sorts of adventures. However, there is nothing quite like a good spirit. Drinking spirits is an interaction with the booze in a way that wine or beer can never be.

Spirits are an investment one makes over time, which pays greater and greater dividends. The first whiskey I purchased was Chivas Regal. I wanted to be more sophisticated than my mad dog drinking buddies. It took me soooo long to finish that bottle that I had no desire to purchase a second. I kept at it though, plugging away with Jameson, Jack, Jim, Crown, and Bushmills. Finally, I found Johnny Walker Black and that is where the love affair truly began. A year later, when I sipped Laphroaig ten year for the first time, I knew that my love for whiskey would last forever.

So what I am saying is, spirits are not to be undertaken lightly, and I do not believe there are any shortcuts. You have to train yourself before you can jump into the world of aged booze. No need to be discouraged, there are so many fun ways to get started.

First, stop buying the plastic bottles. The producer is telling you that their product is not worth being put into glass, and now you are going to put it in you? Nothing can be learned from such filth. Invest an extra few dollars. It will be worth it, I assure you.

I recommend starting your whiskey adventure with something smooth like Jameson or Crown. Both of these are easy to drink and very affordable. You can start by mixing your Crown with coke, and your Jameson with Baileys, Amarula or Drambuie. As you get used to that, you can add less and less mix, until you are drinking it straight.

Once you are drinking it straight – without making the whiskey face – then you may proceed and start exploring nicer whiskeys from around the world. Try Highland Park and Laphroaig and see where your whiskey tastes lie.

If you do not enjoy whiskey, fear not, there are so many other spirits to choose from. Lets tackle brandy. First and most important, Cognac is a place where a specific type of French brandy comes from. The region is also so famous that you’ve heard of it. So guess what? You are paying for that fame. Hennessy, Courvoisier, and Remy Martin are big giant factories pumping out Jack Daniels quality brandy and charging you way too much for it. If it has to come from France, try an Armagnac instead, where you will be paying for the quality and not the name. Or buy a Spanish brandy where you will be rewarded deeply for your courage.

Spirits produced from non-famous regions are always a great gamble. Had rum from Ghana the other day that was fantastic! Which brings us to Rum.

There may not be a better bargain in booze, than rum. You can get top shelf rum for the price of mid level whiskey. Forget Bacardi and Captain Morgan, that factory swill represents rum as much as Ancient Age represents whiskey. Spend a little money on rum and you will see an incredible jump in quality.

After you have tried a nicely aged, well-made rum, you will never wave off that beverage with contempt again. You will not need coke or pineapple juice with these beauties. With two crisp twenties in your hand you will drink like a king with change leftover for a nice beer. Be careful though, these rums drink a little too easy, and you may find yourself refilling your glass once too often and drunk texting people on your contact list who either did not want to hear from your drunk ass or formerly enjoyed hearing from you but now not so much.

Which brings us to tequila! If you can’t hear the song playing in your head, then you have had bad experiences with this wonderful drink and need to exorcise them with some good ones. Jose Cuervo Gold is an imposter. This is caramel colored crap with the word tequila on the label is really a chemically engineered hangover machine. Stop buying it!

Go and get yourself a real tequila – and not a famous one that comes in a box. I’m looking at you Patron! Start off with something clean and simple like Milagro Silver. This is a perfect mixer for margaritas, and makes for a good shooter as well. Then grab yourself some moderately priced Reposados and Anejos, and see where your taste lies.

A Reposado has been aged in a barrel for 3 to 6 months generally and that is why it is darker in color than silver, which has not been aged at all. It tends to take on a spicy character and can make the best margarita ever, but remember to use less mix so you can taste the tequila! An Anejo has been aged a year and they are very smooth, though some retain some spiciness from the barrel. They will be even darker in color and are meant to be sipped, don’t shoot them just because they are smooth you fiends!

Vodka and gin are the two most famous clear liquors. I could go on and on about the myth of high quality vodka, but I will summarize instead. You may prefer potato vodka to grain vodka. You may prefer wheat to potato. These ingredients do change the mouth feel and are worth debating. After that, what you are really arguing about is how clean the vodka is. It’s a neutral spirit and has no flavor. So stop spending tons of money on vodka! It is going to taste like whatever you mix it with.

Gin on the other hand is a nuanced, flavorful spirit that can be incredibly different from style to style. A nice dry gin, made for martinis, is going to taste vastly different than a botanical rich gin made for gin and tonics. The quality of gin and the quality of tonic matter greatly. If you believe they do not, then I know you have never had one of my gin and tonics.

In conclusion, when it comes to spirits pay for the quality not for the name. Find the values from the smaller houses and less famous places. Take the extra money you save from buying Titos vodka instead of Grey Goose and use it to buy a nicer bottle of rum, tequila, gin, or whiskey. Join a small but happy club of people who know how rich and rewarding spirits can be.

They are a drink that may be consumed at the end of long day, sipped slowly, and peacefully. They can bring friends together to explore the wonderful new cocktail you concocted in your kitchen. They can be lifted to toast those of us that are present and remember those that are no longer with us. They are to be savored not gulped. They are to be treated with caution and respect not abused and devoured. They serve as a reminder that some of the finer things in life are available to us all.

Enjoy…responsibly.

[..]

by Laurelin

I sit here in bed, the television muted, my iTunes silenced. I sit here in bed with my cell phone on vibrate; my hands ready to receive at any moment. All night, my hands, waiting. Waiting for him to say something, anything, but he doesn’t. I almost welcome that familiar twinge, that feeling that leaves me so full of emptiness. I remember I heard once that you’re never more alive than when your heart is breaking. Mine is already broken, and apparently I like nothing more than to make the same mistakes twice.

I almost don’t even know who “he” is. At this point there are so many people who could fill that void that I feel stupid, because while there are so many, there are in fact, so few.

My ex, who I haven’t spoken to in months, says he’s on his way to the bar. I miss him, but I don’t really, and when he doesn’t show tonight I feel better for not having put the picture he painted me for my birthday back on the wall. I keep thinking, “One day I can hang it,” but it’s been one year and it’s still stuffed in the back of my closet next to the framed photo of the ex that used to hit me and the clothing I wore when I would wrestle bachelors for money at the strip club in hot oil and whipped cream. I don’t know why I even think I can stand to look at it, and for one fleeting moment it’s clear as day and I don’t know why I haven’t burned it.

I find myself sitting here, wishing for anything. The last guy I liked had my friends in absolute giggles; comparing the new guy to the old one, leaving me a little bewildered because this new one was honest and sweet… at least in the beginning. So he wasn’t as muscular or tall. And then, just like all the rest, he was suddenly gone, and I was left with nothing. In the beginning we had laughed over how cold we both seemed (we weren’t really). In the beginning I had thought, “He’s not cold at all,” but in the end I thought, “He was right,” though I never cried.

I never cried. There are some guys who make you think; some who make who question your very essence. There are some guys who make you feel like nothing will ever be the same. The ones who break you, day after day, month after month, year after year. There are those guys that no matter how many times you tell yourself they’re going to stay buried they always seem to surface just when you’re at your most vulnerable. There are the guys that never call; and those are the ones who are made for nothing more than heart breaking and other lies.

[..]

by Laurelin

There are moments in life when nothing has changed, yet all of a sudden everything is perfect. As I walk down the street from my house – the same street I walk every day with my head down – I suddenly look up and notice the leaves have changed colors and the sky is perfect. The wind blows and a single leaf falls into my outstretched hand, Tori Amos’s “Gold Dust” is playing on my iPhone, and I feel silly for being upset about such simple things when there is so much beauty in the world (“and then you’ll understand, we held gold dust in our hands…”). There are some songs you just remember, the songs you equate with moments, the songs that from that time forward will always remind you of autumn.

Taylor Swift’s “Enchanted” came through my ear buds on the way home from the bar one night two years ago on Boylston Street. I had met someone, our eyes connecting from across the bar, and after flickering away and back again a few times we wound up chatting; At the end of the night I had a new phone number in my phone and a smile on my face. She sang, “All I can say is it was enchanting to meet you, this night is sparkling, don’t you let it go, I’m wonderstruck, blushing all the way home.” And I was so hopeful, proudly wearing my newly blushing cheeks.

Ellie Goulding’s “Guns and Horses” reminds me of a year old summer fling, a boy who I would have done anything for after we broke up, even though I knew he and I never should have worked in the first place. He got a new girlfriend not long after our relationship ended, and I was devastated. His new girlfriend eventually broke up with him and it was his turn to be sad, and that’s probably why he and I started sleeping together again. I clung to those drunken nights with him, and always on the way home alone the next morning Ellie sang, “But I wish I could feel it all for you, I wish I could be it all for you, if I could erase the pain maybe you’d feel the same, I’d do it all for you, I would.” I wished so badly that he would choose me. He never did.

Oceanlab’s “Satellite,” while an upbeat electronic song, still makes me impossibly sad. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting to find different results. After being left not once, not twice, but three times by this abusive punk rock loser, I finally pulled what was left of my own self from the wreckage and managed to walk away with some shreds of my own personality and dignity left to cultivate and finally nurse back to full health. Each time I hear that beat and “You’re half a world away, but in my mind I whisper every single word you say,” I can’t help but cringe and remember the eight years when every day was spent feeling so hopeless and alone I could have just ceased to exist.

Taylor Swift’s “I Almost Do” has been on repeat as of late, and in my current state of mind I find myself reaching for the phone, wanting to reach out to someone and then remembering that I shouldn’t waste my time on people who don’t care. I delete his number and I feel foolish for wasting my time, silly for believing the things that came out of his mouth when I was as disposable as a Styrofoam coffee cup, only useful until you’ve sucked the last drop from the depths. It starts after I lock up the bar at 3 AM and I’m walking home alone as the city sleeps. “I bet this time of night you’re still up, I bet you’re tired from a long hard week, I bet you’re sitting in your chair by the window looking out at the city and I bet sometimes you wonder about me. And I just want to tell you it takes everything in me not to call you… every time I don’t, I almost do..”

I almost do. But I don’t, and I quicken my pace and I tuck the leaf that fell into my palm in the pocket of my black leather jacket. The wind picks up and I turn my head back towards the ground.

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