Category Archives: Beer

Up Again So Soon … Still Recovering in Twelve Steps

Posted on 27 March 2009 | 3 comments

I am awake. It is 2:23 AM. I am watching King of the Hill. I love my life. I think I will stay up for another hour and a half so I can watch Roseanne. Then I will go to bed and sleep until noon … which never happened. I didn’t sleep until noon. I slept until 6 then slept again from 8 to 11. And, I am still recuperating from that little overnight shenanigan in twelve steps. These twelve steps would not be followed if Izzy lived with me. 🙂

  1. I admitted that I am powerless over sleep deprivation—my life had become unmanageable. I couldn’t remember anything about what I was doing or saying.
  2. I came to believe that beer could restore me to sanity. Beer can always restore.
  3. I decided to turn my will and my life over to multiple helpings of that specific elixir, choosing hops, yeast, and malt over the newly discovered bliss of Aquavit.
  4. I made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself. I was weary and worn. I decided to drink.
  5. I admitted to the bottom of the first pint the exact nature of my wrongs: I stayed up for far too long. I admitted my desire for sleep to the bottom of another pint and another and another and another and another and another, and then I admitted these wrongs to all those around me. Loudly and slurred. I am shleeeppyyy, I said before I slipped into unconsciousness.
  6. I was ready to have my sleep restored to me. I wanted my sleep to be restored to me.
  7. I humbly asked the bartender to facilitate my eventual sleep—I put my insomnia in his hands.
  8. I made a list of all the beers which had harmed me, and became willing to make amends to them all.
  9. I made quick amends to the beers I loved and was kept from injury by two angels—one flaxen, one titian, both Southern—who escorted me home.
  10. Once I was safe, I continued to take personal inventory of my level of alertness, to reassess my evening consumption, and to hope for the veil of sleep.
  11. I sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand [Them], praying only for knowledge of [Their] will for me and the power to carry that out.
  12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I tried to carry this message to insomniacs, and to practice these principles in all my affairs. I especially thanked my caretakers and nursed my bumpy head.

Seriously, I have been so busy, I haven’t even been able to write here. I continue to feel guilty but simultaneously fulfilled with my level activity. I feel guilty because I cannot make last minute plans with people. I am simply to busy to squeeze people into the schedule.

A friend of mine and I were supposed to get together today, but she had to go to South Bend. She asked me earlier in the week if we could get together another time in the week, and after I checked my calendar, I had to write to her to say that there simply were no other days we could meet. I literally had a school function, studying, or some other thing going on every single day.

Several days in the past three weks I have had twelve or thirteen hour long days, and the day that sparked the twelve-step list was a 20 hour day: I got up at 6AM and worked until 2AM the next morning. Really.

I am fulfilled because I have never been happier with the work I am doing. My assistantship with all of its oddities is the best one I have had. My courses are plodding along well, and I am continually challenged by my directed reading and the Morrison class. Ideas for my dissertation are ruminating nicely inside my too full head, and I am sated by the information with which I am gorging my hungry mind. Jasbir Puar, I will understand your writing one day.

In my spare time, I learned that my neighborhood grocery store should be receiving six-packs of glass bottles of Faygo, but that if I want to order a 24-pack of cans of Faygo, it will cost $15 to get it delivered to my house. This would, of course, be a moot point if my neighborhood grocery would just carry Rock-n-Rye Cream Cola. Not diet. I despise Diet Cola. If I wanted zero calories, I would just drink water.

My brother and I are going to Nashville this weekend for a little break, so I hope to be able to access this site to report on our activities. I am sure we will haev fun. I know for sure we are going to Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati on the way home, and we are going to the Apple store to get his new computer. I am excited to be away for a bit.

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Posted in Beer, Insomnia, Literature, Reading, Relationships, School, Writing

Squidbillies, Metalocalypse, and Pinball Numbers

Posted on 16 March 2009 | 3 comments

I have so much to do that I am having a hard time figuring out a logical order to do things in, so I am watching Scooby-Doo on Cartoon Network and watching this on my laptop:

I should be making my own little movies for my assistantship, but I can’t pass up watching Scooby-Doo. Since they took away The Golden Girls, Scooby and pals are my only joy in the morning, aside from walking the dogs and eating left-over Anime Peter Pan birthday cake for breakfast. Now Drew is cooking pizza and it smells better than my cake tasted.

David was home this weekend. We played Guitar Hero, watched Squidbillies and Metalocalypse. This is just what I needed: two more adult cartoons to fight for my time. I mean, would you rather watch hillbilly squids or read Toni Morrison? That was a joke, of course. But, I can access full episodes of both cartoons online.

*

Tonight I am going to Heather’s dad’s funeral. I spent a lot of time over the weekend wondering why, but then I realized that I will never understand why. I am pretty sure that God doesn’t have to answer to us. Instead, we answer to [Them], so I should just get it that I will never get it. And focus on living my life in a way that pleases [Them]. It could have been me. I could have been swept away to the pearly gates, begging St. Peter to let me. I would just tell him that one of my favorite beers is St. Peter’s Porter. I am sure I would be a shoo-in.

Shannon and I are riding to the funeral together, and I am looking forward to spending time with her. I was supposed to go out with her this weekend, but I inadvertently ate an entire half-pound bag of Almond M&Ms then drove to Upland to be with Heather. We met at Payne’s coffee shop, and I had some frozen custard alogn with my coffee. I think the HUGE amount of sugar made me sick. I was fine when I left Upland, but then I got about half-way home before I started sweating, chilling, and feeling like I was going to throw up. My mom is diabetic, so you would think I would pay more attention to the amount of sugar I eat. However, I was reading and just kept eating the M&Ms until I realized they were all gone. It happens.

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Posted in Beer, Fat, Reading, Relationships, Religion, School

P.S. Ms. Bern (CEO of Charming Shoppes, Inc.)

Posted on 11 March 2009 | Leave a comment

P.S. If you would add a concession stand in each of your stores, you might see your revenue increase. I know I could do with a nice refreshing beverage after grunting and sweating in and out of clothes in your tiny little dressing rooms. Why do you install heat lamps above them?

P.P.S. You could sell beer, too, but not Rogue’s XS Imperial Stout. The taste of the beer isn’t worth the ceramics wasted on the cool container, although I do like the little rubber stopper. My dislike for the beer has nothing to do with my lack of testes or testosterone. I simply like my beer to taste like beer, not bourbon. I am a machine when it comes to drinking beer. I don’t need more crankcase oil, which is what this beer tastes like. This reviewer, Dan, must have had a bit too much to drink before writing. In fact, I am sure Dan had the entire $15 bottle. Dan, it is always a bad idea to drink and write.

So, Ms. Bern, you should offer Cabernet, Shiraz, Avery’s Old World Porter, St. Peter’s English Ale, St. Peter’s Porter, Guinness, and Rogue’s Dead Guy Ale. Maybe for the Scottish lasses you could offer a Wee Heavy. How about some foot-long coney dogs and nachos, too?

P.P.P.S. Did I mention that you need to teach your machines how to sew on buttons? Mine are always falling off at inopportune times, like when I am teaching.

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Posted in Beer, Fat, Just for Fun, Teaching

Roseanne and J. Alfred Prufrock

Posted on 6 March 2009 | 3 comments

At this point, your guess about why I am up at 4 AM watching reruns of Roseanne is as good as mine. I suppose there are worse things I could be doing right now than watching Darlene and Becky banter across the old brown couch. I forgot how funny the early episodes are, and I forgot how much they remind me of my family. Before the show started taking itself so seriously and before Tom Arnold came into the picture, it was a beautiful simply complex portrayal of blue-collar life in Lansford, a town not unlike Hartford City.

I am watching an early episode in which Jackie and Booker start dating. Most of the episode is filmed in a bowling alley, and the subplot is Becky’s first rendezvous with Chip. I remember why I love Darlene (Sara Gilbert). I think I might have wished she lived in Hartford City.  I look back now and think that she reminds me of my friend, Tisha: sarcastic, smart, and a little feisty. My life is better for knowing Tish.

I woke up at 3 AM—I laid in the bed for about 45 minutes before I gave in and finally got up—in order to begin memorizing “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” I am sure Bec will be thrilled that I am trying to memorize another poem. I think she got her fill of “A Supermarket in California.” I can’t imagine I woke up so early for T.S. Eliot, although the beauty of the poem does not escape me. Here is the opening, a loose interpretation of a sonnet:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

I am sure my early morning can be attributed to the stress of the coming two weeks. Or the stress of the next few months. I am take my comprehensive exams in August. While I realized they were looming around the corner like a teenage tranny at RuPaul’s dressing room door, making my book list and going over it with Debbie yesterday really hammered it home. I have six months to prepare for the biggest test of my life. And I have to pass it.

Because I have to break up my serious study time into small chunks, I tend to spend a lot of time stumbling around on the Internet. I have decided to stop calling it procrastinating, because I have learned some interesting facts and been able to find some helpful websites during these mini-breaks. I found this site last night. I couldn’t resist reading some of the other posts on the blog, but the one I originally stumbled onto was the best. This morning I found this: F*** My Life. You, the viewer, actually get to vote: does the person’s life really suck or did they deserve what happened? Genius.

It’s now 4:44 and the episode that’s on—Dan wants to get a family photo to send into their high school reunion committee and it just so happened that when he and Roseanne broke up for a week their senior year, he slept with the woman who is organizing the reunion—reminds me of how I feel about high school reunions: they are a mechanism by which some people reassure themselves that their lives turned out better than others. I am not sure this is how reunions function for my class. Maybe I am naive. Maybe when I finally get my PhD, I will go back to a reunion. Maybe I won’t.

I had a couple of good beers last night with my delicious chicken etouffee.  The first one was an oldie but goody: Skullsplitter Scotch Ale. I am finding that I really love Scotch Ales. They have some body and nice complex taste. I also had a nice Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout. Usually, okay sometimes, Chocolate Stouts are too sweet, but this one was particularly tasty with some nice coffee undertones. Brooklyn’s was the chocolate equivalent of Breckenridge’s Vanilla Porter.  I would drink it again. And again with HomeMade Peppermint Chip Ice Cream.

Maybe I am awake so early today because I am excited to get Minerva out of the garage, give her a bath, fill her up, check her tire pressure, and ride her all over the countryside. I mean I can’t go too far today, but I a girl can dream (funny Freudian slip I accidentally typed cream to begin with). I have until one o’clock when I am supposed to meet Julie at the Blue Bottle for coffee. Maybe I can talk her into beer at the Heorot.

Adult swim is really weird at 5 AM. Is it idiotic or genius? Frequently, the line is very fine, like one pixel fine.  And, I think Drew’s cat pooped over by the fish tank again. This is why I don’t get up early as a rule. This is why I am glad we are going to pull up this carpet this summer.

Oh, and I cut my hair last night.

Also this.

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Posted in Beer, Literature, Motorcycles, Reading, School

Two Beers: Both Un-exceptional.

Posted on 1 March 2009 | Leave a comment

I have never been disappointed in a beer like I was disappointed in Dad’s Little Helper by Rogue Brewery. The Beer Advocate, which I finally broke down and joined, gave the only slightly flavorful piss-water a B-. Actually, I should say the readers and reviewers of Beer Advocate gave it a B-, because the grade the beer receives is the average of all the reviews.  I would probably give it a D, but then I should probably stick to rating Porters and IPAs since they are really the only beers I love. Those and good, cold, thick-headed Guinnesses.

Part of my disappointment in Dad’s Little Helper came because my first beer was also lousy, so bad it’s name escapes me. What do I expect for two beers and a twelve inch banana pepper pizza that still cost less than $10? I just wish the Heorot would bring back those $1.50 Avery Porters. I could have had four of them and a pizza for under $10 with money left for a tip!

*

Yesterday, while tripped up on cold medicine, I got lost at the Muncie Mall. Sounds funny, huh? I would normally laugh. However, I felt like I was in one of those fun-houses they use in B-grade horror films, all mirrors and clowns and shit. Not fun. In fact, quite scary. Abbie said, “It’s one hallway, you just keep walking around until you get back where you started.” And, she is right.

I have never been able to keep track of my car at shopping malls. I don’t know why with three weeks of poor sleep, being sick, and taking cold medicine I thought I would be okay to go shopping by myself. All of that combined with the fact that the last time I went to the mall was with Abbie and Ed before Christmas, not counting the time Jacob and I walked straight through to go to BWs to get some spicy chicken arms, should have made me feel less insane. I left the mall feeling slightly dodgy, overly sensitive, and oddly disoriented. I might still be standing in Books-a-million looking at books I would never buy had Shannon not come over and said, “Hey, Lady, can I help you find a book?”

I came home and wrote about what it feels like to be inside my head sometimes. I am afraid to read it today. I don’t want to know what I wrote.

*

Last night we went to Welliver’s for Abs’ birthday dinner.

I ate too much. I couldn’t stop myself.

I felt gluttonous. I smiled the whole way through.

I don’t think I need to eat again for days.

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Posted in Beer, Christmas, Fat, Writing