My newest infusion

Last night, I pitted over 1 pound of fresh bing cherries, enough to fill a massive mason jar half full of vodka all the way to the top. There is something so refreshing and satisfying about seeing that clear liquor turning red with the cherry juice (fittingly, I did this just before watching True Blood, using my "cherry guillotine" that lets me core 4 cherries at once). I have no idea how long the cherry vodka will need to infuse before it is ready, but I have very high hopes for this one. Even if I do either have to throw another party or find someone else's party to take it to just so that it all gets consumed.

I also have 2 more batches of the peach-cinnamon bourbon brewing, but those are already spoken for, headed for someone else's party and as a gift. If you want me to brew you up an infsuion for my Christmas gift to you, let me know and I will get one started before the fruits go out of season. It really is so easy and delicious, I am surprised I didn't think of this sooner.

Pictures to come soon.

NOLA (updated with a couple pictures)

I wrote a post about my trip, but Blogger eated it. No, seriously, it was almost done and then it went poof.

So, here's the highlights:

Drank too much, stumbled and twisted my ankle so I walked gimpy for the rest of the weekend, yes those things might be related.

Ate wonderful food: boiled shrimp and red beans & rice at Desire, shrimp po boy and gumbo at a restaurant on Jackson Sq. that I forget, beignets and frozen cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde, wonderful dinner at Brennan's (shrimp remoulade, gumbo, veal with lemons and artichokes, chocolate cake that I thought was too rich), beignets at the airport that were actually better than CDM!

The power was out to the first 4 blocks of Bourbon St. from Friday about 6pm until Saturday at 8pm. This killed most of our eating plans as the restaurants we inteded to patronize were all within this radius. Sorry, Arnaud's, I will try you next trip.



Hurricanes are the devil's drink.

When I of all people am the voice of reason that convinces you to keep your clothes on, it is time to call it a night. It was pretty funny to look up on a balcony of beaded men begging women to flash and see one guy who looked directly at me, raised his camera in one hand, and gave me a nodding thumbs up with the other hand. But my goodies stayed covered.

Strangely enough, all of the women that I saw flashing, and there were several, were over 40. Some were WELL over 40. What is up with that? And I felt truly sorry for one woman old enough to be my mother who flashed a balcony and got no beads thrown at her. Perhaps that should have been a sign?

All the bars in New Orleans with live bands play the same 10 songs on an endless loop. I know this because in the world's longest walk back to the hotel with drunk people who wanted to go in every bar, I heard all of them at least 4 times. Did you know that everyone in New Orleans (other than me) knows the Cupid Shuffle? And loves to do it over and over again?



In the end, I got to do most of the things I wanted to do with the exceptions of riding the streetcar and eating raw gulf oysters. I lost the $200 I intended to lose in the casino, though it took me a lot longer than I expected. I met some great people and had a lot of fun. I neither removed my clothing nor made out with a random boy, and I had opportunities to do both. I think my ankle will heal, eventually.

New Orleans, I want to be back to see you in the fall. I hope I can make that happen.

I am in the greatest place on earth

Otherwise known as SARALAND!

Yes, this is an actual town in Alabama. I WILL get a picture of a Saraland highway sign or police car before leaving here tomorrow. Assuming I can be persuaded to leave.

You think they have T-shirts?

Today

For a multitude of reasons that include yet more bagel drama, a new case I just got that is stressing me the hell out, the brief I am writing that I was informed just now is infinitely more complicated than it was initially presented to me 2 weeks ago, the longass horrible day that I had yesterday driving to Cairo, GA and back, the weekend of work that awaits me, the crankypants mood I have been in all day, the two weeks I'm trying to count down to a brief vacation, the client who recently annoyed the hell out of me, the anxiety I have over things I cannot control, and so much more...

for ALL of those reasons, plus the ones I can't or won't post....

Today, I need a really big really stiff drink.

Tonight

Barack Obama has just clinched the Democratic nomination for President. I am so proud of my country right now that I don't know if I can adequately capture the moment with mere words.

There are times, not often but important, when I get chills at the thought of how lucky I am to have been born in the United States and to be imbued with all of the rights and privileges that only Americans have. There are times when I have a sense that history is striking a lightning bolt into all of us, and we will someday look back and remember the moment when the universe spoke to us and what it said. There are times when I feel my heart swell with joy or pain for others, for whom I know a moment is so incredible that I will never really understand what they are feeling.

I am wrapped up in all of those feelings tonight. Someone on MSNBC earlier pointed out that on the night when Obama accepts the nomination for President in Denver, it will be the forty-fifth anniversary of the "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. Somehow, it is so fitting that we can spot two important legs of the journey that is racial reconciliation on August 28th separated by four and a half decades. I wonder if the people who as children or young adults saw King's speech ever thought that this day would come. I hope that the dream is fully realized in 6 months, on November 4th, with the election of Barack Obama.

I am so, so incredibly proud to be an American today.

Starting Over

Have you ever been fixated on something that you want for so long that the thought of moving on to something else just becomes impossible to even fathom? Or worse, that you have so much invested in it that you just can't find a way to cut your losses and start over with a new goal? Lately I've been thinking of aspects of my life like a hand in poker. And sometimes I've just kept putting money into a hand I know I probably shouldn't and suddenly I just can't imagine throwing that all away and folding, only to be left with a small stack. I'd actually rather get knocked out entirely than have to completely readjust strategy. Well, other aspects of my life have started to feel like that. Like I just can't seem to get away from a bad hand that seemed good but that now I'm all but certain is beat and there are no cards left to be dealt. At this point the thought of having to start the entire process over from the beginning, facing the open unknown, is just so terrifying. And even worse, the thought that I have wasted years of my life on something that amounted to...nothing, really...makes me sick to my stomach. I have so little time to use, why would I waste any of it?

I look at myself sometimes now and I just don't even recognize me. I made certain promises to myself years ago and I have broken almost every single one, and justified it along the way as a means to an end. And that end that I wanted so bad it hurt has just not come, and almost certainly never will. Yet still a tiny part of my brain is saying "you might as well push, get knocked out if you have to but at least you'll have left it all on the table." The stack has dwindled and giving up now will feel horrible, but do I want to have something, some shreds of hope and dignity and value, left to work with? Or do I want to hit bottom?

I just wonder how I became C, the woman who when I graduated from law school and started out at my first firm I was so certain I never wanted to be. And now here I am, a senior associate who's overworked, single, out of shape, and has little time for a life let alone finding someone to share it with. I have become what I swore I would not. I didn't even realize it until just recently.

But what is the alternative? If I leave law firm life, will things get appreciably better? I just don't know. They certainly won't get appreciably more affordable, and being able to afford a house and a car and all those lovely things is hard to give up. And if I start out on a brand new search for a that mythical and elusive halfway decent guy with sparkly eyes, a great smile, and an IQ in the triple digits, will I like what I end up with assuming I end up with anything at all? I don't know that either. So far I've made two disastrously bad choices in that department that have ended in surprisingly similar fashion, with me feeling like I wasted so much time that I did not really have to give. Still, the idea of having nothing to hope or long for, nothing to work towards, nobody to obsess about...that's almost more depressing than having something that is hopelessly fucked.

Anyhow, this is my semi-drunken late night ramble for the, er, month or something. PMS ends tomorrow, I think, so hopefully this funk will dissipate soon.

Quick and Dirty

I'm spending the day at a document review site and it could not possibly come on a better day. My ears keep ringing and feel like they're filled with cotton thanks to last night's incredibly loud show, I slept only about 6 hours, and I may have just a wee bit of a hangover. You see, I apparently looked halfway decent last night (low cut shirt+ cleavage=halfway decent) because while I was at the bar these two guys who were like 23 years old each bought me a shot of tequila. What was I to do? Clearly I could not be rude and turn it down. And so, this morning I want to die. It's funny how that happens. I'm just glad I wasn't dumb enough to take one of them home, because seriously they were like 23.

I was in a terrible mood when I got to last night's show at the Earl because I'd just spent two hours driving to Buford, GA for a deposition in the rain and terrible traffic, only to have my witness skip out just before I got there because she had only budgeted 1 hour for the deposition and didn't feel waiting if we were going to start late and not get her done by 7pm. I was so angry I could have killed someone. We set this damned deposition at night, in Buford, and on this date to make it convenient for her and then when I got stuck in the worst traffic I've ever seen in Atlanta, she leaves just before I could get there. Ugh. Oh well, she'll see how I deal with people who screw me over like that. It ain't pretty.

The Jason Isbell show at the Earl was so good I don't even know if I'll be able to do it justice. It's very rare, at least for me, to see someone perform live and to realize that I'm seeing something on the cusp of being enormously important. That's how I felt last night, like I was seeing the emergence of someone who will eventually be seen as one of the great songwriters of our generation. Maybe it will be 2 or 3 years, maybe it will be 20, but someday I'm going to be just amazed that I saw him in that tiny club with maybe 150 people there.

Isbell did a lot of new material and 5 or 6 of his DBT songs, though he did not play Never Gonna Change. That's the only one that I wanted to hear but didn't, and I can live with that. His new stuff is excellent live and I have the feeling that he's soon going to eclipse DBT in his own popularity. And so, their split was probably for the best.

Now if I could just get this damned ringing out of my ears.

Seismophobia

I was very proud of myself for managing to make it through an entire 24 hours in Northern California last week without having a serious panic attack about the possiblity of an earthquake striking. The only things that scare me more than tornados, on the natural disaster scale anyhow, are earthquakes. And on both of my previous trips to California I was alert to a fault every time I drove under an overpass or god forbid one of those doubledecker highway thingees that at any moment the ground could shift and I could be pulverized by falling concrete and asphalt. But this time I was there for almost a whole day before I remembered to think about earthquakes at all, and even then I shrugged it off when the thought did come up. Maybe it's because Palo Alto was really a lovely little town with few tall buildings or overpasses to be concerned with, and quite shortly after I got back to San Francisco to wait for my redeye flight I was good and drunk in the airport bar. It's hard to worry about earthquakes when you're drunk in the airport, which may or may not have been the reason I made that beeline for the bar.

But next week I have to go back to San Francisco and be on the ground for almost three whole days, and because I will be with coworkers and attending seminars and such it really isn't feasible for me to stay drunk the ENTIRE time. (I don't pretend that this will be a dry trip, but given my burgeoning reputation with my coworkers for being easy to push past the limits of decorum with just 2 or 3 drinks and the right suggestive cues, I'm going to try pretty hard to keep the drunkenness to a minimum. And the talk about teabagging.) So I'm sure that I was probably on course for a vicious bout of seismophobia anyhow...but then I saw this:

That's a bay area overpass that collapsed over the weekend. Well, really, it melted. Yes, highways can melt, I wasn't aware either but now we all know. There was a tanker truck fire on that overpass and then suddenly *boom* it collapsed. And now all the folks who commute into San Fran are apparently screwed, and while I feel bad for them all I can really think about is that this does not bode well for the solidity of such overpasses in earthquakes. And I'm pretty sure my coworkers and my cab driver aren't going to be pleased when I request a route from hotel to airport that does not involve driving under any metal or concrete whatsoever.

I've only felt a real earthquake once in my life and I wasn't even sure that's what it was at the time. It was 2001, and I'd gone out with my friends for an evening on the town. My friend Samantha and this guy who was hot on my tail, and while sparing you the not-so-gory details let's just say that Samantha had passed out early on, said guy had fallen asleep a couple hours later after things we won't talk about, and I then went to lay on the couch because I'm not a big fan of 3 people in one bed. So at about 7 am on a Saturday morning as I lay on my couch hurting from a long night with little sleep and perhaps a few adult beverages, I felt the floor shake. I looked out the window to see if the construction across the street had started early, but there was no obvious source of the vibrations. I didn't think much of it until later that afternoon when I learned it was an earthquake up in New Hampshire or Canada or somesuch that was felt as far south as Boston. Huh. That wasn't so scary....for a 3 or 4 on the Richter scale.

It's the big one that I'm worried about being caught in. I still can't get those images out of my head of the people trapped in collapsed highways and under overpasses and in buildings. Not surprisingly, one of my other phobias (and it's really a much shorter list than I'm making it sound like, I swear) is claustrophobia, so I think it's that notion of being trapped in a tiny dark space filled with rock and dust, nobody can hear me, and I'm just waiting for the thing to cave in all the way and crush me. If I had a worst nightmare ever, that would pretty much be it. And that is what is going to be in my head for pretty much the entire trip next week. So THANKS, tanker truck driver, for driving too fast and wrecking your truck and making the overpass melt and snarling Bay Area traffic, and oh yeah for triggering the irrational phobias of a girl headed west next week.

Tales from the Airport (San Francisco Day 2)

After arriving last night and getting my sleep and eating scheduled all screwed up, this morning I woke up with nothing to do until 2pm. How does a girl fill her time? Not by actually working, no...instead I prefer to shop. I found the Stanford Shopping Center, a wonderful open air mall filled with all sorts of awesome stores. I ate a delightful breakfast quesadilla (egg whites only, please) at the Palo Alto Creamery, and then hit the shops. I managed to keep myself to just a pair of new sandals and a boatload of makeup from Sephora, though it was tough. I was helped by my fundamental opposition to paying $50 for a bra. Why the hell you so pricey, Victoria's Secret? $50 for a bra is friggin' stupid no matter how lovely or gravity-defying it may be.

After the deposition, I managed to yet again bump into opposing counsel, this time in a deli where I stopped to wait for my expert to show. It's an awkward dance, this pretending to be nice to the guy I'm duty-bound to crush and leave for dead. But we did it well. Hell, we've been on all the same flights and in the same hotels so far, so at this point if he weren't gay I'd think people would wonder if we were having a thing. Thankfully, I'm not his type so those sorts of rumors won't get off the ground.

Today's deposition went very well, and then it was time for the drive to the airport and the long wait for the redeye. Sadly, it's even longer than previously anticipated since there was some sort of problem with the aircraft coming from Atlanta--so now I have to kill over 4 hours before my flight leaves. How do I do that? Well, let's see. There's a juice bar and a restaurant/bar in the terminal, along with a bookstore and a crappy boutique. I chose to drink. First I had a gin and tonic because they don't have Newcastle. That was a mistake. Once intoxicated, the Pinot Noir seemed like a delightful option. And then once fully drunk the steak frites was an even better option. While I regret eating it, at least it had the effect of tempering the 2 drinks. This means I make far less typos.

I have 2 1/2 hours to go, so I may have to either *gasp* edit a document from work or go buy a book. I hope I can maintain the alcohol equilibrium enough to be able to sleep on the plane, but I doubt it. I see a long, sleepless night ahead of me. Not gonna be fun.

And I get to return home to a driveway that's been dug up in preparation for replacement, and a cat who no doubt is wigging out hardcore and either tearing up the furniture or puking everywhere in retribution. Thankfully a kind soul took pity on him and agreed to check on him while I was gone. But considering that he's my cat's favorite person in the whole wide world (read: the only person kitty actually LIKES), I'm hoping that will keep the revenge puking or furniture destruction to a minimum. We'll see...

Off to find something to keep me amused until I can board and pass out. I am ready for my own bed.

The return of...What You're Googling!

I haven't done this in awhile but my brain is currently devoid of original coherent thought, so let's give this a whirl. This report of What You're Googling will be broken up by category:

1. The beer is still addicted to me: People still search for this several times a day. Why they end up here I do not know. In related news, "stages of drunk" is rapidly rising up the search charts. No, this is not a sign that I do in fact have a problem.

2. Panda-monium: I don't know what prompted it, but about a month ago I started noticing at least 5-10 daily hits that involve the word "panda." Baby panda, 3 day old panda, panda cub, and my personal favorite..."panda drunk." Poor little Mei Lan is too young and fragile to imbibe, so we better be talking about another panda!

3. Lyrics: That Mika song "Grace Kelly" really took off, didn't it? So did searches for the lyrics. I also get a few searches for the Jewel song that was on Men in Trees every now and again.

4. Skinny, ugly or both?: I shudder to think why so many people appear to be searching for "too thin," "thin models," "way too thin," "thin pictures," etc. Would I prefer that it be men who are turned on by emaciated chicks, or women who are looking for incentive to starve themselves? Either way it's awful. Don't even get me started on "models under 18." Also along these lines, someone really, really wanted "pictures of ugly girls." I hope that them following a link to my blog after that search isn't the web equivalent of having my picture in the dictionary.

5. Random shit: Some searches I understand, some I don't. For example, I get why people who are searching for snakes in Florida or Georgia would end up here. The ones I don't: "ponder your scene," "gay red sox" (hey! fuckin' Yankee fans...), or "monster lobster."

6. Here, pussy pussy pussy: Lots of searches for "cathouse," "bunny ranch," "sunset thomas," etc. One hopeful but probably disappointed search for "atlanta cathouse." In related news, and again I don't want to know how they were led to me, we have searches for "prostitutes in Atlanta," "sluts in Atlanta" (because there's like a running list or something?), and "anonymous sex in Dawsonville." Good luck with that one buddy!

7. I really don't want to know: "drug resistant syphilis." Yes, more than once that was searched and ended up here. I don't have it, I swear!

(I am, however going to wish I hadn't included the P word in a post on this blog. I can feel the porn searches starting as I write this.)

This is so dangerous

A few weeks ago I got one of them newfangled Blackberries with a full web browser. I am sitting at a bar in an undisclosed location right now posting from it. I have already done 2 kinds of shots and acquired a gift for a friend through nefarious means. I am currently discussing with a guy whether wrestling is the gayest sport ever. (Current consensus:yes)

Good lord avoiding typos is hard on this thing.

I just got dumped.

Drunk Jen approved this message.

Drunk at work

We had a champagne toast here at work for the new partners in our group, and now I'm drunk. 2 glasses of champagne and a piece of cake...drunk.

I will now commence to be useless. At least I got my thing filed on time.

Today is National Hungover Blogging Day!

Also known as "Jesus Christ would you stop yelling and hand me the water and Advil" Day.

Oh yeah, I feel like total and complete shit, even after I slept 10 hours and drank a half gallon of H2O. It's going to be a little rough to move around today.

I had a lot of fun last night and was glad to meet Shelby and Doug Monroe. And I'm not COMPLETELY horrified as I read over my drunk posts today, which means only that I realized last night I should not drunk blog about anything that I wouldn't want to watch the reaction to by those who were blogging along with me. That kept me from getting too crayzee. Also the Saddam execution thing was a bit of a buzzkill. (So was seeing images from the hanging right at the top of the Drudge Report first thing this morning. I knew I would end up being bombarded with them at some point, whether I liked it or not.)

The wonderful news, for me anyway, is that I have never thrown up from alcohol either while in the drunk or during the hangover the next day. So I won't be on the bathroom floor hugging the terlet all afternoon or anything. I may, however, feel like someone dropped a bowling ball on my head for much of the day which is a bit of a problem since I plan on going in to work this afternoon. At least I don't have plans for tonight, so they can involve laying on couch watching TV and alternatively whimpering and moaning. I never thought that would sound so good.

It's the End of the World as we know it

The waitress has brought the tab, $214 with tip included but of course we are paying her more. I am still drunk despite an hour of water drinking. Griftdrift has posted about lost waitresses, everyone else has stopped posting, and there is some strange martial arts on the teevee.

I want to go home and go to bed.

This is the end

Our waitress is asking us how this blogging thing works. She says she checks her email and that's all. Something about Rusty being busted for blogging about our waitress being too slow and then accidentally showing her his blog post...about her being too slow. That was classic.

So tired. So drunk. Been drinking water for half an hour without effect.

Mayhaps the pee is still clear. I will update if not.

Ugh

Bad sign when your best friend won't tell you about a conversation but tells you to "call her." Not good.

Pee was clear.

I feel no joy in mudville about the dicatator of Iraq being dead. Not that I am sad about it, I just feel no joy.

The coherence it will be gone so soon.

Cute boys rock. They ruin my defenses.

Awesome

We have a fight brewing over whether someone is yelling or merely speaking normally, and meanwhile I am fucking hammered. And Amber is trying not to throw up. And I cannot stop laughing. And soon I will pee clear.

And probably 3 minutes ago Saddam probably was hanged and it really bothers me and I can't adequately explain why.

And I am on my 4th sapphire and tonic which explains everything.

And Rusty killed his blog but then brought it back because he just accidentally set all his posts to private.

And we are talking about going to the Clermont Lounge after this.

And griftdrift was going to write about his habit of dating waitresses but he declined.

And Shelbinator says he won't go to the Clermont because he is a "giant gaping vagina." (As opposed to just a pussy.)

And yes, I am drunk. It has arrived.

When you pee clear

Tomorrow I will wonder about the wisdom of posting about an idea that came to me while in the bathroom adjusting my cleavage and fixing my hair, but I think there is one fundamental moment in a drinking woman's night: when the toilet is completely colorless and you have peed clear, you are full on in it and on the drunk train for the night. Every girl who has done any serious drinking knows about this moment. I am disappointed to report there was a faint yellow hue to my pee this first time (breaking the seal) so therefore there is still work to do.

The others are talking about how the "shot girls" at titty bars (aka strip clubs) are usually hotter than the actual dancers. Having never been to such an establishment beyond the Clermont Lounge--where NONE of them are particularly attractive, I can neither confirm nor deny. Maybe later on I will talk about my fear of going to a strip club...I already told everyone here but I don't know if I want to record it for posterity.

Hang 'Em High

I am terrified I will accidentally come across footage of the Saddam Hussein execution soon to be completed and televised. Those of us against capital punishment have long believed that if the public actually saw the horror of a real execution, that public support for capital punishment would plummet. I guess we will find out soon. Personally I am afraid that lots of bloodthirsty types eager to see a "scalp" for the whole anti-Arab anti-terrorism fight will instead start advocating the same sort of 60 day turnaround style of "swift justice" for those convicted of capital crimes in this country. It boggles my mind that the time from conviction through appeal to execution could be less than 60 days, but there it is.

Yes, I am far too sober if I am able to write this. We are attempting to rectify now.

Disemboweling is a buzzkill

Telling someone the story of the John Edwards case where the little girl was disemboweled by a pool drain really harshes their mellow, apparently.

I stopped with the beer and moved to the cocktails because I need to get this show on the road already.

We now have 5, hopefully a couple more to come. I am feeling less geeky in a crowd.