The Return of the Wine Night

Ok, I'll be honest. Wine Night never really left. Mark this the official return of the blogging wine night if you must.

I literally don't know what I'd do without wine. Case in point: tonight I opened a bottle of chilled rosé while watching Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and then finished the bottle while drunk-cleaning my entire house.

Notes? One, I adore Wes Anderson in a major way. The way I adore my favorite authors and my favorite bands. I could watch his movies on repeat pretty much for the rest of my life. With the exception perhaps of Mr. Fox. I didn't dislike it; rather, for an animated film, I rather enjoyed it. The repetitive tropes of Anderson's former films are present here, along with his usual detached dialogue and penchant for slow, pensive classic rock songs. Put live action characters in there and I'm sold. And as far as CGI/stop-motion characters go, these are pretty awesome. You end up getting the aesthetic feel of Anderson's films translated into a cartoon world, and it totally works. I just don't dig the animatronic thing.

Sidebar. I just drunk-cleaned my house. Put up a dry-erase board with tasks and shit. My new raise means I can pay bills on time and in full, which is an entirely amazing feeling. Work is challenging me and forcing me to learn new things. I'm making it to the gym at least once a week. Life. Is. Good.

Fin.

Si Se Puede

Where the fuck is the tipping point, people? How many people can get laid off and denied unemployment extensions, or refused health care for pre-existing conditions, or slave away underpaid for some bullshit corporation who fucks the little guy just for fun before we all decide that it's simply not worth the level of complacency we've all become accustomed to?

How many billions of gallons of oil need to pour onto endangered dolphins and mermaids in the Gulf before we assemble a lynching mob for the assholes responsible?

You know why sixteen year old kids from Richmond are throwing themselves in front of BART trains? Yeah. You fucking do.

They have a century of the same old shit to look forward to. Sure, the economy might pick itself up and dust itself off in the next decade. And then we'll all fucking shit our pants with self entitled American manifest destiny, and start the chess timer ticking again until the next cluster fuck. Because until we all realize that the reason we're in this shit storm in the first place is because we consistently allow industrial complexes to run this country, we'll just continue to live hand to mouth. And don't get me wrong - overpaying for pre-packaged over-processed food just so we don't have to leave the couch during Prime Time to cook dinner? Yeah, that's what I mean when I say fucking hand to mouth.

Whatever, I digress. I'm not about to move to some commune where they really get into socialism at it's core and trade goats for communist literature or some shit. I just want to drink my wine and smoke my cigarettes, get a yearly check-up and pay most of my bills. I just want people with billions of dollars to throw me a fucking cool five million so I can hang out at their parties and puke in their yards. And wear fleeces.

Is it too much to ask to be loaded so I can fuck these assholes from the inside out? Can the normal consumer wage a war against those in power consisting of insurgents at the inside of the top levels of industry in the US? I would get behind that shit. I would set those motherfuckers up with a 10% tithe of my earnings. I would enlist! Hoo-ra!

I'm actually not super bitter. I have a pretty sweet life right now. But it's boring to make ends meet, so I have to direct that somewhere. It's between this and fantasies about the zombie apocalypse. Meh, they both end the same.

On Turning 30

You know what? Who fucking cares. What's important is that I can pick some shit to play on my iPod and it makes me sing to the empty streets and dance in my kitchen. What makes sense is that someone can tell me to meet them at El Rio in an hour and I can make it there to enjoy the first night that feels like summer in a long time. What makes sense is that I need to do what's right for me - only me. I don't need to continue to take care of people who don't know what the fuck they have in front of them. This city is amazing. The people I know are amazing. I am amazing. You're either in or you're out. And I'm not even trying to quote Heidi Klum.

What matters is that I'm living the life that I wanted to live when I thought about thirty at sixteen. What matters is that I've found myself in the streets of Oakland, of the Panhandle, of the Mission. And as Okkervil River says, "If you don't love me, I'm sorry." And I truly am. Because people come and go - and the ones that go don't matter in the long run.

You know, you get past my thick skin and you should know it's an achievement. You should know I shut almost everyone else out - and you should feel like you've won the lottery. And you should handle my squishy insides with care. People don't - and what I've learned is to not harden the outer shell. I've learned to enjoy the feeling of falling as I let them in, and to allow more people in.

So take me I'm yours, morning starship.

Platitudes

In a stupor of head cold and marijuana, I discovered something last night. And yes, I realize this isn't the finest endorsement. Don't care.

I'm terrified of being made less of. Of someone lowering my worth. I realized that my standards are high - and that I've constantly been avoiding people because I feel they won't make me a better person. I think this is flawed - flawed like all things empirical. It doesn't allow for granularity, for the gradient between black and white, this predilection towards perfection.

The Briana from a few years ago would scream "settling". But this is why 30 is better than 20. Wisdom comes with age, etc.

I drink more Jameson than I ever did before. Suck on that, teenagers.

A Passage Filled With Silence

Sometimes you think someone enters your life to serve as a catalyst for something specific - something that you've been looking for. But instead, they act as mirror, reflecting yourself back at you in all it's morning glory. They act as a way to compare the past, and to illustrate how far you've come from the tropes you have yet to shed, despite the fact that they hang loose and translucent around your arms. And it comes round to bite you that what you've been looking for (and, of course, what you've found) is not at all what you need.

It would be so easy to ignore the red flags popping up like roses, thorns exposed. People do it all the time, right? They fall into old patterns and settle for right-now instead of forging ahead. Life is hard, let's just make it easy.

But I can't settle. Not when there are so many cities to explore, not when my life is laid out in front of me like so many empty highway horizons.

What's the difference between "being humble" and "having humility"?

Sometimes it's nice to take a day to wander around alone. It's even nicer if it just happens to be the day that a free concert has descended upon Golden Gate Park.

I spent the first few hours of the day feeling neglected because all the people who had mentioned Hardly Strictly were bailing on me. It wasn't until I was crossing the bike path in the panhandle that I realized that it was actually a really fucking awesome thing that I was cruising solo for the day.

I don't think I've had an evening or an afternoon to myself since maybe even before my return from New York. One candle, two ends and whatnot. It's nice to woolgather and be introspective when surrounded by thousands of people.

And BTW? What's up with the Mission being the new home for Marina douchebags who know nothing about this city? I've decided that the Panhandle is my fucking hood. For a while. Sure, it's a bit mid-90's gentrification meets Haight Street hobo-chic. But what the fuck, man. Don't hate on that shit. It's better than slumming it yuppies hanging at 16th and Mission or 6th and Brannan. Recession my ass, dickbags. Go tell your dad to stop running that Ponzi scheme.

Sometimes it's nice to just take a minute and reflect on shit. Preferably while staring out of a muni bus while the sun glints off of the windows of the passing houses. And sometimes it's nice to realize that you maybe just want to settle into someone else's shoulder for a few minutes. And it's ALWAYS nice to realize that the desire to do the above is just as satisfying as actually doing them. Wistfulness can be the language of poets.

Long story short - rediscovering your inner hermit can be super fulfilling. Recharge the batteries and all those other cheesy metaphors. Go do it now, gentle readers.

Disturbingly Content

I'm actually concerned that one day the idea of a whiskey (neat) and a cigarette smoked inside with all the windows open will be unappealing. Which is to say that I am therefore not ready to admit that I'm not over the dull, fuzzy high of alcohol and weed and my drunken meanderings through my own thoughts.

Do sober people have this degree of introspection? Because if not then I want none of it. If sobriety and responsibility means becoming a complete snooze of a person who happens to be married with kids, then I want no part of it.

But why else do I listen to music where men sing softly about loves lost? Aren't we all just looking for kindred spirits?

I have to say I'm completely, disturbingly content right now. I am, and at the same time, I'm absolutely restless. Because what does it all mean, the day in and the day out of drunken encounters? Is the fact that I think I'll drink too much until I find the right dude to help me see the good in sober, quotidian existence a bad thing?

And who is going to appreciate my obsessive compulsion with grammar and punctuation? The tiny details that no on else beside me can see - is noticing these things intimacy?