Perhaps I don't have a future as a smuggler

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of a good beer. But moving west required giving up one of my favorites. A college friend grew up near the brewery, and turned us onto it sometime during our first year. Many of our nights out were lubricated by Yuengling. Tragically, it's not distributed west of Ohio.

I have a few friends who've also spent time on the East Coast, who are equally sad about Yuengling's small distribution region. In order to compensate for that, an East Coast friend traveled to San Francisco last year and brought us a six pack, neatly tucked in her suitcase between some sweatshirts and socks. But six beers didn't last very long.

A few months ago, I learned that a pizza place in North Beach served Yuengling by the bottle. Not believing this rumor, I checked the menu on their website. Those bottles sell for $8. Each. In places where this is plentiful, it's not an expensive beer. But $8 seemed like a good investment to me, and to a friend with some East Coast ties. We made a date for dinner.  We were very excited.

And when we placed our order, the waitress informed us they had no Yuengling in stock. She wasn't sure when they might be serving it again, and the more questions we asked, the more vague her answers became. We figured they stocked their beer the same way my friend did - by using a runner - somebody who traveled east and returned with a six pack (or maybe a suitcase full) of Yuengling tucked between sweatshirts and hopefully-clean socks.

We were pretty crushed, but I tried to rally our spirits. I'd be traveling to Washington, DC, where Yuengling is in vast supply.

I would just bring home a few beers, wrapped in bubble wrap and plastic bags, and safely secured under my most bulky clothes.

This was a great idea. But it's execution failed miserably. There wasn't enough room in my suitcase, and I was a little concerned about ruining all my clothes if a bottle exploded in mid-air. So I left DC empty handed. And then the TSA searched my luggage. I'm guessing even if I'd made it to the airport with a few six packs in tow, they wouldn't have made it on the plane.

Monday musings

As I walked around DC on Wednesday night - braving the cold and wind to visit a few monuments with my siblings - I was overwhelmed with memories. Memories of monument hopping on warm summer nights with my college roommates. Of visiting those same monuments with my parents on countless trips to the District when I was little. Of wanting more than anything to live there someday.

And then, in the days before I moved away, of walking around the Tidal Basin as the cherry blossoms bloomed, unsure if I was making the right decision to leave, but pretty sure I couldn't stay. I loved that city and my time there, but it was no longer the place for me.

Twelve years later, I know I made the right choice. But every time I visit, I'm a little sad that jobs weren't plentiful and my friends didn't stick around and my neighborhood was plagued with violence. That neighborhood is probably still violent. The friends who moved away are all over the country now. And I'm really - or at least mostly - happy with my life.

But you won't find this in San Francisco.

Or this.

Well, you won't be able to find this in DC for much longer either.

Or this

And definitely not this. Though I remain hopeful for someday.

I'll toe the line wearing pink arm warmers

I rarely travel for Thanksgiving. It's hard to get time off and make it across the country - and back - in just a few days. But last year I completed the Thanksgiving surprise of the decade. And this year I'm packing up my Thanksgiving pants and going to meet my siblings at my sister's house. In Washington, DC. Where it's going to be cold.

I don't do well with the cold. This month's mid-50s cold snap in San Francisco has left me shivering under many layers and wool socks. I have no problem being a weather wimp, but I'm a little concerned about this trip. Because for the first time ever, I'll be racing a turkey trot on Thanksgiving morning. In weather that is much more suited to fireplaces and hot tea than early morning outdoor pursuits - which is why I left the east coast in the first place.  I've been stalking weather.com all week. By Thursday it looks like the rain and mid-40s temperatures I've been sulking over will give way to sun and almost-warm-enough-for-racing weather.

This isn't so bad at all. In fact, that's about as warm as my trail walk this weekend.

This race might not be as scenic, but it'll be fun. Or at least I think it'll be fun. I've tried to convince my family to spectate, but they've surprisingly declined. I guess I'm not the only one who's a little uncertain about getting out of my warm bed early on a chilly Thanksgiving morning.

Six!

My blog turned six yesterday. It's been a constant in my life in a time of incredible change. And I'm quite thankful for all of you who have stuck with me through some pretty rough stuff over the past six years. I posted this last year, on the occasion of its fifth birthday. It's all still true:

The year I graduated from high school, the girl who gave our graduation speech used her few minutes at the podium to - as many times as possible - list the names of her 16 very best friends and mention all the fun times they'd had over the four years (or eight, or in some cases 13) they'd been in school together.

As you might imagine, that didn't go over too well with the rest of us. And with a class of only about 110, there were a lot of us who felt left out that day.

I think about that a lot. Well, not that speech or that day so much, but in situations where I'm on the inside of something - a joke, or a group of friends, or whatever - how it looks to people on the outside. I've been thinking about that more than usual this week. On Tuesday, I went to a party; a celebration hosted by somebody I know through her blog. Somebody who I only met in person two weeks ago. It was a very personal celebration, and yet she invited many of the people who she's only known through her comments or Twitter. And she was equally gracious to us pseudo-strangers as she was to lifelong friends.

I met a bunch of really cool people at that party. I doubt our paths ever would have crossed if it hadn't been for our blogs. And some of us talked about that for awhile, and about how hard it is to explain to everyone on the outside of the blogosphere how it's totally safe to meet up with strangers you know from the Internet. Or to travel with them. Or accept their offers of a place to stay while you're on vacation. And how awesome it is when those strangers become actual, meet for lunch or a night out, real life friends.

The people and opportunities this little piece of the Internet has brought me are priceless. I just wanted to say thanks.

The little things

My favorite band is on tour again, and I was so sad that their U.S. stops didn't include San Francisco. Their show here earlier this year was awesome, and I was about to start scheming to get east in March to see them in Maryland. And then I saw this in my Facebook feed this morning:

They're playing not one, but TWO shows in San Francisco in March. I did a little happy dance. Who's in? After my last adventure with this band, I definitely need a keeper want some friends to join me.

No end date

"Did you know you can guarantee somebody's everlasting life if you enter their birthday into your calendar as a recurring event with no end date?" asked an acquaintance recently, after updating his calendar when he realized that he didn't have his mom's birthday in his calendar, and he'd missed it.

Clearly, I could have tried harder to keep my mom alive. I never put her birth date in my electronic calendar. I don't think I even wrote it into the paper one this year, since I'm unlikely to forget it.

Obviously, my new friend was joking. And I was briefly amused, after I was sad. I'm sad a lot these days. And feeling a little surrounded by people talking about their parents. Or their families. Or - God help me - their holiday plans. And I've lost count of the number of times I've told people not to be jealous of the Christmas trip I'm taking to Hawaii, because while I'm traveling bankrolled by my dead parents' life insurance policies, my friends will be spending time with their actual - living - parents. They win. In a big way.

I'd like to surround myself with other orphans so we can commiserate, but we seem to be in short supply these days, at least among the folks I know. So while I try to find the orphans club, my friends chatter un-thinkingly about their recent phone calls with their parents. And I remain silent. Waiting for the day this seemingly normal turn in a conversation doesn't hurt so damn much.

Whatever comes next

After I left my job in August, my plan was to not work - or even look for a job - until the beginning of 2012. I planned to spend my time cleaning house - both literally and figuratively - handling some of my mom's estate issues and just, well, healing. And probably spending way more time than I wanted in NY.

But by the end of September I understood that my time wouldn't be well spent in my hometown right now, and the estate stuff, which had felt so big and overwhelming a few months ago, is a little more under control, and a lot less time consuming, than I'd envisioned. And what was I going to do with all this free time?

An opportunity arose to work part time, I took it, and it's been the most fun I've had at a job since 2005. I still get the time I need to myself, but when I'm working, I'm busy enough to be focused on the work, and to have some fun with it. I'm so thankful things worked out the way they did.

A few days ago, I was responsible for some tasks that required wearing this:

And I had more fun in those few hours than I've had in a very long time. I'm working on the resume re-write that includes "must wear viking helmet" in my career objectives.

Rain, rain go away

 Well, the sunsets were nice while they lasted.