Well. I'm not, anymore.

Vegan, I mean.

Stop judging me.

OKAY FINE, HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED.

I started managing a restaurant who serves only responsibly-sourced, good-for-both-you-and-the-animal  cheeses. And then oysters happened. And then sustainable seafood in general happened. And then I did heroin.

Okay fine. I didn't really do heroin, but I feel REALLY BAD that I moved on from my vegan fixation and I'm constantly worried that people are going to call me out on it now two years later.

For what it's worth, I still believe in veganism. I never believed in Santa Claus (there was just something really fishy about a fat dude getting a lot done in one night that I could never get behind), but there is just something pure in the idea of not harming any living beings for selfish purposes that I fully, truly can get behind. I still feel one hundred percent that if I were perfect, I would be vegan.

Instead, I'm a fully-flawed fatty shoving wedges of local cheeses in my mouth between gulps of Paso Robles Zinfandel and German Riesling. And... yeah. That pretty much sums it up and brings us up to date today.

I'm pretty focused on a half-coherent, half-memorable wine education right now. I have now developed a fear of committing to ANYTHING because of my past failed veganism and my recent failed long-term relationship. Quick! Things I know I can commit to:

1.) Wine (anything will do, but let's get snobby about it and drink only stuff that's worth learning about, k?)

2.) TV or movie dramas about grown-up families with lots of siblings who all hang out all the time and have lots of problems. Also, the availability of these must extend to Netflix.

3. ) Singing half-shitty songs I've written and recording them on my shitty iPhone. Usually to inanimate objects that carry some sort of emotional value. MY favorite moment was when my 7-year-old niece came to visit and announced publicly that she knew what my stuffed Beanie Babie crab was for --"You SING to this!" is what she actually said. Not embarrassing. At all. Thanks, Alina!

4.) My mom, siblings, and two best friends. Whether I'm a hardcore sober healthnut lesbian or a Gewurtztraminer-glugging heterosexual power trip, these people accept me. And make fun of me.

And that's important.

Right now?

I am... a me. A Haymitch who downs a bottle of wine like it's oxygen. A highly obsessive 6th-grader whose "teachers" won't let her sleep 'til all of her extra credit assignments are fully completed to perfection. A woman whose mental self-projection is a fat hairy bearded trucker man and who has a problem being looked at in daylight. A banjo-loving obsessee who cries at the sight of The Avett Brothers and who sings in her breath every second of every day while pushing invisible buttons on an air flute.

These things are me.

And I'm not sure anyone else will ever be odd enough to want to be around those things all the time.

And... I think... that's okay.



I'm back (bitches).