Cole, 2/17/15:

 

 

Hola a todos!  I hope that everyone is doing as well as I am, if not better! 

 

     Where shall I begin???  Well, I suppose the last post I wrote that was not concerning packages of precious makeup sent to the wrong address or irrational people from a world I left behind for a reason, was written about more important things that are near and dear to my heart.  More specifically: work.  I stated that I was happy with work, more than happy, actually, I was thrilled, but I still wanted more.  The things I wanted most:  More hours, the best shifts, and the highest sales.  Done, done, and DONE!  Add to that list a promotion and a raise in pay.  That’s right!  Not but four months in, and I’m already climbing the ranks.  I’m so proud of myself! 

 

     The funny thing is, I don’t really know why my sales are the highest, and they aren’t highest in an insignificant amount, either.  The differences are astronomical, even with people who have similar shifts and hours, and more tasting room experience.  I don’t even try to sell wine, I just do.  Imagine what I could sell if I really pushed myself!  Or would that even matter?  It might have the opposite effect.  I’m not a salesperson, I’m not a kiss ass, and I’m not a wine snob.  I treat everyone exactly the same, whether they look like they have money or are dirt-poor transients, and I don’t let anyone talk down to me.  If people are being snippy or rude, I just pour, say my two cents about the wine, and walk away.  I don’t need that negativity.  That’s their problem, not mine.  I’m knowledgeable, yes, about the winemaking process, and our wines especially, but I don’t think that’s why my sales are so high.  I think it’s because when people come in, I’m just on the level and genuine with them.  I think being genuine will get a person a lot further in life than anything else will, depending on the way you go about it.  I’m super casual with people, we chat, shoot the shit, joke around, talk about anything from wine, to sports, to literature, to emotional support animals to the weather, but people laugh with me, and I think laughter is key.  Sometimes I think they laugh at my facial expressions almost more than what is coming out of my mouth, but whatever.  I almost think they are more interested in purchasing a piece of the experience than the actual bottle itself, but perhaps I am giving myself too much credit.

 

     I have received the most wonderful and heartfelt compliments from strangers I will probably never see again, both male and female alike.  There are haters, for sure, but for the most part, the people who come in seriously freaking love me, and find me hilarious and adorable, in my own punk rock, awkward, raw sort of way.  Some days my heart fucking bleeds!  The people I pour for are so awesome, and everyone has a story, and when I am lucky enough to have the time, I listen, and I think that is appreciated.  Some days we are more bartenders than “wine stewards”, but the two professions can be quite similar, and I just try to find that balance between what the customer really needs.  Often times they just want to talk to someone real, and not some robot spewing out tasting notes and turning a deaf ear.  I’m not a robot.  I like having an actual connection with someone.  People can be wonderful or they can be awful, but working in the tasting room has sort of reminded me how much I can love people as individuals.  People can be really great, and blow your fucking mind as to how special and important interactions with strangers can be to your own personal life experience and growth as an individual.

 

  Valentine’s day was a fucking riot, but more of that later…  I’ve taken my style to a different sort of level, in the tasting room, both emotional and physical, and my bosses are supportive of it.  Before, they wanted us all to dress to the nines, but encouraged us to be ourselves.  Once things got comfortable, and they gave me carte blanche, I went full on Cole mode!  Fishnets, mini skirts, my cellar boots, skulls, leather, etc.  I still do my hair and makeup nice.  I rocked the faux hawk in the tasting room once, and though my bosses thought it was hilarious, I think it might be a little too rough for the tasting room.  Nowadays I save the faux hawk for my cellar days.               

 

Am I satisfied?  Of course I am.  Am I done pushing myself and setting even more goals to achieve?  LOL, not a chance!  Have we met?

 

New goals:  Get more cellar hours, and secure working harvest for the winery I am at, not at another winery. 

 

 

I was supposed to have a nice cellar day on February 17^th, the day after I was slammed in the tasting room, pouring for several groups both outside and inside, alone behind the bar, when my boss pulled me aside, told me I was being made lead wine steward, getting a more regular schedule, and getting a raise, and then handing me a key (this time to keep) and bouncing.  She texted me later that my cellar day was cancelled, and I worried that being made lead and getting a raise might oust me from cellar work, which troubled me.  In all honesty, though I love the tasting room, I prefer the cellar.  In an ideal world, I would get to do both, but if a raise meant not getting to work cellar at all, I would be hesitant to take it, more money or not.  Money is not everything, after all…

 

My fears were quelled when I got an email from the winemaker later on the 17^th, asking me about cellar availability.  I said I wanted to work both, right?  Well, on the 18^th I got to do just that.  Never thought I would wear black fishnet nylons under army pants, but I had the opportunity to work a few cellar hours in the morning before working the closing shift in the tasting room.  Challenge accepted, and with pleasure!  I just wish I could pour behind the bar in my cellar gear, and not have to bring a change of clothes. 

 

Still, the cellar hours are much less than I would like.  True, “cellar rat” was not the position that I applied for, and it was not the job that I was hired to do.  Doesn’t change the fact that the cellar is where I would like to end up, unless some other amazing opportunity presents itself.  Even then, I’ve got my heart set on the cellar, production, and making wine, more so than selling it, no matter if I seem to have a knack for selling it or not.  Production is where it’s at!  I think I would be even better at selling our wine if I was helping to make it, anyway.  So that is my latest, greatest goal, and I am up to the challenge!

 

It’s really pretty fucking crazy, the way life works.  I don’t want to get into the depths of all that right now, or this post will end up being a hundred pages, when more often than not, I can’t even manage to keep them under ten pages at the least, even when I feel like I don’t have much to say at all.  But I was thinking about that Monday that it was so busy and I was on my own, on a holiday weekend, and I was later told I was being given a raise, and how after the past two years that have been pretty much shit, things were coming together in an incredible way, and maybe I would not appreciate these awesome opportunities as much as I do had I not been through what I have been through.  Just a thought.  I have never thought of myself as someone who takes things for granted or is not appreciative, but struggling and trying times make advances and opportunities more beautiful than had you just been handed everything your entire life and never had to struggle to achieve what you do.  Appreciation is a beautiful thing!

 

Later that evening, I was pouring for a few groups inside, once things had mellowed down a little, and though I should have been entering credit card tips and starting to close the bar down, one of the groups wanted to chat quite a bit, and I was more than happy to acquiesce.  It was a group of four; two very pleasant, young-ish couples.  One of the girls kept asking me questions about wine, our wines, wine making in general, and everything in-between.  I answered her questions with confidence, and without hesitation, to the best of my ability.  Even questions I told her I probably didn’t know the answers to too well, all of the sudden I was spouting off knowledge I didn’t even know I had.  She asked me how I got to know so much, and I told her I didn’t really know, and then I told her a bit of my story, feeling that not knowing how I knew what I did was probably not a very good response, even though at the time she asked me, it was sort of a mystery to me.  This is probably why my sales are the highest.  I am not pretentious, I am just me…

 

I told her that I had been in the industry seven or eight years previously, and had learned a bit about wine, though not really winemaking practices at that time.  I then told her that I left the industry to work at a nuke plant and do construction, installed solar panels, and had only very recently gotten back into the industry, starting with working a harvest, and ending up in the tasting room.  I told her that I probably knew so much because I was a total nerd.  I told her I didn’t have a boyfriend, and spent most of my time reading, hanging out with my dog, drinking wine, tasting with co-workers, and studying my world atlas of wine.  She laughed and accepted my explanation.  It was honest, at least. 

 

The crazy thing is, I really don’t know how I know as much as I do.  Yes, I worked a harvest, and I study on my time off, but the eight-year gap out of the industry was pretty much spent drinking beer and whiskey.  I mean, I always loved wine, and continued to drink it, but when you work eight to twelve hour days, come home reeking of sweat, dirt, diesel, oil, paint, adhesives, etc, you don’t exactly want to swirl around a glass of Syrah or Cabernet Sauvignon.  You want a fucking scotch neat, or else you want a beer, to guzzle, sometimes in the shower with you as you wash the stench and pain and soreness of the day off of you.  I still drank wine, on occasion, while I was working those hours and those jobs, but the dedication, appreciation, and research aspect of the wine drinking process was mostly dead and gone.  I knew if I was drinking shit, or drinking something lovely, but I didn’t think too much about what I was drinking at the time.  It was more a matter of pairing something with dinner than fine tuning my palate, researching, and obsessing over stainless steel versus new French oak, neutral French oak, Hungarian oak, American oak, months aged both barrel and bottle, vineyard location, warm versus cool climate, pumpovers, punchdowns, winemaker, cold soak, yeast decision, old vine, new vine, terroir, origins of grape varieties, old world versus new word style, vineyard practices, a specific year, malo-lactic fermentation, residual sugar, brix, weather, de-stemmed or whole cluster ferment, press fractions or free run juice, and temperature, both concerning the year the fruit of the wine came to fruition and when the wine is served and in which shape of glass, and preferably in a Riedel... Where did this knowledge come from?  I don’t really know.  Everywhere, I guess, and just from a passion of wanting to know and researching because my brain thirsts for knowledge in wine much the way it does with languages.  I will never settle for a simple explanation.  I will always thirst to know more.  I cannot stand being mediocre.  I always want to be the best, know the most, or else I feel like a failure.  Most of the time I don’t even realize how much of a nerd I am actually being.  I have heard it said “what is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly”.  What is “normal” for me is chaos, or else utter ridiculousness, to others.  I am ok with that.  I am ok with being ridiculous… 

 

Update! (I do updates because sometimes writing a post is a two or even several day affair -due to work schedule and other anomalies- and sometimes new shit crops up, and I’m too lazy to go back and edit to death what has already been written.  It’s my blog post, I can do what I want…) -As of 2/18/15, the day I dressed for work with black fishnets under my army pants, and brought a change of clothes for the quick transition from cellar to tasting room, my boss told me that I am now full time, and cellar hours are going to be a decent portion of my workload.  I was euphoric all day long, even after I climbed down from the stainless steel tanks we were topping, with Cabernet-soaked ass and panties, to pour in the tasting room until close.  Excitement, euphoria, uninhibited joy and extreme jubilation are just some words or phrases I would use to describe my state of mind at that point, and really that entire day, progressing and evolving throughout the remainder of the week.

 

The next day was pretty much the same, just more cellar hours, same outfit decision.  On the day of the 19th, I still dressed with fishnets under my cellar gear, only this day, I was cellar, tasting room for two hours to pour for a private party of twenty, then back to cellar, and I loved every fucking minute of that day!  Seriously, dear reader or follower, I’m so happy these days I could cry, and I probably would, if I weren’t so damn happy blasting music, dancing around, and singing at the top of my lungs.  My life is as decadent as a flourless chocolate cake, frosted with fudge, topped with chunks of maple bacon.  Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself to breathe or else I would choke and suffocate on what pure joy tastes and feels like.   

 

 

My jubilation for my own current work situation was enhanced even more when I found out that my two very favorite co-workers were advancing within the company in ways of their own as well.  It honestly brings a tear to my eye, I am that happy for all of us.  We are growing and expanding in different ways, and it is as good for the company as it is for us. 

 

My favorite female co-worker, I’ll call her “Cookie”, is taking over wine shipments, wine club, scheduling, and other tasting room duties.  She was the perfect person for the job, and I know she will do well.  My favorite male co-worker, I’ll call him “Mr. Proper”, is going to have less tasting room hours, as he is headed out on the road, for marketing and sales.  These are two of the people I actually hang out with outside of work.  They are badass, super fun and super knowledgeable people, and I feel lucky to count them as friends. 

 

As for me, I am getting regular cellar hours, in addition to tasting room hours, as I make the slow transition from tasting room to cellar and production, and will also most likely receive a decent, consistent amount of overtime, and it also seems that I will indeed get to work harvest with this company as well.  I may have thought my year began only mediocre, and then decided it was good because it wasn’t bad, but this week has had me in a constant state of fucking euphoria, and I am so happy I could kiss random strangers just for the sake of kissing someone, and spreading this love that is just oozing out of me, and that I want to share with the world.  I cannot remember the last time I was this happy.  Probably the last time I was this happy was when I was leaving the States to live in Spain for six months.  The only thing that could make me happier than leaving this country for good would be for me to have all cellar hours, and get to work production again, full time.  But I have to say I am liking the production and tasting room balance, for now.  I like dressing cute, pouring wine, shooting the shit with people, who can be so wonderful and inspiring, so complimentary and encouraging, but I also like working with the wine, shutting people out, blasting music, rocking out, learning, and being a part of the entire wine making and tending process.  I guess I do have words for how happy I am, as I am writing about my week that has just absolutely blown my fucking mind and made me so incredibly grateful for where I am at, but I am just describing events, more so than emotions.  My emotions at this point in time are still somewhat difficult to put into words.  I’m so happy I feel like I could spontaneously combust.  That is all…

 

 

As for Valentine’s day, well, all I can really say is that it was a cluster fuck from the minute I walked in the door.  We were understaffed, to say the least.  In a situation like that, I just act like it’s a gigantic fucking party, and when I hear co-workers or drunken guests breaking glasses, I just clap my hands and yell out a pleasant holler, because at that point, what else can you really do?  People pretty much already have their minds made up when they walk into a situation like that anyway, and if they want to hate, then their hatred has a lot more to do with their own inadequacies than ours.  If you walk into a tasting room on a day like that with a chip on your shoulder, odds are you won’t have a good time.  You need to just be able to roll with the punches, relax, enjoy your wine, and enjoy the atmosphere.  It’s a castle, for fuck sake, and a packed house to boot!  Un-wad your panties and enjoy yourself.  If you want a private taste on a slammed Saturday, go to Napa.  Paso doesn’t want to be pretentious.  Paso wants to be real. 

 

I wasn’t about to let anyone get to me that day.  I was on fire that day!  I had war paint on, was dressed in black fishnet tights, my cellar boots, a black halter top, hair and makeup done nice, and cute little black dress shorts.  My mood was solid, as it tends to be as of late, up until happy turned into complete euphoria, on the 18th, and I wasn’t going to let anyone shit on my happiness. 

 

I had people in stitches for most of the day.  The cool people, who realized we were slammed, appreciated it, and laughed with us, or at least with me.  I had people loving the shit out of me that day!  In order to keep people smiling, if I saw an empty glass, whether they were people I was pouring for, or people my co-workers were pouring for, I would just pour whatever was in my hand, smile, and keep moving.  There were a few unhappy campers, but for the most part, people got into the party atmosphere, and really had a good time.  It was our highest sales day to date, so I know my bosses were pleased. 

 

At one point, toward the time things seemed like they were starting to wind down (though they actually never really did, right up until closing), I had an older woman that I recognized, and a wine club member, come up to me, wrap her arms around me, and give me a huge hug.  I didn’t even know she was there, as I was not pouring for her, but I thought it was so cute the way she just felt the need to come up to me, say hello, and hug me.  I’m not even a hugger!  I don’t even hug my friends!  But she was just so damn adorable!  I couldn’t resist, and I told her it was great to see her and I was so glad she could make it, asked her if she was having a nice time, etc.  More often than not, on days like that day, you don’t have time to connect with people on that level, but you find a way to do it anyway, and that is what makes the experience for people, and that is why people continue to come back to your specific winery, out of all the other wineries out there in Paso Robles to choose from.  The people pouring behind our bar are different, and special, and awesome, and that is why we are getting busier and busier, and why people can’t seem to get enough of us.  It makes me smile that I am a part of that, and part of the reason we can make that sort of situation happen, and I still want to be a part of that, I just would prefer to be the person who comes up from the cellar to make an appearance and make a club member feel even more special than to be the person habitually behind the bar.  Fingers crossed, that is the way things are trending, but I want it too badly to allow myself to breathe and accept it as reality at this point in time.  I won’t allow myself to breathe for real until I hear from the winemaker’s mouth that I will become full time cellar in the very near future.  Until then, all I can do is study my ass off, work my ass off, tread lightly, stay confident, and hope that my dedication and eagerness to please, do well, and succeed is appreciated.

 

 

There is a lot more I could say about my current job situation, but I have been sworn to secrecy, and I always have been and always will be a dedicated, company girl.  While trying to seek advice from our main marketing and sales guy, he told me my current stance within the company was all about my “walk”, and my “walk” is “solid, appreciated, and respected”, and I just need to keep it up.  Rather too cryptic advice, for my taste, but encouraging, in any case.

 

I may write under a pseudonym, but far too many people are privy as to whom I actually am, and some information is reserved for family and close personal friends outside of the industry at this point in time.  Let’s just say that the information I have been told is very enticing, and I hope that I can at some point in the near future reveal said information to friends and sincere, faithful, kindhearted followers of this blog…

My happiness these days is pretty obvious, but I do love my lipstick!

 

 

 

Quick re-cap of the year, thus far:  Wanted to be better about some things, and I posted a few of them on New Year’s day.  They were simple things, but things that were important to me.  Have I succeeded in keeping up with doing the things I wanted to?  Yes! 

 

I drink more water throughout the day, and not just in the morning and at night.  Purchasing bottles of Pelligrino to take to work with me help.  I just prefer the taste of mineral water, sparkling, and at room temperature.  It tastes amazing! 

 

I wake up grateful every morning.  This was not exactly a challenge in the month of January, but it didn’t come as first nature every morning either.  Some days I had to remind myself to be grateful and appreciative of the things I have, but I’ve pretty much been on a roll since the beginning of February, and if things continue in the same vein, I don’t see any problem with waking up every damn morning being grateful for the rest of my life! 

 

And, I am especially happy to announce that I have been taking exceptional care of my teeth.  This was my biggest challenge for the new year, mostly because I am lazy, but also because flossing sucks, and I would most often fall asleep reading in bed, and not bother to brush my teeth when I awoke at four in the morning, with the lights on, my book by my side, a half-full glass of red wine on my nightstand, and a golf pencil that was tucked behind my ear somewhere lost in my bed.  True, a couple of nights I fell off the wagon, and epically failed, but aside from those couple of nights, and a night or two where I either flossed or brushed, but didn’t do both, I have been very good about taking care of my teeth, and I can already see noticeable results.  The key was moving toward the floss pick, to better reach my back teeth, and doing it while I was reading in bed, after finishing my glass of wine and graduating to water.  Having clean teeth just feels better, not to mention that having whiter teeth means they get less stained while I am at work, and come in having to sniff, sip, taste, swish around, and spit out around 14 wines prior to pouring them, four white and ten red, in order to make sure I am not pouring a faulty or cork-tainted wine to a customer, and clean teeth don’t turn purple as quickly as teeth with bad oral hygiene practices do.  Brushing with whitening toothpaste and sprinkling a little baking soda on the toothpaste has helped as well, and I am considering beginning to “pull oil” also, as I hear that practice has whitening aspects, as well as other health benefits. 

 

So, has my year been great so far?  Yes.  Am I proud of myself?  Yes.  Am I pleased that I am now, transitioning from tasting room to cellar, and am almost guaranteed to work harvest?  Yes!!!  But yet again, I must ask myself:

 

Am I satisfied?  (Of course I am).  Am I done pushing myself and setting even more goals to achieve?  LOL, not a chance!  Have we met?!!

 

     New, “short” long-term goal?  Become cellar master.  After that?  Europe is on my mind, but it’s far too in the distant future to get that crazy about my goals.  Goals and dreams can be different or they can be the same, but these days, I find myself too insanely content with the present to worry too much about a future that far ahead of me.  These days, I am too infatuated with my present to give the future too much thought at all, and that, I believe, is a beautiful thing…

 

Namaste!

 
And then just because this shit is really funny!!!:





 

2/3/15 (Cole):

 

Holy.  Fucking.  Shit. 

 

This will not be your typical post from me, but I just had about the strangest day I have ever experienced, and felt the need to write about it.  I honestly don’t know how else to make heads or tails of it.  I always assume I am the most rational person, in any given situation.  Mostly just because I’m kind of a callous asshole, but for other reasons as well, I feel like I usually keep a pretty cool head and don’t let things get to me too much.  But, I mean, how can you really know, especially when certain friends shed different light and share different perspectives than your own?  We each have our own, unique, beautiful, and individual ways of dealing with things.  Writing is my way of figuring things out, hashing out reality and finding out how I truly feel about something.  Mind you, the day itself did not disturb me in the slightest.  On the contrary, after the dust had somewhat settled, I was laughing my ass off, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was strange for me, and something I had to try and think about “rationally”.  I say “rationally”, because I often forget that other people do not see reality the same way that I do.  My concept of reality, I feel, is very straight forward, but other people tend to become ensnared in things I find trivial; while they tend to find certain events very significant and even traumatizing, I find exactly the opposite is true for myself.  As I have said several times, everyone has their Achilles heel…

 

I will begin the tale of this super random and strange encounter on the evening of 2/2/15, the day that I spent twelve plus cellar hours bottling wine for the company I work for, a day that was good in its own right, but more of that in a later post.  (Mmmmmmmmmmm.  I would climb that like a tree!  That’s all I can say about that.  Hopefully in the near future, I will have much, much more to say about that!) I do love my cellar days, and will take as many as I can get, but again, something worth delving into at a later date.  I guess the tale should begin the day I decided to order makeup from Sephora.  I never order makeup, because usually when you order things, it costs extra money to ship.  I don’t exactly have the spare cash to just go ordering shit these days, but I needed makeup for work.  The days that I am not (sadly) in the cellar, I am behind the bar, in the tasting room, and those of us who pour are asked to look quite dashing while doing so.  In order to do so, makeup is required, in addition to doing one’s hair, dressing nice, etc.  I used to think of it as a hassle, but I have actually grown quite fond of doing my makeup, my hair, dressing nice, putting on lipstick, wearing cute outfits and all that.  Lipstick has actually become one of my latest, favorite fetishes, and I went ahead and ordered a new shade of high quality lipstick to kick my order up a notch, and get free shipping.  It wasn’t a difficult decision to make.  My numerous fetishes are quaint, sensual, slightly unconventional, but entirely personal and very near and dear to my heart.  I always thought I should have been my age in the 1920’s, in Paris, France. 

 

To make the list short, I have a fetish for nice stationary, lingerie, perfume, pearls, reading an actual, physical, Sunday paper (preferably the New York Times), as apposed to reading the news on the internet, and reading actual, in the flesh novels, as apposed to “E-books”, or whatever one calls them.  I also happen to have a fetish for tiny golf pencils, which I habitually keep tucked behind my right ear, or else in my pocket or in my purse, if I happen to be carrying one, so as to be able to jot something down at a moment’s notice, should I feel the need to express myself, or else highlight a passage in a book I am reading.  In any case, nice, quality lipstick has recently become one of the things I have added to my list of fetishes, and even on a day off, neither in the cellar nor in the tasting room, I like putting it on.  It makes me feel sexy, and good about myself, and so I do it.  Anything that makes a person feel good about themselves cannot be all that bad.  The other day I had the entire day off, all to myself.  I put on red lipstick and drank a bottle of champagne, did chores, and completed a shit ton of things I needed to get done, and though it may have been just an average day, it felt more significant that I had ran my errands and did my chores with lipstick on.  I don’t know why myself.  It is something I never thought I would enjoy, but alas, I do, and so I do it, and I don’t care if anyone thinks it is stupid.  It makes me happy, and that is all that matters.  I even wear lipstick in the cellar.  Army pants, wife beater, combat boots, lipstick.  I love it!   

 

 

So, I ordered an extra lipstick.  For me, that is extravagant, deviant, and a guilty pleasure/fetish of mine that I have accepted and embraced.  I do not fight my demons.  We bone, and it’s delicious…

 

So I ordered some makeup I “needed” for work.  Face powder?  Yes.  The Indian war paint and lipstick?  Well, let’s just say I needed those items for emotional reasons.  How else can a woman be at her best if she does not feel prepared to go to battle?  She can’t. 

 

Upon ordering the things I “needed”, I noticed that the credit card they had on file for me had expired, and my shipping address was not current.  At first I thought this was odd, that I hadn’t ordered anything from Sephora for over two years, but then I realized that I was living in SLO for the majority of the time, and Sephora was right down the street from me.  I often times walked there to pick some makeup up on days off, on my way to McCarthy’s, to do some day drinking and read the New York Times in the summer, on the patio, soaking up the sunshine, and shots of Jameson and pints of IPA.   

 

     I updated my credit card information, and updated my current address.  I assumed that everything was in order, and so I pressed the “process shipment” button, and that was that.  Makeup was to arrive the following Monday, my cellar day.  Not being a huge fan of waiting, I was a little disappointed that the makeup was set to arrive on a day I would not be home, but would in all likelihood be putting in a decent amount of hours, but it was a day earlier than two others items I had recently ordered would be arriving, business cards I had just designed, and a late Christmas present for Wednesday Addams.  I love getting packages in the mail!  Especially things that give me so much pleasure.  The business cards are for me to go around to other wineries and see if they need anyone to come in and do any extra cellar rat work.  The company I am currently working for doesn’t give me enough hours in the cellar, so I am hoping to pick up some cellar work elsewhere, at least until harvest, when cellar rats are in much higher demand. 

 

 

     In any case, I was rather surprised when I came home from work late on Monday night, body aching and sore as hell, but feeling stoked with how the day had gone, how the team worked together to get everything done, lunch and dinner bought for us, including beers, and a bottle of wine to take home with me, to two packages, but neither of them were from Sephora.  The two packages I had expected to get on Tuesday had arrived a day early, and the package I expected to get that Monday had not come at all.  I was a little disappointed, but assumed the package would come the next day, and besides, I was super stoked to have had the business cards arrive, and I took them out and admired them.  They were perfect, and I was giddy!  I was only disappointed that I hadn’t gotten them earlier, as I would have liked to have given “the Tree” one of the awesome cards I had designed for myself instead of one of the generic ones from my work.  Oh well.  Hopefully the message I was trying to convey still got across the way I wanted it to, and not as a strictly business, networking, industry transaction.  Fingers crossed…

 

     I stayed up that night and tried to write, but it just wasn’t coming to me.  I was too distracted.  I was so excited I could hardly sit still.  I don’t know if it was because I really liked “the Tree” all that much, or if I was just stoked that I finally, after months and months of not really being attracted to anyone or intrigued by anyone, wanted to slam that guy up against the wall of the bottling truck and make out with him.  Single and interested in me or not (he certainly seemed interested, and enjoyed conversing with me) I thought it was a good sign that my mind and body reacted to being around him.  It means I am finally willing and able to move on.  So I didn’t write much, and instead read in bed for a while and then went to sleep. 

 

     The following morning, I couldn’t really sleep in.  I was excited and happy, the morning was delicious, it was supposed to be 76 and sunny out, I had the day off, and I wanted to lay in the backyard and get a little bit of a winter tan while studying my world atlas of wine.  All I wanted to do that day was fill up my growler with Cider at Bristol’s Cider House in Atascadero, go home, drink cider, study, enjoy the weather, and maybe if the mood struck me, masterbate.  Sounded like a pretty epic day off to me!  I leapt out of bed and made myself a half a pot of coffee.  I started my day off the way I usually do.  I checked my email, checked my social media accounts, drank my coffee, checked the weather.  I then decided to track my Sephora shipping status, to be sure that it would indeed arrive that day, but when I clicked the link, it said my package had already been delivered, the day before. 

 

     Thinking that perhaps it had been delivered late the night before, and perhaps I had just missed it because I got home well after dark, I went back out front to check the porch, the mailbox, around the garage, but there was nothing.  I went back inside, back to my computer, and called the number of the shipping company.  I told the man that it said my package had been delivered, but indeed it had not been.  He said that it was delivered, and then he said it was delivered to…  As he read off the address my heart sank, and I looked at the address listed on the email, to verify.  Sure enough, there it was.  The package was not delivered to my current address, but to where I was living the last time I had a package delivered to me from Sephora, the house I used to live in with my ex-husband.  I wanted to curse the guy on the phone, but it wasn’t his fault, it was my own laziness and stupidity, and so I just hung up on him instead, mid-sentence.  I didn’t know if my ex still resided there or not.  There was no way to know, but whether he was or wasn’t still living there I knew one thing for sure.  I was getting my damn package that day either way.  It was mine, I wanted it, and I wasn’t about to eat one hundred bucks worth of makeup just to avoid him.  I didn’t give a shit whether he still lived there or not, or whether it would disturb him to see me or not, I wanted my damn package.  My only fear was that if he did still live there, he might have thrown my package away in anger, in which case I would have to call the police, because it is illegal to throw people’s shit away just because you don’t want to deal with it.  I wasn’t sure how my package pursuing efforts would end, but nothing was going to deter me.  I wanted my shit! 

 

     As I was finishing my coffee and running a comb through my hair, eager to run this icky errand that I really, really didn’t want to run, it occurred to me that if he did still live there, there was no guarantee that he would even be home, but his new wife probably would be.  Operators have odd and constantly rotating schedules, and there was no way of knowing if he would be sleeping and preparing for night shift, away at work, or in the middle of a few days off.  I had heard through the grapevine that he had a child somewhat recently though (or I guess, rather, she had a child), so I figured that probably someone would be home, as I don’t believe the child is school age yet, whatever age that is.  I hoped that maybe they were on vacation, and all I would have to do was grab the package and bounce, go home and pour myself a fat glass of cider, but I figured the odds of that happening were slim to none.  Oh well.  I threw on my cellar gear from the day before, because it’s SOOOO comfortable: Army pants, a tank top, combat boots, pulled my hair into a bun, put on Rebel lipstick by MAC Cosmetics, no Indian war paint, because they had possession of it in the box I had just accidentally sent to their fucking house, and off I went, making sure my empty growler was in the back seat of my car, so afterward I could get it refilled and my day would go back to the way I had planned it in the first place. 

 

     I figured whoever answered the door could behave one of two ways.  Either they could be chill and just give me my package, because it was such a silly, innocent, stupid mistake, or they could be irrational cunts about it and withhold my shit.  I hoped for the former, but was pretty much expecting the latter.  This is how the encounter unfolded:

 

     I typically drive around with metal blasting as loud as my car stereo can go, especially if I am alone in my car, and the weather is nice, as it was that day.  Not wanting to appear angry, as I was not, and wanting to tread lightly, I turned the music way down.  As I approached the driveway, I felt no nostalgia, no fond memories, no pangs of regret.  I drove up slowly and quietly, very unlike the way I used to roar up the driveway when I lived there.  My initial impression was that the yard still looked like total shit, but the olive trees to the left, heading up the driveway, had gotten very big and full, and that made me happy, thinking Martychist was most likely pleased with their progress, and that made me smile.

 

     I pulled in quietly and cautiously, parked, turned my car off, and headed up the stairs to the front door.  The wood of the front deck had been replaced.  I meant to look for the Buddhist equivalent to a Mezuzah, thinking to ask that if he didn’t want it anymore, could I have it, as I had also planned to ask if he still had my golf clubs stashed somewhere, something I have been wanting for a while, but had no way to get a hold of him, as he had changed his email address, cell phone number, and pager number at work, shortly after we filed for divorce, because he was “upset and hurt that I never tried to call or text”, to ask him how he was doing.  At the time I thought that sounded pretty much like the stupidest thing I had ever heard.  I mean, why would call or text?  We were getting divorced!  But that’s beside the point. 

 

     Not but a few seconds had passed since my very polite knock, when a woman answered the door somewhat jerkily.  She had a child in her arms.  Initial assessment: age???  I would guess anywhere from six months to three years.  Gender: female, or else a very effeminate male.  Who can tell at that age?  In any case, it was dressed sort of girly, so I’m going with female.  Cute kid, as far as kids are concerned…

 

     The woman seemed agitated, or like she had just been stabbed in the chest with an adrenaline needle (scenes from Pulp Fiction filled my head as I tried to appear as docile and non-threatening as possible).  I guess what I mean is that she seemed pretty up in arms.  I took this as a good sign concerning my package.  To me, at that point, it seemed that she had been expecting me, which meant that my package had indeed arrived.  Yay me!  Now the only thing left to be determined was if she would be rational or irrational.  The jury was still out, but it wasn’t looking good. 

 

Me:  Hi.  I inadvertently had a package sent here, and I was wondering if I could acquire it. 

Wife # 3:  This is really fucking weird.  I don’t know anything about no fucking package.

Me:  Well, I called the package delivery service, and they said it was delivered here yesterday…

Wife # 3:  Well I don’t know anything about no fucking package.  What was yesterday, Sunday?

Me: No…  It was Monday…

Wife # 3:  Well I mean, we got a package yesterday, but it was for her. 

 

(At which point I’m thinking, wait, you didn’t know anything about a package before, and now all of the sudden your ambiguously aged child is not only advanced enough to order packages online from Sephora, but also can have a government agency that doesn’t deliver on Sundays magically bring her a package?  Holy shit, your child is a fucking wizard!  But I felt it best to keep this sarcastic thought to myself, and continue down the polite path I was determined to continue…)               

 

Me: Well, did you check the name on the package?

Wife # 3:  I don’t even know who you are.  Who are you? 

Me:  Oh, I’m sorry.  Um, well, I used to live here, and I was previously married to your husband…

Wife # 3:  This is really fucking weird.  I never wanted to meet you, and now you’re at our house.

Me: Well, I didn’t really want to meet you either, but I called the delivery service guy, and he said my package was delivered here yesterday.  I just want my package… (frowny face, arms up to the side of me, like, ‘IDK man, just give me my shit’…) 

Wife # 3:  Well you can look down below. (she gesticulates with her free, baby-less hand.)

Me:  I did look.  I didn’t see anything.

Wife # 3:  This is really fucking weird.

Me:  It’s really not that weird.  The shipping information was not updated.  It was an accident.  I just want my package, man…

Wife # 3:  Well you can look, (free arm gesticulating again), I don’t know what to tell you.

Me:  Ok, (feeling like there’s really nothing else I can say, she is clearly irrational and set to hate me, which I really couldn’t wrap my head around.  I mean, honestly, I had never done anything to her, and if it wasn’t for my actions with Martychist, they would have never found each other!  I had actually done them both a huge solid by being a selfish, dissatisfied wife.  If it hadn’t been for me, they would have never found true love together.  She should have been thanking me, but whatever…) well, have a good day…

 

     And I was out.  As much as I wanted to blast the metal and peel out down the driveway, I knew it would be taken wrong.  No matter that that is just the way I drive, I knew it would have been misinterpreted as something negative, and I would have probably had the cops called on me, so I kept the music low and drove slowly until I was a block or two away, and then I cranked the music and sped toward Bristol’s. 

 

I couldn’t be angry with her for being sort of hillbilly, ignorant, irrationally jealous and wanting to withhold my package to punish me for something I could never understand, but I could be angry that I had to go through that icky, awkward as fuck exchange and come out with nothing to show for it!  I didn’t want to call the cops, but it was my property they may or may not have thrown away, and at the very least refused to give to me, so I didn’t know what else to do.  I pulled into the parking lot at Bristol’s, grabbed my empty growler out of my back seat, and tried to shake off the weirdness I felt.  I had no reason to feel weird.  I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I did feel slightly… something.  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt gross, and like an injustice had occurred.  There was no reason why I shouldn’t have my box of makeup sitting on the passenger seat of my vehicle at that moment, and now I had to go out of my way to either involve the police, or get a hold of my ex somehow, both options seeming to me like more effort than should have to be exerted just to get my fucking box of makeup.  What is wrong with people?  But if they wanted to raise a stink and force me to cause a scene by having the cops roll up, that was their choice, not mine.  I wasn’t going to lose this “battle”, that didn’t need to be a battle at all, but if they wanted to be irrational, they left me no choice.  All I wanted was my makeup.  They wanted to make it dramatic, or else some stupid, traumatic life experience.  I feel sorry for people like that.  Something that could have been so simple and straight-forward had to become something awkward and weird, but why?  I will never understand people like that.

 

     As I exited my vehicle, the lack of lights on inside the building and lack of signs up outside gave me my second sinking feeling of the day.  The place looked closed, but the roll up door to the side was open, a forklift was in the parking lot, and there was clearly someone inside.  The only person there was the cellar master and/or cider maker, and he did not even have to know what was going on with me or witness the disappointed look on my face to recognize me from being there before, and invite me in to fill my growler for free, because they were closed and he couldn’t legally charge me, but just asked that I continue to come back in and support them.  I could have kissed him! 

 

     I came in, and as we waited for the head to settle, to fill my growler up more, I told him a little about what had just happened, and how grateful I was to him for just being a bad-ass industry dude, who wanted to make people smile with his cider.  Mozart was playing on the stereo, he was dicking with the cider, pumps out and hoses everywhere, but he said, if he had been through what I had just been through, he would want a glass of cider to throw back.  He poured me a glass of one of their newest ciders, the only thing like it in the world, a mix of local, organic apples and red sugar beets, the result being a vibrant, neon pink cider, not actually sweet as it is bone dry, with next to no residual sugar, but just a delicious, beautifully colored beverage.  We talked industry bullshit for a while, I gave him my card, and he said he would keep his eye out for cellar work for me.  I gave him a hug when I left.  He really did make my fucking day, after such an awkward exchange.  Industry people are the fucking best! 

 

     As soon as I got home, the first person I wanted to talk to was Marge, but she was dealing with a mess of her own, and was not home.  I was not privy to exactly what she was going through at the time, but I called my other very good friend, to vent, and then, in order to take care of business, I called another one of my homies who still works at the nuke plant.  I needed his advice on how to proceed, and I was also hoping he could look up my ex’s new pager number on the nuke plant’s “intranet”.  It was my only hope before involving legal authority.  I didn’t want to come across as a crazy bitch, calling the cops, but I wasn’t the crazy one in this situation.  If I had just been given my shit in the first place, nothing would have to escalate.  My last resort was to try and page my ex, to see if he would even deign to return my page, and settle matters for good.  There was lipstick and Indian war paint on the line!  Cops or not, I was getting my shit, one way or another!

 

     I poured myself a fat glass of cider, paged my homie, and waited for him to return my page.  He does, within a matter of minutes.  I break things down for him, and this is this response:

 

Homie:  You went to their house?

Me:  Fuck yeah I went to their house.  Why wouldn’t I?

Homie:  Well Jesus, Cole, not everyone is as forward thinking as you are.

Me:  It isn’t forward thinking.  It’s rational thinking!  It was a fucking accident.  I didn’t mean to have my package sent there.  My shipping information wasn’t updated.  What in the hell else was I supposed to do?  I didn’t have Martychist’s number, so I went to their house.  It’s not my fault they’re irrational. 

Homie:  Ok, so not everyone is as rational thinking as you are, but what do you want me to do?  The guy won’t even look me in the eye, let alone talk to me.  You want him to give the package to me?

(I had forgotten this sad, tragic little phenomenon.  Martychist refuses to acknowledge any person I still associate with at the nuke plant.  Not that I wanted my Homie to get the package from Martychist.  I just wanted my ex’s new pager number.  But Marge has told me that before Martychist and I separated and divorced, she never knew she had magical powers, but as soon as he enters the room now, POOF!  She disappears, as if she is magic, and becomes invisible…)

Me:  Oh god no!  Just give me his pager number.  I’ll page him.  If he doesn’t call back, I’ll call the cops.  What else can I do?

Homie:  Why don’t you give it a couple of days?

Me:  Fuck no!  In a couple of days, my makeup will be gone, and then what will I do?!

Homie:  Yes, shit.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the same predicament, worrying about my package of makeup.

Me:  Fuck you.  Just look up his number for me.  I want my shit.

 

     A few minutes later, after shooting the obligatory shit, the number was given, I paged my ex, and expected to be blown off entirely.  To my great surprise, my cell rang, very shortly after, and it looked like a number from the nuke plant.  I was on the other line when the call beeped through, and though I was somewhat surprised, I was not trepidatious in the slightest.  Probably because I knew I was in the right, and had done nothing wrong.  Probably also because any relation I had with my ex was so far in the past any communication I could have with him seemed trivial and superfluous at best.  I wanted nothing to do with the guy, or his current wife, was more than happy for them for finding happiness together, and really just wanted my package.  If it weren’t for the possibility of one hundred dollars of lost makeup, the entire situation would have had me yawning, and that would have been my most exciting reaction to the situation. 

 

     His voice sounded stone cold and constipated at the same time, like talking to me was the equivalent to holding in a gigantic shit that he simply could not set free, and it left him sweating bullets.  In other words, he sounded stiff and uncomfortable, nerdy, weak, and tragic.  Pretty much the way he has always sounded, except this time, it seemed like he was trying to come across as tough, and strong, two words that would have never crossed my mind, if asked two words to describe him (after all, when we were still married, I slept with the loaded 12 gauge on my side of the bed, as I knew if an intruder might happen to break into the house, I would ask him to hide in the closet and call the cops, while I took care of business.  The man is just weak.  I always knew that.  It was one of many reasons I did not respect him, and my attraction to him declined rapidly, after our first year of marriage, as things that are not always obvious before marriage came to light.  I can’t be with a man who is less of a man than I am.  This is also, coincidentally, most likely why I am still single.  I’m don’t want to settle for weak, insecure dudes.  I’d rather masturbate and read alone in bed until I find a worthy adversary…).  I would have laughed right into the phone, but I knew what was on the line.  I made the conversation as brief as possible, and at the end, his tenuous, robot voice asked the address where I wanted the package delivered, I told him, and we hung up.  I told him to have a nice day before hanging up.  The sentiment was not returned.  Some people have no manners! :D

 

     I really didn’t expect my ex to have his current wife deliver the package, and maybe she didn’t.  I don’t know who delivered it, because I was sunning myself in the backyard, shaking my head and laughing over the occurrences of the day, studying, drinking cider, and sunning myself.  I will never know who delivered the package that day.  All I know is that at around three or four, I went out front to get my i-pod out of my car, as I desperately wanted to listen to some music, my studying done for the day, and what should I find but my package, carelessly chucked into the driveway, or at least barely.  It was about a foot in from the street, at best.  Whoever delivered it didn’t even have the courtesy to set it gently on my front porch.  The lack of respect, of some people!  Ha…

 

     In any case, though my day was random, it turned out pretty well, at least for the most part.  I got a free growler refill of epic cider, and I got my package delivered to my house, after all.  World: 0.  Cole: 1.  I guess the thing I found the most curious about the day, was that I was able to effect people I couldn’t care less about so negatively, and could cause them so much inner turmoil, when all I wanted was a couple of material possessions that made me happy because they were so insignificant and trivial.  But sometimes, to some people, it’s the little pleasures in life that can bring so much joy, and to others, it’s the little, insignificant, mundane trivialities that can cause so much strife.

 

     For me, however, “no fuckin’ problem at all”…


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzj-ECciC8M

 

 

             

Cole, 1/18/15:

 

Hola a todos!  Without fail, and as always, I hope that everyone is doing well.  The New Year is still so young and there are so many possibilities and things to look forward to, goals to be achieved and new things to learn, obstacles to overcome and other shit to conquer!

 

My year has kicked off pretty badass, I must say.  The first week or two seemed just mediocre to me, at best, but then I had a beer with a good friend of mine, took a step back, saw things from a different angle, had some things put into perspective, and the end result was that my pleasure with how my New Year has begun waxed immensely.  Aside from he and I setting an awesome new goal for each of us to achieve, mainly, getting some work of ours published by August 30’th of this year (an ambitious goal, to be sure, but there is no harm in trying, even if we don’t succeed), I also realized that at the core, though some aspects of my life of course are not quite 100% where I want them to be, I am truly, genuinely happy. 

 

I was looking at things all wrong before, and I was too concerned with what I didn’t have to realize what I did have.  To most people, my reasoning will probably sound insane, but I am me, I am different, and to people who truly know me, this will make perfect sense.  I am going to break it down like this:

Though eternally cynical, yes, I used to be one of the happiest people I knew, most likely the happiest, but then I had my access pulled from the nuke plant (not just for something I did not do, but something outrageous!) and I was, for the first time in my life (since the age of 12), without a job.  No matter how hard I tried to get re-hired, for one reason or another, finding another job proved near impossible.  I sank into a deep depression, something I had never before experienced, and it consumed me.  For close to two years the happiness I had once known eluded me.  True, from time to time I had happy moments, but for the most part all I really wanted to do was drink myself into a coma, to forget how miserable I was and to forget how dire my employment prospects were.  I woke up with incapacitating anxiety every morning.  Any time the slightest thing seemed off or wrong in my life, I sank back into the darkness that I could not escape no matter how hard I clawed at the walls to keep my head above the water.  It felt like living in six feet of freezing, filthy water at the bottom of a dank well, constantly treading in order not to drown, fifty feet under sea level, three-foot circumference around me, slimy lichen-covered stone encompassing me.  I would wake up dry heaving, my anxiety was so bad, and sometimes I would spontaneously vomit, a new form my anxiety took, as if panic attacks and feeling like I couldn’t breathe weren’t bad enough, though luckily the vomiting was mostly a morning occurrence that would disappear after an hour or two. 

I didn’t feel good enough; not for an employer and not as a girlfriend.  I always felt like I was somehow inferior, letting people down, was a failure, etc, ad nauseam.  There were peaks and valleys, but the valleys far outweighed the peaks, and I was beginning to wonder if I could ever again be the person I was before, the person that I longed to be again, the person who loved herself and knew she was strong, and intelligent, and not only good enough, but the crème de la crème that any employer or lover should want, because I don’t slack off and always try to be the best possible employee or lover a person could have.  For close to two years, when I didn’t have something distracting me, I would stare off into space, not really wanting to do anything but hide under a blanket and not have to deal with anyone, anything, the world, people in general, or debt collectors.  I can’t tell you how many times I almost had my car impounded, because I could not make my loan payments, but somehow, at the last moment, the money was made and I juggled my finances to somehow make things work.  I kept most of my troubles and feelings of inadequacy inside, because I don’t like pity and I don’t enjoy talking about my problems.  Throughout those two years, only one of my friends saw me cry, as I prefer to keep my emotions to myself, and would most often cry quietly in the shower to myself, so no one would hear me or know the deep slicing pain that I was experiencing.  I almost always laughed and smiled, but the smile was a mask.  The pain only visible if you searched deep into my eyes, but luckily, no one did. 

 

Some days I couldn’t even get out of bed without prescribed medication, Klonopin, an anti-anxiety pill.  I would wake up feeling completely nauseous and yet chained to the bed, gasping for breath, feeling like I was suffocating, dying.  It was all the courage and strength I could muster to roll out of bed, walk the five, ten, twenty-five feet to my purse, swallow the pill, crawl back into bed and try to go back to sleep until the calming effects of the pill washed over me and I could face the day.  But the thing about Klonopin is, it doesn’t make you happy, it just makes you Zen, or rather, numb.  I could take one, and once it kicked in, someone could tell me that I had ten minutes left to live, and I would blink at them slowly, through glazed over eyes and say something like, “far out.  You got any Jameson?”  I could not give a fuck about anything, which is really no way to live.  

 

And then the most spectacular thing happened.  My situation was so desperate, my mood so somber, I decided to turn my résumé into a temp agency and just have them find work for me.  I felt desolate.  I honestly didn’t know what else to do.  Once I did that, and work started coming in, everyone I worked for LOVED me!  True, it being a temp. agency, most of the jobs were only temporary, but soon, the agency was getting rave reviews about me, and they would send me out to more jobs, landscaping jobs, construction jobs, solar plant jobs, jobs where the foreman would say that he didn’t want a chick, and the ladies at the temp agency would just reply ‘trust me, you’re going to want this chick, and you’re not going to want to give her up, but at the end of this week, she’s promised elsewhere.’  But they were like my pimp, the temp agency, and I was their ho, their property.  It felt good being appreciated and wanted, but at the end of the day, they were making the majority of the money, and if a company wanted to keep me, they would have to buy me, for a TON of money before I could be legally theirs.  I met a lot of cool, and some really not cool, people, but at the end of the day I was caught in a web of making a fraction of what I was worth, but not really knowing what else to do.  The agency found me work, which was more than I had been able to do for myself, so I didn’t really feel like I had any way out.  It was either stay and put in three plus months of underpaid work to get hired on full time, or find something for myself. 

 

When I finally found a job and a company I could love, a company that was trying to bribe me away from the temp agency, the temp agency found me another job working harvest at a winery.  So though I loved being back into construction, installing solar panels, with a crew of badass dudes who respected me and made me laugh, I had another hard decision to make.  I left the solar job, and worked harvest, which was a blessing, and a curse, but long story short, it lead to me finding this new job that I am working now, without the help of the temp agency, doing something that I love, that I found on my own, was hired because of my diverse and kick ass background, and now I could not be happier with where I am at, as far as work is concerned.

 

 

This new job is so great and so perfect for me, I know that the reason nothing really worked out for me before was because I needed to go through what I went through in order to be where I am now.  They love me for who I am, encourage me to be myself and rock my own style, I don’t have to cover my tattoos, remove my facial piercing, dye my red and purple hair back to brown, they encourage me to use my own judgment in choosing my outfits, so long as I wear mostly black.  Some days I come in totally punk rock, leather skirt, fishnet tights, black combat boots, skulls, so long as I wear makeup and provide excellent customer service, know the wines like the back of my own damn eyelids, and keep customers well informed and entertained.  They did say they want us to be “edgy”, after all, and I think I fit the bill pretty well.  Hell, I’ve even rocked the faux hawk in the tasting room before, and they didn’t mind one bit, in fact, they thought it was hilarious, and very “on brand”.

 

As far as my co-workers are concerned, they are all pretty badass, and I like them all for different reasons, though there are only a handful that I kick it with outside of work.  Some people I just want to remain professional with, but I would have a beer with any damn one of them after work (this is how I gauge whether or not a person likes there co-worker or not, though in this case it would more likely be for a glass of wine, but if you ask someone if they would have a beer with their co-workers after work and their answer is “yes”, you know they like their co-workers.  If the answer is “no”, that spells trouble) because they are good people, every one of them.  There are four of us though that work together on a pretty consistent basis, and I would like to think of us as sort of the dream team.  Our bosses call the group of all of us that work behind the bar “the Breakfast Club”, because we are all so different and diverse, but when it’s the four of us within the Breakfast Club working together, and it’s slammed busy, I would like to think that we fucking kill it! 

 

You get the four of us behind the bar and it’s a fucking party!  We’re rocking out to the music, either live or on the stereo, I’m “Lola dancing”, we’re talking shit, encouraging each other, egging each other on, it’s high fives and fist bumps, lip-sinking lyrics, and our energy is infectious, and more often than not, the customer is just as stoked as we are to be there, drinking wine, but also experiencing something different, something special, unique, and “edgy”, and that is what we are paid to do, no matter how ludicrous it sometimes seems, to me, anyway, to actually get paid to do what I do, which is something I love more than an almost anything else in this world:  Drink wine, and have stimulating conversations.  I think I’ve found my dream job, after writing, of course, but I still want more cellar hours… 

 

Non-verbal communication is key.  We can understand what the other needs with a nod of the head, a hand gesture, or even just the look on a face, the glint in an eye.  I have to say that it’s pretty fucking fun, being behind the bar with these people, when it’s fucking slammed, and you don’t even have time to think when a new group of six rolls up, you’re pouring for three groups outside, four groups inside, and you just smile, open the tasting menu, set out glasses, and give your spiel, and just know that somehow, you will manage to juggle all the groups without a hiccup, and then sip on a delicious bit of wine when the shift is over, and you are closing together, laughing about the day, exhausted (though undeniably a different kind of exhausted than I am used to), but happy. 

 

These are the people I go out with on Tuesdays, when the tasting room is closed, if I’m not lucky enough to have cellar hours.  We taste for free everywhere we go, because we are industry, but of course we buy wine (at an industry discount) and at the very least leave a tip, because it is proper etiquette.  We do this to bond, to have fun, to get to know each other better, team-build, and get to know our neighboring wineries and staff, so we know who to send people to after they taste at our winery.  It is a very tight-knit industry, and everyone knows each other and everyone in every tasting room has their favorite other wineries they send people to.  I’ve met some of the most awesome people, in the industry, who come in to taste where I work, and I always send customers their way.  It’s our way of paying it forward.  It’s good business, and it’s just the way things work.

 

 

 

So things at work are basically great for me, but being the person that I am, I can’t just be content to enjoy what I do, I have to be the best!  I want the most hours, I want the highest sales, I want the best shifts.  I am always putting more pressure on myself than I need to, because simply floating along like a feather in the placid wind isn’t going to cut it for me.  If I have forty hours a week, I strive for fifty.  I never feel like I get enough cellar time, even though there really isn’t that much to do in the cellar right now, or really up until next harvest, and I have the best shifts, but I want longer hours on the best shifts, or else more responsibilities.  I am incapable of just kicking back and watching the grass grow, that sort of shit drives me crazy!

 

But… I am happy.  The epiphany that lead to my discovery of why I am truly, and sincerely happy, however, will have to wait.  Conclusions cannot be rushed, and it really is a complex happiness, in a sense, even if the clues that lead up to my discovery of happiness would, to the normal person, seem quite obvious…

 

I know that I put a lot of pressure on myself.  I know that I am the type of person who will never be content with mediocre.  I will always strive to learn more, know more, dream more, and never give up on my dreams, and even if I achieved them all, I would create new dreams, because living a life with nothing more to strive to achieve would greatly disappoint me, and leave me as uninspired and unpalatable as a glass of delicious champagne left out on the counter over night; tepid, and flat, something that could have been beautiful, but had gone to waste instead of being consumed.

 

I do not want to live a tepid and flat existence, and so I challenge myself.  I know a lot of people who are content with living tepid, flat existences.  I could name names, but I won’t.  All I know, is that my friends and I do not want to be tepid and flat.  We face challenges that the tepid and flat vast majority do not have to face.  My friends and I face mockery, ridicule, incredulousness, and even pity, from the vast majority of the tepid and flat existence.  I say, “fuck authority.  Fuck the majority!”  Middle finger out, honestly, go FUCK YOURSELVES! 

 

 

Anyone eager to mock myself or my posse is beneath me, beneath us.  Our paths are rocky, unstable, and dangerous, but at least we feel alive.  Through the pain, sorrow, tears, tribulations and triumphs, we are living a superior existence, in my opinion, but to each their own.  Some people think squeezing out spawn is all they have to offer to the world.  Congrats, and power on!  Other people want to change the world through other means of self expression, or even do both.  Each are valuable contributions to the world as a whole.  I applaud those willing to be tepid and flat.  Without the banality, mankind as we know it would cease to exist.  So lets just all simmer down, and appreciate the individual paths we all take, because we all are dealing with our own pains, sacrifices, struggles, dreams, and goals.  What kills me the most is that we can’t just learn to be supportive of our unique, individual paths, and we all seem to prefer to gravitate toward ripping each other to shreds.       

 

 

I know that I can, in all reality, just breathe and relax, now that I am content with my job situation, and I know I would be better off if I could just do that, but that is not me.  I want more.  I cannot, will not, and have never been able to just settle.  If I were capable of simply being content with life, I would still be married to my ex-husband.  I actually don’t even think it’s a matter of wanting more, it’s needing more.  Before, I was incredibly well off, owned my home, had a “nice”, “pleasant”, easy going, white picket fence sort of existence, but I was far from happy.  Now I’m pretty much broke, living with my best friend, but I feel alive, challenged, happy, and I am inspired to live up to the expectations I have always had for myself, only now I do not sit my ass upon a fluffy white pillow at night and know that if I do not succeed, I will still be taken care of (though Marge pretty much takes care of me, but that is not exactly what I mean).  Now is the time for me to step up to the plate and make some magic happen.  Now is the time to do something that could ultimately change my future, and only then can I re-pay Marge, and then some.  Some of my favorite successes, from artists I admire, sparked from pretty dire circumstances.  The point is to never give up, to never let the tepid, flat majority effect your future in any way.  Let them sit on their banal asses and judge, mock, and belittle you for trying, at the very least, to do something, while they strive to do nothing.  Now who should hold the gavel?  Huh?  When did sitting on one’s ass, eating Doritos and judging with no shame, but with crumbs on their lap become admirable?  That is actually quite disgusting and despicable to me, but I never pointed a finger at that sort of slovenly existence until a finger was pointed at me, in judgment, or at one of my friends. 

 

I have never picked on anyone for just being content with being average, or ordinary, until the average or ordinary decided to pick on my friends, or myself.  I don’t think I ever mocked people who just wanted to lead bland, stale, placid sort of lives, but when those people want to find their amusement in the lives of people who have the courage to put their egos aside and strive for something more out of life, it is then that I pick up my figurative machete and want to make heads roll!  It is easy to mock people for their attempted goals and dreams when a person has no goals or dreams of their own, but is it fair?  Is it just?  The type of person who mocks a revolutionary is someone too timid to step up to the plate, grab a bat, and look a fastball in the face, eyes narrowed, crooked brow, sweat dripping down one’s temple, pulse racing, heart thumping, everything to lose and next to nothing to gain.  It takes courage to pursue dreams, to face mockery, to stand up for what one believes in, but I suppose I’ve gotten a bit off track, and have gone off on a tangent, because I want to stand up to bullies who really have no right to judge. 

 

 

Bullies bully because they are intimidated by ferocious, strong willed and strong minded people who have the balls and courage to take a chance and strive for something different, something better, for a life less placid and banal.  Bullies only bully because they are afraid that if they don’t bully, the spotlight will inevitably fall back upon them, their failures, their inadequesies, and they know they have nothing worthy of placing in the spot light to begin with.  Bullies are nothing more than cowards.

 

 

 

Again I digress, and I apologize.  I just get pretty heated when inferior people pick on my friends or other people who are eager to dream big because a life without dreams, to people like us, would not be a life worth living.  I will conclude my previous thought with this:

 

Since the beginning of the New Year, I thought that perhaps my year was starting off to a somewhat uninspired and mundane, hiccupping start with fits and jolts because I did not wake up every morning shouting with joy, throwing the covers off of me, dancing through the hallway on my way to the coffee machine.  Some mornings I felt like that, yes.  Some mornings, I woke up with an absolutely erotic sort of delicious, deviant excitement, a mischievousness, a wicked determination, a gratitude for nothing, really, aside from being alive and loving life and feeling great.  This was a good thing, and I recognized it as such, however, on days when I woke up just feeling “normal”, When I hit the snooze button a couple of times, when I did not want to get out of bed and face the frigid cold of winter, when I just wanted to stay warm and cuddle up with my puppy and not get out of bed, instead of accepting that that is how most people start their day, I thought of this as a bad sign, and not something normal at all.  I had been having so many delicious mornings, that when a morning was not positively gorgeous, and was just “fine”, I started wondering why I wasn’t dancing, and started wondering if I was slipping back into depression again.

 

This is why I think most people would think I was crazy for feeling the way I did, the past few weeks of the New Year.  Most people do not know me personally, and did not know me as the person I was before.  But even when I was working at the nuke plant, no, I did not enjoy waking up at fucking 4:30 in the morning, and more often than not hit snooze a couple of times, but once I was awake and at the plant, I was all laughs and smiles, because I was always happy.  Cynical, determined, hard working, serious in my work, but always happy, and quick to joke, laugh, and smile.  So these days, for some random reason, I think that I focus more on the fear of what may be wrong with me if I am not as I used to be, all jokes and smiles, as opposed to being incredibly appreciative of perhaps the most important occurrence in the past two years; the fact that I no longer wake up in the morning with incapacitating anxiety, and even better than that, I wake up with no anxiety at all.

 

 

 

My rare days off are no longer spent stressing out, wandering the house aimlessly, filled with anxiety, antsy butterflies in my stomach and a complete lack of focus, but are instead spent studying my world Atlas of Wine, in preparation for the sommelier two day course and exam I will be taking in San Francisco, either at the end of this year or some time next year, I have looked into taking some extended education classes at Cal Poly, in enology, winemaking, and wine appreciation, which my father has enthusiastically offered to help fund, or doing other creative, gratifying art projects, or else writing.  To think of all the time I wasted allowing anxiety to consume me really bums me out, but instead of focusing on the negative, and all the time I have lost, I enjoy the moment with a smile on my face, and reflect eagerly on all the time I have ahead of me, the new goals I have set for myself, and all that I am going to learn in the present, and near future.   

 

Anxiety is a tricky bastard, a mischievous motherfucker.  To those who have not experienced it, it is difficult to describe, much the way I did not understand depression until I myself had experienced it.  For me, if I knew what was causing my anxiety, I could usually talk myself out of it without having to take medication, and could carry on with my day as any normal person would.  But when you wake up gripping your bed sheets in terror, clammy, sweating, hyperventilating, gasping for breath, feeling like you are drowning and being suffocated with a pillow at the same time, you don’t know what is causing the sensation, all that you know is that you are feeling the way you do, for what appears to be no reason at all.  If nothing is causing your misery, you cannot approach it rationally and tackle it the ground and make it your bitch, and so you suffer, all too greatly.

 

So I suppose my point is that, until I met up with my dear friend and we had a couple of beers together, I thought the beginning of my New Year sort of sucked because though I woke up more often than not positively ecstatic, the days I felt just mediocre I thought maybe something wrong with me, and that is just an insane and ludicrous way to think!  I mean, honestly, I should have been focusing on the positive fact that I no longer woke up with anxiety, but that just goes to show the huge amount of pressure I put on myself, and though I know I need to tone it down a bit, I know that is just who I am as a person, and I will always strive to be the best I can possibly be.  I just need to learn to allow myself to hit the snooze and not feel guilty about it.  What is life without a few guilty pleasures, after all?  ;)

 

 

The contradiction that is me...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHYDFClkqHw