seven hundred and thirty days...

I’m thinking today of just how long two years is. Two years is an Associates Degree. Two years is if you got pregnant today, in two years there’d be someone calling you mom. And two years is exactly, to the day, how long I’ve gone without a drink.
I can report that the second year was just as tough as the first, but for different reasons. The first, I was just clawing my way back, figuring out how to live like a normal person and taking lots of deep breaths.
This second year, I’ve kinda gotten on with my life, barreled forward and taken risks. Which is great and exciting, but occasionally terrifying. You know what helps terror? A chilled, top-shelf martini.
Like, nine of them.
But I can’t have martinis. So instead, I rely on the following:
1. Melissa Griffin: just, in general. For everything.
2. My parents’ house. For the past 2 years, that house has NEVER ONCE been without Diet Coke. It’s always there. And there’s always backup in the pantry.
3. Mary J. Blige: also, just in general. For everything.
4. My biggest tip in staying on any kind of wagon, for achieving any kind of brief mental health, is to stay in a hotel by oneself for a weekend. It seems kind of wasteful, to drop $300 on watching Queen Latifah movies alone in a terry cloth robe an hour away, but again, I don’t buy $14 cocktails anymore. And it really, really works.
5. The $19 Thai Steak salad available at all Hillstone Restaurants, including Hillstone on the Embarcadero and the Rutherford Grill in Rutherford. Bonus: you can probably see people on leave from rehab at the Rutherford Grill, having awkward lunches with their nervous families.
6. Saying yes. I have this thing that I’m trying to be really consistent about following, where I say yes to every opportunity. It’s kind of like that movie “Yes Man” but not stupid. As I would generally much rather stay home buried in vintage suspenseful thrillers, I accept all invitations, and end up meeting a lot of really weird people. Which brings me to…
Tonight, once again I’m celebrating. Please feel free to swing by Cantina on Sutter Street. We’ll be there from 6ish to 8ish, and don’t worry. You can still get booze there. In fact, Big Chris claims he’ll be getting even more trashed than last year.
Around 7, I’ll tell a very brief, very cheesy rehab story. But otherwise, we’re going to stand around, drink and gossip about people. If you can come, fabulous! If you can't, I'll never know.
What I do know if that I am grateful for many, many things. But one of the bigger ones, one of the things that means the most to me, is that you read some of this nonsense I write.
So very sincerely, internet nerd to internet nerd, awkward moment-style, thank you...