Happy New Yeer!

Don't worry, your favorite 6th grade teacher hasn't forgotten how to spell even remedial words over this holiday break. No, instead my long talked-about blog is now a reality, "A Yeer in Beer." For those of you who are lucky enough not to have heard about this, let me explain to you how this came about. I have always had a mild fascination with the question of "how many" things have happened in a certain period of time. I don't think I'm alone in this curiosity. How many of us, when presented with the possibility of life after death, have said, "Man, I hope when I get to Heaven/Hell I get to see how many times I said 'I love you,' or how many times I've been kissed, laid, punched, etc." I took this type of questioning at the start of 2009 and asked, "I wonder how many beers I drank during 2008?" I decided that in 2009, not only was I going to count how many beers I drank over the year, but I also gave myself a goal of 1000 beers for the year (2.74 beers per day, for those of you counting at home).

As I began my frivolous quest, I began to notice inherent problems with this task, not the least of which being that I was usually in an altered state when it came time to tally the day's beers, especially on party nights. I had tried keeping a mental tally, and when that failed, I tried text messaging myself after every beer. Again, in an altered state, the phone would come out, and instead of texting myself, I'd end up drunk texting some random chick. In this process, I learned two very valuable lessons: 1) The union of drinking and cell phones is not a productive one. 2) The union of beer and good people is an extremely entertaining one.

So, with this, I altered my goal of simply counting my beer consumption for the year, and instead decided that a fun and interesting way to document interesting happenings in life would be to relate interesting stories that happened either because of beer, or had beer as a prominent component. The title of this blog would be "A Yeer in Beer."

The format is simple. Each entry will have a title, referring to the theme or purpose of the beer interaction, i.e. "Catching up," or "Celebrating a Promotion," and include the date of the interaction. In addition to this, the timing of the blog will be completely random; when something noteworthy happens involving beer, I'll blog about it. I'm guessing that will happen with frequency, given how much beer I drink (when I gave up counting, I was averaging 2.82 a day, before Summer had even started)

And that leads us to right now and my first entry: Starbucks Family Reunion, 2 January, 2010

My beautiful, charming, stunning, amazing, insanely-talented, virtually-perfect friend, who we'll call Kylie (I will be using pseudonyms throughout the blog, unless otherwise noted), had her 30th birthday on Tuesday, and we decided that Saturday would be a fun time to get together to celebrate. We decided on The Woodshed (800 S. State St.) as the venue for the evening. This was a logical choice, as our friend Tyler is a bartender there and he was working as a backup bartender that night, so we'd be able to see him as well. The evening had a second purpose as it was a way to bring all of the Starbucks family back together for a little reunion.

The night started with hearing about my friend Erin's travels to Amsterdam last year as well as some of the struggles she's overcome in her personal life, particularly in relationships. Her perspective on everything was incredibly refreshing and I left the conversation feeling inadequate in my relationship "maturity," while also being utterly and completely impressed by hers.

Next, as more friends filtered in to the evening, the conversation turned to what I've been up to. I related stories of teaching and how much I'm loving my classes, but as much as I tried, I couldn't help relating how amazing my last two weeks have been, culminating in John's and my writing what we feel will be an amazing book and movie. I had just gotten finished with two days of, hands-down, the most creative, inspired writing session either of us had ever had. I had a basic idea and outline for a story and its themes, but I was lacking a strong plot to drive the theme. John (not a pseudonym) and I had talked about co-writing the book and adapting it into a screenplay, but we hadn't actually sat down to write anything yet, other than me having written a very short, somewhat vague, outline and synopsis. John had been working in various cities across the US doing comedy so this writing session was the first time we had had a chance to really tackle this project together. The result was nothing short of inspired.

John brought elements into the story that I hadn't even dreamed of and we now have a project that we are incredibly proud of, including character profiles, a very detailed outline and synopsis, and ideas for the music and art direction of the movie. I've even begun writing songs for the score and soundtrack and I can't believe how well this is coming together. After my story, we were 2 for 2 on people kicking ass since the last time we had talked, and it was now time to hear from the guest of honor. Little did I know that she had a trump for my exciting news. Although this shouldn't be at all surprising to anyone who knows Kylie, including myself.

Kylie has been working for Starbucks for roughly 6 years now, while graduating in ballet, moving all over the country, and dancing with various dance companies. When I say "working at Starbucks," what I really mean is "running the store and holding it together." Recently, she has also been teaching dance part-time at a local private school ("sleep"? What? I'm sorry I don't follow you). She announced that, starting Monday, she will be teaching dance full-time at the school and cutting back to one day a week at Starbucks. In addition to this amazing news, her boyfriend is now a licensed general contractor and doing all kinds of amazing work. Kicking ass tally: 3 for 3.

These stories, among countless others, were held together by amazing conversation, ranging from the political, to the religious, to the artistic, to the simply hilarious. The overall feeling I was left with after the night was that I am so proud, impressed, blessed, and humbled to have the people in my life that I do. We're all doing what we love to do and we're all doing it well.

2010 is not 2009. Good things are coming and my amazing friends are proof. So grab a beer, grab some friends and keep kicking ass. Happy New Yeer!