Decade of Drinking

Ten years ago today my future husband and friends gave me the most incredible birthday party ever. It was my 21st birthday. We went with my parents to see Boogie Nights and when we came back to the house all my friends scared the living crap out of me. There was only one more time that I was more surprised. Everyone was in fabulous costumes and all of my friends and family had chipped in to get me a video camera. At the time I was a budding film maker. Not only that but my future husband had FedEx a book all around the country to family and friends who couldn’t make it and had them write a little note in it for me.

Thinking back to the time that I turned 21 and realizing that I am now 31, this marks the 10 year anniversary of me drinking and being a legal adult. What has a decade of drinking gotten me? Not as much mischief as one would have thought. I have been carried out of a bar by my four closest friends, each holding a limb (who hasn’t). Lot’s of making out drunk (totally typical of a young twenty year old). I’m pretty sure that my son was conceived while imbibing Vodka (wasn’t that how everyone was conceived). Turning 21 gave me all this freedom and marked the entrance into legal decadence, an era I like to call the tequila and vodka era.

With the tequila era came lots of nights of fun. However that fun almost always ended up with me stripping at the end of the evening on top of the nearest coffee table and me not remembering. We have determined that I must have been a burlesque dancer in another life and can only relive my glory in a tequila induced trance. I am so famous for my “performances” that when my best friend John came to our party to introduce his new boyfriend Alan to us, he had warned Alan that I would probably be riding the tequila train and stripping. Sure enough as they walked in I had just taken my “stage”, had my top hat and glittery bra on. Luckily the tequila always gave me amnesia the next day ; otherwise I would have really been embarrassed. Then I decided it was time to put the tequila away and move on to something more sophisticated.

At the time I thought vodka was more sophisticated. I was drinking cosmo’s long before Carrie on Sex in the City made them cliché. The vodka gave way to more tamer but fun evenings. With the finer grade vodka’s I could remember what happened the next day. It’s not like I was a heavy drinker, one drink can put me to bed.

Now I am back to tequila, only pomegranate infused tequila, which is lovely and I leave my clothes on. A decade of drinking and I have come to the conclusion that for me, the finer the grade of alcohol, the lesser the headache and video footage there is of me. One good drink is better than ten crappy drinks, so I guess I have grown to appreciate quality as opposed to quantity.