Sunday Morning Coming Down

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

I spent this past weekend in Reno, NV, celebrating my friend Heather’s birthday. We had a grand time, as one does in Reno. I tweeted Sunday morning “‘The beer I had for breakfast, wasn’t bad so I had one more for dessert.'” It was a true depiction of my situation as it might be yours, this victorious Tuesday morning (Go Giants!).

This tweet came up on my weekly phone call with my aunts and mother last night. Neither of my aunts or my mother caught that I was quoting song lyrics. My belief that it’s clever to tweet/FB lyrics without attribution is perhaps misguided and disrespectful to the artist.

It is a lyric from the Kris Kristoffersen song, Sunday Morning Coming Down. Until I Googled it, I would have assumed it was written by Johnny Cash, who introduced the song–in its glorious wisdom–to me.

It’s the tale of the morning after a night of adventure…the nostalgia, the regret and the basic human urges.

Without further ado…Johnny Cash performing Sunday Morning Coming Down, my favorite Sunday morning hangover song.*

*Will, the bf, and I just had a conversation about whether to admit to hangover on the Internet. I said to him, “Babe, we just bought www.lushesinlove.com! We should embrace the hangover with two fists!” To which he replied, “It’s true that the Sunday morning hangover is generally acceptable.” Conversation over.

The Santa Rosa Cocktail!

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

To celebrate the weekend and the return of Madmen this Sunday, I would like to share my boyfriend Will’s most recent cocktail creation: The Santa Rosa.

The back story:

We watched Madmen as a marathon last winter, having only discovered it when my mother introduced me to it on a family trip.  For a month, we did nothing else but watch Madmen.  We were intrigued by Don’s usual drink: the Old Fashioned, and also by Betty Draper’s Gimlet and the martinis that the Fat Cats on the show have during their decadent three-martini lunches.  Also, the casseroles, but we quickly discovered that casseroles contain a lot of cheese and let that phase go by without too much hubbub.  The cocktail obsession, however, stuck with us, and Will started rapidly acquiring the sundry liquors, elixers and various bitters needed to try anything and everything, with an emphasis on the cocktails from the days of yore.

Will quickly tired of other people’s recipes and started to experiment in mixology, sometimes with disastrous results.  The Santa Rosa is his first cocktail creation that’s ready for prime time (though he also has come up with his own interesting twists on some of the classics!).

Shake or stir the following and serve on ice in an old-fashioned glass.  The garnish of a sprig of cilantro adds a wonderful complexity and tingles your taste buds.

  • 1 1/2 oz bourbon
  • 1 1/2 oz fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
  • 1/8 oz Benedictine
  • 1/8 oz sweet vermouth
  • 1/8 oz grenadine
  • 1 dash Angostura bitters if you have the large bottle, 2 dashes if dealing with the small bottle

The 1/8 oz is pretty hard to measure–most recipes would just call it “one dash” to avoid stressing you out. Don’t sweat it if your measure is a little off.

How Will created it:

The Santa Rosa began as a way to get rid of some quickly aging but still good grapefruit.  Bourbon was a natural choice for the liquor pairing because they both have such strong favors.  He considered adding simple syrup to sweeten it (grapefruit is very sour), but dismissed this option as obvious and boring.

Instead he added a little Benedictine–a very strong, complex liqueur. The drink tasted better, but still a little sour and astringent.  Will added Angostura bitters, comme il faut (because that’s what you do). He added grenadine, and the drink was no longer sour, and had a lovely red color.  But still there lingered the astringent bourbon finish!

He thought long and hard about what would make it smoother, and decided that sweet vermouth would be good for that.  He added a little bit, and liked the result… a lot!

Note:  In a pinch, Drambuie could be substituted for Benedictine.  They cost about the same (about $30 a bottle), but Benedictine is hard to find.
Also note:  Many of these ingredients–in fact all of these ingredients, will be consumed at a very slow pace.  You may balk at the initial investment, but we find we get a lot of joy in sharing our varied cocktail menu with guests (and our taste buds!) and you may too.

"So what’s a girl like you doing on crazyblinddate.com?"

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Good pickup line, adorable bartender. Goooood pickup line. Nice tattoos, too. I hadn’t noticed.

If you, dear reader, added my google calendar to yours, you would know right now that I was supposed to have three dates tonight. And if you were me you would know that two of them didn’t work out.

The BTSSB sent the following note:

HRHi Susie,

Unfortunately, the date that was originally scheduled between Mike and you Tuesday, Nov 13 was cancelled.

The culprit was Mike.

He apologizes thusly:

Hi susie, I am sorry but I got stuck somewhere doing something and can’t make it tonight. if you still want to get together sometime you can email me at mike@sosorry.com.

Nerve.com guy was sick or whatever. No problem. I was glad, honestly, to have only one date this evening.

After my crazyblinddate.com date #1, I was rather terrified. I couldn’t escape thoughts like…What am I doing? Why am I doing this? For a stupid blog?! For love?! How does any of this make any sense whatsover?!

As I thought these terribly irrelevant and rather unempowering thoughts, I exited my truck right then, in front of the bar, ready for crazy blind date #2.

Thankfully, the date was to take place in a bar I had never been to. In Alameda, a city I had basically never been to. I was glad, and still am. I totes <3 new bars.

I was glad, also, when I realized my blind date was completely my kinda of easy-to-talk-to-outside-the-bar-kind-of-guy that I had met last night post exiting. It was a very decent, not regrettable at all, good time (awkward rating a new low of 1/100).

The bartender, though. I’d like to address him directly. Let’s be more than friends, Mr. I-don’t know-where-you-live-but-only-that-you-were-entertained-by-my-story-and-you-let-me-pour-my own-beer-from-the-tap. Let’s talk more.

“Well…” I thought for a minute when he asked me (see above). I remembered my list of 10 things-I-should-no-matter-what-for-gods’-sakes-say and instantly discredited them all.

“I want a boyfriend.” Honesty can feel so good sometimes. I looked into his adorable eyes. Still adorable.

Sigh.

So that’s that. A nice night in a new neighborhood, priceless. An adorable, appreciative bartender, priceless+. A blind date that isn’t 2/5 awkward, priceless++.

A good night, hands down.

I know I’m crazy*

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

10:00 p.m.

The Ruby Room.

Waiting for: E, 31.

In all my excitement over the BTSSB, I think I’d forgotten what dates were like; how they make you nervous and uncertain. And you wonder what it will be like and what you will talk about.

I’d also forgotten to follow my standard pre-date procedure:
1. Go to the gym. It makes you feel good.
2. Make a list of three relevant questions.
3. Make a list of top ten do-not-by-god-bring-up topics.

So there I was, unprepared, at the right side of the bar trying to down my v&t so that I might order another before he walks in–whoever he is–and right then he walks in.

I knew him immediately. He knew me too. Right off the internet, into the Ruby Room.

(For the next few weeks, I propose that we measure awkwardness by the total number of minutes that I stare into my v&t plus the seconds I distractedly chew on my straw divided by the total number of seconds the date lasts.

Tonight: I stuck it out till about 10:45….about 5 minutes were spent staring into my v&t, and about 4 were spent distractedly chewing my straw. Let’s add in the five seconds when I recovered from learning of his obvious familiarity with my Super Sponge Selling History and multiply that by 9/5 cause it was really bad and that makes the math easier, and we get:

2/5 of the date was awkward.

See? Handy system.)

After about fifteen minutes I was trying to figure out–mostly while chewing my straw–how I was going to possibly extract myself from this duo, and seat myself back at my party of ten who were merrily enjoying the second hand smoke and drinks which make the Ruby Room my favorite bar in Downtown and who were a mere three feet away. We were pretending not to know each other.

I had intended to say to him, whoever he was, “Okay, well, it’s 10:30, and I have a group of friends over there, so either let’s join them, or goodnight.”

Instead I turns out I have an eight o’clock meeting tomorrow, but then…well, it was actually going to start about 8:20… I’ll have time for my coffee…

God that silence was deafening. I’m not that good with silence, I learned tonight, once again.

I finished my vodka tonic, and it was time to go. “I’m sorry…,” I said when he asked to hang out again, but we agreed to give each other favorable reviews. I managed to leave the bar, and was standing outside talking to some dudes** when he also exited. I walked around the block… Wondered if I should walk all the way around the block, but I’d gone about seventy feet and I’d already been asked for change twice and it’s not really the best neighborhood to be walking around in in the middle of the night…

…so I was chilling. Kinda dancing around in my post-date haze where the anxiety just kinda oozes out your pores like microwaves.

And around the block he comes.

Luckily, by that time, I’d started walking back to the bar, convinced that he couldn’t have been standing out front that whole time.

Cheerily I called, “I forgot where I parked my car!”

*Julia says that that’s what makes me interesting. I’m paraphrasing.
**I’m good with strangers. But so much depends on context. Obvs.

Crazy Blind Date

2 fast 2 furious

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Last Wednesday, OkCupid.com released CrazyBlindDate.com (now defunct), or, as I like to call it, the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread (BTSSB).

I’m lucky to have the best domestic partner in the world, who informed me of the release that very day, with an intro of, “Let me live vicariously through you.”

No problem, Jules.

I signed up immediately. When they have a date for me, I get to see a blurry photo. I don’t get to read a profile, just a sentence or two. I just show up and agree to spend at least 20 minutes with this person. I was able to specify that I only want dates in bars, thank goodness.

My date sees this photo of me:

Crazy Blind Date

I’m trying to figure out if my five year plan is insane like all my friends say or good planning like I think. Please advise.

I met a new friend on Saturday night who informed me that all guys will interpret this as: “She wants kids.”

I explained that the beauty of this line is that I get to make up a new five year plan for every single crazy blind date I go on.

He wasn’t convinced.

Tonight I shall share my plan to establish sufficient passive income by signing up for a new pyramid scheme a month and buying misspelled domain names to fill with links to my various pyramid schemes (and plaster with other ads).**

If Eric, 31, lover of rock and roll, is still around after that…

…let’s just say it’s probably a pretty good litmus test.

I was rereading my nerve.com profile the other day (recreated, for your viewing pleasure, here*), and I realized I wrote it in search of hilarity.

Is that how I would like my next romantic relationship to be characterized? By hilarity?

There are worse things, I think.

In a rather perplexing twist, my popularity on nerve.com has increased dramatically since I joined the BTSSB. Which leads me to the point. I have a lot of dates coming up. Some of them I’ve exchanged emails with, and know what they look like. Some of them I haven’t. For you, my dear readers at home, I am including in an iframe the Google Calendar I have named “Susie’s Dates.”

Here it is:

As you can see if you scroll back in time until 2007, I have the previously mentioned date tonight, THREE dates tomorrow night, followed by a few nights off primarily due to the fact that I do, actually, have a life.

Who can’t wait? I can’t!! And, rest assured–recent evidence aside–this is the best and most accurate news source for the next installment of Susie J’s Crazy Blind and Other Date Adventures.

*My headline is now, “My friends call me Boss”, FYI. That’s all that’s changed though.
**What do you think?! Good Five Year Plan or Best Five Year Plan Ever?

hmm…

Posted on by Jennifer Heller

Hello Susie,

My name is J and my partners name is K. I am 42, she is 30. We are fun loving intellectual hedonists who are on the look out for like minded individuals and couples who are kinky, creative, funny, food snobs, who would rather die than be bored. SOme of the things we are into are photography (me, it’s my profession as well as consuming passion), BOOKS (we are both voracious readers, I usually have 2 or 3 books going at the same time) tarot and astrology (her), playing music (me) listening to music, both recorded and live (both of us, preferably in a dark sleazy bar), cinema, interesting restaurants, witty repartee and if the mood is right, no holds barred, dirty kinky sex. If that sounds good to you, then by all means get back to us…

J

PS: I almost forgot to mention that we love to travel as well as host our “special” friends for decadent weekends and evenings

PSS: I wear size 10 shoes and I have almost as many of them as a girl!