A mostly personal post
There are times when words fail me; despite being very loquacious and incredibly drull when I want to be, I’m also left without words to describe the feelings I’ve encountered in this waking life. Now is one of those times.
I’m moving on short notice back to Portland, the nexus of brewing culture and beer snobbery, the great Beervana (not to be confused with the excellent beer blog of the same name). It’s not really been planned properly, but there had been conversations ahead of time to set some things up ‘when the time came’. The time came quickly after April 11, when my grandfather passed away from natural causes, mostly dementia-related. People are moving as quickly as possible to sell the house, and everything in it, so I’ve got to move (back) to Portland on very short notice.
I could explain more, but it only gets more confusing, so I’ll sum it up by saying I’m conflicted AF- relived to be on to the next phase of my life, but really annoyed by the way I’ve been treated by family who thought it’d be easy for me to move to the next phase on the very small amount of money I’ve been paid to be a 24/7 caretaker for my elderly grandfather. Especially right now, when everything costs more and more. The very things that make it good to sell this house make it super expensive for me to move and set up shop halfway across the country.
Just another opportunity
I’m in my 40’s and not exactly financially stable like some of my friends. It’s annoying. I suppose I could have hunkered down at grandpa’s and saved the $xxx dollars a month that was left after I paid my bills, but then again, I’d have gone pretty crazy not getting out like I do. We’re social creatures, after all, and just hearing other voices can improve a person’s mood. Also I like beer. So whatever…I’m actually looking forward to working again, doing something to occupy my brain (hopefully) for several hours a day for money. I’ve got something lined up in Portland when I get there, but I’ll probably be looking for other employment (you can find my email address somewhere on this site so drop me a line if you know anything).
I always tell people this site is really just a way for me to explore MY relationship with beer, and all the ways it’s involved in my life and the ways I think. This is another one of those examples where I’m just trying to express some frustrations and hopes, I happen to be sitting at my local La Cumbre enjoying a pint but you’d never know that based on my writing. I look forward to the availability of beers in Oregon, but I’ve met some great people here that I’ll miss. I haven’t exactly been preparing to go, months ahead of time, like I had been when I moved to Albuquerque. Some people would tell me I should think about and focus on other things besides beer, to which I would reply to them:”Shut the fuck up, this is one layer of my current brain function.”. Worries about where I’m going to live, how I’m going to get there, what I’m going to have to leave behind this time, all of this shit and more is just running in process loops in the back of my mind while I write this.
I NEED IT
Many days I just sit at the bar with a pint, mulling over things. I drag my keyboard around with me but sometimes I just can’t find anything to talk about. Well, not really, just that there’s so much to talk about, it’s hard to find the one thing that rises above the rest at the current moment. That one little nugget of brilliance floating in the giant toilet bowl of turds that is my mind. Sometimes I’ve found it at the bottom of a pint glass. Or maybe the second one. And then someone interesting finally shows up to entertain me, and I forget the nugget. It happens. Sometimes I find my voice and something good comes out. Eh?
I don’t know what to expect out of the next couple of months, but I’ll try to check in once in a while with updates. I made a whole trip to Massachusetts that was sort of overshadowed by this whole affair – I made several trips to Treehouse and finally managed to get a feel for more than two of their thirty-ish beers…but that’s something for another time. I’ll probably forget by the time I think about it again. Oh well. It was juicy.
/end