The Moth

Among my favorite podcasts  is The Moth-- true stories told live.  I listen to these stories, narratives from typical Americans, wondering how their lives became so interesting that they ended up nationally broadcasted on NPR.  Then I realized that The Moth is a contest of everyday citizens, telling stories in Louisville every month.  I went with my buddy Drew to Headliners and we sat in the "moth pit" while the storytellers dished about this month's theme: FIRSTS.

From first trips to the urologist, to baby daddy tales, bourbon binges, and climbing mountains, the heroes of the night were plain old people, just brave enough to tell their tales in front of a critical audience.  In between tales the MC reads anonymous blurbs about the evening's theme.  Tonight's request was "tell us about your first kiss, your first car, or your first job."  Mine was read in the first set:

On my first day of nursing school I was supposed to ask my patients about their physical health.  After asking my patient about his exercise routine and lecturing him about the importance of physical activity when he told me he didn't walk, I pulled back the covers, only to discover that he had a bilateral knee amputation.  Oops.

I loved the whole night!  I can't wait to go back.  There is an equation that goes into a good story and although I haven't quite figured out what it is, I am excited to go again to hear the stories of my neighbors.

Themes for Louisville's Moth:
February- Love Hurts
March- Resourcefulness
April- Duped
May- Revenge

Yelp!

I attended the "soft" opening/whiskey & beer back tasting party at Haymarket Whiskey on Market tonight sponsored by my friend Rachel and Yelp of Louisville.  We sampled 3 local whiskey/bourbons (for those who don't know, whiskey/bourbon is like rectangles/squares... all bourbon (squares) is whiskey (rectangles), but not all whiskey is bourbon.) paired with local beers.

As with any grand opening there was tons of swag to give away.  I lucked out with a t-shirt that says "The kind of turkey you want at Thanksgiving: Wild Turkey".

We finished the night with a local's game of name-that-place.  Each with a post-it on our heads of a local destination, we could ask one question and guess the location.  Here's how my questions went:
1. Am I a place you can eat/drink?  Er...yes, no, well kind of, yes.
2. Am I an athletic venue? No.
3. Can you stay with me? Yes!
AM I 21c HOTEL/MUSEUM?!?!  YES!!!
... And then I won $50 to Avalon!  Whoop!

Haymarket Whiskey will be a great place downtown to see small bands and convene in the early evening for a drink and to catch up with friends.  With lots of potential and an owner with big sights for the future, Haymarket needs only to expand its clientele.

Address	331 E. Market St., Louisville, KY 40202 · Get Directions
Phone	1 502.442.0523
Website	Add Website
Status	Open until 2:00 am.
Hours	Mon - Sun: 4:20 pm - 2:00 am

Snow Day Anniversary!

Excerpts from the Carrboro Snow Day Anniversary emails:

Dear sweet wonderful townie friends,

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY of SNOW DAY 2010!  I think you will all agree that Snow Day was one of the best days of your life.  It ranks in my top 5 for sure, possibly top 3...

...

Although time and life has sent us all in different directions, distance knows no bounds to the love of our anniversary of [playing] in the snow.  From Australia to New York, Kentucky to South Carolina, farmland to hospitals, let us all take a moment today to remember Snow Day and the Townies that made it great.  Shotgun a cold one to appreciate Chapel Hill/Carrboro's failed municipal effort to clear roads when it snows four inches.

Quivering with delight and nostalgia,

Becky

one of the greatest days of my life!!!
thanks for the reminder...this email was awesome to find in my inbox today :)
can't believe how much all our lives have changed in the past two years and we're all scattered everywhere now.

these videos always just make me collapse in a fit of giggles.

-Bri


Becky, you're awesome. Everyone on this email? Also awesome.
I have added a yearly reminder ("Carrboro Snow Day Anniversary") to my google calendar for yesterday's date (ends? checkbox: "never")
Miss you guys.
-Ryan


I can't believe I have such wonderful, spontaneous and hilarious friends. I am truly lucky to have you guys in my life!! Hope everyone is doing well wherever they are in the country/world! 
-Macallagh


This was awesome to wake up to this morning!
What a fun, adventurous time in life with some very awesome people and some very serious [playing].
Hope everyone is doing well, kicking it, taking names, etc.
-Andy

Get Crunk

Garden & Gun's latest issue ranks Chapel Hill's own Crunkleton as a Favorite Bar in the South*.  Highlighted as a place to congregate with friends, the twentieth century furniture and huge bay window overlooking Franklin  St invite socializing-- the best quality of a bar.

"Sometimes we forget that the best bars are no more about drinking than a bed is about sleeping.  They're about both whom you're with when you're in them, and how good you feel when you're there."


I remember when Crunkleton opened up in July of 2008.  I was there for their first night when they didn't even have the credit card machine working.  The schtick with bartenders in tuxedo shirts and bowties became ever-popular with the post-grad young professionals over the years and the Crunk is often standing room only.   So congrats Mr. Crunkleton, stay classy.

*Honorable mention to The Cave that made the best dog-friendly bars.

Things I've learned in Kentucky

When you live alone and you run out of pie... It means that YOU ate the entire pie.

This is America.  Buy comfortable toilet paper.

Have a go-to beverage.  You don't make your first impression, your drink does.  Bourbon > umbrellas

Girls be crazy.  Good girlfriends are hard to come by.  Make time for them.

ALWAYS have an escape route: NYC, Colorado, VA, NC.

Having children is inversely proportional to your knowledge of the best viral videos.

Dogs are like children.  They will infuriate you to no end but you can't help but love them... even when they're turds.

Fortune favors the bold.

Welcome to the blogosphere

I just hung up the phone with a dear friend from home who was inspired by Local Townie and decided to start a blog of her own.  Cat (Kitty Cat as I call her) just moved from D.C. to South Florida with her fiance and has been going through the same process of trying to find her niche in a foreign land that I am in Lou.

I told her that she would LOVE blogging.  It is entertainment.  It is cathartic.  It is nostalgic.  It keeps me grounded.  I am always flattered when people tell me that they read what I write because I always thought I was blabbering sweet nothings to the world wide web.  But the blog actually keeps me connected in ways that everyday life would not otherwise afford.

Cat's first post in Changing Latitudes made me cry.  I've become a sap in my twenty-somethings.

Kevin and I are settling into our new life in tropical South Florida. The change in latitude has been good to us on many levels, but it's been hard to keep up with our family and friends that are spread around the continent: DC, New York, LA, San Francisco, North Carolina, Chicago, Baltimore, Montreal, Birmingham, Niagara Falls, Ottawa, New Hampshire, Vermont, British Columbia... and a very special friend in Kentucky who inspired me to start this blog. Becky and I ran track together in high school and when we, along with our friend Seshie, all went off to different colleges, we kept blogs to keep up with each other. Over time my blog writing trailed off but Becky has an awesome blog that helps me keep up with her no matter where she is in the world or what she's up to. As much as I love our new life in Florida, there are many people I would be very sad to lose touch with and this seemed like the best way to help with that. So, with Becky as my inspiration and New Year's resolutions as my impetus, welcome to my blog and thanks for reading.


Welcome to the blogosphere Kitty.  Check out here blog here.

Not all who wander are lost

Text from Patty from the Red: Wanna get some breakfast in the morning?
Me: I'm in Virginia
Patty: You spend more time wandering around than Moses.  I'm a bit jealous.

The elusive trifecta

Thanks to Sesh for inspiring this post.  The sentiment from the article What 20-Something has Their Dream Job and Dream Relationship? comes on the coattails of some conversations I have been having recently:

The grass is always greener on the other side.

Something could always be a little bit better.  Better pay, better hours, a new romance that is texting you through the work day, a posse of buds to join for happy hour.  That's what we all want, right?

My fear is that this sentiment comes from our Millennial Generation (aka "The Lost Generation" as I was informed today) that is entitled to all of the greatest things in life.  Our parents were raised by our grandparents who survived the Great Depression and lived through a World War.  They ingrained our parents with a sense of resourcefulness and gusto.  But our parents' perception of the world likely changed as they saw man land on the moon, Wall Street skyrocket with success, and technology blast us into the twenty-first century (er, never want to be without my smart phone again.  Ever.).  "You can do anything you want," they told us.  The world is your playground, go have fun.

We DESERVE it all we've been told.  The trifecta of a good life.  A great job.  A wonderful relationship.  Friends that make the world go round.  But who really achieves everything they've been searching for?

Our neighbor dropped by the house over Christmas to gift some sugary delights and sat to talk for a while.  His children, both over thirty, are not married, not engaged, without children, gainfully employed, and searching for what will make them happiest in life.  Sounds pretty normal for kids in my hometown.  He said, and his thoughts were echoed by my parents, that our generation is DIFFERENT.  We don't seem to SETTLE.  Hooray for us!  But he didn't understand why his children were always searching for the NEXT BIG THING.

Are we always STRIVING?  When you're striving, you might be missing the journey, or what's right under your nose.  When you're striving you are never at peace.  Chasing is exhausting, and eventually you are going to run out of energy.  How horrible would it be to realize that you had been striving for a decade and all of a sudden "the glory days" were behind you.  At the same time, the missing piece is what drives us and keeps us motivated.  It is a billion dollar industry that feeds on the insecurity of the twenty-something.

Enter Audrey.  One of the most adventurous, inspiring twenty-somethings I know.  We caught up over break and discussed our parallel lives (We are both pediatric emergency medicine nurse practitioners with lots of home town love, both trying to make our way in a new city, and both finding ourselves a little lost at times.) and how we each envied aspects of the other's life.  Here was her hope for me:

I am glad that life has brought you heartbreak.  Because it means that you first felt things that you hadn't felt before.  I hope that these experiences bring new colors to your life so that you can see your world through brighter eyes.  Your life is great!  Be selfish.  No one else is going to make you happy-- they can't do that for you because they will inevitably fail.  Look inward for comfort and companionship then move forward in your life.  Keep doing great things and the rest will sort itself out.  

And that's the moral of the article.  "Having it all" is a fantasy concept.  The grass is sometimes greener on the other side for me.  Patience is not my virtue, but I'm starting to see the blues, yellows, and pinks on my side of the pasture.

It's two o'clock in the morning and I'm a quarter til Fly.

Courtesy of The Spotted Dog: Carrboro, NC

Every day that passes is one day closer to spring.