IPA

**NOTE: yes I forgot to take a pic at the start of the drink … sometimes I am foolish.

God she is just so easy to be around.  Whitish blonde hair, too wide smile (think Four non-Blondes but she is, indeed, blonde) … she laughs so easily, throwing her head back, showing her molars.  It’s easy to assume she’s stupid because she’s so filled with smiles.  She’s not, but she does struggle with parsing the complexities of some Nova episodes … nevertheless she watches them, trying and chewing her thumb and determined to take something away. 

Were she a man she would likely never have had a date – not aggressive, not willing to make a first move – not interested in putting herself out there … but as a woman, a sweet and simply pretty woman – she’s had dates.  She’s been felt up in cars trying to ensure her date had a good time while she sorta enjoyed the sensation and sorta always wanted something else.  She’s been the object of drunken infatuation – men who wanted her when they needed something alcohol just couldn’t provide.  She’s been raped and used and told she’s stupid and told she’s worthless and told she’s wonderful … and still she’s not special.  That is the remarkable tragedy, she IS NOT SPECIAL.

And here she sits, on a Wednesday night, drinking chamomile tea and watching Nova reruns on Netflix (“Rise of the Robots” this week) … here she sits in her pajama pants and sweatshirt – not smiling even though it comes to her so easily, not laughing even though her character causes it to bubble in her throat so quickly.  Happy to be alone and waiting for her boyfriend to return from work – feeling secure in the belonging.  He’s not always what she wants, he’s sometimes mean and sometimes disregards her (he often walks ahead of her in public, leaving her behind and feeling like a ‘tag along’) and is sometimes not thoughtful and sometimes makes it clear that she’s not really what he wants … but he’s also sometimes good and reliable and there for her when she needs a partner.  There for her when it makes him feel good to be?  How do you decide how to balance those things?  It’s great to think that you will never settle in your partnerships – but to her – that’s how you are forever alone and bitter, thinking that only perfection will do.  No one will ever live up to perfect.  We all have our limits? Right?

Confession time … I’m bored by her.  I’ve met her and been her so many times and for so long – just wanting goodness and not sure how much I get to demand it.  Just wanting support and connection and stability and it never seems to exist.  There’s an anger that bubbles there, under these women, that this beer harnesses.  This is a beer of witnessing – a drink that reminds you to be still while the fury bubbles and churns.  It nods to the churn.  Acknowledges the quiet resignation of men who need and want and take and women who let them… it also sees the women who take everything they can when they can because the opportunity to take is so rare.  It accepts the complexity of broken humans using each other to feel whole.  In the midst of this acceptance and acknowledgement and witnessing it tells me that there may be more to life, or there may not be  – but that whatever I am feeling or parsing or struggling with – I am not special – we are all here together.

What a sad thing, the idea that all of us being fuckers just to get by is some kind of comfort.