"Portions for Foxes" Rilo Kiley

Another blast from the past-- I heard it on Sirus XM this weekend. This song rocks out.

It's bad news/baby it's bad news/ I'm just bad news bad news bad news..

Last night in Spirits 101 I got to try 5 different gins. I am not a gin drinker, so this was quite an experience for me. I learned that I prefer Tanqueray over Bombay Sapphire, and Gordon's is absolute TRASH. Also, Aviation American Gin is a celebrity gin (Ryan Reynolds) and it is pretty darn good. Next week's spirit: Whiskey.

We are rivers, not straight lines. In Memoirs of a Geisha, the protagonist Sayuri is told she has "water" in her personality because she is fluid and adaptable, unlike her sister who is rooted like wood. A key quote regarding her nature is: "My mother always said my sister Satsu was like wood; as rooted to the earth as a sakura tree. But she told me I was like water. Water can carve its way even through stone...and when trapped, water makes a new path."

I'd like to think I am more like water.

Or Fire

Have you enjoyed the confessions? Which do you like best? I've got more to share if you'll let me. Let's see, today I'll share my Confession of THE SOLDIER

THE SOLDIER also lived in my childhood neighborhood, actually just around the corner from THE POET growing up. He was a grade lower than me. Back in high school he used to call my younger sister, who had no interest in him. Sometimes THE SOLDIER would call and she would have me talk to him, as we had very similar voices and he never knew it was me.

Nothing materialized from those talks for any of us. I was seeing someone at the time and had no interest in him back then. He was just a younger boy who had the hots for my little sister.

Flash Forward to my sophomore year in college, when Little 5 was amping up. I lived in a double single in Teter Quad, THE SOLDIER lived in Ashton, which was just across the street. FUN FACT: THE SHOWMAN also spent some time living in Ashton and I recall visiting his dorm room once. Small disgusting world, isn't it?

We dated through college, with a few breakups here and there. I was lavaliered the fall of my senior year, and so we were what you would call serious. I decided to add a minor to my credentials in order to get a job faster, which made me have to stay in school an extra semester, so we graduated together.

He was in ROTC and did all the Airborne and Air Assult Camps for Officer Basic Training. THE SOLDIER was then stationed in Schweinfurt, Germany, set to leave just weeks after graduation. He offered me an engagement ring, but moving to Germany and living on an Army base was not in the cards for me. I wanted to live independently. I was too young to marry and felt that I needed to experience life on my own.

So I turned him down.

We kept in touch, and after my first year of teaching, I took a plane to Germany to see him. We traveled all over Europe-- Germany, Belgium, France, Netherlands in his little white BMW. It was a life changing experience, going to clubs in Amsterdam, drinking German beer with a spoon, visiting a death camp, driving across the Autobaun, seeing the Eiffel Tower and the Louve and Manneken Pis.

We both moved on with our lives, married, had kids. I would consider THE SOLDIER a great friend.

On the morning of my dad's funeral decades later, who walks into the church to pay his respects?

THE SOLDIER