Be here now. I would like this term to end because I’d like to be less insanely busy, but I am enjoying myself and it’s something of a gift to get to go to school. I got up early today and drove the van in before the library opened. I sat in the passenger seat listening to NPR and drinking coffee while I watched the lights come on and the doors of the institution open. For my money, academy really is the best game in town.
I talked to my brother Andy the other night. He wants my help in getting his startup company off the ground; more on that later. He’d make a good teacher, but once you get into the big money game it is hard to get out. He’s got a stay at home wife, the twins and now one year old Michael, so the golden handcuffs of corporate America have him strongly tethered to his responsibilities.


I guess I am going back to bartending. The Red Sea had offered me a job at the start of the term, but my class schedule didn’t match with the open shifts. Now it looks like I will be bartending for two different art galleries. This is very good news as I need the money, but I don’t want to write more about it until it is finalized. I need to get out my old bartenders bible and study up. Jason was making Scooby Snacks for the Halloween party and it occurred to me that my mental rolodex of shots had gone blank.


What else do I need to remember? What is popular now? I assume cosmopolitans are still all the rage & mexipolitans for tequila fans. The top twenty drinks all have what they are in the name: rum & coke, gin & tonic, seven and seven, vodka seven, whiskey sour. Some of the old drinks like Harvey Wall Bangers and Stingers are coming back, but most art gallery bars aren’t going to have Galliano. Manhattan’s are popular but Brandy is also in short supply in the short stocked bar. Shots are still going to be what: Kamikaze, dead Nazi, sex on the beach, tequila, whatever? People aren’t going to be doing shots at gallery openings.


Here’s a question for the readership. What is your favorite drink, and if it’s even a little obscure, what’s in it?