StrongandBrave

Beer is a really big deal in Denver.

This is really funny to me. As a California native, I used to buy beer any day of the week at whatever grocery, liquor or convenience store was nearby. And I used to buy until 2 a.m., which is last call for grocery stores and bars alike.

Upon arriving in Denver I confronted the dreaded “Blue Laws” which prohibited the sale of alcohol in liquor stores on Sundays (bars were open regular hours so you could get as tanked as you wanted) although supermarkets and convenience stores could sell beer with 3.2% alcohol. In my experience there is no point to beer with 3.2% alcohol but I guess committed alcoholics will take what they can get.

As of last summer, Denver decided it was safe to allow liquor stores to remain open on Sundays. As far as I can tell, this has not resulted in the apocalypse. The controversy over this legislation was that it would hurt sales of the pointless 3.2% alcohol beer, which would be bad for convenience stores. I’m not sure if this has actually happened. I haven’t noticed any convenience stores in my neighborhood shutting their doors, at least.

Now, the supermarkets and convenience stores want to sell the real stuff.  Oh yes, actual beer at the 7-Eleven. For the record, we do this in California. We still have liquor stores where you go because the selection is better and you’re not in the market for a 40.

My state senator, Jennifer Veiga is a cosponsor of House Bill 1192.

I guess the independent brewers are not in favor of this plan, because the supermarkets won’t have the space to stock their beers and they are worried this will hurt their sales. Here’s the thing though – and maybe I just hang out with beer snobs, but I can’t imagine that this will be a problem.

I don’t drink shitty American beer. It makes me kind of sick and it tastes bad. Even if I could pick up a six-pack of shitty beer along with my groceries on the weekend, I wouldn’t do it. I would go to the nearest real liquor store and buy beer that was made by an independent brewer because I know it is better.

Currently, everyone in Colorado buys their beer in liquor stores so they make the choice between shitty American beer and craft beers every time they shop. I just can’t imagine a scenario where someone who is a fan of good beer would morph into a Bud Light drinker overnight because they could buy it at the King Soopers or the Safeway. The new law is not going to make American beer delicious, made by a co-op or powered by wind energy.

Since we’re already used to making a trip to the liquor store to get beer, passing the law won’t add any inconvenience to getting beer the usual way.

I’m curious about other Colorado beer drinkers, though. Would you go slumming and drink bad beer if you could get it with your groceries, or make a special trip for Dale’s Pale Ale or (fill in your own favorite independent beer here)?

More from the Colorado State Legislature:

“Rep. Don Marostica is expected to introduce legislation shortly that will relax the 2 ½-year old indoor-smoking ban passed in 2006.  The bill would classify some bars, restaurants, racetracks, and portions of casinos as “cigar-tobacco” bars, as long as they own a humidor and either make 5% of their annual gross income or $50,000 a year from tobacco sales.  Additionally, all patrons would be required to purchase their tobacco from these establishments.  According to this proposed Act, these “cigar-tobacco” bars would have to apply for a special license, ban anyone under the age of 18 and advertise that smoking is allowed.  The possible relaxation of the ban follows countless complaints by bar and casino owners about plummeting business after the ban was put in place, says Rep. Marostica, and that this bill is about letting the owners and patrons determine the rules under which they operate.”

So I think I have said this last bit a million times in a million arguments with non-smokers. I like to use it as a response to the hackneyed, “I like going to bars and not coming home smelling like an ash tray.” Riiiiiight. But it wasn’t enough to keep you out of the bars when you did come home smelling like an ashtray, you lush.

Seriously, though, isn’t the whole point of owning a business making the decisions about what you do and don’t want to do in that space? Call me crazy, but it might even be where the phrase “mind your own business” came from.

As a vegetarian, I don’t go to steak houses as a rule, but if I find myself in one, I don’t expect the entire establishment to stop slinging ridiculous portions of cholesterol and saturated fat-laden, growth hormone-injected animal products. If I have to go, I expect that I will be eating mediocre pasta or salad, so I usually just don’t go. There are bars I won’t go to because I don’t like the kind of people they attract, but I don’t ask the bar owners to turn off their giant TVs and stop selling two-for-one American beers.

I don’t know if this law is actually going to pass. If it does, I’m not sure that I will seek out bars that have classified themselves as “cigar-tobacco bars.” I already have bars that I like, and I’m not sure I would make an excursion to a new place specifically to smoke.

It also seems like this caters to a specific, upscale clientèle. I doubt any of the neighborhood, family-owned bars are going to have the capital to invest in a humidor or enough tobacco inventory to constitute $50,000 in sales. Or apply for another license, because those are things that cost money, too.

I would be more supportive of a law that banned smoking in any establishment that’s not 21-and-over (so no restaurants with smoking sections) or even banned smoking indoors before 10 p.m. That’s a totally arbitrary time, by the way. I just assume that the clean-living types who don’t want to smell like an ashtray will go home to watch something wholesome on TV or play Scrabble before turning in on a weekend night.

And, sidebar, I know that I’m not the only one who’s noticed that bars smell much, much worse without the cigarette smoke to cover up the stale spilled beer, bad cologne and bathroom funk. Seriously.

i totally got rick-rolled by my friend gavin as i was writing this little post and now the song is firmly stuck in my head.

Big News! Facebook is hurting feminism!

I actually remember thinking this shortly after I joined facebook and I noticed that the targeted ads on my homepage. Since I am in my mid-twenties and the proud owner of my very own vagina, facebook decided I mush be desperately in need of losing weight. And shoes! Right now my profile features an ad for a bracelet, an opportunity to send an “Inaugural Toast” via the tubes and some “weight loss foods.” Boy, do you have me pegged, facebook.

As irritating as this is, it’s not unique to facebook. Every single marketing firm everywhere wants to take advantage of my rampant young adult insecurities by selling me things. I’ve been aware of this since I was eighteen, and while I’m not immune (you should see the super cute new jeans I bought this weekend) I don’t feel as vulnerable as I did before I learned to think critically about them.

But I digress. Because the topic of this post is actually this article from AlterNet.

If you’ve ever been on the facebook, you’ve probably notice the many opportunities to overshare details about your life, including your relationship status. When you update your status to In a Relationship or Engaged, facebook displays a helpful little heart icon to illustrate your good fortune. When you “downgrade” to single or remove your relationship status all together, the little icon is a broken heart. Awww. This has bothered more than one of my friends, who’ve pointed out that not everyone is heartbroken at the end of a relationship, and even if you are, you don’t necessarily want it announced in icon form on 200 people’s facebook feeds. Plus, there’s not an icon for everything. If I change my job status to “unemployed” facebook doesn’t offer a little sad face or a dollar sign with a line through it.

Anyway, the author of “Is Facebook Hurting Feminism?” recently taught at an all girls’ school and talked to the students about technology and relationships. Her concern is that with the wide range of communication alternatives available to teenagers, we are producing a generation that is afraid of and ill-equipped for intimacy and direct communication in relationships:

“Remember when you actually had to call someone on the phone or knock on their door and meet their parents before picking them up for a date?”

I am inclined to disagree with her assumption that the “good old days” were better for girls or women – often this model of calling and knocking on the door was very, very gendered. Girls were waiting on the other end of the phone and the other side of the door for boys to take them out on dates. Perhaps the advent of new technology like instant messaging and texts means that we have more options for communication, less risk of in person rejection and more opportunities for girls and young women to decide how and when they communicate with the objects of their desire.

I also know from experience that meeting one’s parents does not guarantee that your date (or boyfriend for that matter) will treat you with respect or not eventually break your heart. My parents were very impressed when they met my first college boyfriend – the same guy whom friends in the know still refer to as “the douchebag.”

The facebook relationship status finds its way into the dialogue when the girls admit that they and their friends want to be able to check the In a Relationship box and link to the profile of the person that they are dating. And the author believes that this means that we are backsliding into a world where young women seek to be defined by their relationships:

“How is it possible that we still believe that our worth (or popularity) is dependent upon being ‘the girlfriend/wife/partner of so-and-so’”?

Well…these girls are teenagers. And, having grown up well before the advent of facebook, my friends and I had plenty of ways of demonstrating coupledness. Do kids still bring those obnoxious balloon bouquets for birthdays or send candygrams to each other in class on Valentine’s Day? If I had answered honestly at fifteen, I probably would have admitted that I was a little jealous of the girls walking around with roses at school. Not because I particularly like roses but because they represent an important part of being a teenager.

This hasn’t changed in several generations of teenagers, and I’m not sure it needs to. When sex and relationships are brand new things on your horizon, it makes sense that you’re a little obsessed. These girls probably felt the same way about Pokemon trading cards or Bratz dolls. In a few years it will be college sweatshirts from the campuses they’ve visited with their parents.

Of course it’s juvenile; facebook was created by college students, for college students. And college students are definitely interested in each other’s relationship status. Wouldn’t we rather that college Freshwomen are empowered to find out that the cute boy from their Chem class has a long distance girlfriend in New York before they make out with him at a party?

It’s also important to note that the relationships on facebook are two-way. It’s not that only females can be the girlfriend/wife/partner of so-and-so. Generally, people who are dating or engaged announce this on both partners’ profiles.

Facebook is a social networking tool and it’s used by different people for different reasons. When I’m catching up with old friends, it’s interesting to see who’s married and who’s dating someone we went to school with. If I was the dating type, I might be curious about who was single, too. And if you meet someone interesting at a bar or a party – whether you’re thirty, forty or sixty-five – you probably surreptitiously look at their left hand to see if they are advertising their relationship status.

It’s Friday, it’s sunny, I’m getting really good at the guitar and I just got this in my inbox:

Senate Bill 88- Granting Insurance Benefits to Same-Sex Partners of State Employees

I am introducing a bill, alongside Rep. Mark Ferrandino, that would grant equal insurance benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.  This bill is necessary to help the state of compete with private sector companies and other states that have begun to offer these benefits.  Equally as important, this bill represents the need for fairness in the distribution of benefits granted to heterosexual employees and those granted to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender state employees.  Cosponsor Rep. Ferrandino argues that this bill is “about equity and equality, and it’s about competing in the marketplace as more and more employers offer it.”

Fabulous. This is such a no-brainer and our state legislature will probably kill it, but Sen. Veiga is such a great champion and hard worker on these issues, I’m excited that it’s out there. I’m also stoked that transgender employees are included in her notes about the bill – it seems like they still get left out of people’s thoughts about equality or public statements about it. I live in a ridiculously liberal part of Denver, but I’m still proud that I get to be represented by Sen. Veiga.

People think shows like The Office are funny because their lives are really like that. This is a significant realization for me. I sort of thought everyone watched and laughed because, like me, they could not imagine living in that world.
Then I started subletting an office. We have a tiny corner of a really tall office building. We have a nice view of the Rockies. And we have suitemates straight out of your worst corporate nightmares.
Yesterday, I walked into the shared kitchen area. There was a box of fudge on the table: “To the employees of Mr. R. George. From, Mrs. P. George”.
A second note on the box admonished, “Do not put this fudge in the fridge it will RUIN it! It must be kept at room temperature.”
Don’t give me a gift and tell me what to do with it, lady. I should also admit that the fudge was not for me and that I changed the names of the Georges to protect their privacy and because I can’t remember their real names anyway.
This is the kind of office where you get into Cold Wars over jelly beans. See, the jelly beans are for everyone to eat. But only if you eat them in moderation. If you have 30 staff who eat the jelly beans every day, that is no longer considered moderation. At this point you will no longer have access to any jelly beans. And you will be pulled aside by the landlord to discuss your jelly bean consumption.
I wish I was making this up. Anyway, this is all I’ve got for now. I’m kind of brain dead and have a lot of work still to do.

But only sort of. See my new job (read: same job with more hours and more stress) requires me to be on my cell phone a lot. So I bumped up my plan to the unlimited option – pricy, but much cheaper than the overage charges – when I was precisely three minutes away from going over. I felt proactive and responsible. One less thing to stress about.

And then I got my $340 phone bill. Verizon wireless doesn’t exactly bother to TELL you this, but by changing your plan mid-billing cycle, they pro-rate your plan backwards. Let me try to explain better: original plan = 900 minutes/month of which I had used 897. When I changed the plan to unlimited, Verizon chose to cap my minutes at a partial month, and changed my monthly allowance to 600 and change.

By upping my plan to unlimited, I went from being just under the wire on the previous plan to nearly 300 minutes over. Plus the charge for the unlimited plan. Plus $50 in extra text messages. (Certain people who send a lot of text messages should just switch to Verizon. I’m just sayin’.)

Since I am an American, I did the only logical, American thing: I called to complain.

The Verizon woman, who sounded all of 14, helpfully explained the policy of charging me $200 for changing my cell phone plan. But, since she valued my attempt at “helping” Verizon, even though I misunderstood the policy, she submitted a reversal for the charges.

Now I am not one to argue with people who are in control of things like my money or my cell phone. But I thought it was a little ridiculous that she thought I was motivated by affection for my wireless service rather than attempting to avoid the insane overage charges that they then heaped onto my account anyway. When I last checked, about half the overage charges had been reversed.

Anyway, I have a bunch of work to do. It appears I will not have time to blog much between now and November 4, 2008, so please look for my memoir in stores in early 2009.