Sober April

The chronicles of a 20-something year old Los Angelina creative during her 30 days of sobriety

[soberapril]

Day 29 & Day 30

My best friend asked me to go watch Drag Race with him at a local gay bar. I initially thought about going and then later changed my mind and told him I would go next week when I could properly partake in the activities. He called me and told me he was so proud of me for taking Sober April so seriously.

I am proud of me too.

In 2.5 hours, Sober April will be over. Le sigh. I’m actually going to miss it. It wasn’t as dramatic as I thought it would be. It was a lot easier because I pretty much avoided places with alcohol and didn’t hit up too many joints involving alcohol.

But the important thing is, I learned a lot about boring drinking is and how unimportant and unnecessary it is. 

Somewhere, a college version of me is looking at present me in utter dismay and disgust.

On the plus side, I will be celebrating with an ice cold beer with Boyfriend. 

Don’t tell him because he said “no more rules,” but starting tomorrow, I will be doing Mindful Eats May! You can follow that here: MindfulEatsMay.tumblr.com.

This will be really fun because I LOVE junk food. Like I love love love junk food. $1 menu IS MY JAM. So I’m gonna give it up and see what happens (:

And if I fall off the Drinking in Moderation Wagon, I’ll see you next year!

[soberapril]

Days 24-28

It’s been a pretty busy few days, though nothing crazy. 

Monday, I had dinner with a friend, and I didn’t mention anything about ordering sake with our sushi. I wondered if she picked up my non-alcoholic vibe or if she wasn’t interested in drinking.

Tuesday, I had a post-improv show dinner to discuss when we wanted to start creating content, and some people had wine with their dinner. I asked some people if I could sniff their wine just to smell it. It smelled nice.

Yesterday, at Writer’s meeting, I asked if I could smell the tequila everyone else was drinking, but they said that was cheating ):

Today, I had ice cream. I am substituting substances.

Also, I still haven’t figured out if I’m supposed to runyourhashtagstogetherlikeTwitter or if it’s okay to s p a c e t h e m o u t.

[soberapril]

Day 22 & 23

Yesterday was epic. I saw my best friend win a drag competition. He got a standing ovation!

He created magic, and it was magical.

^ Trying to describe what it was like, and I’ll just quote what the judges had to say about his performance, “Transcendent.”

Prior to that, I had had a two-hour improv practice and an improv show. Then I helped him get ready, so by the time it was over, I was pooped.

The first round of the competition, I had drunk backstage with the other drag queens while helping him get ready. This time, I did not. It was nice to go home, tired and sober. I still had a burrito, but it was nice to wake up not as tired because I was just tired versus waking up SUPER tired because I was tired and slightly hungover. 

Which was today!

Boyfriend and I woke up. Had some coffee. Walked the doggies. My sissie came over, and we chilled with her for a bit. And then went to his sissie’s art show. It was at a lounge, so they were serving overpriced alcohol. We just drank soda water, which was totally fine. And I’m glad I didn’t because it showed me that I didn’t HAVE to drink their expensive alcohol, and I would’ve just wanted to keep chasing that dragon. Now I know, if the alcohol isn’t worth it, I ain’t gonna drank it. Unless I really want to.

Now it’s movie night (:

[soberapril]

Days 15 + 16-21

My Day 15 Live Post isn’t here! Wtf.

I’m going to try to recreate my Day 15 post as accurately as I can from memory.

Omgosh, guys, I almost slipped! And I barely caught myself!!!

I’m standing out here in the back hallway of the improv theater I’m performing at tonight, waiting to drop a secret surprise for one of my improv teammates in the green room (the door was locked). The guys whose surprise it is walks by and asks me, “Oh, everyone is in the bar. Go there!” And I’m like, “Okay!” And then to myself I do the math, “Okay, so I have exactly five minutes before our show. That means I have exactly five minutes to drop this off, run to the bar, order my drink, and drink my drink. Dangit, I hope I have enough time to order my drink because that takes sooo long.”

Then I was like, “WAIT A MINUTE!”

And my face melted off from the realization of what I had almost done.

Close call.

Day 16

Yeah, you read correctly. I almost slipped. I almost drank. Whew. Thank goodness I did not. That night, I had soda water and a lime, and it was totally fine. I wish I could partake in libations, but because I wasn’t, it allowed me to be present and enjoy what was happening during the show. And because I knew there was going to be post-show libations, I Irish exited the hael out of there because I was ty-ty and knew I didn’t want to stay out any longer.

At AYCE KBBQ and bowling night, I was tested again. Having a refreshing alcoholic beverage while eating all the meats or having a fruity cocktail to sip on while bowling seemed so fun. But by the end of the night, it was nice not to come home extra, extra full and to be able to just go to sleep.

Day 17

Nothing to report, except that I oddly feel like a different person now. I feel like I’ve lost some weight, and it feels good to be able to not drink. I’m hoping that by the end of the month, I will only drink in moderation and be more conscientious of when I drink. Watch me eat my words later bahahahahaha.

Day 18/Day 19

I forget what not-scheduled thing I did on these days, but on Day 18, I had a really busy day. And I want to say Day 19, I had a really productive day, but I can’t remember.

I used to secretly judge my parents when I was 8, and I’d ask them specific questions about their childhood, probably for homework. And they’d be like, “We don’t remember.” And I’d think, “How can you not remember? I remember all my teachers I’ve had AND their room numbers.” Now I realize it was because they had 4 decades of life (and a lot of life, mind you) to remember, whereas I had my measly 8 years.

Day 20

This day was awful even though it was a highliday because Boyfriend and I got into a fight. And I don’t like it when we fight. But we made up. And my sister flew into town. And there was a lot of hiccups around that.

Day 21

Busy day. Shot new headshots. Had a very successful writing meeting on the film I’m writing based on my college experience. So much fun. Had a really awesome dance rehearsal for my Other Boyfriend AKA That’s My Best Friend’s drag competition. He’s one of the Top 5 finalists!

And then I had my first bath ever with bubbles and everything with Boyfriend. It was magical. 

I’m hoping he somehow figures out that whenever I’m stressed out or come home from a long day of work, he’ll draw me a delightful bath.

A girl can dream, right?

I will post about my Day 22 later tonight!

[soberapril]

Days 13-14

I know, I know. This was supposed to be a daily blog.

Yesterday was quite the busy day. I had a Skype meeting with my co-writer on the film we’re working on and then had to jet to a reading in East LA at 6 pm. That reading might as well have been in Pacoima at noon o’clock because that ish was FAR. Thank you, LA Traffic.

Today, I had a few errands to run. Chillin’ at home with the doggies to do some writing. Boyfriend and I took them to the dog park late last night, which was super fun because we had the whole park to ourselves. But that also meant one of them decided he was over it in about twenty minutes.

On our way home, we made a pitstop at a donut shop, and of course, the other one decided it was a great time to set the car alarm off. Twice.

And then we decided the best way to counteract all that sugar was to stop by Fatburger. Did I mention, “I LOVE FOOD!”?

PS: My body is giving me the middle finger for all the food I ate last night. Maybe this blog should’ve also been about how much I love food... Hmm...

[soberapril]

Days 11-12

Boyfriend asked me today if we could take a break away from Sober April, which was so tempting because we’ve done so well so far and it would’ve been an ironically sinful way to celebrate, but we took the more mature, high road and didn’t succumb to our base desires <insert smug emoji here>.

To be honest, my junk food addiction aka my love for all things on any $1 menu is probably worse than my alkie consumption. How can I deny the free treasures of food that the McDonald’s app offers every day? Could you say no to a free hash brown with the purchase of an egg sandwich?

No, I didn’t think so.

For no other reason except for the fact that Bey perfectly NAILS this 360 degrees hair whip like how we nailed saying NO today, I present you this GIF:

[soberapril]

Days 8-10: AHH!

I was so busy this weekend that I couldn’t update. Lo siento x 100000.

No big news except yesterday, I had GNO at AYCE KBBQ (so many acronyms!). The girls had soju and beer, and I didn’t. I felt that it was a lot easier to say no to drinking since they know I’m doing Sober April. Overall, it’s been really easy to say no because, besides myself, there hasn’t been any places where I’ve felt like I had to drink.

What that really means is...

UNIVERSE, GIVE ME A CHALLENGE

Watch me eat my words next week.

[soberapril]

Day 7: I Said No to Michelada

Yay! Guess whose 3-month anni it is?! Mine and Boyfriend’s! (:

It’s a small drop in the proverbial Rocky But Rockin’ Relationship Road (Don’t Quit!) ice cream gallon bucket, but we’re grateful for all of it. We did it!

After work, Boyfriend drove me to a table read. While I was doing that, he went to Crossroads and sold my clothes for me (isn’t he the best?!) and even picked up some sweet kicks for himself. After that, he took me to PT, and then we decided to get Mexican food for din din. 

It was happy hour, and with the purchase of a beer or a michelada, we could’ve gotten $1 tacos.

But we decided to behave and had our dindin sans michelada. 

So what have I learned so far from my one week of sobriety?

Maybe because I haven’t been in any (social) environments that have challenged me, but it’s easier to say no to alkie than I thought it would be. It’s actually kind of fun to hem and haw about whether or not I’m going to drink whenever I run into alkie. I know I’m not gonna drink because of Sober April, but there is a small part of me that believes, for a split second, that I’ll say, “Fuck it,” and buy my fine self a drink, and it’s been exhilarating to say no to that.

So NTY!

[soberapril]

Day 6: A Bloody (Hail) Mary Would Be Nice

Fun fact for those of you who are not in LA: rush hour begins around 430 and ends around 800. Boyfriend and I happen to be out at 530, and it’s March here, which means it’s actually June (temperature-wise), and nothing sounded more delightful than a delicious Bloody Mary. 

We looked at each other. Escala was right around the corner. Did they have Bloody Marys? Who cared? It would be cool, and there would be a nice refreshing drink.

Not that it would hydrate us but at least it’d make the heat more bearable.

Instead, we decided to be grownups and go home and make dinner for ourselves.

[soberapril]

Day 5: I Imagined a Whole Bottle of White Wine Was in My Fridge

I was going to say I had nothing unusual to report today, but I realized that I had done the aforementioned. My best friend came over (the one I made a mess with at that fancy hipster coffeeshop a few days ago) for our bimonthly masterminding session, and I had told him I needed him to take a bottle of wine off my hands. He also needed a glass of wine just because, and as his emotions and well-being manager, I reassured, GUARANTEED, PROMISED him I would have a glass waiting for him.

What did I see when I opened the fridge to pour him a very generous and thoughtful glass of wine?

NO. WINE.

Yes. You read right. There was no wine.

I had completely forgotten that I had brought it over to my boyfriend the night I had rampaged. The sad thing is we didn’t even drink it, so it’s probably spoiling in his mini-fridge. What a waste of perfectly, delightful ten dollar bill that could have been made to use for purchasing dog treats or a snow cone.

Sad day.

[soberapril]

Day 4: My Butt Is Not Happy AND MY STOMACH HURTS

Guys, I went to pole class last night, and I did not have a good class. It felt like someone had strapped five pounds of very dense fudge onto my already juicy ass, and I could not haul my body up that dang pole to save my life. I felt awful.

What was my solution? To stress eat all of my feelings by consuming exactly one slice of pizza and four buffalo wings that did not taste like buffalo wings.

And guess what? I am literally paying for it out my ass today. I have pooped three times today, AND NONE OF THEM WERE HAPPY POOPS!

Luckily, Oyster Happy Hour was more than manageable because my two OHH buddies are also not drinking (this was mere coincidence--thank the goddesses) at the moment. What I lacked in alcohol consumption, I made up for in speed of oyster intake. I inhaled the first dozen oysters quicker than you could say, “Boo” to a whore, and not to brag, but our little trio finished our first three dozen oysters in about five minutes. It was amazing.

Question: do servers judge you if you don’t order alcoholic beverages? Do they think you’re lame or cheap? Which is worse?

Eight dozen oysters later, we stumbled out of the resto and took a walk because our bellies were aching with all the salt-water bivalve molluscs we had consumed. Sorry not sorry.

Walking around KTown is always a bit surreal for me because some of the Korean couples look like they’re barely 25 but have five seven-year-old kids hanging on them. I have to remind myself that Asians don’t age but still! Some of the young moms and dads look like they barely graduated college!

I am now home wondering if I should watch some porn--mostly because I’m bored and porn seems more productive than taking a nap. I must have porn on my brain because one of my OHH buddies told us about long-distance, Bluetooth-based sex toys long-distance couples can use in addition to live chatting and video camming to maintain their sexual fire and passion.

It’s quite remarkable how far we’ve come as a society. Now, you can diddle your girlfriend from the other side of the coast and watch! Not creepy or disassociated at all!

There’s got to be a Black Mirror episode somewhere in there.

Maybe I’ll just cuddle with my phone instead and pretend what I do on it means something.

Le sigh.

[soberapril]

Day 3: WINE SOUNDS SO GOOD RIGHT NOW

I can pretty much drink anything, except for wine. Beer, cocktails, martinis, frozen margaritas, jungle juice, shots of anything, spiked stuff, etc. Adult grape juice is not my friend. Yet, here I am sitting at my boyfriend’s condo (haiii Boyfraaaand) craving the shit out of a half-opened bottle of white wine just straight chillin’ in my fridge in my K-Town apartment. 

Then that got me thinking about the dozens of oysters I will be guzzling at tomorrow’s Happy Hour. HOW WILL I MAKE IT THROUGH THREE HOURS OF GLORIOUS OYSTER GUZZLING WITHOUT ANY WINE?!

Pray for me.

[soberapril]

Day 2: To Eat or Not To Eat

Per usual, I have a laundry list of things to do, including laundry. However--because I had the good fortune of working on set today, and it was inspiring to see my friend’s work come alive--I am taking the time to enjoy the creative energy I’m in to do some writing.

I got two pages of writing down, which I’m pretty proud of, and I can’t wait to do more. However, my mind keeps wandering to the the delicious garlic chicken sausage I got from Trader Joe’s. I always have food on my mind, but I feel like my mind’s food persistency is coming on harder more so than usual because of my partying rampage from Friday night because it’s not like I didn’t eat today.

But rather than waste precious brain energy pondering this question, I’m going to make myself a bowl, so that I can go back to working. Also, I watched most of Season 7 of Archer without Boyfriend, so HA!

TTFN!

[soberapril]

Day 1: Hungry and Tired

I kicked off the first day of Sober April with friends and libations the night before, which felt like a mistake all day today because I only got a few hours of sleep before I had to rush off to improv practice and then go take a dance class. Before I went, I stopped by my place to shovel leftover Chipotle into my mouth because doing improv on a Saturday morning sober is hard enough as it is, why do it slightly hungover with no food in your stomach?

Promptly after practice, I walked to the Farmer Boys next door and called my best friend to see if he too wanted a cheeseburger. He said, “Yes, and with bacon.” I ordered fries for us to split as well. At the time, carbo loading before dance class seemed like a good idea. It was not.

After dance class, we got fancy nitrogen chai tea lattes with almond milk at the cafe next door, where we proceeded to make a mess at the coffee counter trying to stir the milk into our drinks.

Sidebar: why can’t baristas mix the milk for us? Do the drinks taste better if it sits separately from the milk for a few seconds? Is it supposed to be visually cool--I mean, because it is visually cool. Does the cumulative shaking of all milk-based drinks over the course of a day cause carpal tunnel of their elbows??

We spent about five minutes awkwardly trying to clean up after ourselves, wasting about thirty cocktail napkins to do so. Then we went to California Donuts and split a Matcha Green Tea Donut and a Cookies and Cream Donut. The donut was too doughy, and we agreed we preferred donuts from Kettle Glazed.

He dropped me off, and still feeling hungry, I finished off leftover spicy squid stir fry with kale. The spicy squid left my mouth burning, and I loved every second of it. Then I had a handful of Hoody’s Mixed Nuts with Matcha Green Tea flavoring. This is the best mixed nuts ever because it has only the best nuts–almonds and cashews. Screw you, foul-tasting walnuts, pecans, and macadamia nuts.

Then I had some pate with baby tomatoes. Feeling simultaneously disgusted and proud of myself for all the food I had eaten in a very short amount of time, I watched Friends and then took a nap. For three hours.

I am feeling groggy and lazy and would rather lounge around watching Season 7 of Archer without Boyfriend because I’m slightly annoyed with him, but I have a script to work on, so here’s to powering through the rest of my day.

Cheers.