I am tired. Let’s start there. Jesus Christ am I tired. This is a different kind of tired. A deep in my bones kind of tired that I have not felt in a very, very long time. This isn’t my usual millennial depression kind of tired where I just don’t feel like it, this is the kind of tired that comes from a job where I’m working seven, eight, nine days in a row, with one day off a week, on my feet all day, talking to people face to face all day kind of tired. This is the kind of tired that our forefathers felt on an easy day, but my millennial bones feel on a hard day. Or any day. All the days. That’s why I haven’t been around for months. I do have a post almost completely written about Shoreline Brewery in Michigan City, Indiana that is full of life and bright, silly words, but I do not have the energy to even finish it. I do not possess within my body the tone that is required of that post. I do not even know that girl anymore. She wrote that post back in the first week of February when she was just starting a new job on the promise that things may be better. And things are better. I guess I can promise you that much. Things are infinitely better than they were before. I no longer have the millennial tireds, as I mentioned, I have the service industry tireds. Those are different tireds, and I’m not saying they are good tireds but they are healthy for me.

But I do want you guys to know that I have not forgotten about you. I want to write about the time that I went to Arbor Brewing Company a goddamn lifetime ago. I went there in November. Yes. Of 2018. A lifetime ago. I was alive then. Well rested, nervous all the time, constantly running through a million different scenarios in my head about what would happen if I didn’t find employment soon. I was wondering if I should move to Austin to live with Nicole. Or if I should really take the plunge and just whole-ass move to Portland without a job or a plan and just wing it. I still had a car. I still had legs and will and freedom. And I found a place in this world that I had never known existed but it captured a part of my body, mind, and soul that I didn’t even know I could give away to some little town in bumfuck nowhere Michigan.

But yet, I rolled into a bar in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a town that I had never heard of. A town that upon texting people the name of it I had gotten responses like “What?” And “You cannot be that drunk.” And “Did you just have a stroke?” But there in Ypsi, as the locals call it, I bellied up to the bar and started doing the only thing I know how to do when I’m alone in a town in a state I am not native to. I ordered a goddamn beer. And do you know what I received? A fucking beer. Actually, several.

The first beer I ordered was a Buzzsaw IPA. It couldn’t been good, it could’ve been shit. I don’t remember. I didn’t make a note about it. I’m going to lean on the side of I enjoyed it, but I don’t know. Here’s a spoiler for a couple paragraphs down. I got pretty inebriated at this brewery. I wouldn’t recommend doing what I did. That’s all I’m going to say. Don’t be me. Be a better person. Drink responsibly.

The second beer I ordered was the Strawberry Blonde Fruit Ale. I also didn’t make a note about this beer but I don’t think I liked it. But this is the point where I was feeling fucking bold (not drunk yet) and I made the stupidest comment in the world which was “Is the Strawberry Blonde Ale just the Strawberry Nitro on CO2?” And the bartender made some kinda snappy comment about me being perceptive or something, which I was not being. I was asking a normal question but this is the part of the night where things spiraled out of control and I made myself a friend named Brian the Bartender.

Third beer was the Tilted Earth Winter New England Pale Ale. The note I have on it? “Awesome” Yep. That’s it. But I bet that’s exactly what it was.

And then my last (two) beer(s) were Sacred Cow, which instead of letting four months later Natalie describe it. I’m going to insert what Day of Drunk Me describe it by way of the note I made for myself.

Honestly, based on that note alone, I would say that maybe I should just start bringing my laptop to bars with me and writing these blog posts in real time, because the drunker I get, the wilder my notes get. For example, this note:

Also, there is a wild ramble where I started to review the bartender. But since this isn’t a blog where I shit on (nice) people, I’m going to refrain from posting it. But I did note that on Fridays they have “Phish Fridays” where, unlike Wisconsin we have Fish Fridays where we just eat fish fries and listen to polka, at this place the manager on Friday nights, I guess, plays Phish in the brewery. How delightful. But also the bartender was like, not as much of a Phish guy as he is a Umphrey’s McGee fan. I didn’t prompt him on this. I didn’t even prompt him on the Phish thing. He asked me what kind of music I was into and I said my typical line of “Northern White Girl Alt-Folk” and he said he was in UM and Phish and then obviously I had to tell him about my Phish Phase, which is actually a lifestyle, about how I’ve actually been to an UM show (this is where I think I really won him over) (also, I’ve now been to two UM shows? My life is out of control y’all but in a good way! I swear!), and how I saw Dead and Co. last year and that ZBB is really good live (he agreed).

But by the time all of this happened, I. Was. Drunk. Man was I drunk, but me being drunk wasn’t apart of the plan. The plan that I was supposed to have dinner with Nicole and her Aunt Sarah and Sarah’s boyfriend Dario. So I had to sit there in my shame and sober up so I could scoot on over to Ann Arbor for dinner. (Oh yeah, did I mention this all happened before dinner?)

Anyways, thanks for coming along on this shame journey with me, y’all. Maybe someday soon you’ll read about Shoreline Brewing in Michigan City. It is apart of my three part Michigan series, but since Michigan is no longer a novelty for my life, I don’t know if this is a series of Michigan posts or the beginning of my new Michigan lifestyle.

Oh, and bonus reading. I wrote this in a coffee shop in Ypsilanti because I love Ypsilanti and I needed to capture how I felt at that moment in the moment. It’s titled The Ballad of Ypsilanti and it’s not good but it captures my love and pain and the way my life was back in November. God Bless Ypsi.