Random Updates

1.) The Lost finale was freaking AWESOME! Heroes was good, but not as good as it could have been.

2.) I got made fun of this week at a conference for having Veronica Mars as a screensaver. (RIP, Ms. Mars. RIP.)

3.) I got a haircut. With bangs. But the side-sweepy kind, not, like, sixth-grader bangs or anything.

4.) I have a week-and-a-half before I have to get a plane again. Whee!

Also, not to be super cheesy or anything, but I had one of those moments at said conference this week where I sort of realized how far I had come in the past few years. I was standing at the bar at a random cocktail party on Monday and I had a flashback to the summer after I graduated in 2003. I was interning at a food industry magazine at VNU, and my editor (the illustrious Tara M.) had asked me if I wanted to go in her place to a super swank event at the French Culinary Institute in NYC. Considering I was making $10 an hour and eating out usually consisted of Subway, I jumped at the chance.

The event was amazing, but terrifying. I was seated at a table next to an editor at People magazine, and there were a million courses that I had no idea how to even approach eating. But the most terrifying part of all was ordering drinks at the beginning. I had never really been a wine drinker--and I honestly had no idea what even the most basic varieties were. Cabernet, Chardonnay, Merlot, etc.--all of it meant nothing to me, and this was not a situation where I could just specify red or white. The woman next to me ordered something I had never heard of at the time (probably Pinot something or other) and I just tried to play it safe by ordering what she did. And while I probably didn't look like a total idiot, it was kind of the first indication that just winging it--which I've always been decent at--might not be so easy. I felt totally out of my league.

Anyway, it's not like now I'm a social butterfly with a vast knowledge of varietals (although I now know the word varietals, which at least says something) but I realized in the past four years, I've become much more comfortable in situations I wouldn't normally put myself in. I can make small talk without being incredibly uncomfortable, I feel less out of place in most situations, and I now know that Merlot is the wine I want to order when I want to seem mildly educated but not like a totally pretentious asshole. So, I don't know. I thought that was kind of cool. But mostly cheesy. My apologies for not being my usually snarktastic self.