Sometimes I remember that I have a blog.
Kinda. Anyways, I'm trying to think of something clever to say. I've settled on talking about beer.
I was talking to my younger sister today, the high school and not the first-grader, passing on some fragments of wisdom wrapped in enough sarcasm to make sure she'll pay attention. Dad walked by and began to make fun of the beer (which... he had just bought) and he and I wound up making fun of the taste, which dad described as "earwax filtered through cardboard." It was Schlitz, for the curious.
Bridie observed that, in her opinion, all beer tastes like earwax filtered through cardboard, so we explained acquired tastes and the desire to be plastered pleasantly and responsibly buzzed common in us grown-ups. Then we began describing the tastes of various beers back and forth. I brought out my old standard for my favorite ordinary beer, Guinness extra stout. "Tar and the tears of Irish orphans." I recalled a weird beer I'd had at a bar with some friends, a Russian stout called something like Two Brothers on the West Wind. "Thick on the tongue as whipped cream and black as black can be."
This, I quickly discovered, is a really fun game. I've been playing with beer for a while now. Come up with some other fun ones.
Sam Adams: Tangy summer rain and boredom.
Miller light: Credulity, lightly carbonated.
Blue Moon: White and cold, a grow-light in liquid form.
Guinness: Rust, acid, and bubbles.
Make your own! But I think I like this a lot. I think I may make a mental exercise of this, pick a category and describe various examples in the most colorful language you can. I'll have to mull over future categories. Dog breeds, quirky hobbies, grunge bands, cable news, mattresses, distantly glimpsed birds, college majors... Some of these will be snarky and pithy, obviously, and some of them would be purely a way to play with language and imagery, but I like my new game.