drinking

Drinking Liberally is a group I have been publicizing almost since its inception. The idea of liberals getting together regularly and drinking booze (or coffee, or tea, or whatever) creating grassroots, social bonds and just plain fun sounded like a perfect idea. Seems like the idea is taking off!

From AlterNet:

Drinking Liberally: A New Strategy for Progressive Politics

By Nick Pinto, AlterNet. Posted January 18, 2007.

Every week, in cities and towns all over the country, thousands of the nation's progressives are coming together to drink beer. But far from drowning their despair in drink, these progressives are building networks that could form the underpinning of a new renaissance for the American Left. What do they call this movement? Drinking Liberally, naturally.

Three years after it was founded in a Hell's Kitchen Dive Bar, the Drinking Liberally organization has grown to include 174 chapters. And they're not just in predictable cities like New York, Washington D.C., and San Francisco, but also scattered in seemingly unlikely places like Salt Lake City, Utah; Moscow, Idaho; Amarillo, Texas; and South Bend, Indiana.

In September, the Drinking Liberally regulars gathered in Denver for their second annual national convention, and under the umbrella name of "Living Liberally," the organization is developing a national comedy tour, networks of reading groups and movie clubs, and perhaps even a dating service...

If you read my previous blog A Christmas Suicide, Or Thoughts Of, you know that I was told on Christmas Eve that I must move out of the apartment I just finished moving into the night before.

Today, I got in touch with the woman who runs the roommate service. Her name is Margaret and she said the lady I rented the room from wants me out because I came home from a party early in the morning and she thinks this is unChristian like; therefore, she made up a lie (like a good Christian) about her family coming from Florida to live in the room that I was renting. Now, I thought the family story sounded suspicious and to be honest, this makes more sense because I know she is religious. The only thing she told me when I moved in was that there was to be no smoking, drinking, or overnight guests, which quite frankly is fine with me or I wouldn't have taken the room. Being under pressure to write a book and all, I prefer things quiet. However, I didn't know that going to a holiday party/poetry reading was forbidden or that my life outside of the apartment would be monitored. This lady told Tony (see previous blog; he is the guy that made a pass at me and I slapped) that she fears I am an ungodly slut drunk.

Well. I hold very stong spiritual beliefs and I don't happen to think coming home late from a party is a violation of anything other than a false human made perception of sexual sin. (By the way: I didn't get laid at this shindig; perhaps when I finally move out, I'll have learned to say in Spanish, "If you have a son or know someone I can fuck, tell 'em about me!")