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I somehow skipped an episode of Bridgerton and had the perfect excuse to rewatch the entire first season without feeling any guilt or shame. Honestly, it’s not great, but it’ll do for background music until T. Swift releases another Russian novel of an album.

After last week’s wine recommendation, I had some people asking, “Is this Two Buck Chuck?” No! I divorced Chuck years ago, and as much as we thought we were gonna stay friends, that hasn’t turned out to be the case. Now that’s not to say these bottles are expensive per se. Expensive for some, yes, but we’re not talking about eighty dollar bottles of Burgundy here! Last week's bottle typically retails for $28, and this week’s goes for $35. More than I ever imagined spending on wine when I was chugging bottles of Yellowtail after college, but barely enough for small-batch winemakers practicing low-intervention methods to make a sustainable margin. You don’t have to spend that much money on wine, but if you want to, I’m here for it :)

Now, please hold my hand as I step off my soapbox to say this week I think you should be drinking a bottle of Floral Terranes’ Cabernet Sauvignon #2! This wine is LIVING! The grapes were sourced from vines hidden in a backyard on the North Fork of Long Island. Apparently, the folks over there have moved on from making tea! Now they're stomping whole clusters of ripe fruit from abandoned vineyards and letting it ferment in open-top oak barrels. This wine is jumpy yet grounded, familiar but far away. The second glass had me feeling like how I imagine I would if I had kept that new year's resolution to meditate. If you want help finding a bottle, text me, and I'll connect you with an Other Peoples Approved retailer near you! ( 🇺🇲 313.825.4670 or 🇨🇦 647.370.6832 )

Speaking of things I DON'T DO…

The last two weeks seemed filled with reminders that I never live up to other people's expectations. At least not the expectations I assume they have of me. Honestly, this week I kept thinking CRAP so-and-so must be expecting me to do that thing we talked about even though I'm not sure we actually talked about it, but if I don't do something, they’re going to realize I'm a total fraud. And if they figure that out, they’re not going to want to hang out with me and I'm going to be lonely and sad, which makes sense because, like I said last week, I'm pretty sure I’m unlovable and will be alone forever. So, yeah, it's been a week.

One of the tough questions I asked you recently was, "If you had married your first boyfriend or girlfriend, what might your life be like now?" Interestingly enough, no one assumed their life would be better! At least no one admitted as much. Instead, your responses included various mild to wild examples of how you thought your life would have been worse. I did marry my first boyfriend, and although we’re now divorced, I don’t think I’m any worse off because of it. That’s not to insinuate you’re all wrong, but to highlight the trouble with assumptions. They’re hard to fact check. Especially if you don’t voice them!

We often assume the people we care about know how we feel about them, even if we don’t say it. We think we'll look stupid or be labeled 'too much' if we express how we feel. The truth is, we might be! If I text the guy I went on a date with last night to say he made me smile and laugh and ask him to go out again, he might think I’m clingy or extra or desperate. I certainly assume he’ll think those things and have been scared to text him. But if I don’t tell him how I feel, he might not know. He might assume he knows, but you can probably guess how problematic it could be for me to depend on that to happen.

Your answers to the question, “What makes a person a good traveling companion?” highlighted another version of this conundrum. We often assume people know what we expect of them on a trip, even if we haven’t talked about it. I don’t need to tell my boyfriend to be accomodating on our trip to New York, silently wake up before I do, creep downstairs, get a flat white from the fancy coffee shop across the street, and return without spilling a drop before he sneaks back into bed and waits for me to wake up. He should just know that. We’re soul mates, right?! Yeah...no. Don’t make assumptions. They suck. Express what you want to help avoid misunderstandings and heartache. And go get your own damn flat white!

O.K., let’s wrap this up before I use the ‘A’ word again or reveal any more about my own travel excentricities! If you have any feedback or want to try that delicious bottle of wine from Floral Terranes I mentioned, text me! It’s fun! I’m off to figure out how to get a red wine stain out of a pair of khakis I bought online in my pre-pandemic size and have to return! Does that club soda trick really work? We’ll find out! Until we talk again, I hope you'll keep being curious enough to ask questions, find the courage to answer them, and just maybe, have the audacity to give a s**t about other people's answers too!

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