Older is Not Always Wiser.

Burning Man

Ingredients:
1 oz Vodka
I oz Cran-Rasperry Juice
1 oz Mango Juice
Orange Wheel & Pomegranate Seeds, for garnish

Directions:
Combine the vodka, cran-raspberry juice, and mango juice in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, and shake. Strain into a martini glass. Drop in a pinch of pomegranate seeds, and then float the orange wheel in the center. Top the orange wheel with another pinch of pomegranate seeds.


The art of making resolutions comes around twice a year. The first is obvious: New Year’s Day where you vow to drink less, exercise more and read the New York Times on Sundays. The second round hits during Wedding Season where you vow to drink less, exercise more and swap out the bitter drunk girl for one who is pleasantly buzzed and open-minded.

Walking to the podium to give my Maid of Honor speech at my sister’s wedding, I felt my resolution hit me in the back. I whipped around without spilling my champagne to find Tony, the thirty-nine year old Italian groomsman, staring back at me. “No matter what you say up there it’s going to be great,” he said with a reassuring smile that took the nervous flush out of my cheeks.

I took a deep breath. “Thank you,” I said barely noticing that he was bald, and walked up to the microphone.

Three glasses of champagne later, I couldn’t figure out why I had never noticed Tony before. My mother had been encouraging me to date older men since college for they knew what they wanted. Only I wanted young and unavailable. Dancing to Hall & Oats with Tony the groomsman, I decided to open my mind and become a wedding cliché with a kiss.

Flying back to Los Angeles, I rewarded my responsible decision with a mini-bottle of red wine. Opening a bag of salty peanuts, I wondered if it mattered that my responsible choice was ten years older than me? Of course not. Did it matter that he lived in San Francisco? I don’t think so. Was it a bad sign that he didn’t actually ask for my number? Washing down the peanuts with my mini-wine, I decided the answer was clearly no.

A month later, I was responsibly riding on the back of Tony’s motorcycle through the rainy streets of San Francisco. Holding onto his leather jacket, I couldn’t help but feel I had stepped into a deleted scene from Grease. Only I was Rizzo, not Sandy. As we pulled into the garage of his Victorian walk-up, I decided my mother was right. Older was definitely the way to go.

“You still have roommates?” I asked standing in the entryway to his Pac Heights apartment. My eyes moved from the bicycles hanging on the wall, to a colorful row of helmets, to his sailing gear, and over to his music collection. It was the most spectacular gathering of toys I had seen in years.

“Yeah, two of them,” he said pointing to the back rooms. I stepped back, trying to figure out if we were alone, and bumped into the colorful basket of a bicycle. “That’s my Burning Man bike,” he said referencing the weeklong hippy festival in the Nevada desert. “I’ve gone every year since it started.”

I shook my head, trying to picture my perfectly responsible thirty-nine year old running around the desert, presumably naked. Luckily, he started to fill in the blanks before my visualization went any further. “Last year I rode around in a chariot,” he said with a boyish grin. “I dressed up as Zeus,” he explained handing me a drink. “In a fur vest,” he said completing the picture.

“Fur?” I said moving away from his roommate’s door. “Wasn’t that hot?” I asked clearly missing the bit about the chariot.

Tony quickly assured me that it was faux fur, not that I had asked. For the next twenty minutes, he explained the “Burning Man” appeal was the fact that you could be anyone you wanted to out in the desert. Searching his impressive music collection, I wondered why he couldn’t just be himself?

Heading home after an exhausting toy-filled weekend, I realized my thirty-nine year old Greek God knew exactly what he wanted, which was to ride off into the desert (this year on a giant frog) in order to set the man on fire. In my drunken resolve to make the responsible choice, I ended up choosing the one guy who was still young and unavailable.

Picking up the New York Times, I wondered if there was something to stepping outside of yourself to examine the choices you’ve made. Something more to wearing a fur-vest in the desert. But mostly, I wondered why Zeus had traded in his chariot for a giant frog.

Suggested Number of Drinks: