I think you could be right about that, Burrell -- my parents are not big drinkers at all, and I'm the same way. My mom could never drink because of her medications, and for my dad drinking was a special occasion thing, if you were out for dinner or at a party. So I've never been in the habit of drinking regularly, although I've developed a taste for a good cold beer in the summer, and wine with some meals, and the occasional mixed drink on a weekend.

I like alcohol: dark beer, red wine, single malt, G&Ts, margaritas, Jameson's, and Emmett's, Drambuie, Chambord, Frangelico, in various applications, and a lovely little concoction of my own, vodka muddled with mango sorbet. I just neglect to think of having it very often.

msbelle, ita, sending you thoughts of strength and calm. Tom, you too.

We cannot buy alcohol in grocery stores... between midnight and 9 am on Sunday.

After that, you can buy beer, wine, and hard liquor at the grocery store.

the child has left the house. all hail uncle G.

Enjoy your time, msbelle!

We skipped the Mall of America this weekend. I was too wiped out to drive over there last night. So DH headed to Appleton to go shopping for work clothes. I'm glad he went alone because he's really hard to shop with. He can never find what he wants and it's very stressful.

Yay for G.

Hail, Uncle G!

You can buy beer in the grocery store here, but I'm not sure about wine. I usually go to the liquor store for wine.

When we lived in Florida in the late '70s-early '80s, there was a drive-through mini mart where you could buy beer.

Yep, in NC wine and beer can be sold after noon on Sundays. So you can leave church and swing by the Piggly Wiggly to nab a 6-pack. I was raised in a church that was pretty anti-alcohol, so that amuses me to no end. The ABC stores in NC (hard liquor) are closed, though.

It's 60F, so I have all my windows open and the fan on. It's delightful. I have to spend the afternoon doing homework, but at least I'll be doing it in fresh air.

Grocery stores in many towns in IL also sell liquor. But - are we counting liquor stores as bars? Because that's not the same thing at all.

I mean, do we count restaurants as grocery stores?

Oh for fuck's sake.

There are apparently a bunch of nimbleminded idiots on a multi-genre writing forum who think it would just be the Most Fun Evar to collaboratively write a really terrible category romance novel proposal to submit to Harlequin to see if they get a form rejection that refers them to DellArte Press, Harlequin's vanity press.

I mean, seriously? I know a lot of Harlequin editors who were appalled that the form letters were apparently supposed to contain the referral and said they'd just as soon start writing personalized rejections rather than send out that form letter. And to waste any editor's time with this nonsense? Dude, most of the editors I know have to read submissions at night, during the weekends, on subway rides, and even on vacations, just to keep their heads above water. To see people who purport to be pursuing writing as a profession so cavalierly dismissing an editor's time just because it's romance and ha ha wouldn't that be fun? pisses me off beyond all redemption.