I don’t like beer. Let’s just get that out there.

All summer, everywhere I go, if it’s after 3pm, everyone is drinking beer. And, look, it’s not that I don’t like alcohol. I am a very big fan of wine. But if you drink wine while everyone is drinking beer, you suddenly become the butt of every joke. Which I totally get. But, I digress.

I don’t think the perfect summer drink is beer. I think it’s–wait for it, wait for it–TEA.

That’s right, tea. Don’t you know that drinking hot things cools you off, silly? Plus, tea is great for you and is very refreshing.

Here are some summer teas to help you cool off when everyone is making fun of you for shunning beer:

Chai Tea
Chai is the best of all tea worlds, if you ask me. It’s strong black tea with milk and sugar and spices. Delicious. Make it an iced chai and you’re set for the summer.

Thai Iced Tea
Spiced and sweet and, best of all, iced for your summer enjoyment.

Ginseng Green Tea
So high in antioxidants it’s kind of ridiculous. Plus, the ginseng helps keep you energized and alert (green tea naturally has less caffeine than black tea). Steer clear of the bottled Arizona kind, as delish as it is, to avoid excess sugar.

White Darjeeling Tea
White tea has even more antioxidants than green tea, and it’s low in caffeine so you can drink it at night when everyone else is drinking yucko beer around the campfire. Read More »

Years of coffee drinking and way too many hours at my local Starbucks has instilled in me few quarks: a sever caffeine addiction, height maxing out at a towering 5 foot 2 inches, and a fine-tuned sixth sense on identifying loser guys based on their coffee drink of choice.

Allow me to fill you in on my revelation:

Frappuccino: Absolutely not datable. Fraps are merely a milkshake with a thimble of coffee in it (obviously to make it more grown-up) and put in a fashionable cup to show off how trendy/cool/grown-up one is by carrying it around. Guys who go to Starbucks and order frappuccinos do not actually like coffee, but don’t want to feel lame for carrying around a McDonalds cup with what they really want - a milk shake. It has been my experience that the frappuccino guy is full of as much crap as his frap, steer clear. Read More »

I quit Diet Coke. I’ve been clean for 2 months with one lapse, where I tried to save calories at the bar and went for a Bacardi and diet. I couldn’t even finish it and have been off the sauce (the cola, that is) ever since.

Basically I have come to the conclusion that diet soda isn’t that great for you. Yes, it gives you a caffeine buzz, but there’s something I respect more about coffee and tea. I also read Skinny Bitch and the scare tactics got to me. But as I tried to keep myself from running around all jittery, I realized that leaving caffeine is a lot like ending a serious relationship. Except it can actually help stop the formation of an ulcer instead of causing it.

I’m down to one cup of coffee a day. It’s trickiest when you need little pick-me-up to get through the work day, but some things have definitely helped me transition: Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 106
Mood: Confused

“It’s cold outside, huh?”

Rebecca and I walked slowly down a carpeted corridor, our boots scratching softly on the grey rug. My cheeks stung from a wind that had moved completely into winter, stretching the skin too tight against my face.

“It’s freezing. Winter’s really here, I guess.” Rebecca kept talking, all the energy she had kept bottled up during our shopping trip pushing out and covering my silence.

I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure I could say anything. By the time Rebecca stopped and knocked on a door covered in paper flowers, I was sure I had gone dumb with anxiety.

“Okay. Ready?” Rebecca cleared her throat, her mittened hands opening and closing.

Before I could answer, the door opened, almost as though the person on the other side had known we were coming, had been waiting. Sammy stood in front of us, small, thin, covered in a fuzzy blue blanket, the lamp on her desk throwing a lightness around her blond head. Even though it looked like she hadn’t slept in a while, there was no denying the cute, popular superstar she had once been.

Before it all. Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 76
Mood: Amused

Daniel B sat down at the table across from me, setting a giant coffee cup in front of him and dropping some heavy books on the table.

“So, what page are those problems on that you wanted to take a look at?”

Just like Daniel, wasting no time getting down to business. Idle chatter made him uncomfortable. He could talk for hours about numbers and equations, but ask him about the weather or his favorite food and he’d tense up; his hands turning into fists and his adam’s apple sliding up and down in a constant rhythm.

I wondered if he had friends who he could relax with. I wondered if he had any friends at all.

“The ones on 154 and 159. I’ve been trying to do them on my own, but I don’t know if I’m getting the right answer.” Pushing my tea of the way, I set my own book on the small café table. I liked coming to the cafe at night. Even though it was inside the student center, it was mostly quiet after nine, and ever since that uncomfortable incident with Sasha and his “buddies”, I hadn’t seen a single person I recognized at any of the tables.

“These?” Daniel B. ran his finger down the page, pushing his glasses up with his other hand. “These are easy. You shouldn’t be having a problem.”

Another thing about Daniel B., he rarely filtered his thoughts from his mouth. Whatever he thought, he said. Even if it could be construed as insulting. Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 64
Mood: pissed off

“Campbell!”

As the soccer boys stomped over to us, I felt myself pushing against my hard, black chair, wishing I could use it as camouflage. Everything about them was loud; the way the walked, shoving wayward chairs and tables out of their way, the heaviness of their boots on the linoleum, the shouts they threw back and forth at each other, even their energy made too much noise, the small atrium cafe seeming suddenly much too tight and airless.

“You missed the meeting, man!” Pulling a chair over to our table and sitting on it backwards, the loudest and biggest of the soccer boys pushed Sasha’s shoulder playfully, but hard enough to almost throw him off his chair. “It was a shit show. A total shit show.”

The two other soccer boys, dressed in almost identical blue sweatpants, white shirts, and blue baseball caps, stood on either side of Sasha. Their eyes slid over to me. I looked down, staring at the bobbing teabag in my cup.

“Coach was there. He told the student life people to calm down. But not before they put the whole f*cking house on probation.” Still ignoring me, the head soccer guy pulled his own baseball cap over his face. “No parties for a while, man. At least none that they hear about.”

“So they didn’t…did they ever find out if anything really happened?” Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 61
Mood: Heavy

“So…” Sasha pulled a chair from an empty table over to the one I was sitting at, holding a paper cup of tea and chewing on a plastic stirring straw. I watched him sit, look down into his cup, chew on the straw, and blink. What was he waiting for?

“Should’ve put honey in this. Green tea sucks without honey.” He looked up and grinned, the straw bending with his smiling lips, his messy brown hair falling into his eyes.

I wanted to freeze everything; take a picture of him just how he was right now with my eyes and keep it in the back of my head. I wanted to find a way to memorize the little dimple on his left cheek. I wanted to come up with an exact recipe for the smell he carried with him; a mixture of fresh deodorant and warm fuzzy dryer sheets. I needed to never forget the way a simple plastic straw could make someone irresistible.

The moment of realization that you’re sitting across from someone who could actually be everything you’ve ever dreamed about is strange. It’s not a big feeling, not a sharp feeling either. It’s mostly just a warm sensation, like someone’s poured bubbly, fizzy water into your limbs and into your chest.

“People make fun of me for drinking tea.” Taking the straw from his mouth, Sasha stirred the liquid in his cup absently, looking up at me and then back down at his hands, smiling in a quieter way. “It’s not cool or something. But I like it.”

And I like you, I thought, holding my own cup between my hands and breathing as carefully as I could. It seemed like a strong exhale could ruin the moment, blowing away the comfortable yet electric energy between us. Read More »

Kombucha!

No, I’m one of the Three Ninjas (Remember them? How cute was Rocky?), Kombucha is a fairly new organic refreshment. A drink. An expensive drink, but, it’s damn good…good for you, that is.

According to Wikipedia, Kombucha is “the Western name for sweetened tea or tisane that has been fermented by a macroscopic solid mass of microorganisms called a “kombucha colony,” usually consisting principally of Bacterium xylinum and yeast cultures.” Fermented tea?? Sounds delightful.

A man by the name of G.T. Dave began bottling this light and fizzy juice in 1995 after his mother beat breast cancer, all the while drinking this ancient concoction. According to the bottle, Kombucha supports digestion, metabolism, immune system, appetite control, weight control, liver function, body alkalinity, anti-aging, cell integrity, healthy skin and hair. Need I say more? Read More »