Let The Dry Quarter & The Sharpening Begin.

The first quarter of the calendar year has been "dry" for me for at least... Maybe nine years? 

I think the only year I skipped was 2017. I recall being in Petra, Jordan in February that year drinking a glass of wine at a bar inside a cave.

(Side note: That doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but it was.)

Anyway... I sipped my last glass of alcohol for the next few months last night - and as is my custom - it was a glass of Perrier-Jouet. 

I'd picked up the bottle a few weeks ago at a local warehouse store. When I walked to the champagne section and couldn't find it, a man who worked there asked if I needed help finding something.

He may have asked it while sneering at my outfit and questioning my taste already. I was on my way to yoga and had a hoodie, messy bun, and my house slippers on my feet. 

"I'm looking for Perrier-Jouet," I told him.

"Can I convince you to try something that is special?" he asked, after we'd clearly established that I at least had the cash to pay for something expensive, despite how I was dressed.

"Is it a different variation of Perrier-Jouet?" I asked him.

He said no.

"Then no," I said. "I want my usual."

He sighed and walked me to the section of the store where the expensive bottles are kept on shelves behind glass doors.

I know he was annoyed I wasn't willing to hear him out on whatever he wanted me to try. I guessed it was probably something possibly more expensive. 

But I like what I like. And I won't pretend to be interested even to be polite. 

Not that I have ever come across as a person who does that. I have been. But I know my "gives zero fucks" is more what people align me to.

And now I think I am ready to lean into that.

Purge the perfunctory politeness out of me. Completely. 

If I'm polite, it's because I genuinely feel the situation warrants it. And that is about 95% of all situations I am in, I'd say.

But the other five percent?

If I feel like you are trying to scam, take advantage, leverage my skill set, or anything of the like... I will not be "blunt" with my response.

I will be as sharp and cutting as you have ever experienced.

And while I typically use the dry quarter as a way to "give my body a rest after the holiday season", this year it's to have me hit the ground running as sharp as possible.