The sun vacuum leads to lack of happy place...

Hello,

Well, it is yet another gray day to add upon the many gray days ahead of us. Us being the fearless Minnesotans of Minnesota.

Days like this I rely upon my happy place to make it through. Y’all know what I mean: our sunny beaches, our love nooks, our ninth innings of the last World Series game right before the win…our happy places.

But when I drew upon my happy place today, it was simply no longer happy.

Yes, folks. Pistola has lost her happy place.

For the 32 years I’ve been walking (sometimes drunkenly) this earth, I’ve also been going to Ten Mile Lake in northern Minnesota. Our family has a small, Friday the 13th-esque cabin nestled among the pines, overlooking deep, mysterious blue waters. I spent every summer of my youth playing tennis, picking mushrooms, identifying birds, fishing, swimming, jumping off (getting pushed from) the dock, watching massive thunderstorms tumble across the waters. Naively believing that this place would always bring me to a place of contentment, a state of calm that matches the lake on a still, hot summer day.

No longer.

Now when I think of Ten Mile anxiety fills me.

Let me tell you why:

1.) White guilt. Some would say I have a 'gambling problem'. And let me assure you, dear readers, it isn't because of the rush of blood to my head when I hit on a slot or the surge of adrenaline from a challenging gaze across the poker table. No, it's because every time I enter a casino I feel the need to throw money at the very people we kicked off of Ten Mile in order to make ourselves happy.

2.) Guilt displacement. I blame Native Americans for my gambling problem and that seems wrong.

3.) Family. I haven't admitted to my family yet that I gambled away the deed to the cabin in a busted up game of 5-card stud behind the casino. Sorry about that.

4.) Skin cancer. You remember the days when the first thing you did in the morning was pop on your swimsuit, run out the front door, hop in the lake and get a sunburn that made your skin feel like it was about six sizes too small for your body? And you'd sleep like shit that night, but the next morning you'd do exactly the same thing? Well, those days are over. Now every mole on my body is already in stage four skin cancer.

And now my happy place has become the creation and solution to all my problems: the bar. So what can one do? I guess I'm off to my happy place. Bottoms up!

Pourin' one out for ya,
PBR Whipped