Today seems to be going by fast for a Friday. I am, in no way shape or form, complaining. Just so you know.

I woke this morning with a crazy hangover - of course I went to bed with the spins and a stomach that threatened to upheave it’s contents if I rolled the wrong way or moved from the fetal position. This combined with a boyfriend who kept elbowing me in his drunken sleep left me feeling rather…restless.

What caused this state of inebriation?

Why, the “Taste of Vermont” reception! Now, I don’t talk much about my homestate because well…for 18 years I wanted nothing more than to leave and start over and leave my dorky, nerdy, outsider reputation behind. I did. I accomplished a few things then I went back and then I abruptly left again.

I realized, upon my first visit back, that I have a lot of home state pride. I never used to because well…people think of Vermont and they think of hippies wearing birkenstock, smoking pot and listening to the grateful dead or singing kum-bay-ah around a campfire.

Me? Well…freshman year of college I may have associated a little too closely to my roots - i was a cords wearing, emo glasses sporting, vegetarian, certified bleeding heart liberal with political stickers sporting my desktop tower, and my nalgene bottle with the oval VT sticker on it along with the stickers from a few mountains i had yet to ski on.

My friends…called me “crunchy.” Freshman year, when I first met the ex? He didn’t even look twice at me in “that way” because of my…crunchy affiliation if you will. However, within the next two years? He appreciated my newfound classiness.

Sometime around sophomore year once I started making a lil bling on coop, I traded my faux-birkenstocks for steve maddens. Next? I traded my corduroy messenger bag for a coach bag. By my 21st birthday? I traded the emo glasses in for contacts, bought myself a hair straighener, bought me some blonde hair dye to get rid of the auburn that I had dyed it in anger after I discovered a short-term boyfriend had been cheating on me, and bought myself a Tiffany’s necklace.

I had become…one of those girls. I wore short skirts instead of khaki cargo pants, I traded up in the shoe world for multiple pairs of Steve Maddens. I probably said “like” far too many times and found myself hitting up the tanning booth once in a while…I did not. Want to become. One of them.

These days? I wear madras and seersucker and Jackie O. sunglasses, my style resembles a little more high class than the crunchy earthiness I once branded myself with. But last night? Despite my wardrobe and branding revamp I’ve taken the past five-six years, I was in heaven. They had Bova’s pasta - an Italian place on Pearl Street downtown that has the best Italian in Burlington, they had Long Trail Ale abd Magic Hat and Otter Creek and while I’m not a fan of dark beers? I love the lighter beers and IPA’s found in my homestate. I found a winery that’s located just off Route 7 in Shelburne that I never knew existed, I found a distillery somewhere in the Central part of the state that had “all natural” vodka. They had Ben & Jerry’s which despite me taking a break from my two favorite boys, brought me home and reminded me of the comfort I sought in B&J freshman year of college whenever I was having a rough time with friends, classes or boys. They had a table for the ECHO Leahy Center downtown and boyfriend asked me if  it would be a place that I’d want to get married at, they had the Sheraton Burlington which was where I had my Junior prom.

It was like a time warp. Reminded by the man representing the Expo Center of all the summers I went to the fair with friends and the smell of the greasy fair food which is the only good part about it since I’ve grown out of the sketchy carnie rides. I was reminded of the time my father took me to the Cabot Factory one summer weekend when we were driving home from my grandparents camp. I ran into old staffers that I interned with, shook the hands of Bernie and Leahy who no matter how old I am? Still make me smile.

As I type this? I can’t wait to go back home. I can’t wait to go out on the boat on the lake, drink beers with the family up at camp by the fire, walk downtown seeing all the street performers, sing karaoke at one of the best dive bars I’ve ever been to - I mean if you think you have a good dive? JP’s is a million times better - dingy carpeting, wood panel on the walls, with a karaoke DJ that looks like Louie Anderson. And? They serve PBR in a can.

I digress, I don’t think you can really appreciate where you’re from, your roots if you will, till you leave. It’s only been recently that I’ve been able to say I’m a Vermonter, I appreciate 30″ of snow, I know that mud season? Is a real season. I love my Socialist Senator, and I? Am a bleeding hard liberal (to some degree). My roots made me who I am and regardless of the pearls, the make up, the high heels, the seersucker… I’ll always be from Vermont.

What do you appreciate about where you’re from??