Hello, Dear Reader. Welcome back! Did you have a good week this past week? Have any enjoyable tea? Well, as always, I have tea. But I can’t always guarantee you’ll always enjoy it :p  However, there’s something that’s been weighing heavy on my mind lately: Have you ever completed a project that was lengthy, and took a lot of time, dedication, and effort to complete? Have you ever completed a project that took a chunk of your soul with you along the way? Yes? Now, I have a follow-up question to as: Have you ever shared something so monumental with a friend — only for them to dismiss it? What about with a group of friends? Today, I’m going to share with you about how a close friend took that trust and threw it away.  This is about how I broke up with my best friend over my book. Before we can talk about the friend in question, we need to go back to March of last year. In last year’s blog series ‘Spilling The Tea’, I detailed a story about an ex who my relationship with crumbled due to them being in the closet. ( You can read here ). By the time of writing that blog post, which was towards the end of July, the relationship in question and been long over. In fact, that relationship ended four months before I wrote that blog post.  One night, shortly after the break-up, I lied awake in bed and couldn’t stop thinking about how that relationship ended. I was upset, felt betrayed, and overall, just missed him. Our circumstances were messy, and the situation was unfair. Which, that’s life. However, while pondering that relationship, I jolted straight up out of bed at 4:00 am and began writing down names, characters, settings, and plot lines. This 4:00 am fever dream turned into a month-long planning session. This planning session took the form of an outline, and eventually, would be the skeletal structure of a novel that would consume every conscious thought in my brain. In a creative-neurotic state, I obsessed over this soon-to-be next great American novel. It eventually consumed every corner of my brain space that I had, and no matter how much I tried to distract myself from it, I couldn’t escape it. The characters in the story were very much alive, and the best way to find peace again was to get them out of my head, and onto paper.  In April, I completed my outline and began the rigorous process of writing my book.  With this context, we’ll now introduce the subject of today’s story: White Woman Entitlement.  White Woman Entitlement and I met several years prior at a wedding, and when I first met her, it felt like a long-lost sister that I had finally reunited with years after being separated. We had similar interests, we had similar humor, and above all else, we enjoyed each other’s company. Now, given this wedding was halfway across the country, and she and I lived in separate states. After exchanging social media, we went separate ways with talks of a one-day meeting up again. To my surprise, that eventually happened!  One morning, I woke up to a message from White Woman Entitlement that said that she and her LTR would be traveling to Colorado for a camping trip. And a few weeks, later, we were meeting in person for tea. She brought tea from home, and so did I. We hung out at a cafe, played tourist in Colorado, and after a perfect Saturday, it was time for us to part again.   Despite that we lived several states away, White Woman Entitlement and I kept our connection going through daily snapchats, bi-weekly phone calls, and monthly virtual tea sessions. Over the course of a few years of keeping up this connection, it was safe to say that she felt like a sister to me. In many aspects, I felt like a brother to her as well.  We were official best friends and a part of each other’s daily lives. Despite living several states away, our friendship felt much closer.  We were chosen family. When it came time for me to finally get started on my novel, Entitled White Woman was one of the first friends who I told about the news. I told her for various reasons, mostly including that we were besties. However, one of the reasons I wanted to tell her is because she is also a writer! She’s a songwriter to be specific.  While I was writing my novel, she was also writing new music. While the mediums were different, the art was the same: We were bleeding our hearts out on a piece of paper to convey a story. This was our art. While I was writing my novel, I’d keep her updated on the book's progress. At the same time, she’d keep me updated on her songwriting progress. However, I woke up the next morning to the news that she and her LTR would be back in Colorado. Just like last time, we met for tea and got food, and unlike last time, our date abruptly ended. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something in the air between them. They had been together for over four years and felt inseparable. Her personality was intertwined with his so much that you’d figure they’d be a forever couple, or, forget that they were two separate people. Unbeknownst to me at the time, but right after they left Colorado, they got into an argument on their drive back, and she broke up with him. I put my finger on it.  Without going into details about their relationship (mostly because it’s not my business to tell), Entitled White Woman almost immediately got into a new relationship.  She hopped from one to the next.  Despite my concern for her, she was happy. Since she was happy, it started showing in her art. While FaceTiming with her, she’d show me some of her new songs. While strumming on a guitar, and singing with the sound of a thousand doves, I was stunned at how indiscernibly beautiful her music was. She seems to be doing better. The more music she wrote, the more I cheered her on. However, it wasn’t a 1-way street: While writing more of my book, she was cheering me on too. However, despite our overlapping support, we didn’t share the same parallel.  On my end, I was going from one job to the next. I quit working at a bank, had instability at my new job that made me fearful of becoming homeless, and had horrible luck at dating and creating new friendships. As I described in my blog’s 9-year anniversary post, I even detailed how my loneliness and life situation eventually brought upon a panic disorder that seemed to consume every aspect of my life.  However, the job at the surgery center became so bad, that I was interviewing for new positions on a weekly basis. Eventually, I found a new job, however, I quit the surgery center due to pulling my hair out due to stress.  I had a month gap between leaving the surgery center and starting my new position. What did I do with that month's gap?  I went to Trident Cafe nearly every single day, from sun-up to sun-down, to complete writing on my novel. I wrote from sun-up to sun-down, and at one point, I went to Trident 16 days in a row without missing. I was close to seeing the end of the tunnel, and after putting hours upon hours of hard work into this story, I was almost done. The chargers in mind were coming more to life, and with each and every sentence, they were almost real people.  Entitled White Woman was cheering me on, and while cheering me on, I truly felt like she was there for me.  Then, a week before starting my new job, I looked at my outline and saw I only had a few pages left to write. With a rush of adrenaline and a spike of tea, I levitated out of my body as I wanted to write the final sentences of my book. From the last paragraph, down to the last sentence, up to the last period, I got chills down my spine as I closed the lid to my laptop and began crying.  The weight of finishing the book immediately lifted off my shoulders, as the feeling of cool relief overwhelmed my body.  While shaking and crying uncontrollably relief, I got my phone out and called the one person who I knew would be excited for me: Entitled White Woman. When calling her elated, she expressed excitement for me. She told me she was proud of me, and told me I was incredible for finishing such an incredible feat.  This support felt constant, up until I said one simple sentence: “I can’t wait for you to read it!” That’s when the mood shifted.  Shortly thereafter, the mood changed. “Oh, I’m too busy with the new boo. We have a lot coming up. You can send it to me, but I’ll read it soon.” After a month of editing my book, and with a click of an email, I sent her my novel. Meanwhile, in the next coming months, all of our conversations surrounding her new boo, who we’ll call fuckface for this story.  “Fuckface took me on a romantic date!” Or, “Fuckface makes me so happy!” Or, “I wrote a new song about fuckface! Let me show you!!” She was living her Cinderella moment, and in doing so, she made her new boo her entire personality. Meanwhile, with our parallel, I was being stood up at restaurants for dates, and being stood up by friends at restaurants, and my loneliness was growing into a category-5 storm that was rapidly turning into loneliness-induced panic.  However, one night, Entitled White Woman was talking about how she didn’t enjoy her trip to Hawaii with her family, because the last time she went, it was with her ex. She was talking about how her relationship with Fuckface was so magical that it was too good to be true.  Then, after venting to her that I was struggling with loneliness, she replied, “Maybe you should spend more time by yourself until you’re comfortable with yourself.” My face turned red-hot, not because the advice was bad, but because it was coming from a girl who had spent her entire adult life in a relationship with someone and had never spent more than a day by herself. While anger, disappointment, and jealousy grew inside me, I started to resent Entitled White Woman. Her life was perfect. The perfect vacation. The perfect boyfriend. The perfect friend. Above all else, the perfect way in which the way she never had to struggle was because, above all else, she had opportunities given to her that most people would never have on their own.  After taking a short break from Entitled White Woman, I started to feel bad about my anger and jealousy. Just because she’s happy, doesn't mean I can’t be a part of it. In the background, I was planning a birthday party to include some of my closest friends to come out and spend my 30th birthday with me. If you can’t beat them, then ask them to join you, right? Upon telling her that I was planning a 30th birthday with several of our mutual friends and seeing all of my friends in one spot would help, she said, “I don’t know, I can’t plan that far out because I don’t know what Fuckface will be doing, and I’ll have to plan around what he wants.” I then remembered how the last two times I saw her in person, was also dictated based off what her date wanted, not what her and I wanted. I started lose hope in our friendship. To which I replied, “Look, I’m happy for you and all, but I want to see everyone for my birthday.  My loneliness is crippling me. I’ve spent the last four birthdays in a row by myself since moving to Colorado and spent every single holiday by myself since moving here. I know that’s not anyone else’s problem but mine, but I don’t want to go into my 30’s alone. I need my friends.” After a moment, she said, replied, “Look, Thanksgiving is coming up in a few weeks. How about I call you and we can drink tea together, and eat food together virtually. I know we can’t be physically together, but I’d love to do this!” I started to calm down and started to feel reassured about our friendship.  That was until when Thanksgiving came around, and she was nowhere to be found. She didn’t call, or text, like she had promised… A week later, she apologized for ditching because she was busy with her new boo, and she was busy having the most magical time with Fuckface. Then, she said, “I’ve also been writing new music!”  Then, in a jolt of anger, I replied, “How’s my book coming along? It’s been a minute, and was curious how far along you were in it?” She then hesitantly replied, “Oh, I haven’t read it. I’ve been very busy lately, and things are going so well with Fuckface.”  Then, I replied, “So how do you expect me to be supportive of you and your art, if you can’t be supportive of me and my art?” She then replied, “I’m sorry. I know it’s been one-way lately, but I don’t have the capacity to give at the moment.” I read that text and realized that was the exact moment I lost all of my love for her. Not only did I lose my love for her, I now harbored resentment towards her. I realized that not only was she had the privilege of living a life I’ll never get to experience but realized that she was using me as a cheerleader, and somewhere along the way, she stopped cheering me on back.  Now, dear reader, she can’t help that she had a privileged life. She can’t help that certain things will come easier to her. However, her life turned into something that made me more and more lonely about myself. Not only was I hitting a peak with my loneliness, and struggling with feeling cared for by my friends, but talking to her started to make me feel like crap about myself. All of her ‘wins’ felt like ‘brags’. Maybe if she could have been there for me like she always had, maybe I would have been able to keep cheering her on.  But I couldn’t. I was angry. I was jealous. And even now, I am lonely. I’m just human.  Even now, none of my friends have read my book, and although I wrote it for myself, I wish I had never shared it with any of them. The hurt that came from no one in my life reading my work, and not reading a piece of writing that I bled for, was soul-crushing.  I don’t know where to go from here, and I haven’t talked to Entitled White Woman all year this year. I just know that I miss having her in my life, despite that I can’t have her in my life.  I don’t have a conclusion to this, except, life is complex and messy. And so am I… Thank you, dear reader, for coming back this week.  I will see you next week, as, next week’s post will conclude this series.  Thank you for making it this far. I appreciate you. With all my love, ~Cody Wade Aka The Oolong Drunk “Blissfully Tea Drunk”

Hello, dear reader! How has your week been? Have you had an enjoy able end to your spring? Hopefully you’ve been able to enjoy better weather outside before it gets too hot.  Speaking of things that are hot, let’s jump right into spilling today’s tea and go over sex. Specifically, gay sex. Well, not just sex, but the context of sex with relationships. Like many topics I’ve already covered, this is probably a topic that’s already been done to death, or rather, sex’d to death.  However, in gay dating, there are two stereotypes when it comes to sex and dating. The first one is, that if you’re going to date someone, you have sex with them first and go on the date second. The other stereotype is when hooking up with a guy, you have sex first and get his name after. If you get his name before ‘the sex’, you’re automatically stuck with being friends with benefits for life. Now, I don’t always partake in gay dating/gay hookup culture, because with all of the diseases out there you can catch, there’s one above the rest that I’m the most afraid of catching: Feelings.  However, when in gay dating, regardless if you meet in person or over an app, the topic of sex is sometimes always the first to come up. Or, when talking to someone on a more interpersonal level, they’ll say they want something more serious, but will eventually revert back to wanting just sex. So while navigating the world of gay dating, I was happy when I met Christian.  Christian is a devout-him and upon matching him on a dating app, and after our basic questions, the topic went straight to sex. However, this time, it took a different route. “I want to wait for a while, I want to fall in love with someone and have romance first,” Christian said.  Which, I have been told these things before. However, what made Christian stand out above the others, is that when he asked for my Snapchat, he actually sent me a face photo.  He is the first guy in 4+ years who didn’t send me a dick pic through Snapchat.  Upon our first date, we walked around a park at sunset. We talked about life goals, our pasts, and how we grew up and shared hobbies. We eventually held hands, eventually finished each other’s sentences, and both blushed throughout the entire date. If a date watching the sun set behind the Rocky Mountain range would have been any more perfect, we would have found our way to the center of a Hallmark Channel original movie.  The next week, we went out on our second date. For this date, we dressed up, went to a nice dinner, and held hands as we walked around the downtown area of a cute mountain town. However, this time, it felt like the romance was the strongest had ever been. We both felt comfortable around each other, we laughed a lot, and it was simple, yet hopeful. I knew I wanted this guy to be my boyfriend, and I knew I wanted no one else. That is until we got back to my car. “There’s something I need to confess to you and something I was afraid to tell you early on because I was afraid you wouldn’t have given me a chance otherwise." While surprised, I replied, “Oh? Well, whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. What’s going on?” He took a deep breath as he confessed: “I don’t have sex up front and wait until I date someone for a while before I do.”  I sighed with relief and replied, “Well same! That’s what I want too!” He shrugged and continued, “No, like, I don’t have sex at all. I’m saving myself for marriage and I'm completely abstinent.” I looked at him and replied, “Oh… Like, no sex, even if you’re in a committed relationship?” He sighed and replied, “Well yeah, I’d want us to be married first. I want monogamy, but want to date someone for 3-4 years before we get engaged. It’s so frustrating because no guy will give me a chance.” I stood corrected, it can be that bad. I replied, “Well I’m down to wait a while before we explore each other sexually but if we’ve been in a serious relationship for a period of time, I’d want us to do so something. Lovemaking is important because although I don’t like rushing into things quickly, I am a sexual person.” He looked away and replied, “Would you have even gone out with me if you knew thins?” I replied, “Well, I don’t know. No? Maybe? But, by you not bringing it up, you never gave me the option to have that choice either. Because you’re not just wanting someone to be your boyfriend, you’re asking someone to share abstinence with you -- which is such a massive request to throw in someone’s direction.” He looked sad, and if I'm being truthful, I was sad too. We both parted ways and didn’t go out again… However, I didn’t give up. After a few more months of talking to different guys about going out, only to be sent nude photos in return, I was just about to give up on the idea of dating altogether until I got a message from Forehead.  Forehead lived on the other side of the metroplex, and to my surprise, he also led our conversation by sending me a photo of his face. He was fully clothed in his photo, which seemed to be a rarity for the gay community. He had a decent job and also loved cats. This eventually led to a week-long flirtationship that lasted all week, until we eventually went to dinner. At dinner, we had a conversation that flowed naturally. We clicked immediately, both wanted a serious long-term relationship and at the end of dinner, it felt like we had already been dating for months on end. It felt so natural and so effortless. It felt like another instance of ‘meant to be’.  But as you know dear Reader, this is my blog we’re talking about. I don’t normally share things with you unless they end in disaster.  A few days after my date with Forehead, he and I talked about going on more romantic dates and talking about romantic dates led to the conversation of sex.  After talking about having similar interests in the bedroom, he said, “Yeah, we should hook up next time instead of going out.” This surprised me. Given that he was more interested in romance, and given his demeanor up to this point, I didn’t expect him to be so blunt with it.  To which I replied, “If being honest, I’m burned out on hookup culture. Would rather go out more and fall for each other before we explore that.  To which he replied, “But how am I supposed to fall in love with you unless we have sex first?” I was taken by surprise.  I replied, “So you need to have sex with someone first before you can decide if you want to be with them or not? You can’t develop feelings naturally without it?” To which he replied, “I refuse to enter a relationship with someone unless we have sex first because I need to know how good the sex is before I know if I can fall in love with someone or not. We have the same sexual interests anyway, so I’m sure we’ll click with that. I’m not sure why you’re becoming so prude all of the sudden.” My heart dropped to my stomach as I replied, “I’m not a prude, but you just objectified me and reduced who I am as a person, to just sex. I may be a sexual person, but I also know I’m more than that, and won’t continue further.” To which he replied, “That’s sad, I really liked you too. Good luck on your search.” Dear reader, I must tell you, I felt gaslit by him.  But also, I started to wonder: Is sex ruining dating for me? Well, I’ll be forward and say, I’m just as sexual as anyone else. I’m not anymore, or any less, than the average person. However, is it wrong to want to find human connection first? In a world of social media where gay men are subjected to connect with each other through the naked lens, wouldn’t it be easier to open myself up more to having hookups in hopes of finding someone?  I might could. I might have found someone if I went about this differently, but that would mean that I’d be changing my morals for the realm of dating — the same realm that reduces gay men to sex or personable connection. Why would I become more materialistic when materialism in dating has already brought me so much frustration? Why can’t there be a middle ground?  At the end of the day, I’ll go to bed at night alone with the hope that I can find a middle ground with someone out there. I hope that one day, the right guy will come along and make this easy, and will make this easy with me.  In the meantime, we’re sexual. We’re flawed. Above all else — gay dating is not perfect, but neither am I.  However, until I meet the guy who’ll meet me in the middle ground, these guys can fuck themselves and I’ll fuck myself, too.  Thank you, dear reader for reading today’s segment of the blog series. I hope you’re able to have a wonderful week this week, and I can’t wait to spill even more tea with you next week.   Until then, ~Cody Wade Aka The Oolong Drunk “Blissfully Tea Drunk With…”

Hello hello, dear reader! How has your week been? Did you drink a yummy tea this week? By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you, have you ever been to a drag show before?  First things first: Drag is an art form, and many local drag artists perform for little-to-nothing. Now, not that I’m trying to get all preachy on you, but go support local drag!  However, today, I’m going to tell you about how I tried to date two different drag queens, and how it was a disaster.  (It killed me to not say ‘dating them was a drag’ by the way.) Note: This story is NSFW, and intended for mature readers. First, we need to travel back in time to last fall.  Last fall, I was in-between jobs. When I left my place of work (which was the one mentioned in last week’s post), I was slated to start a new job. Due to the hurricane that hit Florida and the floods that hit the Smoky Mountain Range, my start date for the new place of work was delayed. In these 6 weeks of not working, I decided to go out in the city more often. Cause, why not? I’m single, can stay up late, and won't be able to do this forever. So I started going to different drag events downtown.  This is where I met Lipstick Teeth. Lipstick Teeth is a drag queen in the city whom I met, and after some time, we built a very close friendship. One night, she invited me to a show she was hosting, and I came out to support her. Out of all of her friends, I was the only one to show up. In fact, the venue was relatively empty. Lipstick Teeth was cute, and despite that they were corny (and although their make-up was smeared) they sold the bit very well. I wouldn’t rank them high on the list of drag performers, but they tried.  Eventually, Lipstick Teeth and I started chatting more and more. As our friendship developed, I noticed something: They posted a snapchat story that said, “There’s a boy I like, wish he’d finally ask me out.” I stared hard at it, and in a sense, it almost felt like it was directed at me. Lipstick Teeth and I had been talking on a regular basis, and there were light flirtations in some of their texts. After taking a bit of time, I eventually asked Lipstick Teeth out.  However, after texting back and forth for several weeks and trying to get our schedules lined-up, I eventually offered to drive into the city to meet them. They replied, “I would love for you to drive down, but, you don’t live in the city. Sometimes I want to hang out and it’s hard with you being the next town over. I would hang out with you in an instant, but, you don’t live in downtown.” I stared at my phone and felt disappointed. I had driven to the city many times to befriend and support Lipstick Teeth, and yet, I felt crushed because all of our connection was intently redacted to being conditional and convenient. I’m not gonna lie, dear reader, that this hit me particularly hard. I had been rejected by many city gays before for not living right in downtown. However, this person in particular grew to know me as a person, and yet, still reduced our connection to something as materialistic as me living 30 minutes outside of downtown. I quickly removed Lipstick Teeth from my social media and parted ways. Later that night, I was feeling distraught. So, I went to do the one thing that I enjoyed doing: Go watch drag. You see, dear reader, I love going to drag for many reasons. However, the top reasons are, I get to be surrounded by other people on the queer-spectrum, which makes me feel like I belong. Another reason is the escape from it all. Every time I’ve watched a drag show, I’ve always felt more refreshed, confident, and loved than I did before. I could go further into why, but for the sake of moving today’s story along, I’ll continue… That night, I ran into another drag-queen friend whom I already known named Samantha. Samantha was a house-queen at this particular gay bar I frequented, and she was more than phenomenal. Samantha was born to be a performer, and every time they performed, there was a stillness in the air. They were, and still are, incredibly special.  Later that night, Samantha came out on the patio, and she and I chatted for a bit. We even went to the dance floor and danced with each other for a bit. Eventually, we exchanged numbers and parted ways for the night. Later the next day, I was on a dating app (one of the serious ones, not the hook-up ones) and saw a guy named ‘Samuel’ on my screen.  Although I had never seen this person before, I immediately knew it was Samantha, just not in drag.  I had never seen Samantha’s boy self before, but I instantly knew it was them.  My face lit up as I swiped right -- hoping that we’d match. We didn’t.  However, a week later, I went back up to the bar and went to a drag-show led by Samantha. Just like always, Samantha was incredible. She didn’t only steal the show, she was the show. Samantha was cute, bubbly, and worked the audience with such ease. Seeing Samantha was the highlight of the night. After the show ended, Samantha and I hung out again. We danced, hung out on the patio, and shared a drink. Then, after I left, I opened my phone to a text from Samantha. “Look, I don’t know if you’d feel the same, and I hope it’s not awkward to say so, but I really like you and I’ve liked you all year. I really think we could be good together, and we could make an incredible couple. I know I perform a lot, but I know you can handle it, but I really like you and hope you feel the same.”  My heart melted.  With the largest smile on my face, I replied and said, “Yes! I’ve liked you for a long time as well. Before we make anything official, let’s go out and spend time together. I want to meet Samuel. I know Samantha, but I want to see Samuel too.” They replied, “Yes! Let’s go out. I’ll be busy this next weekend, with work stuff but lets grab dinner sometime after.” We agreed on a date, and everything was set in motion. That next weekend, I went out again. Samantha was performing, and we wanted to see each other. I walked into the performance room, and Samantha ran up and hugged me. She called me cutie, and I called her cutie was well. Despite that she was busy, she looked like she wanted to spend more time with me, but, had to leave and start the show.  Halfway through the show, in between sets, Samantha asked the audience if she could have 4 volunteers from the audience to play a game while waiting for the 2nd set. I immediately stood up and volunteered. While standing on stage alongside 3 other volunteers, Samantha brought out a large box and handed all of us a wig, and announced to the crowd that we’d be taking turns performing drag, and whichever person got the most cheers from the audience, would win a prize. I blushed, and had no idea that I had volunteered to do drag, and on the spot. However, its as okay, because Samantha was there. I felt safe around her. I knew that I’d be okay. Samantha pulled me back stage, and as the DJ was getting my track ready, Samatha guided me to the middle of the stage curtain. She fixed my wig, and then spoke into her microphone and announced, “Next we have Cody, whose going to perform Green Light by Lorde!” The crowd cheered, and as they did, Samantha stopped.  She slowly leaned up, guided my chin up, and softly kissed me on the lips.  In that moment, all time had stopped. The music, the stage lights, and the audience’s cheering came to a deafening halt. It was her lips on mine.  That was the exact moment I knew definitively that I wanted to be with her, too. She stepped away and pulled the curtain back. As she did, I continued on to perform Lorde…. Side-note: I know my peformance was something lol. But hey I got $4 in tips at least.  The next week, I got a text from Samuel an hour before our date.  “Hey, I’m SO so sorry, but can we reschedule dinner? Work called me to come in last minute. Can we do Friday?” I replied and said, “Sure, let’s do Friday then!” On Friday, around the time I was leaving to drive down to see Samuel, he texted, “Hey, I have to go into work again and I can’t tell them no. Can we aim for Sunday?” Then on Sunday, they texted, “Hey they double-booked me last minute as a fill-in, can we do next weekend?” And that next weekend, they texted and said, “I have to cancel, but I know for sure I’ll be free on Tuesday.” Then, I got upset. At this point, I had been canceled on the time-of, 4 times in a row and had been talking to Samuel romantically for over three weeks and still couldn’t go on a single date. I was getting tired and that spark was practically gone. I replied, “Hey, this isn’t working for me. If you’re too busy, I understand. But, I don’t think it’s fair to tell me you want me and need me, and cancel on me the time-of our date.” Samuel replied, “I know, and I’m sorry, I’m just busy and I can’t help it. Being a performer is a lot.” To which I replied, “Yeah, but so many of the drag performers at your work get booked as much as you do. However, they’re all in relationships, and they’re always doing things with their partner. If you really wanted it to work, you’d make time. However, I want you too, but it’s not fair to endlessly dangle a carrot in front of my face and nothing ever happens. I have feelings, too.” Then, Samuel texted and replied, “…I’m sorry.” And that was the last time we texted. Later that night, I went back to the club to dance. Samuel was working at a different event that night, so I didn’t have to worry about seeing him. However, this time, I avoided watching drag and dance on the dance floor all night. I wanted a distraction from my distraction. I was still heart-broken from Samuel, and you know what they say; the best way to get over someone is to be under someone else (or in this case, on top of someone else). However, as the night progressed (and after a shot), I was curiously growing Grindr when I got a message from a tall wwink. They had a shirtless-torso photo, and after chatting for a bit, we agreed to meet up.  I got in my car and as I began to leave, I asked them for a face photo. Then, right after, they sent me a selfie.  It was Lipstick Teeth.  "Fuck the community is small" , I thought to myself. I held my breath as I sent them a face photo of myself, hesitant about how they’d reply. “Oh hey, nice to see you again,” they said.  I replied, “Yeah. Given our history, I don’t know meeting is a good idea or not. I just broke it off with Samantha. I also wanted to date you as well, but look how well that went. I don’t want this to further affect our connection.” Lipstick Teeth replied, “Well, I don’t mind. You can still come over, and we can still fool around. It won't mess anything up.” I hesitantly replied, “Yeah, but I wanted to be with you in a romantic way. I don’t want a hookup from you. I really wanted to date you.” Liptstick teeth replied, “I don’t know, I thought I wanted you too, but I don’t know what I want right now. I mean, I still want you.” I then questioned further, “So if you want me, then be real with me. Do you actually want me or not? Because you keep telling me you want me, but you can’t meet me halfway to make it work. So which is it?” There was a pause between replies, and after a moment, Lipstick Teeth replied, “I do want you but I don’t think we should date. You live too far… But you can still swing by and we can still fuck bare if you want. It would be hot if you left your load in me.” I looked at my phone, and without hesitation, I blocked their profile…. It’s safe to say I didn’t go back to the club for at least several months. So what did I learn from that this? Is dating Drag Queens really a drag?  (I know I said I wouldn’t say it, but I lied.) First things first, I learned to never date an employee of any establishment that I frequent ever again, especially if it’s a gay space. For myself, there are not many safe spaces and gay spaces for gay people to exist freely. Given that the spaces we have are limited, I don’t want to have to further dilute the few options for safe spaces I already have. For as large as the gay community is, it’s still too damn small. Second, I don’t think I’ll ever date a performer again. Now, this isn’t to say that my experience with Samantha or Lipstick Teeth would ever be repeated again. However, I don’t want to put myself in a situation where my connection to someone is conditional on their inability to have a healthy work-life balance. Or, put myself in a situation where my connection to someone is conditional on something like living 15 minutes outside of a city-gay's driving radius.  In the end, we can only be so flexible and forgiving before we need to start being forgiving to ourselves.  You need to be fleible for yourself. The way that I'm flexible, is know that I'll drive any distance for myself. How about you, dear reader? Are you remembering to forgive yourself? Will you go the distance for you? After all, you’ve always been here for me, and never made my distance conditional <3 Try and take care of yourself this week, dear reader.  Until next week, ~Cody Wade Aka The Oolong Drunk “Blissfully Tea Drunk”

Hello hello, dear reader! Welcome back! How has your week been? Have you been giving yourself grace? What about turning off the news and giving yourself a break from politics and other current events? It’s okay friend! You’re allowed to disconnect from those things, because let’s face it, seeing that kind of content over and over again can be mentally, emotionally, and physically draining. However, for myself, I use my tea blog as a way to disconnect from the chaos of the world, and to have a moment of peace to myself. However, what happens when that peace is disrupted and our bubble is infiltrated? Well, we can only curate a personal bubble for ourselves to a certain extent. For most of us, ignorance is bliss but we can’t always choose to be ignorant.  As for myself? When the 2024 election rolled around, it was all anyone was talking about.  Now, without getting into a political discussion (which is not the point of me telling you this, dear reader), I’ll be forward in telling you that this election was relatively scary for me in particular. After coming out of the closet as gay at age 19, I’ve run into a sleuth of issues regarding my sexuality including becoming homeless, having a gun pointed at me, and being fired from my job over being gay… I even detailed it more in-depth here in my pride essay titled ‘If Gay Means Happy’ ( link here ). With media frenzies and fear over losing more of my rights, including Project 2025’s initiative to revoke federally protected equal marriage, I had a lot of anxiety surrounding the election. When expressing this to my grandma, she said, “Why are you worried about your right to marry? You aren’t getting married anyway!”  lol. Love you too, Grandma. Anywho.  This is where we’ll introduce one of my longest-running running tea friends. For the purpose of this story, we’ll call him Mother’s Basement Incel. Mother’s Basement Incel and I have had a long-running friendship within my freelance career in tea. We met over social media, and when starting my blog journey, Mother’s Basement Incel was incredibly funny, and in fact, that was one of the main reasons why I admired him. He was, and still is, one of the main inspirations for adding humor to my blog.  However, despite my long-lasting friendship with Mother’s Basement Incel, I started to notice a pattern with him: Every year or so, he’d get into drama with other tea people, would get kicked out of various discord channels, and would eventually continue to offend multiple other people as well. At one point or another, I started to question my connection with him myself and begged the question: How much longer until we have a falling out? After all, given how frequently it happened to him, it felt inevitable. I almost experienced this earlier last year when I told him I wrote a book, and it took a year’s worth of hard work to complete. He responded and said that he was writing a book and was using AI to do so.  For the record dear reader, using AI to write a book is not writing a book. It’s the equivalent of driving 26.2 miles and claiming you ran a marathon because you traveled the same distance. As much as I wanted to argue it with him, I decided to let it go. After reflecting on last year's ‘Spilling The Tea’ series, I was admitted to not starting any arguments with any friends — regardless if I felt justified or not.  However, that didn’t last long. One morning, coming up on the election, I opened my social media feed to see that Mother’s Basement Incel posted a meme, of an AI photo of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump sitting at a table by each other, debating if soda can be served in a teacup or not. Instantly, I became irritated. Not only was tea my mental block away from politics, but was also irritated because the election wasn’t funny. In fact, the potential that my safety as an individual rode on this election, was more than upsetting. While irritated, I left a comment under the meme and said something along the lines of, “I don’t think this is funny, there’s too much going on in this election to make it humorous.” Then, almost instantly after, Mother’s Basement Incel sent me a private message that read, “Hey, I deleted your comment. Don’t EVER do that again or our friendship is over.”  In an instant rage, I replied, “Ok then, consider our friendship over.”  I then immediately blocked him. While trying to calm down from my spike of adrenaline, I received a message from two separate friends, who said, “Hey, we just saw Mother’s Basement Incel’s Instagram story. What happened?!” While not wanting to involve other people in the drama, I replied, “I don’t know, what does his story say?” One of my friends then sent me a screenshot of his Instagram story, which read something along the lines, “Well, Cody blocked me. I’ll look forward to showing up in his blog series!”  It was safe to say, this was annoying. So many questions were running through my mind. Was I wrong to comment that I didn’t find the election funny? Should I have just unfollowed him? Or, did he antagonize me to just get a reaction out of me, and manipulate me to write about him on my blog? Or yet again, is this another instance of someone wrongly perceiving me as someone who is angry and ready to fight because of a parasocial relationship he had with me?  In last week’s post , I detailed how I struggled with various people in my life taking the wrong thing from my blog, and cherry-picking how they view me. Now that one of my longest tea friendships has crumbled, did he push my buttons just to make it on my blog? Well first, congratulations to him. I let him become a self-fulfilling prophecy on my blog by posting this. Second, was I being overly sensitive over politics and inserted myself where I shouldn’t have?  Well, I might have been extra sensitive to politics, but for good reason. However, I was already anticipating that he’d pick a fight with me eventually, so was I unintentionally provoking him knowing that it was inevitable? I wasn’t. I probably shouldn’t have commented anything at all. However, is it really worth keeping someone in your life if you can’t have open dialogue with them, such as finding their politics tone-deaf and insensitive?  After thinking on this, I’ve concluded that any strong friendship can withstand anything as minimal as a criticism on a meme, much less political viewpoints.  Although I’ve gone back and forth on this, I’ve concluded that the friendship had already been over by that point, and if I really didn’t like seeing what he was posting, I could have unfollowed him and moved on to avoid any drama. However, I was already put off by this friendship by Mother’s Basement Incel’s boasting of their use of AI. Given I was already apprehensive about this friendship ending, maybe it wasn’t worth it for me to keep my mouth shut anyway. Perhaps it wasn’t worth it for me to keep this friendship any longer… However dear reader, our friendship is not typical — it’s not a friendship that can easily be rattled by politics, much less an AI meme. I know that I can come to you with anything, but just know that you can come to me with anything, even criticisms, and we’ll still be friends at the end of the day. I hope you have a great rest of your week dear reader, and hope you have a wonderful tea.  Until next week, ~Cody Wade Aka The Oolong Drunk “Blissfully Tea Drunk”

Dear reader, Hello, old friend! It’s been quite some time, hasn't it? How have you been? Have you been drinking good tea lately?  Speaking of tea, the last time I spilled tea to you was last year when I wrapped up my first series titled ‘Spilling The Tea’. After writing the series for 8 consecutive weeks , I was tired. I needed a break. I needed outside of my own head. However, since we last talked, I’ve done a lot more reflection on some of the events that I’ve experienced over the past year or so. There’s still so much that needs to get out. So, dear reader, fasten your seatbelt and heat up your kettle. This is Part 1 of ‘Spilling MORE Tea’… To get into today’s story, I’ll need to add context.  I started my blog 9 years ago, intending to review tea. At the time, would have never imagined that I’d eventually show my face on my blog, much less talk about my life to you in such an intimate setting. I mainly focused on reviewing teas and analyzing the tea industry from an objective point of view. However, after several years of trying to remove myself from the narrative, I ran into an issue: My writing could only go so far because as much as I wanted to be objective, the way you perceive tea is entirely subjective.  Eventually, I began writing pieces that were more opinion-forward, and eventually, started sharing my face on social media. As a side note, I wanted to mention that when I initially shared my face on social media, I lost around 100 followers because many followers believed I was a woman.  As time went on, I eventually shared more opinion pieces, launched a tea talk show, and began traveling across the country to speak at tea-industry events.  After a bit of time, I began to realize something: The more I was my authentic self through my blog, the happier I became. The more authentic I was through my blog, the more friends I started to make through blogging. Above all else, the more I was authentic on my blog, the more I was validating to myself that I was, in fact, valid for being myself — not because of the approval of other people, but because I was receiving the validation I needed from the one person who matters the most: Myself.  However, despite that, I was meeting some of the most special people I had ever met, I quickly became confronted with one dilemma: How much authenticity is too much authenticity?  Last year, when I launched the first ‘Spilling The Tea’ series, I received a lot of positive feedback. Generally, on my blog, my most popular and most read blog posts were my year-end blog anniversary posts, where I ‘spilled the tea’ on that year’s drama. Because of the praise I often got for my down-to-earth look at some of the issues I faced in the tea industry, I decided to launch the ‘Spill The Tea’ series.  Although I received a lot of praise, I also began to receive a lot of condemnation.  After posting the first ‘Spilling The Tea’, where I talked about cutting a friend from my life named Lilly who stood me up multiple times , I received a phone call from one of my friends named Tom.  For context, Tom and I met through Lilly, and throughout our friendship, we had one common connection: We were both burned by Lilly. While I was being stood up by her, Tom was being stood up by her, too. There’s more to the story, but the short version is, Lilly walked over Tom, and Tom struggled with maintaining a friendship with Lilly as well. Outside of Lilly, we also bonded over our commonality of being gay and got along well.  Well, up until launching my series.  Tom called, and upon answering, I quickly realized he was upset.  “I know Lilly did you wrong, and what she did was horrible and was relationship-ending, but I think what you did was worse. Although she wronged you, it was horrible of you to talk about how she hurt you on your blog.” Taken by surprise, I replied, “My blog isn’t about shading anyone I come into contact with. My blog series is about how I react to certain situations in life, in hopes that it can help someone else in a similar situation. If I talk about how her actions hurt me, and she doesn’t like it, then that’s not my problem!” Tom replied, “But it is your problem! Sure, she was rude and she treats us horribly, but that’s not an excuse to talk about how you feel. It’s not about you!” To which I further replied, “When her actions affected me, then her actions no longer belonged to her! My feelings are my feelings, and this is about me! So what? I’m supposed to be an emotionless punching bag for someone else, and never write about my life and my life experiences? Besides, this has nothing to do with you! Why are you inserting yourself in this?” Tom replied, “Because I know Lilly is a shitty friend, but she’s still my friend! This is about me! Besides, you talked about my friend like this, and on my birthday of all days?! How could you do this to me!!” At that moment, I realized I had lost the narrative completely. I know my friendship with Tom was over, and I knew there was no going back from my series either. No matter how many times I could articulate it, this is a series about how I reacted to life stations — not a series to shade random bystanders in my life who unexpectedly get caught in the crossfire. Because that’s not what I wanted, and now he made it about him… After the end of my ‘Spilling The Tea’ series, I took a short break to disassociate myself from my blog. Although the journey was healing, it was also tiring. I did 8 weeks of back-to-back blog posts, and I needed to rest. To help take a break from my blog, I doubled down on making reels and content creation for my blog’s social media pages. Given that I was more comfortable with my own voice, I decided to reflect that in my social media content. A lot of my reels became sillier, goofier, and most importantly, they started to become more authentically happy. However, this created another issue.  One day, I walked into work and got confronted by a coworker.  “Cody!! I saw your reel! You were NAKED on your reel!!”  I did a side-eye and asked her what she was talking about. She then pulled up a video on her phone of her screen-recording my reel. It was a reel of me advertising my pop-up shop on my blog (which you can see here ). Two things came to mind: One, how did she know my blog’s social media account? I never shared it with her. Two, why did she take a screen recording of my blog on her personal phone? Well, after a conversation with her in regards to respecting boundaries regarding keeping my private life private, and my work-life separate, she said she deleted her screen recording and never spoke of it again... Until I got called into my manager’s office in regards to promoting pornography on my blog. She showed me a screen-grab that was 'anonymously' sent to her, which was the same screen grab my co worker showed me. I left the meeting fuming and combed through every single one of my followers until I found her account (which was a burner account) and blocked her from my social media. Shortly thereafter, I left the company and found a new job. So if I’m being ‘too’ authentic on my blog, that oversharing has become a problem, and now, oversharing has become a problem for social media… I decided to slowly take a step back from both and revert to my early-blog days on talking only about tea. There for a short (very) short period, I told myself I’d stop sharing about my life in general, and decided that in the time-being, my life would be for my eyes only, and for no one else… As you can tell, dear reader, we’re back for ‘Spilling The Tea’ round two, so you know it didn’t last but a total of two weeks… lol.  After a few weeks of taking a back seat, I went out with a guy named Loser. Loser was in graduate school in Boulder and was looking to date someone more seriously. After having an effortless chat on a dating app, we agreed to go out. We met up for dinner, hung out at my apartment after, and made out. It was a wonderful night, and after agreeing to go out again, things finally started to even out. He felt like he could have been the one.  That was until I woke up the next morning from a lengthy text from him.  Loser texted me and said, “Hey, I had a magical night. I was thinking you could be the one, until I googled you. I found your blog, and I didn’t like what I saw. I think it’s terrible that you’ve normalized having no filter on your blog series, and find it scary that if I were to ever do you wrong, then I might end up as a talking point on one of your ‘tea spilling’ posts. I liked the person I met, but I don’t like the person I’m seeing online. This isn’t going to work.” I looked at my text and angrily replied, “You had no right to make an assumption about me based on a para-social image of me on the internet. You had no reason to be a talking point in my blog series — until now. Congrats, you just made yourself the star of my new series.”  Safe to say, he blocked me. However, I was pretty upset. I felt like I couldn’t win. If I’m authentic and telling my truth on my blog, then I’m oversharing in a way that will interfere with my interpersonal relationships. If I’m authentic and being my truth on social media, then I’m too excessive in a way that will interfere with my work life. If I stay off of both and pull back on both, I’ll still face the repercussions of what I put on why blog regardless.  So why hide? Is the very thing that brightens my life, so much love and joy, also ruining my life? (Melodramatic, I know. But I did promise melodrama.) Here’s what I learned:  First, everything online stays online. I can’t go back and change something I said on my blog from the past. Not that I want to change it, but ignoring it would just present an older version of myself to live on. As we grow and change, why would I want an older version of myself to be the current perception of me? I might as well continue the journey, in that case.  Second, I learned that there’s no such thing as my ‘authentic’ self on my blog. Between my old friend, my old coworker, and the guy I dated, they all took a small piece of who I am and made the assumption that I’m that entire thing. They all view me differently; however, does that make them wrong?  Well, yes.  They saw different facets of me and cherry-picked it to use as an excuse to dislike me. If someone is doing that, there’s a good chance that they probably didn’t really like the other version of you to begin with.  Whatever singular version of me they saw is still a version of me. If they don’t like it, it’s not like I can change that. It’s really not my problem.  I’m a complex human being. My ‘blog’ self, my ‘work’ self, and my ‘social’ self are all three different people, because who I am is dependent on who interacts with me in any given moment. In that moment, we can’t change how people view us or judge us.  So what should we do? The best thing we can do is to try to be our most honest selves in any given moment. Above all else, live our own truths for ourselves. We are the only person who sees every version of ourselves. As for me, I will continue to write on my blog as I see fit. This is not a series to shade or slander anyone who gets caught in any cross-fire. Rather, this is a series to share my life experiences with you because deep down, I never got the peace and resolution that I needed to move on. I need to heal, and sharing these experiences with you is what's going to help me answer the one question I keep asking myself repeatedly: Was it all worth it? Thank you, dear reader, for seeing and accepting this version of me. Also, thank you for coming back for ‘Spilling More Tea’. Coming back to you has felt like a warm hug.  I will write to you again next week. However, in the meantime, drink a tea that makes you feel warm and fuzzy. Thank you, dear reader. Until next time, ~Cody Wade Aka The Oolong Drunk  “Blissfully Tea Drunk”

Spilling The Tea: Cutting Toxic People Out of Our Lives (Post 1) ~ Hello hello! Welcome to a new series called ‘Spilling The Tea’. In this series, I’ll be giving ‘the tea’ about various life circumstances,and fleshing out the best possible route to resolving various dilemmas that we all might face at some point or anothe. Think of this as agossip/advice fusion that Carrie Bradshaw would do in Sex in the City — except, more gay, more melodramatic, and more personable (and not all about dating). For me, I sometimes experience a lot of zany and outlandish situations where I don’t necessarily receive any sort of closure or validation. With this series, I'll give myself the closure I need by writing these stories. As I find my own closure, maybe it can help you, the reader, find some sort of closure with a similar shared life experience as well. To launch the very first ‘Spilling The Tea’ series, We’ll be going over something that has become more prevalent in today’s society: Cutting toxic people out of our lives.  I did this recently. A few weeks ago, I said goodbye to a near two-year friendship.  This friendship started two years ago when someone local to my area reached out to me on Instagram. They followed me, and I followed them back. Shortly thereafter, we started talking and became social media friends. Her name was Lilly (well, for the sake of this story, that’ll be her name), and Lilly was very supportive of my blog and my tea journey. However, last year, we started entertaining the idea of going out tougher. We’d make plans to meet for tea, make plans to meet up to go out to the club, etc. Every time, she’d cancel. Some of the times, she’d cancel the day of. Two of the times, I had pulled up to the tea shop when she canceled. One of the times, I went to the tea shop, waited for an hour, and didn’t hear back from her until that night/the next day.  I was becoming weary of this friendship. Though, after some time had passed, Lilly and I talked again and made plans to go to a nightclub together. A week later, that same day, she canceled. When I asked her when she’d be free next, she said, “Oh, I’m leaving for Nevada for the summer, I won't be back until September/October (4-5 months later). I went to her profile, went to block her, and hovered my finger over the block button. Before blocking her, I remember thinking about how I didn’t have any friends in Colorado yet. I also remember how I wasn’t in a position to cut off one of the only connections I had here — despite it being a shit one. So, I went to her profile and muted her profile instead (so, I wouldn’t be able to see her posts on my feed) and moved on. Months would pass, and she’d react to my stories or comment on my posts, and I wouldn’t respond. I wouldn’t reply. I had just moved on.  Eight months had passed (now the spring of this year) and I got a new message from Lilly. She said that she and her boyfriend had rented an Airbnb near the tea shop I frequented (the same tea shop I had been stood up by her previously), and insisted that we finally meet for the very first time. After letting go of some of the flakiness of the past, I decided to give it a shot. I had nothing to lose anyway, right?  So, on the day of, I arrived and got a table for us. Half an hour later, and right when I was packing up to leave, I looked up and Lilly was walking in.  She finally arrived. Hot damn. She was a real person, and not just a winter flake that fell from the sky after all. Long story short, we had a great time. We hung out for several hours, and after, made plans to hang out again. To my surprise, we actually hung out again. We got breakfast, went shopping, and created a new memory.  Another time after, Lilly brought one of her best friends along, and we all three hung out. And the time after that, she brought another few friends. Before I knew it, I had a small group of friends I could call on, hang out with, and socialize with.  A few months later, Lilly announced that her job was relocating her for the summer, and she’d be leaving again. She worked for a branch of the government. Essentially, she would take contracts, but, would have to temporarily move across the state/country to fulfill these contracts.  This actually explained why she would disappear for months at a time, but despite so, she had made promises to us in the group that she’d come back and visit. She made promises that we’d all get to see her. Since she had been consistent in our friendship up to that point, I had no reason to doubt her.  Except, some of her friends and I had made plans to drive over to her new temporary home, and visit her for a very specific weekend. We planned on going on the first weekend of June because the first weekend of June is the anniversary of my dad’s passing. This time of year is always hard on me, and for over the past decade, I have always spent this day alone. Or, I’d have no one to call, talk to, or spend time with, on this day. My dad died tragically, and every year on this day, it comes back up again and I'm reminded how much I miss him. Every year on this particular day, I struggle.  However, I was now going to take a mini road trip with Lilly's friend instead of spending it alone. I'd be surrounded by good company, and I wouldn't be left to wallow in it. For the first time in over a decade, I wouldn’t be spending this day alone. I took two days off work for this trip, and a plan was set in motion.  Except, it didn’t happen.  The week of, on Wednesday, Lilly announced that she’d be driving down to the city instead. So, her friends and I made plans to hang out on Saturday and do something as a group instead. We'd have a game night. With a new plan in motion, I asked her on Thursday if she and I could go to the lake together on the night of my dad’s passing (Sunday night). She said she’d love to and would message me later to verify the time and place.  I texted her Friday to verify plans, and she said she was busy at work and would message me later.  Saturday arrived, and I still didn't hear from her. Saturday night arrived, and I went to our friend’s house for game night. I asked if they heard from Lilly, and they said she canceled on them and would be coming Sunday instead.  Sunday arrived, and I still hadn’t heard from her.  On Sunday evening, I opened Instagram and saw she had posted to her story. On her story, Lilly was paddle boarding with a friend up near where she lived.   My anxiety and anger instantly spiked.  I sent her a text and told her that she had hurt me in our friendship. I told her that I felt really hurt that she’d texted our other friends about her plans while standing me up. On top of that, I told her that it hurt because she had told me she’d be there for me, on a very important day. I had taken PTO to spend time with her, and she backtracked our plans, stood me up, and left me hanging.  She replied and said, “I understand why you’re hurt, but I never verified a time with you. It’s not like the plan was solidified”.  I texted her a screenshot of her text that showed that she agreed to spend time with me. She replied and said,  “Look, I texted the other friends in our group because when I visit, they’re who I’m staying with. I had to let them know if I was coming. I spend all winter building friendships with people because when I go away for work over the summer, it’s hard on me. I messaged them because I need them, and they’re helping me by letting me stay with them. With my job, my schedule changes and I can’t help it. This is the way that it is.”  In one last ditch effort, I replied and said, “I’m just asking that in the future, you communicate that with me. I know you can’t help your work schedule, but I’m just asking that you communicate if you have to cancel on me so that way, I’m not being stood up. For our friendship, moving forward, this is all I’m asking. Just basic communication.”  After a few minutes, she read my text and didn’t reply.  Fifteen minutes later, I started to question why I had responded in a way that I did and gave her an out. Why did I accept that I’d allow a friend in my life to admit to me that they didn’t see the problem with standing me up? Why was I so forgiving, that I was okay with letting her ghost me and stand me up? Why did I let it be okay, and have to bed for something as simple as a text message?  Did I lower the bar so low for myself, that I had allowed myself to become desperate for the friendship and approval of someone who took no issue with hurting me in such a big way?  I sent a final text, telling her that I was moving on from our friendship. I then did what I should have done a year prior — I blocked her on all social media and blocked her number. I removed myself from her life, and I moved on.  Later the next day, I was talking with a mutual friend of hers, and he mentioned that my friendship with him or any of her friends would not be affected. But, he said, “It sucks that you burned that bridge with her. I guess you can’t go back.” This is the moment, I started to re-analyze the idea of cutting people off from my life. Was I wrong to cut off my friendship? Was I wrong to say goodbye, and was I wrong to burn that bridge?  First, I want to say:  I did not burn that bridge. I tried to fight for this friendship, and when I was met with resistance, I walked away. That doesn’t mean I burned the bridge.  The bridge burned when she stood me up and ghosted me. The bridge burned when I rearranged my work schedule and used PTO to dedicate time to this person, and they couldn’t even send a text message back.  She burned the bridge when she explained to me that she felt justified in ghosting me and standing me up… Second, it is not our responsibility to make amends with the people who hurt us. We sometimes feel the need to reach out to someone who hurt us, and give them grace, because sometimes it’s easier to give someone grace than accept that they could actually hurt us.  This will now make me ask: What’s broken within us, that we feel the need to give grace to the people who hurt us? To that, I have two answers:  First, we sometimes accept negative and toxic behavior with friends because it is sometimes better to overlook someone else’s flaws, than it is to criticize them for it. We are all not perfect, so why would we judge someone else for not being perfect?  But, does that make us desperate? For me at least, I've struggled to make new friends in Colorado since moving here. So although I’m not despite, I sometimes overlook things I know I shouldn’t, because I have nothing else. (Okay, maybe I am a tad bit desperate). Second: We sometimes give grace to the people who hurt us, because sometimes, you don’t want to see someone you love self-destruct and hurt the connection you have with them. You don’t want to see the other person in your relationship throw away your connection so easily.  However, I’ve concluded several things from this.  We can’t be so forgiving to someone else that we end up forgetting to forgive ourselves .   You can give grace to people, but not so much that you end up hurting yourself instead.  Some connections are worth saving. With some connections, it’s more than worth it to be forgiving because these people enrich our lives and add value to our souls.  If you want to know if someone deserves forgiveness, ask yourself this: Did forgiving them take effort? If you’re showing someone forgiveness, and they truly deserve forgiveness, then forgiving them won’t feel like it took any effort at all. It won’t even feel like the act of forgiveness.  However, if someone hurts you, then it’s up to YOU to love yourself.  You have to leave that connection and take care of yourself.   You simply can’t make a friend appreciate your connection with them, and above all else, you can't make a friend keep loving you.  If a friend stops loving you, then it’ll be up to you to give yourself the love that you should be receiving, instead.  I’m not perfect, and neither are you. People are complicated, but hey, so are we! I will ask of you, dear reader, to do something that I’m still practicing to do: Love yourself, be kind to yourself, and advocate for yourself for the love thatyou truly deserve. I f you ask me, “How do you be kind to yourself? How do you love yourself?”  Then I’d tell you, I have no fucking clue. But, I’m still trying. Although we don’t know how to perfectly answer that, the best we can do is keep trying.  Until the next segment of Spilling The Tea, I’ll work on coming up with an answer to that, but you can work on it too. We can compare notes with each other once we figure it out :) Until next time, ~Cody  Aka The Oolong Drunk “Blissfully Tea Drunk"

Hello hello! A few weeks ago, a social-media follower of mine forwarded a tea company to me that promoted ‘tea for men’ and they asked for my opinion. To add to this, after being in tea for over 11 years and blogging for 9, I’ve seen a lot of debates about masculinity vs femininity in tea. However, I’m here to tell you my take on this never-ending debate (and before you come at me for talking about an already talked-to-death topic, let me remind you that I’m not giving my opinion via podcast because I go to therapy to actually deal with my issues).  Question:  Is tea masculine or feminine? My short answer:  Tea is a plant and it’s whatever you project onto it. My hilarious/smart-ass answer : Neither. Tea is actually on the LGBT+ spectrum because it’s asexual and can re-produce through cellular mitosis.  My long answer:  Unfortunately, my long answer needs more context.  Throughout history, Chinese tea has always been a status symbol among Chinese emperors and monks. There’s a several-thousand-year history of tea that was exclusive to the rich, the noblemen, and the monks who consumed, grew, and produced it. While there’s no way to see how tea was viewed by Chinese commoners throughout history, we can pinpoint that the largest event to happen in tea, was when Catherine of Barganza married King Charles II of England in 1662. She was 22, and brought her love of tea to England with her from Portugal. At the time, Catherine was considered a trailblazer within the zeitgeist. Catherine was a very influential and beloved by many. As legend has it, Catherine would host parties with friends, and would tell them to bring snacks/finger foods, and they’d share snacks while she’d debut a new tea that she imported. While starting this tea club of debuting new varieties of teas, this quickly turned into the practice that we now know as ‘high tea’ or ‘afternoon tea’. With the rise in popularity of tea and British noblemen who were impressed by Catherine’s tea parties, they’d oftentimes go back to their social circles and host tea parties of their own — eventually trickling down the love of tea to everyone else. This eventually led to a trade war between England and China, which was displaced in India.  This also eventually led to explorer Robert Fortune, who famously stole tea from China and spread it to the rest of the world. This act is known as the largest act of espionage in all of recorded human history. However, tea eventually made its way to America, and the rest of the globe — following the ‘high tea’ tradition up until now in modern history.  So, how did this lead to tea culture being viewed as effeminate in America? When Lords and Ladies in England adopted high tea, oftentimes, the Ladies would make tea while the Lords would go into drawing rooms to smoke and drink whisky. However, that culture did eventually cross over into American High-Tea culture. But, that only primarily existed in affluent culture. Many people in the middle and lower class, would often drink tea until King George III passed The Tea Act in 1773 against the American Colonies.  At the time, one of the only importers of tea to America was the British East Indian Tea Company. Since they had a monopoly on tea, and since their shipments of tea were dumped into the harbor (aka The Boston Tea Party), there was no other supplier of tea available. With these two events, America transitioned into coffee. While only high society would eventually return as the ruling class that primarily consumed tea, the societal segregation of tea continued. Okay, so, there’s not a lot of information to link the class system of male vs. female social events that continued to lead to today’s viewpoint of tea being effeminate. However, you can conclude from this that the masculinity vs. femininity in tea is a uniquely American viewpoint. In the modern tea industry, it is known that commercial tea is primarily marketed towards femininity, considering that historically, women were the largest consumer base of tea in America. In fact, females represent 73% of all retail sales of tea. So, logically, if you’re running a successful business, you’d want to market your business to your largest projected consumer base.  However, as of today, you’d need to ask the question of ‘what came first, the chicken of the egg’? Did marketing come first, or did the consumer base come first?  Well, the consumer base came first, but marketing became an echo-chamber. While systematically, only the rich could afford tea, which meant that high-societal norms dictated how it was sold to them.  So how would you break the mold of tea being made masculine, or gender-neutral in America?  First things first: Tea is a plant, and ultimately, it’s already gender-neutral. That also asks the other question that I wanted to address in this op-ed: Is it sexist to market tea toward men? Over the years, I’ve seen hundreds of teas that were marketed and geared toward women’s health, but none toward men's health. So when seeing a new tea company market itself for men’s health, why is it now inherently wrong? Given that health/wellness is a necessary evil for the tea industry, and that 75% of tea drinkers are women, then why not tap into the men’s health industry as well? If anything, this feels like an opportunity to tap into a market that doesn’t quite exist yet.   From a business perspective, I’d argue that selling tea as a health/wellness product pigenholes a company from being able to expand outside of the health/wellness industry.  However, if you want an example of a tea company whose utilized gender neutral marketing and found success, you should look one of the only tea-billionaire moguls in America — George Thomas Dave. GT Dave is a gay man who marketed his tea with gender-neutral marketing, and is not just one of the richest people in the American tea industry, he’s one of the richest tea moguls in the entire world. At the end of the day, releasing a product that taste good and is as easily accessible to all, is all that it takes. Final Thoughts:  Well, in my opinion, there’s a fine line between masculinity and toxic masculinity. While I do believe there’s nothing wrong with marketing teas with a masculine-forward approach, you also have to ask: Does the marketing that promotes masculinity have inclusion? Are gay men and trans men allowed to partake, or are masculine gay women also allowed to partake? Can CIS women partake as well? Or, assuming that ‘tea for men’, and tea that’s sold with masculine marketing and it’s done in a way that’s inclusive, then would it be so bad for someone else to see themselves represented as well? Why in tea is women’s health regarded but not men’s health? Because this goes both ways, too.  On the flip side: If the societal norm in America is that tea is effeminate, when what’s wrong with men partaking? Why can’t a man feel empowered to do something that’s seen as effeminate? I mean, after all, societal norms change all of the time. Did you know that wristwatches were women’s fashion at one point? Or that wearing heels and the color pink, were also masculine at one point in history as well? So, why can’t men feel comfortable enough in their own skin to do whatever they want without judgment? Is it because straight men know how other men will view them based on the way they judge and project themselves onto other people? Overall, tea is a plant. This debate has always been an idiotic one because it’s a goddamn leaf off of a tree, after all. If a tree leaf instigates a deep insecurity within yourself in regards to your gender, then you should seriously seek therapy.   With love, ~Cody Wade aka The Oolong Drunk "Blissfully Tea Drunk"

Hello hello! Japanese Sencha tea is one of the most delectable sub-groups of tea in the entire tea industry. When done right, Japanese sencha can be a religious experience for the taste buds. However, the industry is so expansive, it can sometimes be confusing where to buy high-quality sencha.  Now that the 2025 season is in full swing, who sells the best Japanese sencha tea?  Below are my top 5 sources for Japanese sencha! Note: this list is in random order International/Japanese Sources: Ippodo Tea Link to Web Store: here Description: Ippodo Tea was founded in the year 1717, and has had a long history of selling high-quality Japanese teas ever since. While having a reputation of having some of the best Japanese teas in the entire world, their legendary reputation holds up when it comes to their sencha. Nio Japanese Tea Link to Web Store:   here Description:  Nio Japanese Teas has gained a lot of attention through their fun/campy tiktok reels. However, while being relatively new in the tea industry, they've done an expansive job at releasing incredible sencha tea to markets all over the globe. Yamasan Kyoto Uji Link to Web Store: here Description: Yamasan is a relatively new Japanese tea company, and they launched their online web store just last year. In the short amount of time they've been in operation, they've released a concentrated, yet high-quality selection of teas that are always a hit -- rarely miss. National/US Sources: Sugimoto Tea Link to Web Store: here Description: Sugimoto launched in 1946 and is a family-owned business. Although they launched in Japan, their US team has done an incredible job of bringing Sencha to the US market. Sugimoto partakes in many US tea industry events and releases an incredible product that is accessible, yet tasty. Spirit Tea Link to Web Store: here Description: Spirit Tea is the Chicago love child of multiple tea enthusiasts. They source their Japanese sencha directly from the farm and make it accessible to the US market. However, over the last few years, they've doubled down on their Japanese teas and now blow nearly everyone else in the US out of the water. ~ I hope you enjoied this list! I hope everyone get the chance to drink incredible sencha tea this year!! With love, ~Cody Wade aka The Oolong Drunk "Blissfully Tea Drunk..."

Hello hello! Around September of 2022 (18 months ago), I quietly took on the task of tasting as many mint teas as I possibly could. As of now, I've tried and tasted 54 mint teas! I tried pure mint tisanes, mint-based blends, and various other mint-oriented teas that the industry has to offer. Why did I do this? I honestly don't know. It was a compulsive action that had little-to-no thought going into it. This might be very left-field for many of my readers, and honestly, it's surprising to me too. Which mint teas did I try? Which mint teas are the best of the best? Below is my comprehensive list of categories of mint-based teas that I’ve tried over the past year, and at the end, will reveal the best mint tea that I enjoyed the most. Categories are broken down by three sub-categories, and the winners of the categories were selected by the following factors, Mint flavor profile The aroma-to-taste ratio (does the mint taste as strong as the smell? Freshness Natural sweetness Quality Accessibility & Affordability At the end, two grand-prize winners will be announced. They will win nothing, besides the gratitude of knowing that a Colorado gay favors them. Note: Multi-flavored mint-infused tea blends will be omitted from this list, as there are way too many to obtain to completely rank/judge for this list. So if you’re a fan go chocolate mint or watermelon-mint teas, I’m sorry to say that you wont see them on this list! Anywho, let’s move forward! Grocery Store Brand Mint Teas: Walmart: Great Value, Peppermint Herbal Tea Target: Good and Gather, Mint Tea HyVee: Decaf Peppermint Green Tea Trader Joes: Decaf Peppermint Green Tea Kroger, Private Selection: Peppermint Herbal Tea Whole Foods, 365 Whole Foods Market: Peppermint Herbal Tea HEB: Caffeine-Free Peppermint Herbal Tea Bags HEB Organics: Caffeine-Free Peppermint Herbal Tea Meijer: Peppermint Tea Wegmens: Just Peppermint Herbal Tea Sprouts: Organic Peppermint Herbal Tea Winner: Trader Joe’s Decaf Peppermint Green Tea Mainstream Box Brand/ Bagged Tea Brands: Traditional Medicinals: Organic Peppermint Tea Traditional Medicinals: Organic Spearmint Tea Stash: Peppermint Herbal Tea Celestial Seasonings: Peppermint Herbal Tea Harney & Sons: Peppermint Herbal Tea Twinings: Pure Peppermint Yogi Tea: Purely Peppermint Snarky Tea: Cheer The F**K Up Limited Batch Mint Tea Bigelow: Peppermint Herbal Tea Tazo: Organic Regresh-Mint Teapigs: Peppermint Leaves Smith Tea Maker: Peppermint Leaves Herbal Tea The Republic of Tea, Super Herb Tea: American Peppermint The Republic of Tea: Organic Mint Fields Herbal Rishi: Mystic Mint David’s Tea: Peppermint Armour Tea Mariage Frères: Peppermint Tea (Mentha Piperita) Adagio Teas: Peppermint Mina: Moroccan Nana Mint Taylor’s of Harrogate: Organic Peppermint The Tea spot: Organic Herbal Peppermint Tea Mighty Lean: Organic Mint Melange Tea TeaLyra: Pacific Coast Mint Pukka: Three Mint Organic Herbal Tea Winner: Mariage Feres: Peppermint Tea (Mentha Piperita) Moroccan Mint/Mint-Infused Tea: Art of Tea: Mint Green Tea Tea Forte: Moroccan Mint Tea Drops: Peppermint Tea Numi Tea: Moroccan Mint Herbal Tea Mina: Organic Moroccan Mint Green Tea Mighty Leaf: Marrakesh Mint, Mint Green Tea Organic India: Tulsi Peppermint Tea Stash: Moroccan Mint Green Tea Smith Tea Maker: Moroccan Mint Green Tea Tealyra: Moroccan Mint Fortnum & Mason: Moroccan Mint Green Tea The Republic of Tea: Moroccan Mint Green Tea The Tea Spot: Moroccan Mint Tea Mariage Frères: Casablanca (Green Mint Tea) Adagio: Mint Moroccan Tea Oliver Pluff & Co: Mint Gunpowder Green Tea Bigelow: Perfectly Mint Black Tea Tea Forte: Moroccan Mint Harney & Sons: Organic Moroccan Mint Winner: Numi Tea: Moroccan Mint Herbal Tea Before I list my winners, I want to point out some observations that I’ve notated in my journey: Many of the same mint teas were duplicates. By this, I mean, it was very evident that many of the same companies used the same supplier for the same mint tea. It wasn’t until almost a year into this journey that I made this realization. Though, by this point, I was too knee-deep into the journey to want to re-visit half of the teas to pinpoint which ones were duplicates. I would argue/predict that for many of the larger national-brands (including the grocery store brands), come from the same 3-4 vendors. If you enjoy one of the teas from my list, chances are, you have already drank 3/4 other ones. Believe it or not, mint had a very subtle difference in taste depending on the region it was grown in. My OCD kicked-in to really notice, and you’d have to hyper-focus to notice a huge difference. To piggy-back off the last point, I’d argue Pacific North West mint was arguably the best out of all of the regions of mint I’ve tried. I now hate mint tea Ok, without further ado, here are the best mint teas that I favored in this journey. Overall Best Mint Tea: For this list, I have a two winners for the best mint tea you can overall buy: 2nd Place: The Republic of Tea: Super Herb Tea, American Peppermint 1st Place: Smith Tea Maker: Peppermint Leaves Herbal Tea ~Cody Aka The Oolong Drunk “Blissfully Tea Drunk With”

Hello hello! Tea subscriptions work by sending tea to your doorstep regularly. Given how vast the tea industry is, there's a tea subscription out there for everyone. Below is a list of the top 7 monthly tea subscriptions within the tea industry (in random order).  Note: If you want to sign up for some of the subscriptions below, some companies were kind enough to include a discount code for your first month's subscription! 80° Magazine Link to Subscription: Here Frequency:  3 Times a Year  Types of Tea:  80° magazine doesn't release tea, but rather, they're a tea publication! They release three tea books a year. Their high-quality and esthetic book is not only comforting, but educational and insightful at the same time. Despite my bias for being published in it, this is truly my favorite tea publication to date.  Snarky Tea's Cold Brew Club Link to Tea Club: Here Frequency:  Monthly  Types of Tea:  Snarky Tea releases various fruity and floral blends in their online shop. For their monthly tea club, they include 3 fun and unique flavored tea blends that are sometimes exclusive to the club. Sometimes, they release sneak previews of upcoming launches. Upon signing up, you can join their Facebook group 'The Snark Squad' to discuss monthly releases.  Discount code:  THEOOLONGDRUNK (only good for 1 month after this post) The Essence of Tea Link to Tea Club: Here Frequency:  Monthly Types of Tea:  The Essence of Tea releases high-quality Chinese tea with a primary focus on puer tea. Some teas are limited amounts, and some are for educational purposes.  Discount code:  Type THEOOLONGDRUNK in the comment section when checking out to receive a free limited-edition tea  White2Tea Club Link to Tea Club: Here Frequency:  Monthly  Types of Tea:  The white2Tea club has been in operation for almost a decade, and focuses on a wide variety of Chinese teas. White2Tea releases special puer tea cakes, white tea, oolong tea, and other various specialty-produced teas exclusive to their tea club. HoYum Tea's Blind Tasting Tea Club Link to Tea Club: Here Frequency:  3 Times a Year  Types of Tea:  HoYumTea sends 5-blind teas, usually sourced from all over parts of Asia and India. They hand-source teas specifically for the club, and blind taste them while on a group Zoom (where the mystery teas are revealed). The teas are unique, rare, and experimental, and are only produced for the tea club. Some of the teas produced, are one-of-a-kind experiments and provide a fun and unique way of trying teas that push your understanding of tea.  Discount Code: cody10 My Tea Pal Link to Tea Club:   Here Frequency:  Monthly  Types of Tea:  This unique tea club focuses on their app called 'My Tea Pal', with a focus on high-quality Chinese teas. They offer 4-8 premium teas, as well as exclusive virtual meet-ups to discuss the tea. You'll also be invited to their discord group chat, as well as various other perks.  Discount code:  THEOOLONGDRUNK for $10 off your first month's subscription Tea Runners Link to Tea Club:   Here Frequency:  Monthly  Types of Tea:  Tea Runners focuses on flavored, scented, and single-origin teas. Tea Runners focuses on a little bit of everything and is a fun way to experience various types of tea without breaking the bank.  ~ I hope you enjoyed this list! I wanted to give a special thank-you to the companies who were kind enough to provide a discount code. I will see you all soon! Best wishes, ~Cody Wade aka The Oolong Drunk "Blissfully Tea Drunk"

Hello hello! Welcome to this year’s blogiversary! On this day, 9 years ago, I launched ‘The Oolong Drunk’. Since then, my life has forever changed. Starting my blog, I have made many incredible friends, have had many wonderful experiences, and above all else — spilled a lot juicy tea. Every year on my blog anniversary, I ‘spill the tea’ in that year’s drama that I experienced as a tea blogger. This has led my creativity to take me to many incredible places which includes a sinking ship, or a de-railed train.    However, what did year 9 bring as far as drama? You didn’t think this post would go without drama, did you? Being this pretty, fabulous, and popular all of the time brings luggage with it. So what are we waiting for?  Let’s dive in! Photo Credit: Eventide Glow Photography Late at night, I’ll go up to the rooftop of the parking garage of my apartments. I’ll look at the Colorado sky and watch for planets, and now and then, I’ll track the airplanes above me and see where they’re going. One night, I thought I saw a UFO as I watched a string of light hover over my apartment (it was just a string of starlight satellites, by the way).  For my year ahead of me, I had several things lined up: I’d be going to teach a workshop at the PDX Tea Fest, I’d be traveling to Washington DC to visit friends, and I’d be flying to South Carolina to see another friend. I also lined up a tea educational class at Trident — my favorite tea shop.  However, while staring into space and thinking about the expanding universe above, I was inspired to take more action: Sell tea.  This year, I did something I’ve always wanted to do. I released a pop-up shop and did it as a blog fundraiser. Given my blog’s platform rise in cost, I figured there would be no better way to raise funds than to sell tea. Earlier in the spring, I sourced and pressed a tea, got tea-cake wrappers made, and got custom blog pins made that had my favorite teapot, and blog’s slogan on it. This project took over six months of saving, investing, and planning. The prospects of my pop-up shop were looking great and after a lot of hype surrounding it. I was thrilled at the thought that I could sell enough tea to not only self-fund the shop but also fund my blog for the next few years to come.  After sourcing last-minute tea pets to sell in the shop, I had everything ready to go. With one click of a mouse, my pop-up shop was LIVE, and I was ready to start selling tea!  Initially, I got a large group of orders from friends and colleagues alike. However, after the first week of the pop-up, sales dwindled, and it was coming time to put things to an end.  In one final push for marketing, I recruited several colleagues to help spread the word. These particulate colleagues weren’t random. These particular people were tea shop owners who have asked me over the past few years to help promote them in some capacity or another. Some of these people asked for a tea review. Some have asked me to take photos of their products. Or, creators who have asked me to share projects of theirs to my story, to help them reach a new audience. One of the people I asked, was Connie. Connie and I go back.  Connie owns a tea shop, has a beautiful husband and child, and lives a privileged life. Connie launched her tea shop with incredible innovation, and quickly thereafter, she sent me some of her tea with the intent of sharing photos of her product on my social media page. After receiving her package, I tried her tea. To my surprise, it was incredible. I took photos, reviewed her on my blog, and continued to drink her tea. Eventually, some of my followers started to hop on the Connie bandwagon. And, I started buying from Connie too. Every time I posted a photo or review of Connie’s teas, I had a small influx of followers who messaged me — telling me they ordered from her on my behalf.  I eventually met Connie in person and built a great camaraderie with Connie. We eventually built a friendship, and I even got to meet her in person. She joined my blog’s talk show, and I continued to promote her. However, in our three-year friendship, I didn’t ever ask for support from her, until I launched my fundraiser. I sent her a message and asked her to share the announcement of my fundraiser on her Instagram story.  She replied, “I won’t share it on my business page. I’ll share it on my personal page instead.” After struggling with a way to reply to her, I angrily replied, “As an FYI, I’ll no longer promote your shop on my blog’s page. I’ll only do it from my personal Instagram from here on out.” Connie replied, “I don’t understand the FYI. The shop’s page is for my shop’s official business. I don’t want customers to get confused and believe I’m a part of your fundraiser. I want to support your blog personally, so it’ll go on my personal page.” She then continued, “Why am I choosing to use my own public account considered not sharing that support back? Don’t you feel that’s judgmental and transactional?” In the most professional way possible, I’ll be telling you, the reader, that I lost my shit.  I'll tell you what I told her: “That’s gaslighting.” I took a huge issue over this.  Why?  I took issue with this because she accused me of making her business personal. But, I’m here to tell you that she made her shop personal. She made her business personal by profiting off of the narrative that she’s on the queer spectrum. She made her business personal by accepting unconditional support from the queer community, she made it personal but financially profiting off of her minority status, and she made it personal by sharing her personal life on her business’s social media pages. I supported her unconditionally for around 3 years. She made a lot of money form my blog, and received a lot of free marketing from me. The very moment I asked for supprt back, to help raise funds for the same blog that helped her make money, she made it conditional. And then, she then gaslit me. I deleted every photo, post, video, article, and review of her tea from all of my platforms… Photo Credit: Eventide Glow Photography Late at night, when climbing to the rooftop of my apartment’s parking garage, I’ll often stare at the sky and wonder about the big picture of life. I’ll often think about the purpose of life on earth, and when I do, I often think about how we’re just on a big rock with gas, spinning and rotating around another ball of gas. However, what happens when you can feel the Earth spin? For me, I started to feel it spin. This became a massive problem. Earlier in the summer, I flew to Oregon to spend time with a few close friends. We drove up to go to the Portland Tea Fest, where I taught a class on how to describe the tasting notes of tea. After an enjoyable weekend with my close friend, he drove me to the airport in Portland as we parted ways. After going through security, I boarded my plane and flew back to Colorado. While on the airplane to Colorado, I realized that in mid-summer, this was the last time I’d be getting to see any of my friends for the entire year. While looking out of my airplane window, a wave of panic overcame me.  My heart rate spiked as I became dizzy and nauseous. Eventually, I laid down on the floor of the airplane and vomited all over myself while over Salt Lake City…  After the flight landed, I was the first to be rushed off the plane as paramedics met me at the gate and took me to an emergency clinic.  Ah, yes, I’m the special person that had an incident on the plane.  Like I said before, being this pretty, fabulous, and popular comes with its own set of issues. While lying in the hospital bed with a heart rate of 180/60, I realized that I had a problem. Not only was my heart rate high enough to send me into cardiac arrest, but who would be there for me if I was I had a heart attack?  All of my friends reside in other states. I haven’t been home, and haven’t had any connection with most of my family since coming out of the closet at nineteen. I had taken a break from dating, and  I didn’t belong to any community either, so who did I have? All of my friends are in relationships, and they have somebody. So, why couldn’t I?  That’s when I decided to put myself out there again and try to make new friends. Above all else, if things failed, I still had planned a trip to fly out to see other friends out of state. I still had a safety net to fall back on.  This is where Phillip comes in. Photo Credit: Eventide Glow Photography I met Phillip at some point after coming back from the Portland Tea Fest. Phillip and I met at a gay club in Denver. After hanging out with him all night, we decided to follow each other on social media. At that moment, he asked if he could follow me from his drag account. I felt honored and without hesitation, I said yes. I love watching drag performances, so how cool was it that I became friends with a performer?  Phillip and I started messaging each other back and forth. And eventually, we started texting back and forth. Phillip and I had a lot in common, and before long, I had a new best friend. Shortly thereafter, I started making other friends, too. As I continued to go to the club, I met other drag queens through Phillip, and before too long, I was an ally to the drag community. I began seeing people who knew me and started to feel recognized. For the first time in a long time, especially with my sexuality, I started to feel even more accepted for who I was. However, after a few months of my newly-found community, the new started to wear off. As I went home at night, the feeling of being alone again started settling in. I’d go to bed alone, I’d wake up alone, and I’d spend all week alone. Waiting all week for the weekend to come, was too long. As I looked around, all of my friends (old and new) had a spouse or a partner. Out of all of my friends, I was one of the only ones who was single. To help fill this void, I picked up dating again.  After getting back on a dating app, I started having great conversations with a lot of wonderful guys. However, when the mention of a date came up, I started running into the same response: Oh, you live by Boulder? I’m in Denver, and you’re 20-30 miles away. You live really far.” At first, I was amused by it. 20-30 miles didn’t feel far for me, especially since I drove from Boulder to Denver every weekend to the gay club.  However, after several months of matching with guys, I kept hearing the same thing. For one of the matches, one of the guys said, “That would be considered a long-distance relationship and I don’t date outside of Denver.”  I kept asking myself, “Why did you match with me then?” I wasn’t shy about where I was from, and it even said my location/distance on my profile. After running into brick wall after brick wall, I decided to ditch the apps. Instead, I started talking to some of the other guys who were also a regular at the club. After talking to more guys in person, I started running into the same reaction: “Oh, you’re up near Boulder? That is so far from here, I’d never date anyone who lived that far.”  It became defeating. After spending the rest of the year attempting dating, nothing has happened. However, this is where I’d lean more into my friendships. Dating was shallow and began to negatively impact my self-image and confidence. However, one night, Phillip invited me out to a Drag Bingo that he was hosting. Without hesitation, I drove back down to Denver and went. When I walked in, I saw Phillip and felt immediate relief. I didn’t talk to him about any of the issues I was having, but just the thought of being around a friend was all it took. After going to drag bingo, we went out and met other friends at the drag bar.  However, as time went on, my friendship with Phillip started becoming one-sided. Some of my other friendships in Denver also began to feel one-sided as well. However, all of this came to a head when Phillip came back from out of town. He said we could hang out after coming back from Florida. However, after coming back from Florida, the story changed.  I asked him if we could hang out, and he replied, “Well, I’m doing a show tonight.” I then replied, “Well, I can come down again.” He responded, “Well, to be honest, you just live too far.” Photo Credit: Eventide Glow Photography After staring at my phone and trying to come up with logic behind his response, I replied, “What do you mean? I’m driving to you.” Phillip replied, “Well, we can’t just do anything spur of the moment. It would take too long for you to drive down. I can’t just come over, either. You not being in Denver is really hard.” After spending months and months facing rejection from dating due to me not living in Denver, I thought I was safe when it came to friends.  I never thought I’d be rejected by a friend, for the same reason.  I was crushed.  I like my town. I live near my work, I live near nature, and the city is only 30 miles away by car. If something as shallow as a 20-mile distance is keeping me from my potential friends or my potential life partner, then would I want that person in my life to begin with? What if l lived in Denver, and something happened where I had to move outside of the city limits? Would my social life end then? Isn’t it better to find out now that all of my connections were conditional, instead of waiting until I was too invested after the fact?  Yes. Better sooner than later. But, having to face this reality still hurts regardless.  I immediately cut ties with Phillip, and stopped going to Denver on a regular basis… Photo Credit: Eventide Glow Photography I went back to the rooftop of my parking garage and looked at the night sky. My vertigo became worse, and my feelings of isolation instantly came back. When they did, my vertigo quickly came back and was stronger than before.  I laid there and watched the stars spin as I rotated in place. However, this created a worse problem when my birthday came around.  I ate my birthday dinner alone. I drank tea in my apartment alone. I went and got dessert at a restaurant, alone. I had spent the last four birthdays completely by myself, and the thought of spending another birthday alone ended my night with a panic attack.  Once I calmed down, I realized that after moving to Colorado three and a half years ago, I was back in the same spot:  I was still mostly by myself. I was still lonely and still felt isolated.  However, I still had one sliver of hope left: I still had the planned trip to see another friend out of state.  Unfortunately, as time came around to visit this friend, I got sick with COVID-19 and went back to the ER due to my inability to breathe.  My safety net for connection failed. However, despite everything, I was determined to not let my panic win. I was determined to get back up, and not let the gravity of my loneliness get to me. After recovering from COVID-19, I messaged one of the Denver friends I had made at the club and asked them out to tea.  To my surprise, he said yes.  While waking up, the room spun more than more. I was disoriented, and when I got out of bed, I couldn’t stand straight.  With my head hanging down, I bear-crawled to the bathroom and pulled myself up on myosin. I reached into my medicine cabinet for my Dramamine, took three, and crawled over to the toilet. I hung my head in the toilet and waited for the Earth to stop spinning.  After falling asleep with my head on the toilet, I opened my eyes and realized that most of the spinning stopped. However, as I slowly stood up, my head weighed my body down like a bowling ball as fatigue filled the void that the dizziness left.  I walked over to the couch, sat upright, and took deep breaths. My stomach was on the floor, and after sitting for over an hour, I realized that I was going to be late for my tea date. I didn’t want to give in to the black matter that filled the void in the universe.  I had to overcome this.  I threw on some clothes, grabbed a jacket, and headed out the door to downtown Denver. While pulling into my parking spot, I looked down at my phone and saw that my friend was just twenty minutes away. I walked on the sidewalk and headed to the tea shop.  While crossing the busy downtown street, I looked up and saw a couple with their newborn.  I started getting dizzier, as I looked over to my right and saw a gay couple holding hands while walking down the sidewalk. I started getting more nauseous as I looked to my left and saw a group of five people in their twenties who were all talking over each other and laughing. Then, the thought hit me: What if the friend I’m meeting downtown, rejects me for not living in Denver? I’ve met countless people here before this point, and every single one has rejected me for the same reason. So why would this one be different? My lungs began to tighten as my heart rate spiked. As I looked up again, I saw a couple holding hands while walking past me. The sight began to make me hyperventilate as my head began to spin so fast that it nearly brought me to my knees.  I walked over to the side of a building, leaned on the building, and threw up. My heart rate continued to race as I broke out in a cold sweat and began to shake as I crawled back to my car.  Once I made it to my car, I started the engine sped out of my parking spot, and continued to speed back home.  The further away I got from Denver, the more my heart rate slowed. As I drove on the interstate, my lungs began to open up again while my shaking slowed to a halt.  Then, I got a text from my new friend.  “Where are you? I’m here.” I then froze up and realized I just ditched this potential new friend. I wiped more vomit off my face as I replied, “I’m sorry.” I sat my phone down on my passenger seat and cried for the rest of the drive home… Photo Credit: Eventide Glow Photography As I laid on the roof of my apartment’s parking garage, my head began to spin so much that I began to levitate off the ground and float up into the sky. As I floated into the sky, I looked around and noticed that I had the entire universe around me. I looked in the distance and noticed that the universe was still. There were planets of various sizes.  There were comments passing by.  Oh, look, over there! It’s Saturn’s rings! They’re surprisingly flat.  Then, as. I looked up and around,  I also saw that the stars that burned the brightest were also surrounded by the empty void of space.  I started to become comforted by the idea that I was floating above in outer space. Just like the stars above, maybe my light is just shining bright in a void that surrounds me.  However, as I reflect on my 9th year in tea, I was not always surrounded by a void. When I launched my blog’s fundraiser, dozens of people supported it. It made my light shine. When Trident Booksellers in Boulder asked me to help host a tea-tasting series with them, my star shine burned even more brightly. When a potter gifted me a tea pet and tea cake out of the clear blue for my birthday, my star kept burning bright. When various tea companies reached out to me to collaborate with them, and when I sold out a class at the PDX Tea Fest, and when I got to spend a weekend in Oregon with my best friend, my star burned the brightest.  The things that kept my star burning bright were spread across the country like how stars are spread across the galactic map. It kept the view of the night sky bright at night. However, when I returned home, I returned to the dark void that surrounded me. I realized that the more I tried to seek that light here at home, the darker my surroundings became. Although I can make it work in other lifetimes, I can’t seem to make it work in this lifetime here at home.  Loneliness has won.  Maybe if I wasn’t abandoned by my family after coming out of the closet, things would have ended up differently. Maybe my life wouldn’t have been projected across several different states across the country, and maybe I’d have a place to visit and call home. Maybe I wouldn’t have spent nearly every birthday and holiday by myself over the past decade by myself. Maybe I would actually see a greater purpose to the meaning of life, instead of being weighed down by the heavy feelings of loneliness on a daily basis. But, that’s for the universe to know.  In previous blog anniversary posts, I was on a train crashing into a canyon. I was also on a ship that was sinking. But, no one wants to be on a train derailment. No one wants to be on a sinking ship. So, I decided to quit sinking and decided to quit crashing. Instead, I will just float in space until I figure out how to come back down to earth. As I float in-between the silence in the expanding universe above, maybe my light will reach someone.  Maybe someone will see my star shine in another lifetime.  There’s a song quote by St. Vincent from her 2018 song ‘Slow Disco’, and I will end this year’s anniversary post with those lyrics… “I sway in place, To a slow disco.  There’s blood in my ears, and a fool in the mirror.  And the pain of mistakes, couldn’t get any clearer. Am I thinking what everybody’s thinking?  I’m so glad I came, but I can’t wait to leave...” ~Cody Wade The Oolong Drunk “Blissfully Tea Drunk With…” Photo Credit: Eventide Glow Photography Thank you Trident in Boulder, for Tea Salons. It was one of the only few times I got to drink tea with other people in person this year. Also, thank you to everyone who supported my blog fundraiser this year. Thank you to everyone who sent me tea, and thank you to everyone who believed in me. Last but not least, thank you Luke, MacKenna, Kayley, and Karissa. I hope to be as beautiful as you all one day. You are all the only reasons why I stayed grounded, and kept me from floating away from Earth this year.   Click the Links Below to Read Previous Blog Anniversary Posts: 4 Year Anniversary (and Special Announcement) 5 Years in Tea: My Side of the Story 6 Year Blogiversary: SOS! The Sinking of the RMS Tea 7 Year Blogiversary - You Sold Out Your Culture 8 Year Blog Anniversary: Train-Wrecking my Career Photo Credit: Eventide Glow Photography

Hello hello! As my blog turns 9 in JUST a few days, I began to reflect some of the lessons I've learned over the years since starting my tea-blogging journey. Since starting, I’ve traveled all over the country teaching about various tea -related topics, while being published dozens of times in various publications across the globe. I never expected my tea-journey to take me so far, and yet, here I am!  Below are 9 life lessons I’ve learned through tea. Note: My actual 9-year blog anniversary post will still be posted on January 8th.  When someone decides they don’t like you, let them. When I started my blogging journey, I got into many social circles through 1 other particular blogger. I also got into the tea subreddit as well. However, I quickly realized that I didn’t fit into these circles. At the time, I was so discouraged that I nearly quit blogging. When I started standing on my own and detached myself from certain circles, I became much happier and started enjoying blogging for the first time. What I’ve learned is, that if someone doesn’t like you, let them. You’ll never win. You have to like yourself first, and the rest really will follow. It may not instantly happen, but it will eventually. Just keep at it.  As cliche as this sounds, be yourself.  Over the last 9 years of blogging, I’ve learned that there’s certainly a personality type that does better in certain social circles, over others. However, I’ve learned that any time I’ve tried to fit the mold of certain circles, the less happy and less motivated I become. Around year 5 of my blog, I became tired of blogging and myself. There came a point where i woke up and said, “'Fuck it, I can’t fit the mold anymore. I’m going to be myself, and I don’t care what happens”. When I decided to live my most authentic self and stopped trying to fit a mold, two things happened: First, I lost a lot of followers. Second, I gained a lot of new ones who actually liked me for who I was. Not only was I more authentic, but my following was also more authentic.  Honesty is not always the best policy.  As a writer, I’ve always had a stand-point that it was my duty to always tell the truth no matter what. However, while I still believe this, I’ve learned that there’s a right time and place for everything. I’ve managed to burn many bridges over the years by being honest. However, for honesty to be impactful, you have to use tact. Otherwise, it’ll come off like complaining. Not everyone wants to hear the truth, which is fine. But you have to be prepared for the repercussions of telling the truth -- especially if it's at the wrong time. Is it okay to not know what you’re doing. When I first got into blogging, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t see any bloggers in the industry that felt similar enough to me, to take inspiration from. I was inspired by many incredible bloggers, but I could never see myself go down a similar path. I've learned that when you’re doing something new, you’ll never know what you’re doing. That’s because you’re going down a tunnel without light at the end. But, that’s the best thing possible, because that means you are the light at the end of the tunnel. Continue doing things you don’t know, and continue going down a path with no light at the end. Lead the way :) Internet friends are not always who they say they are. Social Media is a wonderful tool to connect people from all over the world. I have made many incredible internet friends. I have also spent a great deal of money, meeting some of these friends in person. However, they were not who they made themselves to be. They were entirely different in person. Everyone has the capability of selling themselves differently online than in person, including myself. Not intentionally, of course. It’s like hearing your own voice being played back to you: You don’t truly know how you present yourself. The same goes for everyone else.  Don’t measure your success against others.  Comparison is the theft of joy, is how the saying goes. I don’t particularly find this to be true because the theft of my own personal joy is when my haters are genuinely happy. Nothing gets me angrier… All jokes aside, I’d often look at other bloggers and used to think that they were somehow leagues above me and I’d never measure up to them. However, it wasn’t until 3-4 years ago, that I received a message from a new tea blogger who told me that they want to be as successful as I am. I didn’t feel successful. I didn’t feel anymore/less worthy than anyone else. I struggle a lot. Who would look up to me?! That’s when it clicked for me, that the people who I thought were leagues above me, weren't really that much better off than I was. They have the same thoughts as I do. They probably didn’t feel successful either. They’re probably measuring themselves to someone else as well.  We’re only human. We just have to be proud of ourselves.  Not everyone deserves kindness. Over the past 9 years, I’ve learned that I have extended my kindness to people who did not deserve it. This isn’t unique to me, as everyone has felt this at one time or another in their lives. However, given that the tea community is such a niche community, actively avoiding one person can hinder you. It’s unfortunate, but burning the bridge with one singular person can set you back months, or years, of career progress. But how do you stay true to yourself? How do you talk highly of someone you absolutely cannot stand?  In my 9 years, I’ve learned one very important term: Indifference. In my blog, I’ve learned that it’s better to be indifferent towards people you dislike. For me at least, especially in social situations, I’ve changed how I talk about people I dislike.  “I don’t know them,” is one thing I say. Or, “I don’t have an opinion about them one way or another.”  Or, when being asked if someone should work with a specific vendor I strongly dislike, I’ll reply, “I can’t say I had the best experience with that particular person, but others have and seem to like them. Oh, and by the way, tell them Cody says to go fuck themselves.” (That’s indifference, right? Right?! :p)  Ghosting is  burning a bridge. In my last year of blogging, I lost my longest friendship in tea. In my 9 years of blogging, I've learned that communication goes a long way. Since the tea industry is spread thin, yet large, most of the time the only form of communication is through online communication. However, there have been many times when I've formulated friendships through blogging, and given distance, the only way we're able to communicate is through social media. However, some of these friendships ended when they left me on read (not for a few days or a week, but for months on end). I used to take it personally and I'd respond to this by moving on from these friendships.  I was told that with friendships, people can come and go. Sometimes, if a friend is going through a hard time or going through a life change, I shouldn't take it personally because you never know what's going on with the other person and I should be more patient/forgiving. And when I cut off these friendships for being ghosted, I was burning a bridge. However, I've learned that when you have friendships whose primary form of communication is through virtual communication, ghosting someone for months on end, you're the one killing that connection. You're the one cutting ties with that person. If you value someone, you can't expect them to stay in your life by being avoidant and shutting them out. You can't expect that person to still be there for you. You can't have it both ways. Ghosting is burning a bridge. You can't mix water with oil. In my 9 years of blogging, I’ve been able to conclude that as a generalization, I personally do not get along with the Seattle or the Chicago tea community. 90% of issues or bridges burned with tea people, either live in Chicago or Seattle. I don’t know why that is. It’s not intentional at all.  However, when writing my blog series ‘Spilling The Tea’, I came to one conclusion over another: Just because I was victimized by someone, doesn't mean they don’t feel victimized by me.  I’ve learned that sometimes, not everything is personal. Sometimes you meet people when they’re at their lowest, or sometimes, you meet people in a weird circumstance that creates the perfect opportunity for you to not get along with them (or maybe they’re from Chicago or Seattle — haha). However, one important life lesson I’ve learned is, that water and oil do not mix. Sometimes, you may not always agree with a trusted friend. Sometimes, some connections just don’t work out. It doesn’t mean you’re a victim. It doesn't mean you victimized someone else. Sometimes, it is what it is. And you know what? That’s perfectly okay.  I've had to accept the fact that no one else can be as pretty, as popular, or as perfect as me (haha). Conclusion: Over the last 9 years, I’ve learned a lot! However, now that I’m coming up on year 10, I hope to keep learning. Thank you for following me, and drinking with me for 9 years. I’m very lucky and very fortunate. See you on January 8th for my blog’s 9-year anniversary!  Best wishes,  ~Cody Wade Aka The Oolong Drunk “Blissfully Tea Drunk…”

This is rich, especially coming from a social media influencer… I know what you’re probably thinking. It’s either, “Cody’s unhinged again”, or, “Why is the pot calling the kettle a, well narcissist?”  After working in the tea industry for over a decade, and having a blog for 8+ years, I’ve met a lot of people within various facets of the tea industry — all the way from tea bloggers, educators, high-level executives, and even lower-level social media influencers. I’ve also noticed that despite the industry's image of warmth, love, and self-care, the industry from every angle is very cold and uninviting.   Regardless of whichever type of tea industry professional, there seems to be people with narcissistic tendencies scattered consistently throughout. So what is it about the tea industry that harbors this specific personality trait? Does this have anything to do with why the industry is cold and uninviting once you peel the first layer of the onion back? Below are some of my observations, and while not everything is rooted in fact, I will say it with an authoritative stance as if it’s a fact. So, let's dive in! The Ritual:  Tea ceremonies can categorized into two main types: gong-fu and high-tea.  For many people who drink gong-fu, gong-fu tea is used as escapism to help detach from mental health stressors, and to focus on the senses with breathing techniques. This in itself, is a form of meditation. According to the Healer Within Foundation , the practice of gong-fu tea is an actual form of mindful meditation. However, according to the Oxford Academic , mindful meditation is connected to Hinduism and the Buddhist belief system. One of the major tenets of Hinduism is enlightenment. Given that enlightenment is one of the major tenets of Hinduism, it invites the narcissistic personality trait by making the practicers of Hindus believe that they are more knowledgeable than others. The superiority complex that’s associated with narcissism and the tie-in with the Hindu belief was studied extensively, and written about by PHD and Author, Dr. Pilar Jennings, whose career incapulizes the study of both psychotherapy and Buddhist meditation. With all of this, the link between gong-fu tea and meditation, with traditional roots in the Hindu tenant of enlightenment, is a short link between connecting gong-fu tea and narcissism. Sitting at the head of the tea table of gong-fu tea, and the idea of leading a tea session can loosely be linked to having a superiority complex.  However, the link doesn’t just exist with gong-fu tea, the link also exists with high-tea as well. According to Psychology Today, they link that chefs of fine dining intertwine their self-worth into the cuisine they create. This can also translate into high-society as well. According to a journal published in 2013, upper-class individuals suffer from greater psychological entitlement and narcissism. Given that high tea is rooted in classist institutions, the link between high tea and narcissism is a strong one. Tea Industry Professionals:  In my experiences as a tea blogger, I’ve worked with a varying amount of tea companies that operated on a small scale, to a massive global production scale, and everything in between. According to a paper published on the Social Science Research Network, CEOs have a statistically higher level of narcissism and a higher level of self-importance.  In my observations of the tea industry over the past decade, narcissism isn’t specific to high-level executives either. According to a journal published in 2023 on Science Direct, there’s a link between narcissism and entrepreneurship. Given that there has to be a high level of drive, and self-importance to guide that confidence, business owners on a small scale are more susceptible to narcissistic personality disorder tendencies as well. While I don’t have a direct calculation, I want to point out that you could indicate that a self-important person who partakes in an industry that’s rooted in an attitude that drives self-importance through enlightenment, there is an observation that could be made that this invites a self-important person to partake in a practice that better highlights self-importance. This means that the door is open for a higher percentage of narcissism to flow into the tea industry, compared to other industries. Tea Bloggers and Self-Care:  It's no hidden fact that the rise of social media has increased the rise of both narcissism and anxiety among young adults. According to a study published in 2008 , researchers indicated that there is a causation between self-image and narcissism, tied to social media and the youth. This takes various shapes, but how does it take shape within the tea social-media blogosphere?  Self-Care  Given the large amount of tea bloggers and tea companies that promote self-care, there is actually a link between self-care and narcissism. New York Psychiatrist Dr. Samantha Boardman once wrote that the psychological connection between self-care and self-love can be a tightrope balance between being mindful into being narcissistic. The idea of caring for oneself can be so self-reassuring that it’s more about you — not the people around you. There is also a link between altruism and narcissism as well. When tea industry bloggers and professionals push the narrative of self-care, they’re the link between sharing self-love, and altruism. According to a medical-reviewed article on MentalHealth.com , altruism masks the personality traits of people who martyr themselves for a belief system. Within social media, there are countless amounts of people who primarily post and lead workshops about self-care, self-love, and self-meditation. While those things are not necessarily a bad thing, surprise surprise , they also make a full circle back into the narcissistic trait of enlightenment... The Bottom Line: It's All Narcissism   Based on my findings, you could conclude that there’s an industry of narcissists who congregate around a narcissistic-driven activity with a narcissistic-enlightened attitude, which accompanies financially wealthy and upper-classist narcissistic ideals, pushed and marketed by people with narcissistic entrepreneur self-important drive, which is drunk and talked about by other altruistic narcissists on social media platforms that harbor and grow narcissistic personalities. To make things more comical, tea industry professionals will also award themselves with awards when given the opportunity. In 2023, at the World Tea Expo, they awarded one of their board members (the same board members who voted on tea industry award winners) an award…. Over the past decade in this industry, I can’t count on one hand the number of people I’ve seen who dropped out of the industry because they didn’t receive the outward praise they sought from being within the world of tea. These same people leave the industry disappointed because they looked at other industry narcissists, and realized they didn’t benefit in the same way as the other industry narcissists — the same narcissists who’d boast about knowing how to make tea ‘the right way’ while leading a gong-fu or meditation session. Some of the signs of narcissistic tendencies I’ve noticed over the past decade, in the tea industry are, — When someone says they know how to make tea ‘the right way’ — They offer tea and meditation, but only through them, especially if meditation and self-care is more about the host than it is the audience — When a high-level executive of a tea company regularly posts photos of themselves plucking/making tea, especially if they have the frame of a person who has never worked a day of hard labor in their life — Their posts and photos of their tea and meditation, are primarily only photos of them drinking tea while meditating — If they got their high-level position at a tea company through their family/nepotism — Someone who is aggressively insistent on leading a tea ceremony and wont share the experience by not letting others pour tea at the same said-ceremony — If they are white and American, and claim they know more about the culture and history of Asian Tea than the people whose culture it is itself — If they are white and American, and claim that 'tea caused all of the world’s wars', which goes back into manipulating a foreign culture to fit their personal narrative — If the tea drinker is male and starts a podcast instead of going to therapy — If they run a tea blog and quit within 6-12 months of launching it because they don’t have the audience they think they should be receiving — If their Instagram-grid has more photos of them with tea, or enjoying tea, than tea by itself without them — If you post photos of you leading a tea ceremony with people surrounding you, and post this on a semi-consistent basis. If you ever question why the tea industry is cold, cliquey, and uninviting  despite  the warmth it promotes on every single level, you might take a step back and realize that this industry is rooted in self-involvement at every single level. While not everyone in the tea industry is a narcissist, the industry attracts and prevails the narcissistic personality type. If you peel back the onion layers of this industry, you'll see that a lot of the industry is not in it to help you and is certainly not here for the love of tea; behind their front, they're in it for themselves.  And while not everyone in the industry is a narcissist who is in it for themselves (and while I started this sentence with a coordinating conjunction and end it as a run-on sentence),   and while there are a lot of genuine and amazing people in the industry, at the end of the day,  I’m a narcissist, you’re a narcissist, and simply -- we’re all narcissists.  With much love to myself and my accomplishments, ~ Cody aka The Oolong Drunk "Blissfully Tea Drunk...."

Hello hello! Welcome this year's Top Albums of 2024 to Drink Tea To! This year's post will include 15 albums to drink tea to. These albums were hand-selected, to listen to while drinking tea. I strongly recommend listening to these albums in their entirety, and let the artist's work, and your tea, take you through a meditative tea drinking experience. Below are the top 15! Let's dig in! (Photo: Tea Time with Jamie XX's 'In Waves', album cover property of Young Record Label, under James Thomas Smith) Top 15: 15. The Tortured Poets Department, The Anthology by Taylor Swift 14. My Method Actor by Nilufer Yanya 13. Evergreen by Soccer Mommy 12. Paradise by Purple Disco Machine 11. Ten Fold by Yaya Bey Top 10: 10: What a Devistating Turn of Events by Rachel Chinouriri English singer-songwriter Rachel Chinouriri released her indie-rock deubt studio album in 2024 This album's cohesion with its theme, helps drive home a raw emotion that pairs perfectly with tea time. Tea Pairings: Sheng Puer or White Taa 9: The Great Impersonator by Halsey Halsey's 5th studio album is one of the most raw and vulnerable albums released in 2024. The album's focus is on Halsey's coping with being diagnosed with both Lupus and a rare type of t-cell disorder, while also going through a divorce. Halsey's vulnerability is moving, and creates one special pairing with tea time. Tea Pairings: Shou Puer, Black Tea, or Sheng Puer 8: My Light, My Destroyer by Cassandra Jenkens Cassandra Jenken's 3rd indie-rock studio album is one of the strongest albums, lyrically, released in all of 2024. One of the highest critically acclaimed albums of 2024, this album's atmosphere and vulnerability makes this one incredible tea pairing. Tea Pairings: Oolong Tea or White Tea 7: Loss of Life by MGMT Loss of Light is MGMT's most unique album to date. This alternative rock album takes a large introspective look at the passing of time while growing up in a society that's passing by. The rawness of this album, and uniqueness in alt-rock production, creates a unique and vulnerable pairing with tea time. Tea Pairings: Sheng Puer, Shou Puer, or Black Tea 6: All Born Screaming by St. Vincent St. Vincent released her very first self-produced album, and is one massive tribute to classic 90's rock. With contributions from artists such as Dave Grohl and Cate Le Bon, this album creates one effortless and smooth atmosphere to drink tea with Tea Pairings: Oolong Tea, White Tea, or Sheng Puer. 5: Endlessness by Nala Sinephro This experimental jazz album uses orchestral and electronic elements. While being one of the most unique and out-of-pocket jazz albums to ever be released, this album creates one of the biggest calming and meditative atmospheres in all of 2024. Out of every album on this list, this album was the best to meditate to. Tea Pairings: All 4: Imaginal Disc by Magdalena Bay Imaginal Disc is one of Magdelena Bay's more pop-forward albums. This indie-pop album takes a unique look at pop music, and makes it an artistic experience. While being meditative, this album is also smooth to listen to and makes for light hearted and fun tea pairing experience. Tea Pairings: White Tea, Sheng Puer, Shou Puer 3: In Waves by Jame XX After a decade, Jamie XX released is 2nd album. While being one of the most successful breakout stars from indie-rock group The XX, Jamie XX created a senslessly-fun electronic album that borders the line between dance and meditation. Make sure to turn up the bass when listening this album, as it'll create a tea-pairing that will have you moving in your seat. Tea Pairings: All 2: Girl with No Face by Allie X Girl With No Face is Allie X's very first self-produced album, and is an ode to 80's goth synth-pop. The 80's have been done to death (in my opinion), however, Allie X brings a fun and unique perspective to the genre that feels like a love letter. This album also alludes to the fact that she feels like an out cast (due in-part to suffering from a chronic illness) and dives head-first "living in a weird world". This album's message is inclusive while being cheeky, emotional, and outright fun. Tea Pairings: Sheng Puer, Black Tea, and Shou Puer 1: BRAT by Charli XCX Charli XCX's BRAT consumed the zeitgeist for all of 2024. While this album is a fun pop/EDM album on the surace, the album's lyrics are hard-hitting and deal with depression, anxiety, and existential crisis by the larger-picture of life. This album's lyrical rawness was not only jarring, but also relatable and personable. While this album did hit the mainstream, it's a great indicator that society is ready to hit massive issues head-on -- something that has rarely been seen on such a large scale. The smooth production with the emotional lyrics, makes this for the best tea and music pairing of 2024. Tea Pairings: All Conclusion: 2024 was a big year for music. While music is so personable to so many people, hopefully this list will help you branch out into giving your tea time a new and unique experience. What albums of 2024 have YOU paired with? Continue the conversation on instagram and let me know here!! I can't wait to see what 2025 brings in terms of music. Happy steeping! Best wishes, ~Cody Wade aka The Oolong Drunk "Blissfully Tea Drunk" (Photo: Tea Time with BRAT by Charli XCX, Album Cover Property of Atlantic Recording Corporation)

Hello hello! Earlier in the year, I did an 8-part series titled 'Spilling The Tea' where I talked about different lessons I learned from various life experiences. This dramatic series gave an intropsective look at some of the drama that I have encountered, and how I leanred and grew from it. In preparation for the follow-up, 'Spilling More Tea', here's a link to every post in the series. Part 1: Cutting Toxic People Out of Our Lives Part 2: Killing Your Ex Part 3: Destroying my Longest Friendship Part 4: The Dangers of Meeting Internet Strangers at the Cat Pee Manor Part 5: The Worst Tea Job I've Ever Taken Part 6: I Ruined a Friendship over AI Part 7: A Closeted Gay Ruined my Life Part 8: Series Finale, The Person I Hate The Most Thank you to everyone who supported this series! I will see you again very soon! Best wishes, ~ Cody Wade aka The Oolong Drunk "Blissfully Tea Drunk"