From the time I left my parents' house for college to the time I started my first job out of law school, I moved on average twice a year: sixteen times in the space of seven years. I swore I would never do it again. Now I remember why.

I got home from work just before midnight tonight, after a sixteen-hour day. And I realized that, although a half-full handle of Chivas is in one of the twenty or so boxes scattered around my apartment, I have no idea how to find it.

I did happen across some of my liquor stash, and was able to substitute some bourbon, but it just isn't the same. There's a line about scotch - which is probably applicable to acquired tastes in general - in Kicking and Screaming: "Affectations become habits". When I was in college it felt grown-up to wash off a long day with three fingers of highland malt, even though the taste was near unbearable to me then. Now I come home exhausted, and somewhere in the back of my brain I can smell the peat, smoke, and caramel of whiskey, even though I have no hope of tasting it tonight. It occurs to me that I need a drink. Over years of long hauls and late nights, the flavors that once made me wince have become dear to me by the sheer force of repetition. I don't know whether this is addiction or something entirely less romantic. But sitting here among anonymous boxes in a still alien apartment, I really wish I had a glass of scotch to sip on. It would make me feel more at home.