It's been ages since I've hung out with this guy in my game.
49 notes
·
View notes
On some nights, I can’t sleep. Sometimes, on those same nights, my lovely wife is with her family and I find myself sitting in the pallid glow of a single lamp wondering what to do.
If there’s anything that’s dependable, it’s the neighborhood dive bar that’s been in business for something near 90 years. I don’t often find myself drinking alone, but once in a while I get out to connect with the fellow neighborhood denizens that apparently populate the bar after 11:30 pm. It’s a surprisingly lively place on a surprisingly quiet stretch of road, and I wasn’t sure if I would be the only one or if it would be packed. There are nine others here with me now, and every time the door opens the heavy sent of wet pavement swirls in with a hint of cigarette smoke.
It hasn’t rained in Portland for a few days. The light drizzle has moistened the pavement just enough for the petrichor to rise. In here, it’s warm in temperature and feeling. A man in a pork pie hat is playing pinball, a nondescript ‘80s movie is playing on the single working TV, and all is well in the world from in here. We’re all sharing the slightly lonely, communal feeling unique to the local watering hole.
City living has its challenges. The human ecosystem is on complete display as well as the gamut of human experience. I doubt that living in the countryside would do me well; in the city we share everything in much closer proximity than they do in the country. Although the local watering hole is a universal constant, city dives are different in that you can come to the same bar 50 times and see a different slate of people every time. Everyone is talking about innocuous things: spray tans, lap dance bars, vacations, smokes, local colleges…
It’s all a vignette into the lives of strangers. After my glass is empty, I’ll doubtless walk out the door onto the quiet street and take a couple extra laps around the block before climbing into bed with the cats. Maybe I’ll see a skunk or a cat. It’s always novel to see the same homely neighborhood in the quiet of night. I’ve lived here for seven years, and that feels so wrong. I found the place I want to spend the rest of my life in my early 20s, starting where I should have ended, and I love every minute of it. The most momentous occasions in my adult life so far have happened here, within a ten minute walk of where I slowly drain my glass of local microbrew.
Tomorrow, I’ll wake up and go to campus to finish up my peer review edits. I have an orchestra rehearsal far too late at night. Between now and then, I’ll keep thinking. I’m at the intersection of the lives of strangers. Our streams of consciousness will go on.
Maybe I’ll move over to the bar.
11 notes
·
View notes
Felt good to be back behind the bar tonight 😛
40 notes
·
View notes