Thoughts from an empty bar

The dishwasher spins its magic and cleans glasses that contained beverages that took people into different versions of themselves. It's the last batch of the night, and comes from the last remaining people from this fairly busy night at Court Square Tavern.

I'm beat. It's been another long day, and I didn't do myself any favors by going to Fellini's the evening before. My friend Nick dragged me up to sing a version of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" and I believe there's a picture floating around of that. I had hoped to sing "Cinnamon Girl" by Neil Young, but my friend wanted to leave before that, so it didn't happen.

Two years on, this is my life. Soon it will be three years on and I won't remember what it was like before. At this point, I don't remember what it was like before.

I think, though, that I've dug myself into a hole of sorts. I tend to be the kind of person who expects the worse all of the time as a defense mechanism. And so I tend to put myself in situations where the worse is going to happen because it's what I expect.

I did not expect that my life at 37 would be quite like this, but you know? That's not the important question anymore. My life is much more interesting and complex and layered and delicious than I ever imagined it would ever would be.

I'm sitting here drinking a Spaten in my favorite place on Earth listening to music I recorded two months ago trying to figure out if any of it is any good. It's blasting over the tavern's stereo system, and then I'm going to go home and play more. All of my friends are out tonight, and I'm not with them, and that's okay, because tomorrow night is the big night of dancing, or so I'm told.

Yet, underneath all of this, is a deep sadness due to things I simply can't control, and certainly can't talk about publicly.

So, tonight I'm alone in my tavern, listening and thinking and writing and existing and remembering that I am alive and I am in charge of my destiny. I want my children to be proud of me, even if I'm not in their daily lives at the moment.

We're all alive. It's all happening. Now. This is it. Pay attention. Now. Do it and be it.