Drinkin' & Bloggin'

I'm just back from toasting the thirtieth birthday of a friend at a joint called Barça, a bimbo-beleaguered yuppiefuck joint on the Hill I've scrupulously avoided for years. I graciously put in at least half an hour before The Fear overtook me and jackbooted my jackass out into the rain, past the crowd of Voguegoths smoking (now juridically disallowed in bars everywhere in Washington State). Got a good look in passing at what used to be the Bad Juju Lounge, a former fine dive fulla punx and rivetheads where au hazard one could cop for earsplitting speedmetal, young drunk beauties of every gender race & orientation, and a nice solitary experience all at the same time. Now sadly this has reverted to its former self, an anonymous sparsely-attended gay bar whose name then and now I can't recall. Such is the course of all nostalgia, yes.

But see: before arriving, while strolling in fuzzy hat down Denny between 14th & 13th, I looked up & saw directly over my head a small rat on a lowhanging telephone wire, still and whiskery, tail barely twitching in barely a breeze, in rain's lull, afraid maybe with no forward or backward to get to in no hurry. I couldn't believe it'd died in such a position, so clapped my hands and stamped my feet till it twitched its ears and nose enough to convince me. And then, christ yes, I sang to it a little, in lieu of prayer I guess, some modified Leonard Cohen: "Like a rat on a wire, like a predicted drunk in a pre-midnight choir of one," and so on, trying in my plagiarized way to be free. Coming back the same way less than an hour later I found it gone so believed the best, whatever it is that can be best to a rat in the rain on a wire, right.

Then later rescued a nightcrawler from the sidewalk, then later still heard the wretched crunch of a snailshell under my foot. Who doesn't hate to be a killer of anything? Let those remorseful of tiny tragedy be the majority, and let me be numbered among them. Yes.