Five straight, closing every night.  High tree pollen.  End of it, miserable.    Wifi internet down at home.  Thoughts barely captured, tales hinted at, flee now into the distance without being recorded.  Negotiations with Earthlink, to get up and running again...

There were some insights, not written down, scribbled on a legal pad, notes of thought, sketches, but not the actual writing.  Five days later, I forget much of them, and I've lost the particular juice and energy they had, such thoughts when they were fresh.  And there is a certain surprise at how wiped out the body is after it all.


I thought, I think, of Madam Korbonski.  She always served to clear the air, to realign my mind with the important.  My neighbor.  My full moon night companion.  My neighbor of elegance and infinite class.

I am a bartender because I write.  I write because I am a bartender.  At work, I do not have the time to tell people what's going on with me, and nor would it be completely appropriated.  I am ninety five percent, at least, a listener...  To be engaged with the thousand little tasks that fall upon a barman means that you can never really answer a question, never really tell your own thoughts, your own story.  You're the adult in the room.  Always in a rush.  But the will and the wish to communicate, of course, why am I there anyway?  Just that I'm a better listener than a talker showing off all my stuff.  And showing off all your stuff, that is the battle today, isn't it...



I've worked Saturday night, very busy, and then with friends coming it at the end, who dragged me, not against my own will, but in friendship, out to Breadsoda for a couple of drinks I didn't need. Talk with an old archeologist buddy, then excessive late night burger ordering...  Huge hangover next day and it's Sunday.  Sleep 'til the time you have to get up.  And Sunday, always with its own set of problems, and by Monday, the pressure and the wear and tear is setting in, that which you cannot refresh yourself from, and I pour myself now, after the kitchen has closed and the musicians have packed up and been fed (thanks to me), a little bit of Beaujolais, over ice, with a wedge of lime, splash of soda.  Jacques Pepin would say the same, "I think I deserve a glass of wine now," after cooking something.






The next day, it's going to be a complicated night.  Frantic set-up.  My true friend in all this, Jeremy, will join me after driving in from Annapolis.  But he will not be here until I have my set-up done and the door opens.  Wine tasting chaos.  Familiar faces wanting to talk, tell the stories of their travels.  Sunny weather.  Private party in the back room, meaning we will be full.  I don't have time to talk.

At this shitty time of life, just when you are realizing you're never going to have your own family...

Do I want to be in such a state where I must reach for the glass of wine for soothing relief?  Well, after five plus hours of running around having to respond to situations, that glass is logical, and it works.  That's the job.  That's the price of my being a success at it.  It's not easy this job.

Wednesday night, my last shift of the week, even crazier, pounding waves of people to seat, to deal with, to get the water and the wine, the menu, the specials, eventually the order... and a thread through it, mom calling.  I have time to answer her first call, which is related to her mind coming up with crazy things that come out of her jealousy, but at Nine at night I do not have the time, though I should have...  (A sink was back-up, it turns out, overflowing.  Just like the ladies room upstairs behind the bar at the Old Dying Gaul, twice in fact, this very evening, the busboy twice upstairs with the mop bucket, not helping matters any.  Even the boss had to get involved.)


I remember, the old Polish lady telling me stories when I came over and joined her in her front room. Tadzio, you're a writer, you are a writer, she would tell me.  But of course, she had a very storied life. In 1939, she was just entering university.  From what I recall, Pani Korbonska, Zofia, she was studying to be a Chopinist, a pianist at Jagellonian University.  But then, of course, the Nazis came.  And I'm pretty sure she had a story, of how one day the Nazis came, lined up the entire faculty.  The faculty had not bowed to the Nazis with oaths of loyalty, made a vote to stand up against the Nazis.  Perhaps it escalated.  But, the day came, and they were lined up, including her piano professors, and shot.  That was not the only story she had, by any means.  There were many of them.  We had our wine, a little cheese, a little foie gras pate, and she would tell me stories.

There you have it:  the horror of life, life as it is at home, all you know, having to face powers that are stronger, wealthier, mightier, more energetic and organized, who wish to wipe you away.

"Homo Sovieticos," that was a term my old journalist friend used from time to time.  Looking it up, the term has a certain connotation.  But it is a term which could use being expanded upon, so to address things the Nazis did, things the Soviets did, yes, but also the person of modern high tech literate efficiency...

But I'm just an old barman, who's made a small bit of a last stand, a quiet hero of the old custom of bringing people together, to meet randomly in person, rubbing elbows...

The day off, I get a very late start.  Mom tells me her sink story.  And then my brother calls.  Mom sounds confused, yes.  See what Medicare will do...  looks through various options for assistance...  " I retreat to bed, not feeling well anyway.  Feeling rather overwhelmed.  Caught in the middle between two strong and similar personalities.  Leaving me with no desire to do anything.  There is no immediate need to get out and grocery shop.  The clock is already ticking on my weekend.  But, first, rest and rest, and then more rest.

I reflect on how people act here in D.C.  Those who want to grow in stature and power, they like to use the devices of criticism.  To minimize the other, to put the other in a box imposed upon them.  If they keep putting you down, they see they will gain an upper hand, undercutting you.



The writer, in his glory, shuffles about.  He sorts through the refrigerator, tossing unhappy loose ends and old steak and cooked chicken out.  He puts a load of laundry in.  He puts things back in their piles.  Recycling.  The dishes in the tub with hot soapy water.  Tired, in need of wine, hungry, poor, too many books, too much paperwork about, things unresolved, and yet you have to take care of the immediate, the tea, the phone call home to mom.

On television, always important in our lives.  You cannot now write without mentioning it.  Ever since Cronkite looks up at the clock to tell us that President Kennedy is dead.  There is a CNN series on papal history.  I find amusement in following the story of the wartime Popes, Pius the 11th, Pius the 12th, under the Nazis.

It's an interesting history.  Popes.  Pretending.

What we go through is the story of what Christ goes through.  And what we see in our parents, we see Joseph and Mary.  Mary has her characteristics.  And they do not always fit so easily into the modern world of humanities cleverness...  Jesus has her in mind in the things he speaks.