We had made a connection, Tinder, the kind of pseudo-connection one gets here, okay, when I was up at my mom's in the storm, and she seemed nice enough, my other friend had stopped responding to me as she had before, and after my therapy session my Tinder friend messages me that she would be at an event at the performing arts school near my place of employment, that maybe she could drop by, so I went in early, set-up as best I could, so that if she dropped in I might have a moment to talk.

I was busy setting up anyway, and the first customer came in right at the door opening at 5:30, and then I get a text, her letting me know she ran out of time and had to get downtown to meet clients for a dinner in Chinatown.   There I was behind the bar and when she texts if I'm free the next day, I made the mistake of telling her I had it open, and there I am in Mr. Please People mode, with those early regular customers who like conversation, you have to pay attention to them, and she, via text, invites me out to Capitol Hill for a drink and then a live Moth Radio Hour at the old theater there.   The old bait and switch...  I'm distracted enough.  I text back, okay.   And immediately, I feel guilty, stupid about it.

Jazz Night, quite busy, hectic, doesn't stop, keeps coming, a final table of the boss's Frenchie friends at the last table, a late joiner, a birthday to celebrate with a chocolate tart at the end...  and the whole night seemed pretty short staffed for a full house and jazz night with the additional five customers of the band of gypsy swing musicians...


I wake up rather tired, conscious at noon, but beat, and to get across town for 5:30, which will take an hour, well, that doesn't leave me much of a day, and I don't have the energy for it anyway, this date, except I've foolishly agreed to it.

So I get there finally after the heroic Uber ride with a man from Ghana who tells me the story of "ritual money," a sort of voodoo practice, as I sit there agreeably in the front seat of his Camry, beholding the glories of DC rush hour through the windshield, the back and forth, changing directions, over Memorial Bridge just to turn around and go back over it to finally get to a clean road up to the Hill...

I get to the place, a new restaurant.  I sit down, order a glass of wine from the genial waitress, and we talk for a bit.  She sizes me up.  I shrug inwardly and go with it.  Small plates, I have a third glass of wine over our expensive little appetizers, and we have to get to the theater.  There at the theater, a ticket for $15, I get more wine, served in little plastic cups to sit through it.  I get animated.  I know the guy telling his story.  I know a few other people in the crowd, even out here on The Hill, far away from my old barkeep gigs.  I get friendly when I drink, and then I drink more.  That's entertainment.

And then we are standing outside finally and she is very disgusted with me, telling me off, and I am feeling tired, unsteady, confused as to where to find my Uber ride.  Sad but true.  I do not know these streets.


And today, another day is wasted, and it's Lankavatara Sutra all over again.

And something too seems to have happened with my friendship with Becky, who is busy anyway with all her training and working-out routines, energized by her detoxing, texts back, "what would you know" about the things she is doing, her response to my little effort to be cheery and applauding her most recent efforts, in the midst of a very busy night via text.  Okay, she's right.  What would I know, these days.  What would I know about workouts, bike rides, yes, shame on me, I've not been out doing my yoga under the pine trees after it turned cold.


The therapist tells me that, like before in the days just after college, in the attempt to help my mother out I am limiting my ability to help her out effectively, a negative feedback loop, Jesus Christ, and here we all are.    And this too is unreal, as the cookie cutter standard by which I am compared with doesn't apply so well to the actual life situation, another irrelevance.