I heard that Sublime �Bad Fish� song again. It came on the radio today while I was sitting in my car trying to kill time before I walked into work to set up for the meeting. I closed my eyes and let it remind me of San Francisco and North Beach� of that Bar where they still had Happy Hour. The first time I went there I was with Karen and we were felt lost in our lives. We never felt self absorbed-we just felt young. The next time was with Nate, and the last with Kati, each time trading my dollars for drafts. They credited you a pog chip each time you paid for one beer and you cashed in your pog chip for the second beer. It was awkward. It was cyclical. You felt cheap. They had a good juke box. My first time there was before I had a job in California, my first week from my departure from Boston and my introduction into sobriety. It was the beginning of my life out there. We were drunk before long and playing songs on the juke box, talking- she kept going outside to smoke. Bars in California were non-smoking; it was before the non-smoking ban had gone into effect in Boston. It was a different life for both of us. When Nate and I were there� that song was playing (I don�t remember if I played it) and my life had quickly settled in and fallen apart but I felt independent. His life however was in shambles. He kept leaving to go smoke and a man kept coming over each time the door closed and telling me about my eyes. Each time Nate came back in the man asked if we were together and he laughed and saying- �just friends�, laughing to my frown. We just kept drinking more until happy hour ran out and I paid full price for our beers. It seemed to me whenever we were together, the beginning always felt like a deal and as the night went on I was paying full price. When Kate and I went, we never needed happy hour to enjoy ourselves and make each other laugh- it was a different time in my life again. The bars looked different when you visited them and you had somewhere to lay your head at night.

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