holding out. Guilt in motion...

Something sobering, about going out, into the public, even for fun. The place tonite, it was hopeless. Not a soul in the bar and this is Friday night. The owner made it so you can only smoke in back. That means, during karaoke, you have to choose between politely watching the few other singers (cuz you want them to watch you), or smoking a delicious cigarette before you nervously go on stage. What a bad place to be! No wonder no one's here. You'd think the owner would notice, but no, he dont see the writing on the wall. This bar will close soon. Then, 2months later, it will re-open with a new name. This has happened five times in ten years. Ever since it was Albo's Bar and Grill, the same people frequent this bar. The color on the walls may have changed, and pool tournaments turned, inevitably, into Texas Holdem tournaments, but this is our bar. It's right down the street. A refuse from our tiny boring lives on this tiny sad Island. We're homesick sailors marooned in the quiet beauty of marsh grass and pine trees. And once a week, when the stress of living gets too thick to swallow, we show up from our cocoons of solitude, to sing our tired hearts out in the spotlight. And though the beer flows, and the pills are thrilling, and the pot is potent, and the adrenaline is choking us; still, after all that, it can still be somewhat sobering to finally be around people of the same species. Even if there are only a few and they're all bitching about smoking areas.