Listening to Anything To Say You're Mine by Etta James

Before we begin tonight's essay I think it is important that I get a few things out of the way.

1. Alex - thank you for this song. I adore it and probably (at this point) could not live without it. I really appreciate everything we talked about the other night. As always - you are insightful, thoughtful and mature beyond your years. I am unsure as to where I would be without your influence. And your huge fun bags.

2. Katie Ray - I am sorry that I never mention you in my blog. I guess I never speak to how much I appreciate our dialogues. I don't think that Bad Boys is your favorite movie. I also don't think that it is your favorite movie because it has black people in it. I know how wonderful you are and if I could be an elementary school student you would be my favorite teacher. But I would make you watch Bad Boys. Because that would be my favorite movie. And not because it has black people in it.

3. I have been smoking entirely too many cigarettes lately. I will stop shortly.

Whew! I am drunk. Drinkety-Drankety-Drunk. Bippity-Boppity-Boo. Obviously, not so drunk that i can't still type. But I thought it important to document something tonight before sleep washed all the memories away. My friend Sarah says that your birthday isn't truly over until you get your last present. Tonight, after my 3 week hiatus from New York, I got my final present. I returned to my seedy blue-collar bar in Brooklyn and bar-tended. Who was there? Well... all my regulars of course. They drank and sang and made merry and eventually, after many shots, sang 'For He's A Jolly Good Fellow.'
I am not sure if you are often on the receiving end of compliments, but they are not easy to accept, especially for me. Tonight was an exception. I mean, I blushed a little, but I allowed myself the ability to revel in something nice. I let myself enjoy a nice warm glow of friendship and mirth. I was struck at how diametrically opposed my two jobs are. One bar is so caught up in what is so unimportant in life. People look around to see who laughs at a joke before they let themselves laugh. They are so concerned with what the most fashionable thing to drink is, they never laugh from their bellies, and yet they pay so much. For what? And yet tonight I was faced with a bunch of people who were all drinking the cheapest liquor possible and yet so happily reveling in each other's company. Plenty of laughs and claps on the back. It was a great night.
And so I ask you...what is it that we have at the end of it all? What currency do we have stored up that is truly worth anything? Is it money in the bank? Is it the objects we have accumulated in our households? Is it our relative health? No - it is none of that.
It is our memories.
When two people fall in love they agree to more than undying affection and fidelity - they agree to the communal effort of building shared experiences. Why do you think people from high school who meet years later get back together? Why do you think we are so close with our friends?
Communal experiences.
Why did Citizen Kane say "Rosebud?" All the same reason. The memory of what transpired is worth more to us than anything we could have purchased at any given time. The reliving of stories, adventures, deaths, laughs - those are all things that buoy us from one day to the next. It is the very reason why Alzheimer's is the darkest of thieves. All that we have to hold close in our most isolated moments are our memories. I think that that is the reason that oftentimes some people can't sit still. They recognize that we are allocated a certain amount of time in our lives to accomplish what it is we want to do. And to pass up a single second is to pass up a chance to create a new memory.
Oof. The steam just went out of me. All that lousy beer just caught up with me. I have got to go to sleep now or risk losing my train of thought completely. Okay. No worries.x