Brownout

I'm sitting at the Emory drinking alcoholic root beer in a bright blue flowered sundress while a woman who tried to kiss Scottie one night waits on us. We're listening to my picks on the Jukebox:

1. "Soft Shock"-Yeah Yeah Yeahs: This was my first one, my "I like this song and it's kinda chill" pick. Nice and floaty.
2. "Slate"-Uncle Tupelo: I almost always pick this when I'm there. The violin part is great, it's a well-built song and one of the best opening songs to an album I've known.
3. "Spiderbite Song"-Flaming Lips: Steven Drozd is a genius, on a song about his addiction. I think his genius will be appreciated down the line.
4. "Blue Ridge Mountains"-Fleet Foxes: Perfect Saturday noon song.
5. "Manoogian Zoo"-Hard Lessons: This song has more historic value to my life than any other, having lived through the Forest Arms fire and having dealt with the aftermath. This song could be pretentious, considering they didn't live there or anything, but it's too sad and true to really have that effect.
6. "So Lost Now"-Silverghost: Great melody, catchy guitar line, and I'm friends with them. Not to mention they segued into this from a Vaselines song at the New Center.

"Science makes us all its bitches."

Now I'm talking about drifting events and New Order with my new friend Joe. And now I'm drinking a Great Lakes amber. I have to go to work in less than 4 hours. Lord, I hope my power is on soon. But the A/C in here is so nice and I'm hearing things I've never heard before and I just ate half an avocado with an omelette and right now I'm thinking I could live here, sleep right in the leather booths. That's the stuff of fantasy, though, and there's a reason a lot of the best writers die of cirrhosis. Like it was reading my mind the jukebox picks Elliot Smith's "The Morning After", sending me into reprises of car theft and summer hangovers from three years past. I sit back, recounting muggings and their strange nostalgia, sip the meaty Guinness to my side, and think that I must be home. Everything's going to be okay right now. Even though it never will be.