Getting Lost

There's this little bar in downtown Phoenix called Lost Leaf, a brick and wood establishment with low lighting, live music and a diverse selection of beer & wine to be had. The bar is a repurposed house in the Roosevelt district, which is pretty well known in the Phoenix area for its "First Friday" block party every month. It gets pretty damn packed on those nights, or any weekend really, but I prefer the weekdays. In the early evenings it's quiet, low traffic, and overall the crowd is pretty easy going and friendly. You can strike up a conversation with ease, inside at the bar with the bartender, or outside on the smoking patio if you're so inclined. Fact is, half the time there's nobody smoking on the patio, just reading or talking when the weather is mild enough. Lost Leaf is a great place to hang out, read a book, or check email on the wi-fi, over some good brews. And it's a terrific place to get some writing done. No TVs playing sports to distract, instead there's walls adorned with local artists' work that stimulates and inspires without pulling you away from what needs doing. No sports fans yelling at the TV about the ref being blind and deaf. No godawful karaoke being belted out because somebody saw too much "Glee." No poker tournaments dominating every flat surface in the place for hours and hours. And the ambient music playing is the bartender's choice streaming from satellite or from Pandora, and they have a decent taste in music, no Top 40s lists here. It's like the anti-bar, and I like going there. This is a safe place, my own sanctum from bad days.

It's the best little bar that I will never, ever bring anybody to.

This is terrible to admit, but there are times that the last thing I want to see is a familiar face. When you're fighting with friends, when they're into stuff that just bugs the shit out of you but it would be rude to say, or when there's a conversation you're just not ready to have, you want to be someplace you can rest assured you won't run into them. And they don't come here. If they do, it's not while I'm here. And that goes for anyone I'm dating, I wouldn't bring them here either. Relationships end, and if they take a liking to your haunts, and you bump into them after all the tears, screaming and waking up again in an unfamiliar hospital room, then what? And gods help you if they bring their new boyfriend with them here, now that's a sight I don't ever want to see again. When I come here, it's because I don't want the outside world to find me, and I'm sorry, but friends and such are part of that.

There's plenty of other places for me to rejoin my band of freaks, geeks and weirdos for fun times. But let me finish my beer, I'll be ready for real life in just a sec.