Value

The man's head reflected the bar's dim light He announced his name over the small PA system.

"I'm the Fat White Boy and you're at Johnny's Beanery," he said across a small bar filled with rickety tables and cheap beer drunks. Some were students. Some Wal-Mart employees. One was an old guy who the bar patrons called Knobby. They would scream his name in unison when he walked in the door.

A 23-year-old man with beer on his breath and unexplained happiness in his eyes looked across the room. His friends were there.

There were his roommates, his brother, his girlfriend. In that booth sat his drinking buddies. He could hug just about anybody in the bar and recall the names of at least 80% of the people he was embracing.

Beer Breath Boy knew these people, even if he didn't really know them. With some, he shared a common life. He lived with some of them, he slept with others, he drank with the rest of them. Over the years, he'd watched some folks fight in the parking lot and he'd watched others set city-wide drinking records. They were all living an unhealthy lifestyle and almost all of them knew they'd have to stop it eventually.

But for that night (and that night was just an amalgum of countless nights that fused like condensation beneath a beer bottle), it was a lifestyle of definition. The bar defined most of these people. The few that realized that simple fact were the happiest of them all. It wasn't the drinking, the sing-alongs, or the late night confessions of love. It was the simple bond of people who find a common place. It was a timeless place and even if everybody didn't know your name, it was still your place. The bartender knew what everybody drank. The guy with the magic dollar knew what everybody liked to hear on the juke box. And when the end of the night drunken swaying to "Piano Man" got too unsteady, there was almost always somebody to drive you home.

I'm gaining an appreciation for things of value. Health, an appreciative pet, the humor-potential of a late night MC Hammer dance parody, good friends, quiet evenings, and self-awareness.

I may be getting closer to figuring out who I am. Funny thing is--for good or bad--I haven't changed much since those nights in Johnny's Beanery.

I'm quite sane, but I'm coming to realize that my psyche may be trying to explain to the rest of me about who I am. I'm developing low-level social anxieties that I'm powerless to control. If I am in some version of Johnny's, I am at ease. If I'm surrounded by a bunch of people I will never know (or care to)...I am far from fine.

I used to feign a universal comfort. I pretended to be the guy who could fit in anywhere. That was a lie.

There are places I fit and there are places I am the polygonal peg. That was true many years ago and it is just as true today.

No moral...just a little personal reflection. I need to do that every once in a while.

Final note: If you didn't watch 9/11 on CBS last night, you should have. I don't like to applaud CBS for anything and I'm sure there's a lot of behind the scenes crap that would make me appreciate the efforts of the network and film makers less. Regardless, you should have watched it. There was value there.