cut to you don't have to go home...
06/21/2005 03:20 p.m.
...but you can't stay here.

saturday. june. eighteenth.

the night begins at 11:45pm. after an entire day of lounging around. after a day of non-productiveness. after hours of re-run television. this is when the night begins. you shower, you brush teeth, you style the strip of hair that leads down the center of your head, you throw on a good shirt, pamper yourself in some fragrance, and you're just about ready to head outside.

the majority of chicago bars and nightclubs stay open until 2am, there are a handful of places that extend their hours until 4am. you find these places and you suck the life out of them -- while they simultaneously suck the life out of you, along with a few dollars here and there.

you're at dublins just after midnight. turn your oven up to 450º let it pre-heat and then stand beside it with a beer in your hand. this is how warm it feels inside dublins. move yourself, your beer, and your oven onto a subway train at rush-hour. this is how crowded dublins feels. and you mention the sweat you can feel on your kneecap beneath a layer of levi's.

after a beer you and your friends are ready to go elsewhere. leave the oven behind and open your freezer door. this is how it feels to step outside. even though it's june. even though it's the midwest. even though it's summer.

cut to you on a bus heading north on clark. it isn't yet 2am, there is still time remaining for you to create a stellar evening. if you were an actor, if this were hollywood, if the bus driver were tom cruise, than this would be days of thunder. that's how the bus driver is driving. and you can't help but wonder how the woman sitting across from you can sleep through it.

the woman with seventeen pounds of make-up around each eye. the elderly woman with her head collapsed into her shoulders. the woman across from you with her thigh-highs rolled beneath her knees. the woman whose toes curl all up and around each other. the woman with a bandage on her ankle and worn-out flip-flops. the bus driver; talking to himself, swerving, driving down the center of the street. you can't help but wonder how this woman can sleep, her make-up weighing her face down.

cut to belmont street. you are now walking west, then north, in search of the intersection of addison and ashland.

cut to tai's til 4 -- it's a bar. the cavernous pub burrows back into a small apartment-like building. you feel like you're in joe dahlbeck's basement. you feel like a teen again. the low-hanging drop-ceiling, the wood paneling on the wall, the gold and red shimmery budweiser ad. you are in a friend's basement, almost.

you and your friends stand just beneath the dj booth, just beneath one of the only two enormous speakers in the room. and you feel like you are in a dane cook joke. you wait for kool-aid to bust through the wall.

everyone is dancing but not everyone can dance.

cut to a couple from michigan is talking to you. they tell you that you have great hair. they appear to be a couple but when the guy asks you if you like parliament or prince... as opposed to the britney spears currently playing... you know you're dealing with a man who'd probably rather take you home than any girl in the place. they said your hair was great, not green, the music is a bit loud.

cut to a kid with a camera. he snaps photos and you make small talk about f-stop. you the film student.

at some-multiple-of-minutes past 4am the ceiling lights turn on and it feels like someone's mother just woke up and turned on the basement lights. time to scurry out of backdoors, under blankets, anywhere but where mom and dad can find you. you feel like a teen again.

you emerge back down the cavernous hall towards the front of said bar. by the way it says balls on your chalkboard. and you step outside.

the sky is blue. the sun is about to rise. the big hand and the little hand and the digital numbers on your cell phone are all telling you that it is almost 5am.

the strip of hair that leads down the center of your head, your good shirt, your levi's. you keep all of these on and you jump into a pool of cool water. this is how you feel. every layer of your clothing is soaked in your own perspiration. this is how much you danced. this is how hot you didn’t know you were. until you stopped dancing. you put your hand in your back pocket, it's moist. your undershirt, drenched.

jump into the pool and jump right back out, look down at yourself, this is how you feel at 5am standing on a sidewalk outside of a bar.

cut to the cab ride home. cut to the cab driver entering your credit card number again and again and again. cut to his face when he says your card isn't working. cut to your reaction when he reminds you that your card expires in two months. cut to you thinking, well what does that have to do with today? he brings you to an atm machine.

all you can do when you finally get inside your apartment is strip. and you still feel wet. cut to making a peanut butter sandwich. cut to drinking a glass of water. cut to taking a shower. cut to sleeping.

cut to sleeping.
cut to sleeping.
cut to sleeping.