5:37 — Ringler’s Annex, in the basement 32 minutes
6:15 — Max 23 minutes
Ringler’s Annex — very unlike me. Not that being here (here being the refurbished basement of a tiny corner bar; glossy finished wood behind walls of windows above, but exposed concrete walls down here, pillars holding the floor overhead, celtic knotwork and whimsical elves painted in subdued gray on the walls, floor, ceiling, and mosaic of broken tile from more respectable construction moving in organic curves over some of the corners and pilasters) is unlike me, but to be here, alone, on a work night, when I could (and my training screams should) be home with my darlin’ — that’s unlike me.
But here I am, thanks entirely to my darlin’, who suggested that I was sot in my ways and could use a break. ”Stop,” she said. ”Replenish the spirit while keeping that increasing liver at bay. Stay the flood of beer that is covering the countryside, and save us all. And you might write a bit while you’re about it, and do it in a more pleasant place than you’ve been doing.”
So here I lurk, away from the upwardly mobile crowd sitting on their downward dropping backsides upward of me. It may say something about my character that, with all of PDX to sit and drink and write in, I chose a cave. This basement is lit with a dozen 25 watt bulbs in age-yellowed fixtures, with table candles to augment. But for the barkeep, I’m alone, and in the back, around the corner and under the staircase. My hat is pulled low over my forehead to keep me from idly watching the empty room, and there’s a beer at my elbow for pensively sipping while I consider what happens next in my novel.
Which takes me to it. Go, you lot, back to your terrain haunts, and leave the shadows to me.
Oh — and Shannon, you are an excellent mate and I love you.
Crossposted from Epinephrine & Sophistry
Do they still smoke cigars down there? If not, so much the better for the single malts, if anybody could afford them.