The Sidewalk Cafe, ellipsis. Wait, did I just say "ellipsis" or did I type it? It's tired in here...

What in the world were we doing at three AM… aka hanging with the waitresses, the walls and the weirdos (too many ellipsis’? ellipsises? ellipsis…)

Some people were looking to disappear, most were already gone.  Being new, it wasn’t really my place to make blanket assumptions, but I think it was fairly safe to say that one of the main draws of this place was the masquerade of it all.  For fucks sake, even I was wearing sunglasses at two-thirty in the morning, trying to not pass out/fall asleep, which would happen from time to time, hiding diligently, in plain sight, from everyone left, but mostly, from myself.  It was eerily simplistic to fall into the mystique and adapt to the scene being played out, week after week.  It was, in its own way, the sort of thing that all of these people (and there was definitely a very specific type of person who enjoyed this) were looking for, after years of being disenfranchised with the distinct lack of effort and non-existent aura most places strive to project.  This, it seemed, even in its own contrived, but still genuine on some level, way filled a desire to go back in time and experience something that we all knew (well, most of us knew) we were doomed to search for, unsatiated, on and on, with an unrelenting and crippling passion should we continue down our respective, and all-consuming, current paths.

For those seven to eight hours (no fucking joke), it was our world, much the same as an actor might get lost playing a character, amongst strangers and friends and people desperately seeking solace from the storm, whatever that may be to them, oblivious to reality.  I know, because I am one of them, that there is a multitude of people who simply cannot function in the type of world our begetters built.  Our brains are addled with dreams and deficiencies, and the way we are meant to exist day to day doesn’t quite compute.  It simply, no matter how you play with the numbers, won’t add up to a meaningful sum.  So, I get it.  I wanted it to exist, just as much as the rest of them.  But, still, I couldn’t fucking stand it.  Something about it just didn’t feel right.  Something was missing, but maybe that was part of the mystique.  Either way, I loved, and completely hated, the Sidewalk Café…