Just Another Friday... Expecting Zombies, Meeting Friends...

An OYB night out... I went out tonight for awhile. The family was away for an overnight visit to friends, except for me. Rare thing. So I was free.

So I went out to the local bookstore to see how much of my stuff they've sold. And lo and behold I ran into my brother and cousin there. That was weird enough. I'm positive that I was the only person to do that there this week. And even in the parking lot I saw a big old black truck that I thought was my bro's but it wasn't, but then there he was anyway. I've never seen him here. He lives in the sticks. He was in this yuppy bookstore wearing his bomber hat and an Elmer's Peninsula Construction jacket that says "Ron" that he got for a buck at a thrift shop but which he says other construction guys want to buy off him coz it's so cool. It's like a Mighty Mac Bridge welder's jacket. My bro does crazy enough construction stuff to qualify. My cuz pointed me to a book about "the Singularity" where we're just about ready to hit the really steep uphill slope of technology. In ten years we won't have computers, coz they'll be INSIDE us. That kind of steep. It was good to see my bro and my cuz. They were wondering what I was doing out and about. We're all lost here when we leave the farm. Because, truly, there's nowhere to go. I said I was going to the bookstore then to the bar for a beer. My bro said Really? Just like that?

So I went to the bar. It's the local fancy bar, owned by the local indy actual wine-beer-cheese shop and bistro. They're quality people but Lord knows they have their own trouble running a quality biz with so many imbeciles around. They're in a minimall nestled between car dealerships and other businesses that go under every year or so. It's bleak. It's also the closest bar to our house that serves local beer. I thought I'd check it out. Been there once before. Sure enough, fancy crowd. I see a TV personality.

There is no bar snack food, no chips, no nuts, nobody eatin' nuttin at the bar. Very weird. The barfolk bring me a local beer and some chips from the kitchen. I truly don't want to be weird but I need a snack. How can you have 50 people in a bar only drinking, no snacking? Very weird. There's a fresh nuts shop downtown. Get nuts from them or go home. I need to carry nuts in my Manpurse, I tell ya.

So there's a yuppy dame next to me that I say Hi to. She's drinking a non-Martini. I ask about it.

I sort out my snack problem with the bartender and I order something local and hoppy. A bottle of MBC IPA. I think about telling the bartender that I know the brewer but I don't.

Then suddenly the two guys who run the nextdoor wine-beer-cheese shop come in and stand nearby and order drinks. Their drinks take TOO long to arrive by me. Sheesh. Damn straight.

They're talking to two suburban-looking guys near us. I say Hi to them. I've shopped their shop for years but it's the first time I've seen them over drinks...altho one of them invited himself to dinner once when I asked him what wine to buy for venison and morels. So I finally to got to neighborly meet both shopkeeps. The guys they're standing next to are the manager of the local brewery---who takes an ad out in the OYB mag and on OYB online---and the manager of the nextdoor quality restaurant (which owns the bar). The gal knows them all. I get to meet them.

Before I met the brewery manager guy he asks why I ordered that beer. Coz I know the owner and I like it. Well, hey, I'm the manager. Very cool. That's how we meet. And you're my advertiser, I say. You do OYB, he says? It goes on from there. The manager mentions that the biz mentor is having dinner at the back of the bar. He's the guy who inspired the brewery and who also took out OYB ads and kept pushing for more back in the day. I went back and said Hi to him. His wife said, He keeps reading it out loud but then doesn't let me have it. After a nice visit I went back to the front and the brewery manager said, Hey, I get stacks of mags, from everyone, and yours I read cover to cover. He asked a buncha questions about things actually in the magazine, which were very weird to hear in a post-literate setting. Then he said Man, those sociable magnet stickers of yours, they keep coming back to me; what a great idea; a positive thing; something you WANT people to take from you; it freaks me out. I mean, he wasn't acting like an advertiser at all. He was a READER. Turns out the gal was a local graphic designer. I know the newspapers she works for. She wanted a mag. I got one out of the rusty ex-Hippo catering minivan for her. Her boyfriend was the bartender. His brother lives in Bellaire, where Short's Bar is. I overheard him asking the beershop guy if he wanted to try some Short's new Reserve. I'd only heard about Short's from my Ann Arbor cheese shop deer camp buddy because that's where my favorite girl singer sings every week and he'd brought two kegs of it to deer camp. It was all very weird. So I had a sample of the Short's Reserve, too. It was dandy. (Another weird thing is that today I got a $10 check in the mail with no book or mag request. The check had the guy's ph# on it so I called him and asked him what it was for and he said Your mag is great, it's just cash, for you. ...Whoa.) So it all worked out. Sheesh. Is this what happens when one goes to the bar?

Here I was, stuck in the middle of nowhere and I just went out for a beer and I met like six new people who kinda already knew me and who variously appreciated what I was doing. But when I first walked in I recognized none of this. That's just really weird.

Maybe I just need to get out more.

Over'n'out.