Down the pub

The Overcup Oak was the pub at the top of the student center at Vanderbilt.  It served beer (though not on the card, unfortunately, at least back then) and assorted simple foodstuffs, it had a fireplace inside and a balcony outside, and it was dark and cozy with a back row of booths down its own hall.  It was usually plenty full of an afternoon, but at 10 PM, it was rarely more than half-full.  Ideal for nursing a chocolate espresso milkshake (with three shots’ worth of grounds dumped in) while plowing through 250 pages of reading for tomorrow’s seminar.

That was something we didn’t have in undergrad – an on-campus third space, open late with space to sit and read and offering food and drink.  There was the Campus Store on the dorm quad (later a Pizza Hut) but it didn’t really lend itself to hanging out.  Ironically, right downstairs was a “lounge” with a pool table, a big TV and some easy chairs…which sat locked unless reserved for an event.  And of course, you had to be a “student organization” to schedule it…but I digress.

By 1998, things had changed – I lived in the greater DC area and “the pub” wasn’t a particular place.  Instead it was mental shorthand for any number of spots we might go – the Meeting Place, the Fourth Estate, Recessions, a handful of establishments frequented in the name of trying to woo Channels girls – but the big difference was that the pub had changed from ‘place to hang out and get some work done’ to ‘place to hang out with friends and socialize.’

Then, of course, there came the 4Ps, and for four and a half years, that was The Pub.  That was where everything happened – birthdays were celebrated, new girlfriends were vetted, the departing were sent off in glory and the returning were welcomed back.  It was a place with its own routines and rituals, a collective home above and beyond just a role as “third space” – it’s where we were us.

It took a couple years out here before I started to realize I was missing the pub.  I scoured everything from the Sunset to San Jose in search of another Irish pub that featured live Irish music and was public-transit accessible…and it didn’t really work.  The mistake, of course, was trying to recreate exactly what I had before.  I know that now, obviously, but the inability to house nine pints and bellow out a teary chorus of “Fields of Athenry” was highly discouraging in 2007.  I forgot my own advise: stop trying to be the person you were and become the person you are.

So for about five years I always tried to start making a habit of Sunday night at the pub, first of the month.  And there were a couple of good spots in San Jose – one Irish place with live music (though it tended more toward instrumental pickup sessions) and one ancient old building with a couple of big leather chairs, cask-conditioned ale, no televisions, tons of soccer and 2-Tone memorabilia on the walls, and a pub quiz that I romped for the better part of a month in 2009.  It was perfect for just hanging around, killing time, getting my head together for the coming week.  And invariably, by March, it had gone by the boards every year.  Maybe it’s down to the coming of sunlight past 6 PM, maybe it’s part and parcel of March Madness taking over all my weekends, but for whatever reason, I got out of the habit every time.

And then, last month, I discovered my new pub. Close enough to make transit not-awful and a cab theoretically plausible.  Some simple food options, including the apple pie (why do all Irish pubs have apple pie?) – and most importantly, live music on Sunday evenings.  Everything I’d had previous Januarys, but without the hour on the light rail at the end of the night.  A pint an hour, music in the background, not too light, suitable for…what exactly?

Because being down the pub isn’t a social thing anymore – quite the opposite.  It’s 5-time and 5-space, an opportunity to hide in plain sight somewhere that’s on the darker side and has Guinness.  And with the cunning use of the Kindle, it’s a mental vacation from the laptop and the television and the threat of work on Monday morning.

Now, the trick is going to be doing the same thing Tuesday nights at home, albeit in slightly different form: the cellphone stashed away upstairs and only the Kindle and TV at home.  Chance to catch up on magazines, on Downton Abbey (oh yes), to maybe actually go out and socialize or have people over (we’re way behind on cocktail hour).  Two kinds of getting separation from the constant stream of updates, the eternally recurring refresh, the hole I dug for myself when I took on the modern geek lifestyle.

Step one toward a healthier 2013.  Steps two and three–but you’ll have to wait to hear about those…

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