Nights are for the Young

I haven't written in a couple of days.  There are so many ongoing, competing stories in my life.  There are the ones I've created, there are the mythical beasts that others must slay, and there are the ones that just happen to appear through sheer living.  I can't discuss most of them.

There is always the one about last night though. I attended the surprise birthday of one of my closest friends. Her husband rented a limo to drive us downtown.  Though I'm usually asleep by 10:30, I managed to stay out with her until the bars closed.  Oh, we all had fun--especially her. It was a departure from our suburban life. But, oh, what a scene.

I thought had done my homework. I asked some of my younger coworkers at the gym where to go. They are all puppies anyway.  I confessed to them that it had been about ten years since I'd ventured into the downtown nightlife scene.  They threw out some names, two or three of which I mentally noted.

Yes, the scene has completely changed in the last ten years and not just because I'm ten years older.  There was this one upscale place I vaguely remembered from years past.  We went there first.  There's a steep hardwood staircase leading to a elaborately decorated loft bar.  It's covered with dark velveteen benches and scrollwork in the darkly stained oak.  The place was the same.  The ambiance had completely changed.  Inside no one was dressed for the evening.  There were hobo tourists from far away lands.  There were girls with what looked like stockings over their dark voluptuous curves, with glittered toes and plastic flip flops.  I saw sunglasses and ridiculous hats and smoke from hookahs. And I can stand some loud music, but the bass rang my ear drums to the point I was sure permanent damage was inevitable.

This was not the scene of a decade prior.

And good god, the DJ had ADD.  We'd hear 20 seconds of one song, start to move with the recognizable hit, and then it would change into something else, moving in no particular direction, in no concrete genre.  It was a mess --a musical train wreck.

And everyone was young. If they weren't young, they were creepy.

Nights are now for the young. Nights like that are now unrecognizable to me.