But the real reason I prefer to stick to these two bars is because of the connection I share with a select number of bartenders. Being my bartender is not like any other service position. I don’t feel the same way about the bloke at the 30th street McDonalds.

Your bartender has access to your soul. They know your peculiarities, and your quirks, and your tastes. And they know all of this just by watching you have a drink. Whether or not you chew your straw, the way you bend the plastic stirrer when you’re done with it, whether you finish all the ice in the glass before ordering another round, how you prefer to wait until the drink is over before consuming the garnish, and so on and so forth…the list goes on for quite a while.

My point is that your bartender sees you at your highest and your lowest. When you’ve had a bit of a shit day, they can read the quiet desperation on your face as you order your first drink, and they can see the mellow and relief as you move on to your second. They have access to your most private information, shared accidentally in moments of extreme inebriation. They have the tact and professional courtesy not to remind you of how much you drank the last time you were around, and they never judge.

I love my bartenders. They are quite possibly my best friends in the whole world. Without them, drinking would have no meaning.

I recall my 12 year-old self, full of ambition, and a distaste for any sort of oppressive presence in his life. He questioned anything forced upon him, choosing instead to make his own decisions, and mistakes; eager to forge his own path in this world, uninterrupted and driven. What would he say of my behaviour now? How would he feel to know that I have shirked my personal duty to do right by myself – choosing instead to withdraw and allow myself to be painted by the same brush as everyone else.

No longer shall this be the case. I owe it to myself, as a foreigner in a foreign land, to identify myself as such, and allow those who like me to like me for who I am, and not who I once chose to present to them.

Here’s the thing: I know what clothes you need to buy, I know what cologne you need to wear, I know what car you need to drive, what computer you need to use, what toilet paper you need to wipe your ass with, what mouthwash you need to gargle with, what oil you need to saute with, what team you need to support, what beer you need to drink, what cigar you need to smoke. I know where you need to live, and I know how you need to get there. I know what ring you need to buy, and who you need to propose to. I know how many kids you need to have, and what you need to name them. I know everything.

I know what stocks you need in your portfolio, what supermarket you need to shop at, what pharmacy you need to frequent. I know who should be insuring your vehicles, home, and health. I know these things.

I know when you need to say what you need to say, and how you need to say it.

I am the sultan of spin. I have no reputation to ruin, I don’t have an image problem because I don’t have an image. I have a presence. And it is undeniable.

I am the man.

I have rejected my humanity, embraced a divinity and spirituality — cursed, blamed, and forgone responsibility for my errors in search of something unseen to hate. I am human, and I am sorry.

I have asked the important questions, but anticipated the wrong answers. I have turned down the hands offering to feed me. I have embraced conflict in the hopes that the calumniation I have experienced be justified in the end. I am human, and I am sorry.

I have taken for granted a life of comfort, ease, and at some times, opulence. But I have sworn, time and again, to make things different for the generation that will follow me. I am human, and I am sorry.

I have embraced the hurt within me, and downplayed that of others. The death, struggle, misfortune and loss suffered by others in my life pales in comparison to my own suffering. I am human, and for this, I cannot apologise.

I am human.

1) As a primary school boy in the 5th grade when I just couldn’t hold it until the end of the day.

2) As an 11th grader on an internship in New York.

And then we have now…at work…in the middle of the day. I am upset, needless to say. This isn’t a personal hygiene or OCD thing…I’m fairly certain the toilets in my office are used less and cleaned more often than the toilet in my own apartment.

But there’s something disconcerting about trusting my bare ass to this horribly industrial, white plastic toilet seat.

As a child, I didn’t suckle on anybody else’s mother’s breast. I didn’t sleep in anybody else’s bed. I didn’t eat anybody else’s food off anybody else’s plate, and I damn sure have not pleased anybody else’s wife (girlfriend, yes…but wife, ABSOLUTELY not).

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that taking a shit anywhere but the place you’re willing to make your home is just fucking wrong.

Don’t do it. Because if you do, I wouldn’t be caught dead inside you…or even just talking to you.

“Stop whining, train stations always have something to do around them – just kill some time!”, you must be thinking. Well you’d be wrong. The drinks and snacks stall in the station closes at 3. Across the street there is a “mall” consisting of a pizza shop run by a greek named Niko who can’t make a gyro to save his life, but oddly enough has palatable slices. Next to this is an arts and crafts store, a verizon store, and a store selling drapes. Fabulous.

For any place to call itself a city, it must have robust mass transit…because, well, that’s what a city is about. Lancaster, on the other hand, is full of snotty arsewipes who have nothing better to do than to sell shit used cars and go to shit bars for shit finger food and beer that tastes like pisswater. They have a fairly active downtown, which is why I don’t understand why they are only served by one commercial rail line, and are served by the most USELESS bus service ever, frequented by the worlds stupidest commuters.

Not only has this city’s lack of ability to efficiently run a bus service down 8 miles of road ruined my evening, but it has put the final nail in the coffin.

I had hope for this city; I was able to look past the amish, the guns, the bad taste in music and dress, the lack of class, and even the constant wafts of cow manure in the air. But this is it. None of those other things really affected me much. But today, the “city” of Lancaster has done what should never be done. It has fucked with my livelihood.

I have now reached my train station 2 minutes past the departure time of my train. And this angers me more than anything because if the fat arsewipe driver had taken the time to drive WHILE passengers pay their fare instead of remaining stationary, watching arthritic seniles fiddle with their dimes and pennys, that would have been 2 minutes worth of saved time.

Thankfully for me, my other beloved mode of transport was three minutes late.

I kid you not, as I purchased my ticket, the train rolled into the station.

Maybe there is a God…but wherever he is, he clearly isn’t helping Lancaster much.

There’s nothing wrong with Valentine’s day. There’s never any obligation to be around those you can’t stand. There’s oysters, and dark chocolate, and caviar and champagne. There’s time to be spent with the ones closest to you, time to enjoy their words, the warmth of their embrace, and the sparkle in their eye that only seems to appear when they’re at their happiest; when they’re with you, and when it seems like absolutely all your troubles melt away.

Keep loving, lovers.

It’s like they decided to metaphorically go green by recycling all the most played-out “scandals” they could think of.

If one more weave-wearing, VH1 show craving potentially hermaphroditic bitch comes out saying she fucked Tiger Woods, I’m going to beat someone with a golf club.

Also, the puns have me wretching. No, I’m not going to join your Facebook group “Don’t call him Tiger, call him Cheetah.”

If you’re going to bash him, at least go for the fact that his wife is probably an 11 out of 10 and he decided to fuck like, 4s at best.

Oh, and when you have your affair – remember you’re not a billionaire. And the shut the fuck up.

The Eagles lost in the playoffs, again.  Eleven years of Donovan making sad face on the sidelines as he watches the defense roll over and die while Andy Reid gets ready to cough up “They played better than we did” – only to pretend they care about next year.

They don’t.

I don’t want to hear anything about Brett Favre this offseason… the only reason I’d accept them winning the Superbowl is because Adrian Peterson pulled me out of the Lance Bass fiasco of 2005. I was not bored in 2005.

Anyway, back to the Dullfest 2010. Mark McGwire… fuck you. I loved you for denying you took steroids year after year and now you not only had to go admitting it, but you cried.

When I was a little girl, I loved watching you smash a ball without moving your elbow too much, kinda hobbling around the bases because your upper body was WAY too big for the lower half.

Um, duh you were taking steroids. Who cares?

I’m getting rid of my Beanie Baby and erasing all those Big Macs I ate for you.

Where the fuck is Dennis Rodman when you need him… shouldn’t he renew his vows to himself or something?

Randy Moss isn’t mooning people anymore and Ron Artest is like Confessions of a Halftime Boozer.

ENOUGH. You can’t all be on the juice – some of you have to have balls.

You’re paid to entertain me, so wake me up when you collectively decide to suit up – and please, not in one you’d be wearing after being sentenced to more jail time.

Where’s Ocho… I want to go to the Waffle house.