It is cold, rainy, and windy, and I have found it impossible to fall asleep. Too much mid-afternoon coffee, perhaps, or more likely the heavy clip I got my mind working at this evening, combined with the immodestly late hour at which I got out of bed this morning. I finished Bryson's "Neither Here Nor There", a vapid exercise that I undertook to compare Europe twenty years ago with my experience earlier this year. The book, for its part, attempts to compare Europe forty years ago and twenty years ago, and be something of a travelogue. Mostly, Bryson exercises his ability to wrestle a certain kind of exaggerated, inelegant sarcasm out of every situation. In this narrow enterprise, I suppose he has succeeded.
I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about Europe. Living there for five months, however, might have less to do with it than my state lately, which could be described as the intersection of intent and malaise, in most everything that I devote my time to. I have tried forcing myself to construct process and means of success - in school, music, investing, even making friends. But a consistent drive I can only find for investing, which I easily overload on, blowing a fuse and short-circuiting my hunger for learning for a few days at a time.
Perhaps I am drifting away from rationality. I have been taking out student loans, and the Europe trip erased any urgency I had to get back to 'business as usual' by finding a second-rate job after my first-rate prospects fell through. Cost of capital is low, investing bargains abound, it is easy to dream of returns on invested capital that can make up for a lack of primary income. The very thought of this occurring, at my age, is quite absurd, frankly.
I had a dream last night that I was at Club Opera in Stockholm (I never went there, but we talked about it enough to paint a vivid portrait), and was quite lost. The room was full of the people I... well, I believe the sense was that it was the people that I went to school with there (in the dream). Even in the dream there was a sort of cognitive dissonance going on, and the feeling of satisfaction combined with an insistent feeling that I was supposed to be somewhere else. I felt like I had spent quite enough time where I was and should be purposefully moving on to another bar (although the feeling was quite real, too, that another bar was akin to another city; this was firmly counter to my conscious feelings; I miss Stockholm more than any place in Europe). Anyway, this whole big charade was a rather obvious metaphor that I am ready to be done with Omaha, and even the feeling in the dream that I am going to the next bar to meet other friends seems a brusque way of my subconscious to reassure me that I will meet new people again. I am 1) least surprised to see my subconscious use bars as a metaphor for stages of my life; and 2) most offended to see Omaha be represented by a classy club that I probably could never afford.
We did go to some bars in Stockholm that were very cool, most notably Spy Bar late one night. I would learn later about the reputation it has: a place people go to do 'celebrity spotting', with the supposedly most difficult club doors to get inside in the city. I recall a group of several underage girls from our hostel having no trouble, whatsoever; I don't even recall that the bouncer felt a need to check their ID's; however, the seemed convinced for some time that my friend and I were actually not at the head of the line that started fourteen inches in front of him with me.
Once we were inside, it was like the world's best house party, in an 18th century mansion with a DJ who had my own music collection. I didn't know that there were nightclubs in the world that actually played Hercules and Love Affair, and D.A.N.C.E., and Cut Copy. Also, the superexpensive drinks actually seemed to enhance the experience somehow, as if it gave some validity to having this fantastic time.
Lady Patricia - a club on a boat in the lake - became something archetypal, as we tried and failed to reach it night after night. A forgotten ID or denial due to public intoxication seemed only one extraneously expensive cab ride away, a problem exacerbated when you have a whole group of irresponsible people that are committed to not splitting up.
Not splitting up proved its worth when we were in Stockholm, if even through failure. The one night that I attempted to walk anywhere alone (home from Spy Bar in the middle of the night, incidentally), a car pulled up to the curb, and four guys got out, identifying themselves as police and asking me for identification. When I wouldn't show them, they told me to get in their car. I was lucky that other people were walking by whose attention I could divert to the situation occurring around me. I was so shaken by the situation that I walked around the city for three hours lost, looking for our hostel.
The next day, walking through a particularly classy urban section of town, I saw the words "Spy Bar". I had a flashback. Wait a minute, I thought, I remember that name. I pulled the tourist info pamphlet from my back pocket. "Yep, here it is, Spy Bar. The one with the celebrities." I suggested to my friends that we go there that night. One of them then, without pride or ridicule, informed me that we had already been there.
Finally, Stockholm, to the best of my recollection, is the only place where I've ever been denied entry to a bar because I was too drunk. This is a special memory that I can savor vividly, thanks to the fact that I was sober.
I feel a heaviness of eyelids coming on. Wish me luck.
