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Seems that if you wait long enough, pretty much any memory gets to be a fond one.

I did tell you, didn't I, of apartment F209, yes? Palm Springs, Florida, summer of 1997, living the solitary lifestyle once again in a one-bedroom barren apartment, searching for a new meaning for life after a whirlwind one year romance that felt less like twelve months of modern life and more like a strange dream you wake up from one morning that stays with you most of the day and makes everything look and feel different from the way you thought they're supposed to. I'm almost sure I told you about that. But I'll recap.

The bedroom in the back was pure storage. In the four months I lived there, I went back into that room twice -- once to carry the boxes in, once to sneak them out in the middle of the night while blowing the lease. In the front, comically dubbed the living room, were accomodations so spartan as to inspire pity in even the most hard-bitten itinerant rogue.

Know what I had there? I had a folding bed, not quite a cot, but not quite as luxurious as a full-fledged futon or twin. I had a folding table, the kind that kids sit at during Thanksgiving dinners while the adults laugh about their own watercolored memories over the fancy oak. I had a folding chair, suitable primarily for third grade recorder recitals in the school auditorium. Okay? That was it. That's what I had. And a computer sitting on top of the folding table, which I would use while sitting on top of the folding chair, until I got both drunk and tired enough to flop onto the folding bed and drift away for a few hours before starting it all over again.

Nobody should live like this. This is a disaster, through and through. And you better believe that when it was happening, when the horror of this living nightmare was there to reach out and touch, that it couldn't have ended soon enough, and the night I threw the folding table and the folding chair in the car and flew up 95 with a cat under each foot pedal was the most significant turning point in my life since I went to Florida to begin with. Good Christ almighty, and pass the biscuits.

Damn right I miss it. The glorious freedom and simplicity! Nothing to worry about except what music to listen to on the boombox and what wacky story to write for PWC the next week! Almost back to the womb, it felt, what with life being so carefree and easygoing. Order a pizza! Hell, order three, who cares? How great was that? Calgon, take me back there. I think I still have a few months left on the lease, too.

But this is maniacal, of course. And it's not what I'm here to talk about at all, anyway.

No, this story is about Warren. I'd change his name so that he wouldn't know it was him if he ever stopped by to read this, but he'd know it was him anyway, and who cares.

Warren started working at my company several months ago. His employment lasted little more than two months. He was to be our database administrator, which is a hallowed office to hold in any tech firm, because you basically hold the keys to the car. Salesmen are a dime a dozen. Programmers can be snapped right off their skateboards and into a new cube at the drop of a hat. Middle managers, middle middle managers, who needs 'em anyway. But nothing gets done without the DBA.

In our case, nothing got done with the DBA. I am not here to pin fault on anyone's tail, though I can sum up by announcing that it was everyone else's fault but mine. And the story isn't about computers at all, so it was stupid to bring this up. Probably wouldn't have either, except I started this column even later than yesterday's, and I only have 32 minutes before it's officially tomorrow, so I'm throwing as much as I can think of into this thing so it looks like a real column. How's it going so far?

Warren and I became fast, fast friends. He came from Florida, where I had been, and as scary as it is, he had almost all the same interests I had. Same cult movie affections, same taste for unusual music, same thirst for the diverse and the bizarre. But moreover, we were both big fans of South Florida talk radio. South Florida talk radio in the mid 1990's was the true golden age of radio. Unfortunately, nobody knows this, except for me and Warren. We would trade the old radio show sound effects back and forth on our computers and send each other old recordings of the shows and basically have a rip-roaring good time, merely at the expense of everyone else in the office, and any projects that we were trying to get done. Good times.

Coincidentally enough, Warren also had quite a taste for the brew. There was a purity to his thirst, too, one which I still admire in a very disturbing way. He would leave work, drive to the Chili's near his apartment, and have beers. Talk to people? No, have beers. Write a daily column? Play computer games? Phone sex? No, have beers. That's all. Have a beer, and a smoke, and that's pretty much all he needed. Kids, take note: The easier it is for you to be happy, the better off you are. Look to this man for inspiration.

Now it's been a long time since I've had anyone I would call a "drinking buddy." In fact, maybe that long time is ever. Sure, I had computer geek friends that would mix up bourbon and Diet Cokes over a rousing game of Star Control every couple weeks, and sure, mommy always carries her Jameson's flask on the golf course, but I never really had anyone I could count on to head to the bar with me and just sit there and drink and make dumb jokes when you needed and just sit there and drink.

But then there was Warren. And for the brief time he was here, really only the last month, we got into a heck of a rhythm. After work every day, "Where're we going today?" He never had anything better to do, and I admired that. I never had anything better to do either, which disgusted me, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So first we tried Ruby Tuesday's. Then TGIFriday's. Then Applebee's. Finally we decided that we couldn't tell any of these places apart, and went scouting, and found a place called J.J. Bitting's Brewhouse. J.J.'s is right next to a commuter Amtrak and brews its own beer. J.J.'s serves good food. J.J.'s has a jukebox.

J.J.'s has a little model train set that runs along the wall all around the bar and the restaurant every fifteen minutes. This is where we belonged.

For days, and weeks, this was the routine. Work. Then go to bar sit drink beer talk about radio shows play dumb jukebox songs drink beer talk about radio shows look there goes the train woohoo!

Every hour or so, I would feel a little pang somewhere, somewhere in there where it pangs, and it would make me think of F209. This, this pathetic life. This is the best I can do? Drinking beer and watching a toy train every night? What are you doing, man? Every second you spend here is one less sec-

But you know what, even that little voice was drowned out by the other one saying, boy, this really is fun. This is just the kind of memory that I could see really reminiscing over years from now, but goddammit, I'm still enjoying it now. Wonder of wonders.

Perhaps that's one of the keys to happiness, then...

Enjoy the good times while they're happening, for memory is a fickle mistress.