One of those classic things I’ve never done is sit in those picnic table booths in the front of Lit and drink and talk about magazines and art and about my professors like the college kids I see there do. I went through that phase before I discovered Lit. The phase where “The Smiths” are your personal soundtrack. The “watch a band play downstairs then sit with your friends drinking pints of whatever, ending up at someone’s apartment later and fucking them while the scent of their dirty clothes in their tiny little room lingers and trying not to wake up their roommate but not even being sure if the roommate is even there and trying not to knock over the mural with the polaroids from their summer backpacking Euro-trip and quickly finding some excuse to leave after they cum so you don’t end up at brunch with someone who’s name you don’t remember talking about their family in Minneapolis” phase. No, my Lit is about the people in the back-backroom and the people in the DJ booth and the people in the sweaty inferno they call “downstairs” and the people waiting in line for the red wall bathrooms and the people in the hallway toward the exit where you always see someone you haven’t seen in years, you know, since they tried the “relationship thing” and of course now they’re single and you’re both drunk and you talk about how drunk you both are and say stuff like “I’ll see you back inside” and spend the rest of the night trying to avoid them and the rest of the night trying to find that beauty you connected with that said they were leaving with their friends soon.

I love taking cabs in front of Lit (but you know, even if you leave, you always end up coming back). It’s always a 15-45 minute ordeal. I don’t even smoke (except when I’m making my home videos) but I’m always outside with the smokers before I leave, watching someone, always someone, causing a scene. Last week I was leaving Lit with Franco to go to Beatrice and a girl I met inside gave me her number as we were getting into the taxi. Oh, Lit… Lit and their bartenders who make sure you’re never dehydrated.
Do you drink?
No, no… I never drink.

I’ve never NOT met someone new at Lit. Never. But it’s usually after it closes. When it (Lit) closes there’s still a bunch of people inside. The people who know people who know the bartender that’s not even working there that week.