as you stand on the ledge, just two steps up from the pavement, you will see this dark door, standing straight and firm to the right. stained deep brown with the dirt from all the hands that have been there.

so push it with your fingers pressed against the very top of the door, beyond the dirt, beyond the stains you are still outside, it would still matter or else leaving the ocd behind, push the dirt with your entire hand and in that second, become part of ‘the inside’.

step in, the dark dimness envelops you… but don’t let it smother you, don’t let it quicken your heart beat. just pause, and look around. the eyes slowly adjust, the room takes form, it becomes ‘it’.

‘it’ is a bar, set in a small room that can be covered in one glance. follow the rows of old-world rexene cushioned, high-back, double seaters, placed on two sides of old, ‘distressed with time and dirt’ wooden tables. take in the heads bent in conversation, listen to the continuous hum of conversation. that loud guffaw, or the preceding loud comment seem displaced, but quickly get enveloped into the resounding murmur. there is no music, there are no ‘focus lights’, there are no distractions to fill those empty silences…

‘it’ is a cheap ‘quarter’ bar.

if you are woman, send out your woman-alert-antennae, feel the space out, they will come back to you and tell you it’s safe, for you… there might be men at every table, men that you usually don’t have a drink with. but they do not look at you.

the door opens, the door shuts….

you look at the paint peeling off the walls, the natural distressed look that posh eatery at pali hill tries so hard to arrive at, artificially.

then let go of that ocd, don’t check the seats for bed bugs, don’t clutch your wallet since you don’t want it to touch the dirty table, don’t feel the floor with your chappals hoping you don’t step on anything. . . .  j u s t  d o n ‘ t.

ask for a table by the window, sit, order your favourite drink and a plate of ‘stars’.

yacht doesn’t judge you, so you won’t judge it.