Happy birthday, Slider Inn

Over the weekend, the Slider Inn, a bar that has generated more stories in my life than any other, turned five.

My first visit to Slider was September 1, 2011, mere weeks after it opened, and I know the date because I wrote about it in my daily journal (where I mislabeled it as "Sliders"):

Stayed late [after the Breakaway run] to help with the Runner of the Month profile. Then Sliders with a group. Also got some new shoes.

The following week (by which point I'd sorted out the name), I got my first taste of what could happen there if I let the night rule me instead of the other way around:

3.6 miles --> beautiful weather and a 9:24 pace. Then...what happened?! Got home at, like, 2:00. DRUNK. Slider Inn.

The saying at Breakaway was “the best nights happen there and the worst nights happen there,” and true to that, Slider saw me through some really good times and some really, really bad ones. Even more so than my best races, my favorite Breakaway memories primarily come from the Slider Inn, with the parties and the people and the feelings of acceptance and home that greeted me during some stressful and painful years.

Those years and those memories were the product of those who worked there and drank there and the life that I was living, and it will never be the same, and that's okay because it's good to evolve.

But sometimes I miss it. And I know it's not just me. My cameo at the 5-year anniversary party was brief, but one of the patrons I talked to lamented that "things had changed." And he was right. Five years may not seem like a lot, but in the life of a bar, and of a person, it can be.

Today, I'm glad I'm here, I'm glad I'm the person I am, I'm thankful for the experiences I've had that have shaped me.

And I'm thankful that not far away from me is a place where I have had WAY too much to drink, where I have made really questionable life decisions, where I have cried, where I have laughed, where I have enjoyed Jameson slushies and Tiki Tuesdays, and where I hope to the Lord Jesus that I have progressed past the worst of it, because everyone should have a safe place where they can act like a damn idiot, and then take what they need from there, and grow.

The other half of Thursdays

Another thing that happened last Thursday was that I went to the Slider Inn after the run. The weekly tradition of going there is all but gone at this point. Even when we do make it, much like the run itself, it's an experience that has changed quite a bit over time. (As have my drinking habits.)

As we sat there on Thursday, we reminisced about "what it used to be like" and talked about the people who used to work there and the regulars who probably still show up but we aren't there often enough anymore to run into them (maybe a good thing on that last point). The height of the Breakaway/Slider alliance was such a fun time to be part of the group...

That era started almost exactly a year after the events I wrote about in the previous entry:

I used to say there was nothing special about the Slider Inn except it was the place all of us wound up hanging out after the run on Thursday nights, but that wasn’t quite right. There was something special about the Slider Inn. Things happened there that didn’t happen – couldn’t have happened – outside of it. It had a mystical hold on us. I heard people say, with my own ears (sometimes coming from my own mouth), “I can’t go back to the Slider Inn for a while,” in the same shuddering tone that someone might say, “I’m not walking by any cemeteries at night for a while.”

Watching the Olympic trials at Slider, 2012

But oh, what magical possibility lay in front of the person who said the opposite. Who said, with enthusiasm, “I’m going to the Slider Inn!” (also words known to leave my mouth). It wasn’t every night there that the floodgates opened, but it happened often enough. You could walk in the door having no idea who would be there or what to expect, and walk away hours later having experienced things that put episodes of The Twilight Zone to shame. It was a bar…but a bar with the power to make those who stepped inside of it come away as different people. One block south and one block east of the Breakaway on Union. Cozy. New. Still working on building up that patina of character that older bars inevitably acquire. Sometimes it was just a handful of us on a Thursday. Sometimes we would bring in our own band and have parties big enough that the parking lot would be roped off and tables set up for us.

The manager used to joke they expanded the deck for Breakaway, and it’s possible there was some truth in that; we certainly made use of it. Some of my favorite memories from those years come from long summer nights on the patio, sipping PBRs for hours while still in my running clothes.

It opened in the summer of 2011, and I was there for the first time six weeks after. With the owner of Breakaway, of course. He was our ringleader on Slider nights. I remember thinking that for all his hype, though, I didn’t see much that was special about the place. And I remember realizing later that I was wrong.

The Slider Inn was where we drank, and it always seemed odd to me that the people I knew who weren’t athletic thought that that, in turn, seemed odd. Like there was some kind of disconnect between running a lot and drinking a lot.

But no, the two went hand in hand, and that was obvious, because you get a bunch of high-intensity people together and no matter what it is that they happen to be doing, they’re going to be doing a hell of a lot of it.

The (Infamous) Breakaway Quoteboard (It does exist!)

Back in college, exhibiting a personality trait that would later become a full-fledged neurosis, I used to keep a quoteboard of things said by my group of friends.  One of the first websites I ever built, in fact, was a digital archive of those quotes.  (I would link to it, but a couple of years ago the host company deleted it.  hashtag-screw-you-Bravenet)

I always felt that Breakaway also deserved a quoteboard, but aside from scrapping together a few notes here and there, it wasn't until this year - really this summer - that I started getting serious about recording the things the people around me said.

I call it the "Breakaway" quoteboard because most of the quotees are Breakaway runners, but the overwhelming majority of things said thus far were uttered at (of course!) the Slider Inn.  My morning-after-Slider ritual is to first drink huge quantities of water, and then second to open up the little notebook I keep in my purse and read what I chose to write down the night before.

About half of the time, what I wrote was idiotic and not funny.

But the other half goes on the quoteboard.

Full of in-jokes and things that couldn't possibly be amusing to anyone on the outside (not to mention unapologetically biased toward me, since the only real requirement for making it on the list is that I was there when it was said), I offer here, for the first time outside the small group who helped me start it, the ever-being-updated Breakaway Quoteboard.

Internet Continues to be Becky Heineke's Bitch

Near the start of this month, I noticed that Google+ had started adding view counts to profiles. Impressed by the numbers I was seeing on others’ pages, I checked my own…and then I learned the true meaning of impressed. I AM ASTOUNDINGLY POPULAR. I am literally as popular as Green Day on Google+. I am so freaking popular that I, alone, stand as proof that people (other than me) still look at Google+ profiles.

Obviously, this new understanding (via cold hard numbers) that I am the most awesome person I know (as if I wasn’t already aware) has been life-altering.  For one, it’s led to me checking my Google+ profile more often, which, in turn, notches up my Google+ profile view count.  Secondly, it means that I can be even more judgmental than I already was about Facebook.  Facebook, after all, doesn’t have view counts, which means I’ve had to expend inordinate amounts of energy figuring out my popularity, long-hand.  I mean, as if Facebook hadn’t wasted enough of my time already…

Victoria Beckham's birthday party

In related news, Victoria Beckham, who is beating me in Google+ views but not by as much as you might think, turned forty yesterday.  It was an occasion that no one knew or cared about beforehand, but seemed, after a couple of a beers, like a really good reason to drink strong pink shots of something strong and pink last night at the Slider Inn.

And see, lots of people would have posted about that on their social media profiles, because announcing to your entire known social circle that you’re just a happening gal who toasts to Posh Spice by way of questionable alcohol choices with an in-hindsight-really-random assortment of friends means, in Internet Code, “MY LIFE IS FUN AND GOOD TIMES.”

But I didn't do that.  I instead waited to convey that message in a blog entry in which the main theme is that there is a metric by which I, Becky Heineke, am almost ten times as popular as The Beatles.

I really did have a fun night last night.  I really do (inexplicably) have that many views.

I really don't, however, want to pass up this opportunity to remind myself - and everyone else - not to believe everything we see on the internet...

There's a Drought at the Fountain of Youth

Oh, friends.  Your esteemed author has, in the immortal words of Green Day, fallen “off the wagon, and I’m hitchin' a ride.”

I have, you see, allowed myself to be sucked in.  Sucked in and spit back out.  Roughed up and left to wallow.  I have, to my great personal disappointment, let myself – given myself permission to – be drawn into a darkness I thought myself long rid of:  the darkness of other people’s shit at Breakaway.

Let’s just say it’s not a good start to one’s weekend to be drunkenly crying at the Slider Inn over someone you realized back in March was probably not a good idea.  A friend of mine was talking to me later in the weekend about how sometimes people come into your life and looking at them is like looking into a mirror. And because of that, they oftentimes wind up being the people you learn the most about yourself from.

If only I wasn’t the sort of person who needs to be hit over the head with something a dozen times before it sinks in.

I have been drinking too much, I have been feeling insecure, and I have not given myself the mental and physical rest that I know I need.  I have, in essence, temporarily reverted back to the person I was two years ago, and that’s neither a coincidence nor acceptable.

These are times of transition in my social circle.  We have a lot of people moving away, a lot of couples breaking up, and the midtown Breakaway itself (my home base!) is about to move locations, which will change both our running routes and our post-run activities.  But I think it’s all good.  I think we need a change.

I think I need a change.

And I think that a month ago I was right to look at my night at the Slider Inn as the end of a chapter. It was closed then.  It actually closed before then.  This isn’t me anymore.

I’ve got other things to be spending my time on.  Back on the (figurative) wagon I go.

The Slider Inn

There are mornings when I wake up a little disoriented...with memories floating through my head that I'm not sure are real...and I know that sometime around noon, I'll start to feel like death warmed over...and I CANNOT.  STOP.  LAUGHING.

And that's when I know - I know - that it was a good night at the Slider Inn.

I'd rank the latest outing in the top five.  Full-on Twilight Zone-level weirdness.  The beauty of the Breakaway/Slider experience is that every once in a while, the stars align and it's not just that things don't happen the way I anticipate they might, it's that I couldn't anticipate what was going to happen because my capacity for imagination does not stretch that far.

I used last year's Cinco de Mayo pub crawl run as validation of my maturity.  I remember the pride I felt in leaving at 9:00 and walking away before I had too much to drink.

And I'm equally proud of myself for using this year's run to prove I can still be fucking idiot every once in a while.

Balance.  In order to find it, sometimes you have to test the extremes on either end.  And trust me when I say I have see the full spectrum at the Slider Inn.

Viva Breakaway!

Thursday night.  Cinco de Mayo Run.  6:15 p.m. from the midtown store.

I show up early to make sure I get a free T-shirt, and though I haven't dressed up, this is, technically, a costume run.  This being Breakaway, the people who have dressed up have gone all out.  Perhaps most notable is a group of Mexican wrestlers, complete with masks and tiny man-tights.  The wrestlers are made up primarily - though not exclusively - of members of what I have dubbed "the freshman class," as the guys in this group are all relatively new to running and relatively new to Breakaway.  Earlier in life, I may have accused certain of these freshmen of having repressed exhibitionist tendencies, but the older I get, the more I consider that Rhodes may have skewed my viewpoint on the "average" male, and so my updated hypothesis is that what I witness on a weekly basis is just normal behavior for boys.

Picture stolen from Ying Malady.

Our first stop is Young Avenue Deli ("Young Ave" for those cool enough to call it that...and for the record, I'm not cool enough to call it that) where I find out one of our group is leaving for bigger and better things, and then I steal a beer from a wrestler, and then I spill that beer all over me before I've even taken a drink of it, and then I have a brief conversation with two (non-wrestler) guys about Fifty Shades of Gray.  (Which none of us have read.  Or at least two of us haven't; the other - not me - refrains from commenting, so take from that what you will.)

I was told the run from Breakaway to Young Avenue Deli was "about a mile."  It's actually a mile and a half, and I wish I would have followed through on my claim as we started that I was going to run "super slow." Instead, I get caught up (as I always do) in the group momentum (dammit) and run about a minute and a half per mile faster than I meant to.  It's barely May but summer arrived weeks ago here.  The afternoon sun is warm, and the PBR tallboy that I swiped is sitting heavy as we file out the door and run one last mile to get to the Slider Inn.

Picture stolen from Patty Strain.

I've often said that there is nothing outwardly remarkable about the Slider Inn except it's within walking distance of Breakaway Running and currently the place where all of us converge on a nearly-weekly basis.  But the mere fact that we have taken ownership of it as we have is exactly the thing that does make it remarkable.  The parking lot has been roped off for us, and there are tents and tables, and even though it's the third of May and we're a bunch of sweaty, drunken American runners who are hanging out in a parking lot drinking Yuengling out of plastic cups, it is, undeniably, a damn good Cinco de Mayo party.

I finally meet my brother's friend Liz, who works there.  In fact, in the brief times I talk to her, we surpass the depth of conversation I have with many that night; despite being an introverted loner, I've been around long enough now to know too many people in the group to talk to everyone at these things.  Fireball shot at the bar.  Yes, Liz, another Yuengling.  I'm having a deep conversation about the musical merits of George Harrison, and then I'm talking to a couple of girls about their boy problems, and then I'm taking a swig of tequila from the bottle that's magically appeared on the table, and Adrian says, "Becky, I can see it.  You've really got this figured out."  Because I'm part of this, but also, on some strange level, not part of this.

When it's nine o'clock, I'm able to resist the temptation of another drink and instead stand up and say my goodbyes.  Predictably, I'm accosted by a couple of wrestlers as I try to make my exit.  ("Oh, GOD!" I yell, and genuinely, because of their tiny man-tights.)  I walk back to Breakaway alone, go home alone, and wake up happy both that I have this in my life, and that I can step outside of it when I need to.

Cinco de Mayo.  How did I ever celebrate before I started to run?

It Happened

I went to the Slider Inn last night for the first time in 2012.

It occurred to me as I sat there that it was as if we'd started a new Slider Inn season, since most everyone stopped going over the winter but half of Breakaway was back there last night.

Thinking of it in those terms, I decided that I'm okay with spending this season as a boring supporting character with no featured role in any of the hysterical plot.

As such, I had one beer and then I came home.

(The me of last season would have been horrified at myself.  Then again, the me of last season would have been hungover today, so I think the me of this season wins.)

For the first time since July...

...I don't have to get up early tomorrow (!).  No long run!  No training!  I don't know what to do with myself!

I could probably find some trouble to get into tonight, but, to be entirely honest, it's been a rough seven days - starting with that marathon that nearly killed me and leading straight through last night, when I wound up the only girl amongst seven guys at the Slider Inn.  I'm struggling to explain, even to myself, how it is that a night that seemed enjoyable at the time has left me wanting to crawl off in a corner and lick my wounds; I feel a little damaged after being in the presence of that much testosterone.  "Vulnerable" is the word that I often use to describe the experience of walking into Breakaway alone, never knowing who's going to be there or how the people who show up are going to treat me (not to suggest that people are mean to me, but rather that I lack the reliability of close friendships). "Vulnerable" doesn't cover what I'm feeling today, though.  Today I feel worn down.

Months and months of energy was expended on things that didn't turn out the way I had hoped this week.  For that, and for all the details that I wish I could share but am too paranoid to publish, I'm missing Kara right now.  OH, the stories I would have told her...

Even for the Slider Inn...

...last night was pretty crazy.

Needless to say, I drank too much.

You ever notice how, after a night of drunken revelry, for about the first twelve hours it's all hysterical awesomeness, and then afterward you sink into a depression as your body flushes the alcohol out and takes some of the memory loss with it?

Taking into consideration my current level of joyousness, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be feeling really fucking stupid starting at about 4 o'clock this afternoon...

(But so many kudos to the Drunk Me of Last Night for NOT sending that Facebook message that I don't remember typing but was staring back at me from my computer when I woke up this morning.  Dear God.)