I'm sad. Not sure how else to start this posting or even where it'll take me but I'm sad and know I should be blogging. It's almost 4am, I'm completely sober, not tired, sad and must blog.

People who know me really well recognize a certain level of naivety in how I think, yearn and live. I've written about being naive before a few times (always good postings, highly recommended readings): about my search for the perfect woman, not becoming jaded about love after a serious break-up, or learning some life lessons.

Tonight was a strange night for me. For the first night in probably ninety I decided I wasn't going to have a single drop of alcohol. I was out for a nice dinner in a restaurant where I always get a nice bottle of wine with dinner off of their impressive wine list - but all I had were two iced teas (ice teas?). Then I went out from 1am until 3am to the bar I've been spending many evenings at (if you're a friend in Israel or have visited recently then you know exactly which bar I'm talking about) - and just had a single can of a Red Bull ripoff drink.

That's what brings me to the point of this entry, and my sadness. You see, I've been going a lot recently to this specific bar with my best friend and coworker (lets call him Fred). We find it very comfortable for our current style of living, where we work very late and want a comfortable place with couches, good music and a friendly staff to go to in the middle of the night. Maybe it's because we always tip very well but the entire staff of bartenders, waitresses, the manager and even investors in the bar have become our friends. I never noticed it before - maybe because I'm usually buzzed or maybe because I'm naive - but tonight it finally dawned on me that everyone is completely wasted on cocaine.

It took a very long time for this realization to hit me but eventually it did and I was immediately disgusted and saddened. Maybe I have no right to be or maybe I'm being childish, but I've grown to see some of these people as friends. And here they were, my friends, going to the bathroom time and again and itching their noses upon exiting. It hurts me to even be writing this now...

Was I so naive this whole time? Did I not ever notice anything strange before? There's always been the same cast of characters (people we hadn't met personally but seemed to always be around as the evening went later and later) - the fat man, the mildly-Russian lady who's always texting on her cellphone and the weird bartender we never connected with. There's always been the same activity - more people coming upstairs and lingering when it gets late (we usually sit upstairs because of the couches) and a strange phenomenon of workers coming in on nights they weren't working. Sometimes we'd be surprised that certain people didn't stop by our couch to say hello on their way to the bathroom - and now we know why. Now we know so much. Now we're disgusted. Now we're sad.

Why did this happen on the night I decided not to drink? What sort of cosmic foreshadowing happened during dinner when I said to Fred, "you know what would be perfect to hear now? That song by Eric Clapton... Cocaine!" I suppose I thought it ironic that on a night I wasn't drinking I'd listen to drug-related songs. Little did I know a whole soft parade of drugs was in store for us. And by the way, if you're curious, let me state very clearly that I have never done any illegal drugs of any kind and don't plan on starting (I actually really like alcohol and am happy sticking to that vice).

If you wanna hang out you've got to take her out; cocaine.
If you wanna get down, down on the ground; cocaine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; cocaine.

If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; cocaine.
When your day is done and you wanna run; cocaine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; cocaine.

If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on; cocaine.
Don't forget this fact, you cant get it back; cocaine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; cocaine.

She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; cocaine.