Day 32.

Fuck, I miss bars.

While I knew the lockdown was coming—and knew that bars would be among the businesses to shut down indefinitely—my last in-bar cocktail was not the result of a deliberate last foray into the wider world before being home-stuck for the foreseeable future. It was just a Friday, after work, and I wanted a martini, because it had been quite awhile since I had one. Ant was working a closing shift, which meant I was on dog-duty, so that limited my martini options to the two dog-friendly bars in our neighborhood. I chose Bed-Stuy Barb’s, a quaint, homey new spot that has friendly cafe vibes but with excellent cocktail knowhow and an amazing happy hour ($5 old fashioneds and negronis, hello). Also, being a Friday evening, Barb’s promised to be less crowded, compared to the other dog-friendly option, which had been recently discovered by Gen Z hipsters, rendering our other reliable watering hole a tad less reliable on the good-vibes and barstool-availability front.

I sat at the bar, Bruce perched on my lap, and I sipped my excellent martini whilst chatting with the bartender about various braising recipes for short ribs. It was lovely. It was the last drink I drank in public. It was one of the last in-person, face to face conversations I had with someone who wasn’t Ant or one of my neighbors. It was the last Friday I went to the office. It was the last time that going out to a bar seemed like an okay thing to do.

We deliberately left hard liquor off our shopping lists while preparing the house for round-the-clock, months’ long occupation, since that seemed a potentially damaging rabbit hole. But it’s not the booze I miss. It’s the bars. But it’s not even just the bars. It’s those atmospheres, environments, indulgences that can only be had when you get to leave your house and take part in the broad stretch of the world. It’s not just the bars. It’s the restaurants, the pizza shops, the oysters consumed at sidewalk tables, the perilously stacked bagels nestled in foil and wax paper. It’s the perfect steak in a beautiful restaurant. It’s two barstools in just the right bar with a good friend on a Friday night. It’s a heaping plate of carbonara and a glass of chianti while sitting at a gingham tablecloth. It’s ducking into a cafe for the AC or the heat or just to get off your feet for a minute and having a coffee and an unplanned pastry while people-watching out the window.

I see it through my nostalgic memories of eating and drinking elsewhere besides my house. Others may see it through the live music venues with exciting new bands, or the galleries of the Whitney or the Met, or sporting events, or long walks along the promenade of whichever river, lake or sea. There is so much about life outside of our homes, old life, that I am missing more and more sorely every day. I daydream about all the places I will go and the things I’ll do once this is over. In these daydreams, all of my favorite places will miraculously survive this; they will be spared the guillotine of a dramatically contracted economy. I can’t imagine otherwise. Not now.

I daydream about cold beers on a hot summer afternoon over a plate of oysters at Pinkerton Wine bar. We’ll be on the sidewalk in the dappled shade of a tree, discussing another dozen versus a stop at Blue Collar for burgers or Clem’s for a beer and a change of scenery.

I daydream about an indulgent, very, very special occasion dinner at Keens Steakhouse, the porterhouse for two, with a cold martini and a fat wine, surrounded by the history of the place—all the dark wood and white tile, the pipe smoke of yesteryears lingering around the edges of the wainscotting.

I daydream about a lazy walk to Marco’s in Bushwick, being torn between being out on their patio in the perfect sunny afternoon, with the bright murals and rickety picnic tables, or inside the retro lounge vibes with the always-perfect music.

I daydream about too many Friday night martinis with Tenny at Congress Bar, the decision for dinner made too late to affect any real buffer on Saturday’s katzenjammer.

I daydream about spicy chicken wraps and cumin-salt dusted fries picked up from Peri Peri and devoured on the back porch of Turtles All the Way Down with cold beers and Bruce begging for bites.

I daydream about munching truffle parmesan popcorn at Alamo Drafthouse while sipping a Defender IPA and watching some ridiculous, splashy action movie.

I daydream about the soup dumplings and noodles at Nom Wah. Hot dogs from a Nathan’s cart outside the Natural History Museum before or after contemplating dinosaur bones and dioramas. The double-hump cheeseburger with a flaming cocktail at Dromedary. A feast of charcuterie and cheese with a friend at the bar of a restaurant and the foolhardy and inevitable decision for another bottle of wine too late on a school night.

On some days I go global and start daydreaming about things that I was hoping to do this year. A beach vacation in Mexico or Barbados or some such beautiful spot. That trip to Italy we were going to take this year—the Roman restaurants, tivolis, cafes and piazzas we would have enjoyed, the Napolese pizza we would have eaten, the Sicilian waters we would have swum in. The ancient streets and stones, the ghosts of civilizations that have lived through worse times than we can even contemplate.

Other times I simply long for California, to see my mom and the rest of my family and my West Coast friends, wondering, even if this ends this summer, even if we can go places again, can I go to see my septuagenarian family before there’s a vaccine? Will I not see my mom for almost two years?

When that thought gets too much I daydream about a simple, solitary martini at Barb’s with my dog as my date.

For now, bars, restaurants, beaches, airplanes, other countries, places that are not our apartment or our grocery store are off limits. It’s not remotely a hardship, compared to what others are living through during the COVID Spring of 2020. We can all only hope our favorites places make it through this long, dry night. We can only hope the new normal will again offer some of the old delights, a lot of new ones, and hopefully far fewer miseries, at least for a while.

Illustration by Ant Picone (Insta @stillasleep13)