#astroia

Arrived in Astoria at night, and even though most all the stores were closed and the lights were off, we could tell this town was charming.  It's like how you can walk through an unlit living room and find the couch by its shape, because some things are elementally and structurally as they should be.  We're staying in a remodeled apartment called the Norblad, where the hotel staff is a single 55 year old man who always wears fitness gear and looks like he's probably in a political band, like a jammy, ramshackle brass band where he does parodic covers of popular songs rewritten to be about the Tea Party and Obamacare and plays fundraisers for liberal city council members (He just had that type of face).  We went to a bar called the voodoo room where the tables were Ouija boards, the bathroom was panelled with restored wood, and all the other patrons were angry, hip youth in love.  Then we went to a brewery where the beer was brewed with marion berries and our bartender kept asking if we needed anything while already walking away or handing food off to another table, then had to anxiously double back to take our order or ask how things were.  He had the slicked back hair and vest of a craft bartender but an anxious, brooding look like he still hadn't gotten over his first love--- probably because in love, just like in bartendering, his timing was never right.