Brave New World

“I want to know what passion is…I want to feel something strongly.” – Aldous Huxley

These words can be found in Chapter 6 of Brave New World. I first read them in high school and they have stuck with me since. Questions about that passage still roll thru my head as I lay in bed at night. “Would I even know what passion was if I felt it?” “What would it be like to feel that strongly about something?” "Would I be too drunk to notice it?"

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From the land of sky blue waters...
Hamm's the beer refreshing...

The third stop on the #tourdetom was happy hour at a bar in South Lake Union. I left my office around 4:30 so I could get to the bar and save some seats. The bar was packed and I found myself sitting in the center of a long table hoping the groups at both ends would leave.

In the meantime, I ordered a $2 Hamm's, a pretzel with dipping sauces, and corndogs. As my coworkers arrived at my table at Brave Horse Tavern, so did the food. Two pretzels with pimento-cheddar, sour cream & crispy onion, and smoked peanut butter and bacon dips and three hand dipped corn dogs with smoky ketchup, honey mustard, and ancho cream.

two pretzels with
pimento-cheddar,
sour cream & crispy onion,
and smoked peanut butter and bacon

I had time to kill before I needed to stumble downstairs to Cuoco for my 8:30 dinner reservations, so I sat on that bench at that table at that bar eating pretzels and corndogs and drinking Hamm's for the next 4 hours.

As I sat on that bench at that table at that bar eating pretzels and corndogs and drinking Hamm's for the next 4 hours, I knew that I could have gotten up at any time. I knew that I could stop eating at any time. I knew that I could have stopped drinking at any time. BUT, I DID NOT.

The Perfect Trio

I felt so strongly about the pretzel, corndog, and Hamms combo that I chose not to move for four hours. All the while I kept ordering more rounds of that perfect trio. It was sometime between hour three and hour four that it hit me. I finally know what passion is. I finally felt so something strongly. I can now move on from Aldous Huxley and think about some other random passage in some other random book in some other random time of my life.

 That’s all I got…