How Delilah's is ruining my life.

So Delilah's is a bar on Lincoln and Diversey. It also is wrecking me. It bulldozes through the foundations of my body and soul, and it does so on a twice-weekly basis.

I never thought that I'd patronize this place. I knew about it before. It's purposely hole-in-the wall-ish, and its clientele is 95% punk/alternative/whatever adjective you want to call it. (There's no way that I can be more specific, because as soon as I try to be some hipster is going to jump down my throat and say "No way man, the crowd at Delilah's is more post-new-wave-hardcore with a splash of Goth," and I don't to deal with it. But you know what I mean.) Anyway, even though I knew it was one of the better whiskey bars in the city (actually in America, as I'd later find out), I pretty much resolved out of hand not to go there.

Boy howdy, was I wrong.

I got dragged there by my friend Nicky when she turned 21. (Finally.) I walk in, and the place is dark, but there's a light shining behind the bar, cutting swaths through the darkness. I think the light was whispering something, too, whispering something softly. I'm pretty sure it was "alcoholism." Because the light was coming from a sign, a sign that read:

SPECIAL: $2 SHOTS OF MAKER'S MARK

Maker's Mark, to anyone who doesn't know my drinking habits very well, is essentially my own personal crystal meth. I'm helpless in the face of it. Maker's Mark led directly to me passing out on some nice gentleman's porch in New Orleans at 11 o'clock in the morning. (He was nice enough to call the cops and have them escort me back to my friend's frat. Thanks, Sigma Chi, for having such an easy-to-remember name, even when I'm out of my mind drunk.)

So ever since that night, I've patronized Delilah's religiously. It's led directly, I feel, to parts of my liver breaking off and vaporizing. I've become familiar with the bartenders, and even feel at ease with the crowd, and no longer have latent fear that they're going to turn on me at some point during the night and tear me to pieces for wearing a North Face jacket, like a group of Morrissey-loving zombies.

Hell, I would go so far to say that I feel at home there now. Two or three shots of Maker's, in fact, will have you feeling at home anywhere. The point to all this is, there are lots of bars in the world, so go try some out. Because even if they suck, they may still have a fantastic special that will put you on your ass and make that chubby probable-transvestite punked-out girl looking, if not cute, at least like a real person. So get thee to the nearest shitty corner bar!

That said, I'm still never going to Exit.