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The Magic of Wednesday Night Beers
Life would be incomplete without the accidental rituals we form with friends
It’s a Wednesday afternoon and I’m feeling a little restless and wistful because, right around now, across the country in New York, the Wednesday night gang will be convening without me. It’s not a big deal, missing one Wednesday, but when I miss enough of them it starts to affect me on some deep level, like a deficiency in some crucial nutrient or going off your meds. If you’re lucky, you may have fallen into one of these groups or routines at some point; if you’re very lucky, you may have found a few of them over the course of a lifetime. And once or twice in the middle of one of these periods you might have the sense or mindfulness to look up from your life and notice, This is the good part. These are the sweet spots, the idylls, surrounded by dreary routine and administrative bullshit, i.e. real life, punctuated by the occasional milestone or tragedy.
The current incarnation of this institution in my life is a group of friends who get together every Wednesday night for beers. Any time a newcomer asks us how we know each other, we all have to stop and look at each other and think. Originally, we met through our friend T.J., who makes rather a practice of collecting friendships: I first met Isaac in Beijing over a decade ago, when…
