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Ahhh, the business of keeping others entertained. I watched someone do it with style last night. How to keep the drinks and the conversation flowing and everyone having a good time and feeling relaxed and like they belong. Suggesting the next thing that might satisfy an anticipated craving.

I watched a friend tend bar last night at Coastal Kitchen. I watched her take no sass from the wait staff while treating them with respect. I watched her suggest drinks and menu items to bar customers with paced prescision, in a way that made you feel like she was doing you a favor.

She even knew in advance what I wanted to drink. (I had mentioned it casually in a conversation days earlier.) There was never a pause too long in between suggestions, giving you a chance to finish your drink and mull over your level of satisfaction, but not long enough to feel that you were being ignored. It also never went too fast, in a way that made customers feel like they were being "sold".

I watched her hand pour drink after drink, and thought about the business of serving alcohol and what it must be like. One must have to sit there occaisionally and watch someone destroy themselves in front of you over a period of time. Or develop a series of relationships that is purely about the other person's hedonistic impulses.

I do massage, and it can be similar in the way that it is really a service relationship that I develop with people, but a little different because there's a health aspect to it. I suppose though, that being taken care of at the bar, paid attention to and served good food and beverages can be healing as well. It certainly was for me.