I'm at a bar, or a club. I think there was some live music earlier, but it's finished for the night. I'm sitting at a large square table upstairs, with about a dozen people. A dark-haired girl against the wall in the middle is writing notes, and giggling with her friends. She gives the notes to somebody and everyone gets up to leave, to go to a different bar.

I find out that one of the notes was to me, and she has a crush on me. She even put $40 or $50 with the note to show she was serious. A tall foreign man now has the notes, so I go outside and catch him on the sidewalk. I ask him for my note, telling him he can keep the money, I just want the note. He gives me the note, but not the money.

The note is rather sweet and childish, written in splotchy black letters. I think it has an address.

Everyone is still leaving from the original table, so I ask Scott if he wants to come with me to the other bar. He says that he would, but he'll have to leave his car here because he's getting kind of drunk. I say that's fine, I can drive if he can pick his car up in the morning. I'm dead sober - I've spent all evening at a table with a tall clean-cut fellow who doesn't drink, I recall vividly, and had only one beer since.

I then have a vague recollection of trying to drive up Springbrook Road, at the corner by the railroad tracks, at the bottom of the Big Hill. I'm too drunk to drive, having a lot of trouble keeping it together, and I turn too sharply and almost run off the road. I'm trying to concentrate and focus just to get to my parents', which is apparently home.

However, when I become aware, I don't remember driving at all. I don't remember anything since telling Scott I was dead sober. Now I am on some sort of bicycle or surrey, at the same spot by the railroad tracks.

Somehow I call home, and Steve answers. I ask him what is going on. He tells me that I am in deep trouble, I was indeed picked up by the police, probably for drunken driving, earlier in the night. The only thing that kept the matter unsettled was that the police couldn't determine whether I knew how drunk I was, or not.

Then I realize that I don't know what happened to Timmy, my dog. He was with me in the car, which must now be back at the police station. I'm afraid that coming back may reveal that I know about my drunkenness, although I'm mostly sober now, but I have to find him.

I ride the bike back to highway 99, and west through town. I stop at a store, below the ground on the north side of the highway, and buy a diet coke to help me wake up. It's some hassle to buy, but as I am going back up the stairs to outside, I see Timmy in the store. So now my problems are solved, I just have to put his leash on and take him home.

(I am awakened by being rained on, in my tent near Ramona Falls.)