Blame the Californication marathon.

So yeah, we consider ourself a writer. More with the talking the last few years, but yeah, writing. Good times. So in honor of the Californication marathon we just embraced, we decided to dust off some of our old musings. First of three parts. Somewhat safe for work, if it's OK to have the word "titties" on your screens.

Part 1, Quiet
He's tired, really.

Work went late, as usual. He was supposed to see a show with his friend, but the decision came down like a lightning bolt. Yes, it was Friday at 5:30. But no, no one could leave until the work was done. No debate necessary. Bail on your friend. Get a sandwich and a Diet Coke and stick it out.

So he does, even when it means coming in on Saturday at 7:30 in the morning to finish things up because there was no telling what time the project would be done the night before.

He leaves work at 9:30 p.m. and trudges, his favorite word, to the local dance club. He pays the eight bucks cover charge and pauses for a moment. Outside or inside? And then he sees her. Blonde pigtails. Enticing hazel eyes. Boisterous. Sexy. She's tending bar inside.

The decision a no-brainer, he sits down at her bar and orders a Vodka Tonic. His olive suit shines in the neon light. She makes it extra strong and called him "Honey." He melts with her words, and in the heat of the beer sign above.

He sits down and watches women's softball on the TV above -- anything to forget about work: the uncertainty, the stress, the doing too much and not getting enough back. He hears two young Latina voices next to him and offers his seat so they can sit together at the bar. They thank him and keep up the incessant chatter.

He downs his first drink, twirling the straw with the lime and squeezing the plastic cup. "Another Vodka Tonic sweetie?"

"One more," he shrugs. She averts his gaze and adjusts her tube top. He studies the light blonde peach fuzz outlining her chest in the light. She is stunning, yet a bartender in a low rent bar.

He digs this.

He sips his second drink, startled by the man who eases in on the two women beside him, still chatting.

"HI I'M JAYSON," he blurts out, eyes red, goatee weathered, t-shirt tucked in.

"I'm Laura," says the China-doll faced woman with a tattoo on her lower back, showing slightly. "This is Isabella."

"Dominican?" he asks.

"That's offensive to me," Isabella says.

They chat nonetheless. The bartender, perpetually adjusting her top and miniskirt to cover her gentle skin, floats from patron to patron, all the while averting eye contact.

"You come here often?" Jayson asks the women twice, once now and once in about three minutes, as if he never asked at all.

Jayson learns that Isabella is married without a ring, and that her husband is at a "titty bar."

Startled, the quiet man spits out an ice cube into his Vodka Tonic.

"He's where?" he says, recovered.

"At a titty bar," she says with a gentle touch to his shoulder.

Jayson picks himself off the floor and loudly calls for the bartender. Hazel Eyes' partner in his Hawaiian shirt takes care of him, and the two ladies, not yet finished with their drinks.

Jayson then tells the long story of his divorce and new girlfriend, who left him after she flew to Puerto Rico on his dime. He then stares at his Coors Light and slumps to the bar in silence.

Awkwardly quiet for two minutes, he thanks the ladies and slips away to the outside bar.

"That took balls, approaching two beautiful women like that," the man in the olive suit says to the pair, both relieved he'd gone.

"Yeah," Isabella says. "But I don't believe his story."

"Still, he came up, loudly interrupted your conversation and bought you all drinks. Good times."

The three then chat about men approaching women in bars. He shares that he prefers to sit at the bar and watch without a word, "sort of creepy, but not."

"Yeah..." Isabella says.

"Yeah to the creepy or yeah to the not?"

They laugh and sip their pink drinks.

Across the bar, a man with bleach blonde curls, double chin and huge breasts flicks his hair back and lights a Virgina Slim. His friend, with bleach blonde hair and a cross around his neck, sits down. To their right, a man with a 1982 moustache, who had been ogling Hazel, does a double take.

So does he, after downing another vodka tonic.

The man with the Virginia Slim, breasts and a butterfly tattoo on the small of his back, walks away.

"Am I an asshole if I ask if that was a man or a woman?" he asks the two women.

"We were thinking the same thing..." Isabella says.

He hangs a bit longer, ordering another Vodka Tonic from Hazel just to see the tattoo lodged between her miniskirt and tube top, which appears every once in awhile, only when she isn't fidgeting.

The girls inevitably leave and he watches the Austin Croshere highlight show on ESPN. When Hazel vanishes, he does the same and drives home.

But doesn't.