Oct. 22 // Part I
I once, after I’d offered the idea, had a co-worker ponder hesitantly, “Happy hour on a Tuesday is a little aggressive, no?”
No.
That’s the only part of that sentence that’s correct.
Have you not worked in Corporate America? Have you not heard of Taco Tuesday? Have you not LIVED?
No. In fact, perhaps it’s not aggressive ENOUGH.
Maybe with the world full of WarTrumpVsKamalaRSVOutbreakLiamPayneIsDeadClimateChangeHurricaneSzn, we should take the opportunity to cheers every chance we get.
I’m not promoting the use (or overuse) of alcohol. I’m simply screaming that I’d like to be social and celebratory and hear the clink of my glass against another like-minded (or like-spirited) individual any chance I get because there’s a hard chance that the world – whether largely or in my own mini-sphere – will blow up tomorrow … or die.
Today is also Tuesday, and my original plan was to work until a reasonable hour, hit the office gym, and then head home. I stay at my desk until the internet goes out at 6:45. A network issue? A cost-saving measure? The universe telling me it’s time to go? Unsure. I make it as far as the gym, take a look in the mirror and see the hanger in my eyes. If I don’t eat within 15 minutes, someone is going to have my rage inflicted upon them.
Hanger for me burns deeply and quickly and feels like white, hot rage until I shove a piece of protein into my mouth.
“Grille 565,” the demon in my mouth gurgles. “You know you can have steak in your mouth in 15 minutes if you leave right now.” The demon smiles, throwing his head back, laughing, knowing there is no other choice when my fridge and brains are running on E.
And you know what goes great (and perhaps mandatorily) with steak? A room temperature glass of Cabernet.
It is decided. I turn on my heel, head out of downtown, and speed out 65 North as fast as I can.
Grille 565 is a real gem.
One of the first restaurants in Bellevue to have a liquor license post the prohibition-era (and we’re talking in like the past decade), Grille 565 is a charming, little treat. Any restaurant boasting twinkle lights on their front façade knows what they’re doing. A restaurant could serve dirt pies and asshole tortes, but if they have twinkle lights and red wine? I’m coming.
I collapse at the bar with my work laptop in hand and ask the bartender if it’s too late to order dinner.
And then I realize it’s 7 p.m. The early setting of the sun has me fucked. It could be 11 p.m. or 5 a.m. Either way, I’m exhausted and mad about it.
The bartender must see the hysteria in my eyes. I’m hungry. I’m burnt out. I don’t know what time it is. As soon as she asks if I need a menu, I intimate that I know the menu intimately and I hope to God they’re still serving their Pittsburgh Steak Salad.
It arrives in record time and my eyes turn into saucers as I shovel it in.
“Hey, do you guys have a band tonight?” The umpteenth patron asks. At this point, I’m ready myself to say, “Yes. Straight downstairs and to the left,” followed up with an understanding nod to the regular bar flies, and a “If we’d known this huge party was coming, we would’ve had another girl on tonight.”
The wait staff working is nothing short of pleasant, upbeat, and dedicated despite their understandable frustration with a few somewhat needy customers.
A band IS playing tonight and their oompas can be felt reverberating up through the basement, up through my bar stool and into my vagina. I’m unsure if this is disturbing or amusing or pleasurable.
The waitress is making me laugh just by existing. She’s chatty and animated and just says whatever she’s thinking as it comes. She’s a delightful experience, cheerfully interrupting my thoughts while I debate how soon I’m going to exit the life that is slowly destroying my stability – both mentally and on this chair.
Dec. 5 // Part II
Six weeks later, I’ve since successfully quit my corporate exhaustion and am living day to day as a trad wife without a husband. I’d spent the day making soup, chocolate peanut butter M&M cookies, and tuna fucking salad from scratch, stretching at an aggressively difficult noon yoga class, napping, and feng shui-ing my condo.
Despite my unemployment, I still am thrilled by the fact that it’s Thursday, my long-standing favorite day of the week. By the time I’ve moved segments of my sectional for the 8239482309th time and wonder what I’m going to manufacture from my rolling pin in my bathrobe to satiate myself. As the 6 p.m. hanger builds, I realize it’s open mic night at my darling Grille 565 – their basement speakeasy, more specifically.
While I live mere blocks from the restaurant/venue, and for as many comedy shows as I attend in a month, I’ve actually never been to one of these biweekly, Thursday night events.
I decide to rake a comb through my slept-in-wet hair and swipe a lipstick across my face. I grab my bag and head out into the icebox air. It tastes like freezer outside as I gasp as the sub-Arctic temperatures.
I arrive at the bar and shimmy up to the short, come-at-able bar, and am, as expected, welcomed by a sunny, hardworking bartender. Her hair is hair-ing and she’s as happy to see me (for the very first time) as I am to have the bar to myself having entered the quiet alone.
It’s well below freezing tonight and I’ll be surprised if more than a handful of people join me in the bowels of this building to laugh off our lives.
It smells of baking bread, thanks to a brand-new pizza oven, and anticipation – is it going to be a money-making night? Will more people show up, laughing, rubbing their hands together in excitement and for warmth?
The answer is a resounding “no.” The attendance is mild, and I’m left to my own devices, tap-tap-tapping away, observing the warmth created by the characters, comics, camaraderie around me ... and I precious little pup I try to befriend.
“Don’t I know you?” October Waitress asks as she passes by while I’m mid discush with December Bartender.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ve sat at your bar upstairs.”
I’m unsure if it’s my face or the aggressive typing that makes me familiar. Perhaps it’s my animalistic eating habits. It doesn’t matter. It’s the fact that I’m recognized that heats my heart because who doesn’t want to be a recognizable regular from time to time? It’s been years since I’ve experienced that familial sentiment, pulled up to a long slab of glass- and water-stained wood.
She nods her head satisfactorily. “I knew I knew you,” she smiles.
We tune back into the laughs, a show that I pretend is just for me, as a I sit solo, sipping my wine.
As the night progresses, I end up recognizing a face or two, which reassures me that I’m in the right place and all happens as it’s supposed to. Right now, it doesn’t matter that the world is consumed by UnitedHealthcareCEO4MoreYearsofSweetPotatoHitlerGrapeCornImUnemployedAF.
Right now, my belly is full of steak salad, laughs, and Cabernet.
Right now, it’s happy hour.
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