Meridian Room

I am sad that one of our favorite places, Meridian Room, closed this past weekend.

For those of you who do not know, Meridian Room is where I met David for an innocent drink on Friday, December 23, 2005. David had found my blog (my old one, which is now no longer available online, though I have the exported files from it) after searching for me online. To this day he says he isn’t quite sure why he searched for me, except that we had had that fling five Christmases before, and I came to mind, and he was curious about me. I don’t think he was planning on falling in love, or even making out with me, considering he had a girlfriend. And I was hanging out with my sister at her house, in my pajamas, and had to force myself out to fulfill the committment I had made to meet him for that one drink to catch up. I knew it would be nice to see him, and I told myself maybe I’d at least get a little fun smooch out of the evening. I had broken up with Pal the year before, and did not want a relationship, but making out with the cute boy from years before seemed like a worthwhile enough reason to get out of my pajamas. I put on my black miniskirt, a plain black long-sleeved t-shirt, my camel suede boots, and my chocolate brown cardigan I had knit for myself just a few weeks prior.

I sat at the very end of the bar, near the door, where the beer taps are. I ordered a Stella. I did not see David. I’m quite sure I was reading something, but I can’t remember what. Probably a Dallas Observer. David came in from the back door and saw me first. He looked different than when I last saw him a couple years before – his hair was cut extremely short, and he had facial hair. He was just as cute though.

He sat down with his Maredsous. We chatted a bit. There was nothing in our conversation that would have led me to believe that this was the man I would marry one day. We each ordered a Maker’s. And another. Maybe even a third, now that I think about it. Perhaps we were flirting a bit, but not much. I had asked him about whether he had a girlfriend, which he had said he did. I had asked about what she did and what she was like. I was no longer entertaining the idea that we would make out, and that was fine. We were having a nice time just catching up. But I guess Maker’s made me a little too loose-lipped.

Me: “Well, I admit, I’m a little disappointed to know now you have a girlfriend.” Davey: “Oh?” Me: “Yeah, I sort of thought we might make out.” Davey: “Well now I’m disappointed!”

There were smiles and chuckles, but then our knees touched – maybe by accident, maybe not – and I swear to god something electric happened to us, and my heart leaped. There was, within that second, an energy I neither expected nor wanted, but it could not be ignored by either one of us. And that was that. The atoms of our body made a decision for us. And it’s exactly what I have felt every day since when I touch him.

I don’t know how falling in love works. Whether it is mental, or chemical, or fate, or something else we will never understand. But I know it happened in an instant, at the end of the bar at Meridian Room, when we both least expected it.

Since we moved back, we had gone regularly there for dates, to celebrate us and our luck. Also because they had great food. Once David started working Wednesdays we went much less, but still managed to make it now and again.

We went just a couple weeks ago, unaware the bar was soon to close. We sat in the exact same spots as when we met there three years ago. I am glad we got a visit in, seated in those spots, before it closed for good. Like bookends to the first stages of our relationship.

I’ve reprinted my original post from that night below. Thanks, Meridian Room. I know nothing lasts forever, but I am really really sad you are gone.

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Sat, 24 Dec 2005 10:57:31 -0500 Ashbloem Kissed speechless.

Last night I did something I hadn’t done in a long while; a simple pleasure: I made out in a parking lot, leaning up against a car. Only this kiss was unlike any kiss I’ve had in the past three years; I could feel it in my appendix. I could feel it in my teeth. The blood rushed through the hole in my heart and pressed against my sternum. It peeled the nail polish off my toes and when I pulled away I swear for a minute that I forgot everything and anything existed outside of that kiss. Who was I? Am I supposed to be somewhere? Do I know this person?

A drunken homeless man shuffled past us. “Boooy,” he said, “you better marry dat girl if you gonna kiss her like dat.”

Spanish fly, oysters, potato, mandrake root: keep them all. I will take a couple glasses of Maker’s Mark any day. I am convinced there is no aphrodisiac that compares to it.

And then I got home and found wonderful drunken email which almost did me in completely with joy. I flung myself prostrate on the bed and had to bite my hand I was so happy.

And drunk. I was a little drunk.