Slayed Dragons

originally posted on 5/2207

It's been a strange week. Things are pretty much finished with the girl I was quasi-seeing, and the venerable Dragon Bar burned down after a gas explosion. Fortunately, in both end results, nobody was hurt.

First, on the girl. It was one hell of a whirlwind romance, perhaps the most random I've ever had. Amazing though, I'm actually taking a pass on taking another pass at a hot girl. She was bad for me, really, empty calories, and every time we hung out was more ridiculous than the last.

Will I see her again? Well, there's only 4 bars worth going to in my hood, and she likes the drink, so the odds are high. Plus, of those 4 bars, one is pretty lame, and one is Dragon, which, as I said, is currently out of commission, which leaves only 2. Of those 2, I really don't care for one, shitty music, no darts, so there's really just Noblock right now, which is where I met her to begin with. Like I said, life is strange.

I can't believe Dragon fucking blew up! I'm so upset. Not only was it head and shoulders the best bar in the hood, I was beginning to like it and appreciate it as a viable local alternative to Itaewon or Hongdae for boozy swashbuckling fun. Noblock is a fun change of pace bar, but certainly not a home base type. It would be like if Louise's burned down. The Replay is a fun alternative, but Louise's is home. Dragon was a place where I knew the whole staff and many regulars, and thus would have no problem visiting at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday by myself, not that I ever did.

When it first occurred to me how crazy my, I don't know, fling, for lack of a better noun, was, where did I go? I had to chat about her craziness right away, and it was too late on a weeknight to call my buddies. So, I went to Dragon, and commiserated with the staff and the regulars about the situation. Just like I would at Louise's in Lawrence, or at Holiday in Chicago, or at L'arambar in Paris, or at JJ's in Florence, or at Mother's in LA, or even at V in Baltimore. Maybe this is why my short-lived lives in Florida or South Seoul were such disasters – I never found a bar to call my own in either place.

So, to recap, in the last week, I lost a girl and a bar. And damn it, I'm really going to miss that bar.

Wiley's here this week (in a few hours actually) so I'm sure there's some good drunken stories coming, but likely not for a couple weeks.