Those end of the weekend blues. As the sun sets on a Sunday night, a Super Bowl Sunday in this case, you take inventory of your successes and failures at the 48 hours of free time you may have been granted this week. Maybe there was a birthday, or a nice dinner or some other landmark that must be noted with pictures and hashtags and group hugs.
And on Sunday as I try to recount the highs and lows, I realize that though the after-parties get a lot of love here at The Overserved, the other 22 hours in the day sometimes come with their own adventures.
Like a dinner at Anvil Pub that you presumed to be a casual get together. But your table grows somehow, even with strangers. By some Big City-Small Town Dallas magic, your barkeep knows everyone and there continues to be enough chairs.
A sold-out show at Trees means there are friends on every corner of Elm Street, walking out of restaurants and bar doors. The music is its own siren joining us at the stage. And even at the door, as people make their case to be the exception to the sold-out rule, I see doormen and promoters relent for friends of friends. Our degrees of separation allowing us into the same party, even if the rules weren't supposed to. A nice reminder that the cultural gatekeepers in this town want you in, not out.
Later on Saturday, spending a lazy afternoon at Studio 410, I would be easily talked into eyelash extensions as much because I wanted to up my game for artist collective Caviar Club's one-year anniversary as because I wanted to hang out in that salon and listen to Sade. Like, all day.
With fresh hair and nails did, I would make my way to the W Hotel for said party, where this hospitality theme continued to play out. There folks gathered and bartenders remembered gin preferences and bought rounds. Concierges paid attention to every detail, their memory improving the memories we were all making.
Sunday, I look back. Drowsy from a heavy dose of fancy nachos and home-made pizza. Thrilled at that half-time reckoning, and the renewed chance at a competitive game and fed. I have been fed.
Dallas, you may not have an ocean, but you have hospitality. You have caretakers willing to make every day, and especially your night, a little more memorable if you enter the exchange, which really only requires that you pay it forward.
