Sunday 1/2/22
I had a discomfiting experience at the Starbucks today. I was sitting there listening to music, reading, with a stack of books surrounding me. Normally I sit along a row of chairs with the long, extended countertop, that faces outside. A woman comes in and tells me she was making faces at me through the glass. Trying to be funny, I guess? I hadn't noticed. Nor did I care. She asks me if the seat right next to me was taken. Now, there's virtually no one in the cafe. They're closing at two, too, because they never have enough staff now. She sits down and starts talking. I'm clearly doing something, I'm busy, and beyond that, something is off. One of the books was a Van Gogh biography, and she tells me she was going to the Van Gogh exhibit and had I been? Now, I know exactly the one she means--it's that lame, chintzy, ridiculous exhibit with the virtual paintings and the screens or whatever the hell it is. That nonsense for the plebians. Those without any sense or taste. So I'm kind of sickened by this. I say, "No, not the one you're talking about." She goes on to say how her password changed, she can't access her tickets, etc. I'm not even talking to this person. Then she asks me my name. I've gone back to what I was doing. She tells me where she went to college. Then she says her boyfriend broke up with her and he told her to talk to Sarah and Jackie. Just starts mentioning people. Okay. I will seem cold here. And, in all honesty, hot, super-smart, sane, stable twenty-eight-year-olds are always welcome to come over and we can chat and have an impromptu date and one of those blasted "meet cute" stories and that is fine. But again, the rules: super smart, sane, stable, hot/fit. Able to talk Shakespeare or hockey--or open to doing so--and also capable of running stairs and additionally into nature, ruled by character and principle, and artfully debauched, or up for being so. I was polite, but I was quite uncomfortable. And then she asked me what I was doing for the day. At which point I lied, said I was going to meet someone, and was off to a movie. Wished her all the best in the new year, and took my hasty leave. She also told me she needed to get new friends. I felt bad for her. Though I also could have seen her drugging and scalping me. The C-Dawg has enough problems without being drugged and scalped. I do hope she's okay, though.
