I really wonder how you feel on these nights so alone

“if only you could see”

They were laughing. (Chalk it up to being young.)

Jan 15, 2008 || 5:08 PM || comment?

Call me weird, but I like to dine in restaurants by myself sometimes. However, I often find myself observing the people around me while I eat my food, much like watching different stories unfolding at the same time. At the table in front of mine were three women. Three women, and one what many would say, good looking man. They were all dressed somewhat nicely, maybe they all worked in some multistory office building. I imagined he was the president, and the three women were his assistants on some level. The brunette on his left was his personal assistant. She made sure he had fresh coffee in his room each morning, as well as that extra perk. The blonde on his right cleaned his office every afternoon so there would be no messes when that meeting in the morning rolled around. Someone must have forgotten to tell her about the stains on the couch. And the redhead. I could only see her back, but of the three she was the most beautiful. Even though the brunette and blonde sat next to him on either side, she was his prized treasure. And all she did was transfer his calls. They were laughing at some joke, the brunette and the blonde, while he shared in some special moment with the redhead, simply looking at each other and smiling, knowing their single truth.

Diagonal from me sat a couple, young, possibly in their twenties. The restaurant I chose for tonight was upscale, so it wasn't out of the ordinary to see couples, or to see anyone dressed nicely for the occasion. What she didn't know was behind him he held a small velvet box. His nervousness showed as he kept turning the box in his hands behind the chair. Would he have the courage to ask for her hand? I secretly rooted him on as I ate my asparagus. To my left, also diagonal, was a girl eating by herself. Her hair was jet black, and a bit past her shoulders. She too watched the couple across the way; she seemed a bit envious. I wondered if it were possible she was like myself, eating alone in the restaurant, but watching those around her like an interactive play. She returned her gaze to her plate, which was full of green leaves, probably a salad. With her fork, she stabbed it a few times, then lifted it a little below eye level, turning the fork around, examining each leaf. Then her gaze lifted above the green to catch my own line of sight. I'd never been caught before, so I felt much like a deer caught in the headlights. I simply stared back at her. Despite the distance, I could tell her eyes weren't the usually shade of brown. I imagined some captivating shade of green, but maybe that was because of the lettuce mostly covering her face. She seemed easy going, and maybe the kind of person that would read in the park. In her spare time, she got something to drink at the café across the street and would get engaged in some meaningful conversation. You would think by seeing her in the park she was some introvert who preferred sunlight and printed letters, but sparking a conversation brought out her soul. She was only dying for some conversation with the guy putting on a performance on that Sunday afternoon, or with the dog walker who took the time to get in your way, without actually desiring to be part of that moment in your life.

I blinked out of my daydream to see the green eyed girl was gone. Her plate was only half empty. Her glass of water was barely touched. I probably stared at her long enough to make her leave. I looked back down at my plate, and sadly there was no more asparagus. But there was one napkin more than before. I picked it up; it was too hard to read the small curly letters written on it. I never thought my people watching would pay off to anything positive, then again, I would have to chalk this one up to luck. In cursive, there was written, "Less staring. More talking." Turning the napkin over would reveal seven digits. And all I could think is where she got the pen.

__________________________________________

I just noticed that the past couple of posts have been stories or just generally uninteresting bits of nothing. But, midterms have just passed. And I passed all of them. I've been having a real bad time with my Calculus class, but as it turns out, I made an 84. Even though it isn't an awesome grade, compared to my usual efforts, this was REALLY good. We're just now starting integrals, which is, we're going backwards now, not really un-learning, but just doing everything backwards now to cause all sorts of new problems and I'm going into this with a much better attitude, and more discipline than my first half. I want to show my teacher that I really want to try despite my lack of effort first semester. I made As for both of my Chemistry midterms, and I was really happy about that too. So far I'm doing well with my no-soda thing, which is not something I would have thought I could do last year. Sure it's only day 15, but that's like half a month. So I'm pretty much giving up sodas for good, and don't really plan on touching one after like some kind of milestone. Besides, it's really not that bad...just kind of bland drinking water most of the time.

Yesterday when I was at a stoplight, and I was watching the traffic passing by, I was noticing how the cars were just going, and I was thinking about if a person would just stand in the middle, where the cars from the left and the right don't really pass because those are turning lanes. And in the middle of all that commotion would be this one person. Everyone would notice. Sometimes I feel like I want to make an impact like that. Today we got an assignment in our physics class where we pretty much have to teach a part of the new chapter. And I was thinking how I once thought how neat it would be to get to do something like that, and now that we really have to...it seems different, certainly not the way I planned it. But I would like to be able to have someone say to me, "you know that really stuck in my head and I really understand what you just said." It would be funny because maybe I did a better job than our actual teacher. But we have to do a demonstration of our concept, solve the problems in that section, write a podcast, which is basically an mp3 file which I guess will be something like a lecture maybe? I'm not sure. I just hope we do well enough, because I don't want it to happen where it wasn't done well enough, and it'll pretty much be "oh well I didn't get any of those questions right," and there'd be some fingers pointing. But oh well. I guess we'll just see what happens...

Labels: fiction junction