Worse Things

There are things worse than. . . everything.  I got beautified this afternoon.  Yea.  Full blown.  I'm a freaking peacock now.  So I'm telling my beautician about my recent breakup and she is telling me this and that, and then I realize she is trying to get me to take her for a drink!  No, no, no, no, no.  She is having trouble on the dating websites--duh!--but she is a single mom and says that she hasn't any time, so when she has half an hour alone at home while her three year old is doing something else, she gets sucked in and goes on the websites to fish and chat.  Nothing works out, of course.  At least that is what she tells me.  My house repair guy, on the other hand, is hip deep in women.  Who knows?  But I get goodly beautified and leave without harming the relationship and am starved because all I've had to eat that day is coffee and yogurt and some birthday cake that was for my secretary who is turning thirty on Saturday.  So I am famished when the treatments are done, and the sun is going down, and I will, too, in mere moments if I don't get something to eat, so I go to the only place I know I'll be comfortable eating alone.

Sushi.

I go to the place on the Boulevard and sit at the bar.  Of course.  And I am waited on by the "Dream Waitress" that all my buddies are in love with, a perfectly unreal doll, made up for a movie.

I forgot how good it is to eat alone where you are remembered.

"Hello.  Can I get you some hot sake tonight?"

That is what I am asked first thing because I always get hot sake and I am flattered that the perfect doll remembers because I have not been to this place for months every since Ili said she didn't want to go there any more.

The waitress reads me the specials, and when I start to speak, she says, "Or do you want the the tuna kabachi  and edamame?"

That is exactly what I want, I say, with sushi rice.  I am amazed.

"I haven't seen you all in a while.  Where have you been?"

I am not accustomed to talking to people just yet, and I am awkward and clumsy in my response.

"Oh, I've been working like crazy," I say in a tone that seems to rebuke the words I have spoken.

Then another waitress.  Then another.  They must really need business.

"Where's your wife?"

"She is not my wife."

"Oh, sorry," the Asian waitress says. . . "Where's your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend anymore."

I feel bad for saying this as she begins to apologize awkwardly.  Oh, well.

I listen to snatches of conversation around me.  The beautiful waitress asks me more questions.  I tell her I am going home to read a book.  She asks what I am reading.  "The Other Paris," I tell her, "By Luc Sante.  And you?"

I wait to hear some ludicrous thing.

"Neuropathy," she says, then explains the premise.  Hmm.  Not bad.  Not good, but not bad.

I am home now with a cat that will not leave me alone.  She has taken to coming inside again this past week.  I love her, but she is maddening.  Now I want to read.

But I will leave you with this.

(link)

Good things to come.