Richmond Journals III
I walked in one day to Sacred Grounds to find an Earlham friend of mine ordering a wrap and an espresso. Her name was Lydia and I had met her through the religion class I had been auditing. She had dark brown hair, cut in a rather non-descript fashion and always wore a lime-green peacoat. She had a small scar above her lip and a blizzard of freckles and had a very oddly mixed demeanor—her gestures were lively and effusive, but her eyes were morose and spare. She smiled at me and waved in quick, abbreviated jerks as I walked over. “I didn’t know you came here,” I said. “Well,” she said, “I was on this side of town and I suddenly got a craving for coffee. And a little lunch. But it’s funny you should show up—I’m rarely on this end of town.” That was actually true for nearly all Earlham students; they tended to stay in their own little sector of Richmond, which was a bit of a feat—Richmond is simply not very large, and four years is a long time to remain in a 20 block square radius.
We gossiped about our classmates and our constitutionally agitated little professor as I poured my coffee and put in the cream and sugar. I never use cream and sugar at home, where I have only the coffee my father buys, which is inferior and mostly tasteless. But, oddly enough, when I actually have access to good coffee, I mask its taste with cream and sugar. I really don’t know why—I like bitterness and I like flavor. It’s more of a habit than a preference, I suppose, and I would need to work to amend it now.
We sat down while she ate her wrap and I waited for my coffee to cool, commiserating about the text we had been assigned. It wasn’t that it was particularly dull or off-topic or overly long or even difficult; it was that it was bad and there were a few of us in the class that, together, could pull it apart at the seams, a fact which seriously distressed our professor, who seemed to feel some personal attachment to it.
Lydia finished her wrap and we sipped our coffees. It was not a warm day, but nevertheless a good ten degrees warmer than the three or four days prior, so Lydia suggested we drink the rest of our coffee outside and smoke. Lydia and I and another student or two always go immediately outside after class and smoke. Quite often, I don’t, but I like standing outside with them by the little ash-stand and vent our frustrations with religion in general and people who refuse to see the world in complex terms. I feel like a bit of a fraud while doing this because it has been my project for a few months now to re-simplify the world to myself, to re-insert “problematic categories” like “the Good” and “Truth” and “naturalness.” My progress has mostly been measured by how irritated I get when someone (especially some author) nags me about distinctions that I try to maintain make no difference. Complexity, after all, is not the same thing as difficulty. We do many complex things quite easily, at least after the first few iterations. Too many people assume that complexity and difficulty are in a one-to-one relation, or are at least stably co-dependent, and so the study of culture or even a person must be as difficult as culture is complex. That’s bullshit, but I digress.
I forgot to mention that there is a jukebox in Sacred Grounds. On some of my more idle visits, I’ve browsed the catalogue, but I’ve never had the guts to play any of them. The catalogue is full of Aerosmith and Matchbox Twenty and Tim McGraw and Hootie and the Blowfish. So, even if I had the guts, I probably would not play any of them. But now, behind us, indoors, was playing that Paula Cole song about cowboys. Lydia hopped with delighted exuberance and tossed—not flicked, but underhand tossed—her cigarette away from her and danced an impromptu and sloppy jig, holding some sort of vaudeville-like pose after about ten seconds of foot-stomping and arm-flapping. I have never seen anything like it, and I told her so, laughing. She grinned, but only with her mouth, and I worried I had offended her. She leaned back against the front windows of the shop and pulled out another cigarette. She gestured with her newly-lit cigarette across the parking lot at a Taco Bell. “You know, I don’t think seriously processed food is really that bad. I mean, aside from health concerns. But like metaphysically, or something, it’s not that bad.” “Really?”
“Yeah, I used to work in a Whole Foods store. This guy would come in. He was about mid-twenties, wore a really grimy Bulls sweatshirt all the time, and called himself Old Dirty. Weird thing was, he got to be really good friends with my younger brother, who stocked shelves there too. I did a checkout lane, and he used to give me messages for my brother, saying like, ‘Tell Young Dirty that Old Dirty said this’ or ‘Tell Young Dirty that Old Dirty said that.’ Really creepy.” “Did you give your brother the messages?” I asked. “Course not. But they still hung out and stuff. Really worried me.”
“Then,” she continued, “there was this other guy, typical child molester type mustache. The dude was freaky. He would buy like 13, 14 melons at a time. I have no idea what he did with them, but I really don’t want to know. Anyway, he leaned over the checkout counter one time and was like, ‘So what are you doing after work?’ and I tried to play it casually, like, ‘O, I don’t know. Probably nothing.’ But he said, ‘I’ve got a tent down by the river. Do you want to come hang out sometime?’” “No—he didn’t say that.” “He did! Yeah, I know. And he started acting even sketchier, enough so that my manager, who was a total creep himself—like Kevin Spacey from K-Pax or something, only malevolent—had to come and rescue me. I was being saved from one sketchball by another, slightly less sketchier, sketchball.”
“You know,” I said, and paused, “I don’t think I could ever have a mustache.” “I think a mustache shows a lack of commitment.” “How do you mean?” “Well, like a beard, I can respect a beard. That shows commitment to, you know, like doing the whole thing right. But a mustache, that seems like a failure of will.” Lydia paused to reflect on her observation. “Actually, I don’t know. Maybe a mustache shows a bigger commitment. I mean, it says, ‘I’m willing to accept all the negative connotations of a mustache, so bring it on.’ Maybe a mustache shows more force of will.” “I think you may be right about that. I don’t think I have the will for a mustache. I have the will for a beard. Or had it.”
“Like Tom Selleck,” Lydia continued. “The man clearly knows no shame about his ‘stache.” “And why should he?” I answered. “The man is Tom Selleck.” I hesitated, then said, “Actually, I have a funny story about Tom Selleck.” “A Tom Selleck story? Wow—I want to hear this.”
We gossiped about our classmates and our constitutionally agitated little professor as I poured my coffee and put in the cream and sugar. I never use cream and sugar at home, where I have only the coffee my father buys, which is inferior and mostly tasteless. But, oddly enough, when I actually have access to good coffee, I mask its taste with cream and sugar. I really don’t know why—I like bitterness and I like flavor. It’s more of a habit than a preference, I suppose, and I would need to work to amend it now.
We sat down while she ate her wrap and I waited for my coffee to cool, commiserating about the text we had been assigned. It wasn’t that it was particularly dull or off-topic or overly long or even difficult; it was that it was bad and there were a few of us in the class that, together, could pull it apart at the seams, a fact which seriously distressed our professor, who seemed to feel some personal attachment to it.
Lydia finished her wrap and we sipped our coffees. It was not a warm day, but nevertheless a good ten degrees warmer than the three or four days prior, so Lydia suggested we drink the rest of our coffee outside and smoke. Lydia and I and another student or two always go immediately outside after class and smoke. Quite often, I don’t, but I like standing outside with them by the little ash-stand and vent our frustrations with religion in general and people who refuse to see the world in complex terms. I feel like a bit of a fraud while doing this because it has been my project for a few months now to re-simplify the world to myself, to re-insert “problematic categories” like “the Good” and “Truth” and “naturalness.” My progress has mostly been measured by how irritated I get when someone (especially some author) nags me about distinctions that I try to maintain make no difference. Complexity, after all, is not the same thing as difficulty. We do many complex things quite easily, at least after the first few iterations. Too many people assume that complexity and difficulty are in a one-to-one relation, or are at least stably co-dependent, and so the study of culture or even a person must be as difficult as culture is complex. That’s bullshit, but I digress.
I forgot to mention that there is a jukebox in Sacred Grounds. On some of my more idle visits, I’ve browsed the catalogue, but I’ve never had the guts to play any of them. The catalogue is full of Aerosmith and Matchbox Twenty and Tim McGraw and Hootie and the Blowfish. So, even if I had the guts, I probably would not play any of them. But now, behind us, indoors, was playing that Paula Cole song about cowboys. Lydia hopped with delighted exuberance and tossed—not flicked, but underhand tossed—her cigarette away from her and danced an impromptu and sloppy jig, holding some sort of vaudeville-like pose after about ten seconds of foot-stomping and arm-flapping. I have never seen anything like it, and I told her so, laughing. She grinned, but only with her mouth, and I worried I had offended her. She leaned back against the front windows of the shop and pulled out another cigarette. She gestured with her newly-lit cigarette across the parking lot at a Taco Bell. “You know, I don’t think seriously processed food is really that bad. I mean, aside from health concerns. But like metaphysically, or something, it’s not that bad.” “Really?”
“Yeah, I used to work in a Whole Foods store. This guy would come in. He was about mid-twenties, wore a really grimy Bulls sweatshirt all the time, and called himself Old Dirty. Weird thing was, he got to be really good friends with my younger brother, who stocked shelves there too. I did a checkout lane, and he used to give me messages for my brother, saying like, ‘Tell Young Dirty that Old Dirty said this’ or ‘Tell Young Dirty that Old Dirty said that.’ Really creepy.” “Did you give your brother the messages?” I asked. “Course not. But they still hung out and stuff. Really worried me.”
“Then,” she continued, “there was this other guy, typical child molester type mustache. The dude was freaky. He would buy like 13, 14 melons at a time. I have no idea what he did with them, but I really don’t want to know. Anyway, he leaned over the checkout counter one time and was like, ‘So what are you doing after work?’ and I tried to play it casually, like, ‘O, I don’t know. Probably nothing.’ But he said, ‘I’ve got a tent down by the river. Do you want to come hang out sometime?’” “No—he didn’t say that.” “He did! Yeah, I know. And he started acting even sketchier, enough so that my manager, who was a total creep himself—like Kevin Spacey from K-Pax or something, only malevolent—had to come and rescue me. I was being saved from one sketchball by another, slightly less sketchier, sketchball.”
“You know,” I said, and paused, “I don’t think I could ever have a mustache.” “I think a mustache shows a lack of commitment.” “How do you mean?” “Well, like a beard, I can respect a beard. That shows commitment to, you know, like doing the whole thing right. But a mustache, that seems like a failure of will.” Lydia paused to reflect on her observation. “Actually, I don’t know. Maybe a mustache shows a bigger commitment. I mean, it says, ‘I’m willing to accept all the negative connotations of a mustache, so bring it on.’ Maybe a mustache shows more force of will.” “I think you may be right about that. I don’t think I have the will for a mustache. I have the will for a beard. Or had it.”
“Like Tom Selleck,” Lydia continued. “The man clearly knows no shame about his ‘stache.” “And why should he?” I answered. “The man is Tom Selleck.” I hesitated, then said, “Actually, I have a funny story about Tom Selleck.” “A Tom Selleck story? Wow—I want to hear this.”
posted by Andrew at 5:08 PM
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