2004-01-03 - 11:22 p.m.
Diner and a movie
My mind is painfully refreshed and awake at 10:00 pm, but groggy and dull from the mucous that now pads the insides of my skull. I woke a couple hours ago to see that night had fallen and imagine that the outside lights were candles in my windows.
Imagination taking over when brains and dreams fail me, I have wished a couple times this evening to wander off to a diner. There are a few around I've seen that would do, but none would be the classic diner scene from the movies I am romanticizing over. I do realize that the vignettes of quotable conversation make a diner scene especially desirable, not the diner itself, and that we--whomever "we" might be--probably wouldn't have anything worth saying to make an experience.
My diner scene days are over. I paused a moment just then to recall the days I used to set myself up for a story to occur; and, that now, I frequent no place for that story to begin. Most important, I am no longer that kind of story material. In my pause for reflection I remembered: "Are you hungry?" My heart stopped, then beat with a rush as all caveats swarmed through my head. "Ummm. Yeah," I managed to mutter. We were off for our first date at a greasy spoon on Main Street, the closest thing the town offered to the movie diner. The feelings on both sides were typical: the guy minding his stomach and a few manners while he was at it; and the girl on cloud nine because the guy she was in love with (see above) took her out. As for conversation, let's just say I didn't know his insecurities well enough to know what not to converse about. On the stage of life, however, it was a pertinent scene.
On second thought, maybe diner days have begun. I have friends who like to meet for coffee in the small, narrow, elbow-jabbing spaces of coffee shops, but I think the most satisfying conversations have taken place over a small meal in the comfort of worn boothes. Next time, I think, I'll suggest a place like that.
