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How to Eat Breakfast Alone
May. 27th, 2006 11:32 amWake up early with a slight headache partially caused by your upstairs neighbour's sub-woofer-fueled hip-hop party last night and partial residual effects from your House binge/marathon two nights' previous and your last night's Ab Fab and Fellini tribute. Your love partner is away in Toronto this weekend. He's visiting old friends, making new ones, touring Doors Open, getting naked on beaches, and you've stayed home; claiming exhaustion. Wuss. And so, instead of waking up next to your lover this morning, you wake up next to your self-pleasure instruments and press the snooze button as many times as possible until your head finally agrees to unattach itself from your sweat and drool-soaked pillow with enough time to check your email, shower, dress, and grab some orange juice before you have to meet your friend for breakfast.
Fight with your stolen internet connection. Try and force it to submit to your will, despite it not being your own and despite its own insistence on being the most precarious and unpredictable stolen internet connection imaginable. You've agreed to a breakfast date with Suz but you haven't heard a response in a while. You need to check your mail to confirm that there's actually a reason for your getting out of bed so early this morning. No luck. After fighting with the connection until 7:50AM you finally reach an empty Inbox and are left with no time for either that much needed shower or that kick-starting orange juice you craved before the 8AM usual breakfast date. You put some talcum powder in your hair and slip on your favourite knit navy v-neck that used to be your father's before he 'had three kids' and your new long, white, frilly skirt that, in the right light, shows the distinct silhouette of your distinctly stout legs. Decide to wear a slip underneath of it. Slip on your sandals and head to the pub down the street where they offer cheap breakfasts and great coffee. Despite the lack of affirming correspondence, you're not one to stand-up a friend for a date.
The pub is closed. It won't open for nearly another hour. Saturday hours are a bitch. Decide to wait it out. Pick up a free copy of 'The Scene' from the dirty news box in front of you and start reading it in efforts to both pass the time and to ignore the aggressive man waiting at the bus-stop, heading off to cook breakfast for '60 people' at his restaurant downtown and whose 'steak & caesar' breakfast is apparently much better than the breakfast you're proposing to eat. Ignore him for long enough that he gives up and starts advertising to the young man reading a copy of 'The Record' beside you.
Once the steak & caesar guy has gone, spend some time in the corner store where you've become fascinated by the fact that there is a new person behind the counter everytime you have walked through their door. Peruse their collection of dusty kitchen gadgets, chat with the friendly lady behind the counter (each counter-person being uncommonly friendly) about the price of popsicles and recall your childhood by buying yourself some Betty & Veronica for toilet reading. You haven't had a good shit in days thanks to sphincter-shyness from sharing a one bedroom apartment with a polite classmate 3 days out of the week. Reading those books have always helped. Thank the lady and go back outside to keep reading your copy of 'The Scene'. Discover that Fred Penner is coming to a church in London in June.
When the pub finally opens, there are already people seated inside. You have no idea how they got in, but you don't feel obliged to ask; you just sit yourself down at the table closest to the door and facing the street where the sun glares in your eyes everytime you lift your head and where you'll continue to hold out hope for Suz to appear. Order coffee.
Ten minutes have passed and you've given up hope of anyone eating their breakfast across from you (where they would also be conveniently blocking the sun). Decide to have someone else cook breakfast for you anyways, and order your eggs scrambled and your toast brown. More coffee. Listen to the conversations of the diners around you: the family of three whose daughter just got a full-time job in town and is discussing furniture placement at her new place, and the man with the grey mustache and mesh-back hat apologizing for not bringing snacks and feeding his tiny (grand-?)daughter pieces of his eggs and hashbrowns from his plate. Everyone in the restaurant has ordered the same thing, with variations on the eggs and toast. CNN is playing in the background.
More coffee. A young couple sits down at the table behind you, replacing the mother-daughter-father trio from earlier, and the blonde requests that she sit 'out of the sun'. They talk about the big party last night. Get more coffee. Read more of 'The Scene' and decide to see a cheap movie by yourself soon and maybe check out a concert or two. Fred Penner is on the top of that list. Get the bill. Pay the waitress. She was nice, had overplucked eyebrows, and her ass was big and perky. Give her a good tip. Leave the pub with a full belly and a satisfied grin. Burp a little bit once you get outside.
Before heading home, hop into the friendly market next door to pick up a fresh loaf of your favourite whole-wheat and sesame seed bread. There is an old man straddling one of the seats by the window, smacking his gums and holding his styrofoam cup of coffee tightly. The young man with the curly hair, apron and glasses, greets you as you walk in and head straight to the back of the store - passing the coffees and biscottis at the front, the ten thousand jams and chutneys lining the walls, the cakes and pastries in the display, and the freshly-made complete meal sets on the side. You love the smell of that place, and you feel pretty lucky to have a market like this so close to your apartment. Get the boy behind the counter to slice your bread for you as you gaze at their pastries and wander around the store, staring at the old man every once in a while who is, in turn, staring out the window to the street. As the boy is ringing in your bill, get him to put a single slice of cheesecake in a box for you as well. It's for after dinner tonight. You deserve it. You always do.
Say goodbye and skip to your bike with bread and cakes in your hands. Place your purchases in your basket and walk home with your bike at your side: you don't want the bumps to damage your dessert and, besides that, it's a gorgeous and sunny day. Walk home in the sunshine, passing by numerous ogglers who make you realize that your under-skirt slip is possibly substantially lacking in length. Smile right back at them. Breathe in deeply and get a good wiff of the lilacs still blooming in your neighbourhood.Remember what the boy at the market said when he handed you your things: "Have a great morning!" he said. Thanks. I will, and I have.
How was yours?
Fight with your stolen internet connection. Try and force it to submit to your will, despite it not being your own and despite its own insistence on being the most precarious and unpredictable stolen internet connection imaginable. You've agreed to a breakfast date with Suz but you haven't heard a response in a while. You need to check your mail to confirm that there's actually a reason for your getting out of bed so early this morning. No luck. After fighting with the connection until 7:50AM you finally reach an empty Inbox and are left with no time for either that much needed shower or that kick-starting orange juice you craved before the 8AM usual breakfast date. You put some talcum powder in your hair and slip on your favourite knit navy v-neck that used to be your father's before he 'had three kids' and your new long, white, frilly skirt that, in the right light, shows the distinct silhouette of your distinctly stout legs. Decide to wear a slip underneath of it. Slip on your sandals and head to the pub down the street where they offer cheap breakfasts and great coffee. Despite the lack of affirming correspondence, you're not one to stand-up a friend for a date.
The pub is closed. It won't open for nearly another hour. Saturday hours are a bitch. Decide to wait it out. Pick up a free copy of 'The Scene' from the dirty news box in front of you and start reading it in efforts to both pass the time and to ignore the aggressive man waiting at the bus-stop, heading off to cook breakfast for '60 people' at his restaurant downtown and whose 'steak & caesar' breakfast is apparently much better than the breakfast you're proposing to eat. Ignore him for long enough that he gives up and starts advertising to the young man reading a copy of 'The Record' beside you.
Once the steak & caesar guy has gone, spend some time in the corner store where you've become fascinated by the fact that there is a new person behind the counter everytime you have walked through their door. Peruse their collection of dusty kitchen gadgets, chat with the friendly lady behind the counter (each counter-person being uncommonly friendly) about the price of popsicles and recall your childhood by buying yourself some Betty & Veronica for toilet reading. You haven't had a good shit in days thanks to sphincter-shyness from sharing a one bedroom apartment with a polite classmate 3 days out of the week. Reading those books have always helped. Thank the lady and go back outside to keep reading your copy of 'The Scene'. Discover that Fred Penner is coming to a church in London in June.
When the pub finally opens, there are already people seated inside. You have no idea how they got in, but you don't feel obliged to ask; you just sit yourself down at the table closest to the door and facing the street where the sun glares in your eyes everytime you lift your head and where you'll continue to hold out hope for Suz to appear. Order coffee.
Ten minutes have passed and you've given up hope of anyone eating their breakfast across from you (where they would also be conveniently blocking the sun). Decide to have someone else cook breakfast for you anyways, and order your eggs scrambled and your toast brown. More coffee. Listen to the conversations of the diners around you: the family of three whose daughter just got a full-time job in town and is discussing furniture placement at her new place, and the man with the grey mustache and mesh-back hat apologizing for not bringing snacks and feeding his tiny (grand-?)daughter pieces of his eggs and hashbrowns from his plate. Everyone in the restaurant has ordered the same thing, with variations on the eggs and toast. CNN is playing in the background.
More coffee. A young couple sits down at the table behind you, replacing the mother-daughter-father trio from earlier, and the blonde requests that she sit 'out of the sun'. They talk about the big party last night. Get more coffee. Read more of 'The Scene' and decide to see a cheap movie by yourself soon and maybe check out a concert or two. Fred Penner is on the top of that list. Get the bill. Pay the waitress. She was nice, had overplucked eyebrows, and her ass was big and perky. Give her a good tip. Leave the pub with a full belly and a satisfied grin. Burp a little bit once you get outside.
Before heading home, hop into the friendly market next door to pick up a fresh loaf of your favourite whole-wheat and sesame seed bread. There is an old man straddling one of the seats by the window, smacking his gums and holding his styrofoam cup of coffee tightly. The young man with the curly hair, apron and glasses, greets you as you walk in and head straight to the back of the store - passing the coffees and biscottis at the front, the ten thousand jams and chutneys lining the walls, the cakes and pastries in the display, and the freshly-made complete meal sets on the side. You love the smell of that place, and you feel pretty lucky to have a market like this so close to your apartment. Get the boy behind the counter to slice your bread for you as you gaze at their pastries and wander around the store, staring at the old man every once in a while who is, in turn, staring out the window to the street. As the boy is ringing in your bill, get him to put a single slice of cheesecake in a box for you as well. It's for after dinner tonight. You deserve it. You always do.
Say goodbye and skip to your bike with bread and cakes in your hands. Place your purchases in your basket and walk home with your bike at your side: you don't want the bumps to damage your dessert and, besides that, it's a gorgeous and sunny day. Walk home in the sunshine, passing by numerous ogglers who make you realize that your under-skirt slip is possibly substantially lacking in length. Smile right back at them. Breathe in deeply and get a good wiff of the lilacs still blooming in your neighbourhood.Remember what the boy at the market said when he handed you your things: "Have a great morning!" he said. Thanks. I will, and I have.
How was yours?
