- by Fish

Carl and I hand the waitress the menus, and I reach for my water. Carl and I seem to have evolved a pattern of getting together for dinner on Tuesday nights. He and I have busy schedules, and meeting over dinner is good conservation of time. We call them "working dinners," even though this isn't work per se; we're meeting about various creative projects, be it interactive theater or screenplays or a certain Web magazine. Carl and I live within a few blocks of each other, and so tend to catch dinner at the restaurants within walking distance, although this pizza place is the most common destination. Although I wish it were real pizza, not this deep-dish Chicago-style bastardization. Carl, being from Chicago, rather enjoys debating me on this subject. The waitress gone, Carl resumes our previous discussion about the central plot, when something catches my attention out of the corner of my eye, and I turn to ogle the hostess. Carl's a good enough friend that I make no attempt to hide this gesture, and when I turn back, he's watching me and wearing a Mona Lisa smirk. Unlike me, Carl is not single, and moreover has generally more decorum about dealing with the other gender, so he finds this all very amusing. However, when we were last here, I'd caught him (subtly) ogling her too, so it's not like he can really criticize me. I smirk back and shrug. Of course, conversation at these "working dinners" never stays on "work". Before long we've strayed: to a mutual friend in a bad breakup, to upcoming holiday travel plans, to his parents. Only another pass by the hostess stirs us from our reverie and back to the story once again. I don't really realize that an hour has passed until the waitress brings the bill. The waitress serves as a better timer than any watch; without the regulated eat-then-pay-then-leave of a restaurant, Carl and I would sit here feverishly reworking story elements, lost in our own little world, until they mopped the floors and put the chairs up on the tables.

I'm sitting in the coffeehouse, listening to Sabrina talk about her job, and I lift the coffee mug (actually, it's filled with chai, but who's counting) to my lips and nod in affirmation. How comforting it is to have a beverage in your hand while talking to someone; it becomes a tool for whittling and shaping the dialogue. Take a sip as their sentence draws to a close, and you send the unspoken signal that you don't want to reply, that you want them to continue, to elaborate. The mug is almost empty, with nothing left save a few drops of milky tea, but I do want her to go on, so I eke some of the dregs out of the mug anyhow. I'm still kicking myself because I've just realized that I've been rattling on too much about myself, and I'm trying to level things back out by encouraging her to talk more. Sabrina and I don't often meet outside this coffeehouse; an hour or two every few months seems to define our friendship. Sabrina is articulate, educated, bright, and has a welcoming laugh. She also has the figure of a model: tall, lithe, and curvacious to the point that I'd doubt her authenticity if I didn't know her feminist-inspired opinions of body image and surgical alterations thereto. But I've never asked her out on a date (these meetings are not "dates", we both know in some unspoken fashion). For one, while she and I converse very comfortably, at a deeper level I think we run on different wavelengths. Her friends and mine are very different people. And two, I'm well aware that I don't have a snowball's chance in hell. I shouldn't say she and I "converse very comfortably". I should instead say that we ordinarily converse very comfortably, but tonight things haven't been as spirited. At coffee-klatsches past we've talked about everything and anything effortlessly, until one of us realized it was getting late, but tonight things have seemed slower. In attempting to fill the space I've gone on too long about myself, and have only just now realized that narcissism isn't the cure. Sip the mug. Let her talk, you idiot.

It is a Sunday morning, and Ed has called to invite me over for waffles. Ever since Ed found a working waffle iron at a garage sale he's been on a waffle-making kick. To his credit, his sourdough waffles are top-notch. Ed lives nearby, so I straighten my hair and walk over. His living room table is already set with waffle condiments by the time I arrive -- too many condiments, in fact. I am somewhat of a waffle traditionalist, sticking true to maple syrup (real maple syrup, mind you, the kind drawn from trees in the Northeast or Canada. Not that overblown corn syrup that most Americans think is "maple syrup") and butter, or maybe jam and whipped cream if I'm feeling vivacious. But Ed has placed on the table, in addition to these items, a jar of peanut butter. Peanut butter. Heresy. Also present at the table is Nancy, a mutual friend who is staying on Ed's couch for the week until her new apartment lease begins. She's already working on a waffle (not covered with peanut butter, thank God) as I say my hellos and sit down. The waffles are served in an endless, almost factory-like line as Ed uses up all the batter. Apparently, he's prepared about 18 gallons of batter, judging by the still-growing, mile-high stack on the table between the three of us, and I chide him about it. My daily grouchiness is amplified in the morningtime, as I am not a morning person, but since I am in the presence of company I have subverted it into hopefully-witty cynicism. Nancy inquires if I am still single; apparently, there's a friend of hers she thinks might be a good match. I am single, but I confess to her my wariness, as the last woman she pondered hooking up with me was a devout Baptist. Nancy finishes her breakfast, drops her plate in the sink, and puts on her coat, as she has to head out on an errand. She joke-flirts with me on the way out, pretending to swoon over me -- unaware that my blissfully ignorant hindbrain does not recognize this as a joke. She is no sooner out the door when Ed turns to me and bites down on his knuckle in sympathy. I echo the gesture back at him and we bust up into laughter. We once again ponder how Nancy can be so achingly cute and have no idea that she is; we once again ponder the mystery of why neither of us are actually interested in her. I stab another waffle from the pile, drop it onto my plate, and reach for the syrup.

I am in my living room, sitting down with a freshly-prepared plate of stir-fried random. The nice thing about cooking for just yourself is that no one can critique your choice of entree. Still, it's just not the same.