Storytime

Yesterday evening I met up with a friend with whom I have not seen a couple weeks. She is carless, so I picked her up and we went to our favorite burger place.

Me: Here we got these samples at work, but we just stopped carrying this line. Their great, but I don't need the moisture one, so I thought I'd give it to you.
Her: Thanks, and way to turn that into an insult.

She has curly hair and it's pretty, but it could be prettier.

Later we're sitting at a table on the patio of the restaurant and I see this guy with whom mutual friends tried to set me up with last year. He's cute and according to the mutual friends "looks just like Ian Curtis." We met up for dinner once and walked through Oregon Hill and then back to Broad Street for ice cream one evening last year. I'm pretty sure we haven't talked since then. He apparently has a girlfriend, she's probably an art student, he's getting his graduate degree in something art related. Anyway, so he and his assumed girlfriend end up sitting two tables over from me and my friend. Neither he nor I say anything to acknowledge the other.

I fill my friend in on all the ridiculous happening in my life, as per usual. My life cannot get cut a break, ever. I suppose it's better this way, otherwise I would be so bored.

Our food arrives and I have ordered onion rings. I love onion rings, but I had forgotten how large the order was.

Me: Do you want any?
Her: No, I don't like onion rings.
Me: Really?
Her: I've always hated them.

about half an hour goes by...

Her: Actually, can I have one?
Me: Sure, but I thought you didn't like them.
Her: Actually, I've never tried them...(takes bite)...these are delicious!

We then proceed to walk around Carytown looking for hiring signs because she is looking for a new job. We see that a barbecue place is hiring so she goes in and fills out an application, I sit by an ice cream store down the way.

A woman and her two children come out of the ice cream shop. The little boy called Jack-Jack asks if he can sit by me (I'm in one of four chairs) an as I say yes his sisters sits in it, so he sits in the next one over. A man with a motorcycle helmet is sitting on the other side of him and becomes distracted by the helmet and drops his ice cream. While he is screaming, his sister tells me all about Robin Hood which happens to be playing at the dollar theater across the street, and their mother gives the boy her cone. She picks up her son's cone and sees that it can be salvaged. She takes a napkin out of her purse and wipes it clean and then trades her son. "You got a decent bargain, two flavors instead of one," say the man with the helmet. The boy settles down and my friend comes out and we continue on our way.

Today I had English. My "Image Analysis" was due today, it required me to find a print add in a magazine and criticize it. I chose a Skinny Cow add in Glamour magazine. I usually don't pay attention to add that aren't fashion related, but I have found that all the non-fashion related adds in women's magazines are incredibly insulting compared to the adds in men 's magazines. Ugh.

Anyway, we were told before our break to meet in the library after the break. I got there with a buch of my classmates and we all sat in a circle of loveseats and chairs. There was a little girl sitting on one of the loveseats and we all started talking to her and asking her about her books. Okay, not everyone, but me and the guy that I flirt with in this class (you have to have someone to flirt with in all of your classes, duh). Anyway, she was telling me all about her books when she left for a moment. When she came back she asked me to read her a story... I hesitated before asking her to pick one. She chose The Mitten, the story about a boy who loses his white mitten in the snow and a bunch of animals make room in it to keep warm before it gives and they are put out and then he finds his very stretched out mitten. The end. Anyway, I didn't make it though the entire story because my class was meeting in one of the group study rooms, but the little girl didn't seem to mind and thanked me for reading as far as I did. She was probably about six, and very bored. I would have been too, it was just so sad to me. I suppose it shouldn't be, but I had no idea who her parents were, but I can infer from my fellow classmates that they were probably single and can't afford childcare, and probably don't have time between work and school for storytime. It's such a shame, because storytime is really the only thing that matters before the age of nine when most people are capable of reading fairly well on their own.

My dad was the storyteller when I was a child. If we weren't reading one of the books from the giant stack we brought home from the library, he was making one up. He is to blame for my overactive imagination, slight paranoia and love for reading. And I find it difficult when I realize that not everyone is as luck as I was to have someone read to them everyday. I may be making too much of this, perhaps that girl does get read to frequently and just has no problem asking strangers to read to her. That's would still be an incredibly different experience than what I had, and I hope that's the case. Even so, those few minutes were surprisingly enjoyable as I read to not just her, but that circle of people. It felt strange, but comfortable.