I essentially got hired on the spot at the Virginia Beach Trader Joe's today. The First Mate from the Newport News store, affectionately referred to as The Todd, was manning the office. When I asked for an application he responded:
"No shit. You want to work here?"
It's good to have that settled, sorted out, so my breaths are a little less narrow. I remember my last night at Trader Joe's -- two years and three days ago. After my shift, I whistled for Shadowfax and rode into the infinte night, knowing that I'd never have to return to Trader Joe's for work. Ever. In my whole life. Four hours and a pound of cherries later, I pulled into Ted's driveway The next day we were rehearsing and preparing to record Sunflower. What humor the universe has. Such cleverness. The way circles and cycles close and resume. Surprises hop out of the horizon. The universe asks:
"What do you know, Jake?"
"That I like surprises." Says I.
And along those lines -- not the surprises but the manner of my soon to be source of income -- I spent an hour at a food safety class, learning a pile of food wisdom. Magically, I was awarded a paper rectangle.
FOOD HANDLER
That's me. It's for my fancy cooking gig at Path Norfolk. Come eat my foods.
The food handler class was interesting but about 95% of the lecture was information that I'd seared into my head as a teenager, praying at the altar of the Food Network. That was back when what I knew was that I would excel in culinary school and I would be a food architect and I would delight bellies and I would be a practitioner of man's longest, and grooviest, shaman tradition. Making meals.
"Are you beginning to see a pattern, Jake?" Asks the universe.
"I see patterns all the time." Says I.
"Don't be cute. Do you see this pattern?"
"Yeah yeah; I get it."
"Good." The universe smiles and skips jauntily down the road.
"It's kind of crazy, you know?" I jog to catch up, now a little breathless. "How easy absolute is. How shocking it is that changing my mind is even easier."
"It's really not that crazy. What's actually crazy is shitting all over yourself for changing your mind. For not being right."
"Shitting all over myself?" says I. "Don't you think that's a bit harsh?"
"You tell me." Replies the universe. On it skips. Jaunting through space-time.
Smart, smart universe. Saying smart things. Making me feel smart, just because it doesn't make fun of me for not getting it all right away. Smart. That's kind of a weird word if you look at it long enough. Sound it out. Really. s. m. a. r. t. Smart. Anyway, so then I say to the universe:
"Where's all this going?"
"Where isn't it going?" The universe raises a milky-way eyebrow. Then it vanishes.
I thought long about that. A good long think. About as long as it took you to reach this question mark?
What?
So I didn't really think that much about the universe's question. Because it made a lot of sense. Something, I fear, I have now strayed from.
Ohhhh, and the whole point of this. Sometimes people mispronounced words, rather, they get the letters and sounds a bit mushed in their mouths. It's easy to tell where their brain is though -- already on the next word. The teacher of the Food Handler class, who occasionally made good jokes, had this tendency. Sometimes it's embarrassing to watch. Other times, boring boring things become sublime and poetic and just plain interesting.
What he meant to say:
"You can thaw frozen chicken wings with hot water, as long as you cook those wings right away."
But the circuits leapfrogged and he ended that sentence with the words, rings white array. I like that much better.
"No shit. You want to work here?"
It's good to have that settled, sorted out, so my breaths are a little less narrow. I remember my last night at Trader Joe's -- two years and three days ago. After my shift, I whistled for Shadowfax and rode into the infinte night, knowing that I'd never have to return to Trader Joe's for work. Ever. In my whole life. Four hours and a pound of cherries later, I pulled into Ted's driveway The next day we were rehearsing and preparing to record Sunflower. What humor the universe has. Such cleverness. The way circles and cycles close and resume. Surprises hop out of the horizon. The universe asks:
"What do you know, Jake?"
"That I like surprises." Says I.
And along those lines -- not the surprises but the manner of my soon to be source of income -- I spent an hour at a food safety class, learning a pile of food wisdom. Magically, I was awarded a paper rectangle.
FOOD HANDLER
That's me. It's for my fancy cooking gig at Path Norfolk. Come eat my foods.
The food handler class was interesting but about 95% of the lecture was information that I'd seared into my head as a teenager, praying at the altar of the Food Network. That was back when what I knew was that I would excel in culinary school and I would be a food architect and I would delight bellies and I would be a practitioner of man's longest, and grooviest, shaman tradition. Making meals.
"Are you beginning to see a pattern, Jake?" Asks the universe.
"I see patterns all the time." Says I.
"Don't be cute. Do you see this pattern?"
"Yeah yeah; I get it."
"Good." The universe smiles and skips jauntily down the road.
"It's kind of crazy, you know?" I jog to catch up, now a little breathless. "How easy absolute is. How shocking it is that changing my mind is even easier."
"It's really not that crazy. What's actually crazy is shitting all over yourself for changing your mind. For not being right."
"Shitting all over myself?" says I. "Don't you think that's a bit harsh?"
"You tell me." Replies the universe. On it skips. Jaunting through space-time.
Smart, smart universe. Saying smart things. Making me feel smart, just because it doesn't make fun of me for not getting it all right away. Smart. That's kind of a weird word if you look at it long enough. Sound it out. Really. s. m. a. r. t. Smart. Anyway, so then I say to the universe:
"Where's all this going?"
"Where isn't it going?" The universe raises a milky-way eyebrow. Then it vanishes.
I thought long about that. A good long think. About as long as it took you to reach this question mark?
What?
So I didn't really think that much about the universe's question. Because it made a lot of sense. Something, I fear, I have now strayed from.
Ohhhh, and the whole point of this. Sometimes people mispronounced words, rather, they get the letters and sounds a bit mushed in their mouths. It's easy to tell where their brain is though -- already on the next word. The teacher of the Food Handler class, who occasionally made good jokes, had this tendency. Sometimes it's embarrassing to watch. Other times, boring boring things become sublime and poetic and just plain interesting.
What he meant to say:
"You can thaw frozen chicken wings with hot water, as long as you cook those wings right away."
But the circuits leapfrogged and he ended that sentence with the words, rings white array. I like that much better.
||MIDNIGHT:50||
bed.
2 comments:
Epiphany!
You are become Buddha.
Thank the Universe.
P.S.
I'm coming to eat your food.
I've always loved words with multiple meanings. When something smarts, it hurts.
This made me laugh a lot. =)
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