I'm driving around a college town reminiscent of Orlando with my mother. I have a date later, and I'm nervous about it. I also need to get the books I need for the class I'll be taking with Dr. Orvell. The road layout is incredibly confusing and twisty, but we don't get lost and it's never an issue.
In the bookstore, I'm more concerned about being able to brush my teeth before my date than I am about the books, but I mask it by pretending to be irritated about how many books I need to buy. The books are comically large, the size of medieval tomes. Several of them are comic books that I have owned in the past but lost.
I'm in the car with someone, and we're on yet another errand. They get out of the car to get a menu from the restaurant where I'll be eating later with Chris and Angela. I'm supposed to pick Angela up at 8, Chris will meet us at the restaurant. I'm parked curbside and the begin speeding up the curb in order to dislodge something from the side of the car, and then speed backwards to the place I was concerned by how far I had driven.
The menu is given to me. It is a hardbound book of about 300 pages. Every possible variation of asian cuisine is enumerated inside, with many photographs.
I'm with Chuck. We're in the foyer of his parents' apartment/restaurant. As they greet us, I realize that the father is vietnamese, but his mother is the mother of a man I know named Nicos (she is greek). The Father asks us if we would like coktails. Chuck asks him if he could have a Screwdriver, but wants the orange juice to be mixed with orange soda first.
Chuck's father becomes angry and says "Now I know why you can never pay your rent." I jump to Chuck's rescue, trying to explain that I'd had Orange Juice and Soda mixed as a child and it was very good. This seems to diffuse the situation.
Chuck and I walk out on to the balcony. Eileen is on the third floor of the apartment building mowing her lawn. She asks me to send Chuck up to help her for a second, which I do. After Chuck is gone, she tries to offer me money for sending Chuck, but I politely refuse explaioning that I would take it if I was going to rake her lawn again, but this is nothing.
Back inside I'm sitting with Angela and her mother, who is also Nicos' mother. We are making smalltalk, when Angela's mother non sequiters into a bit about how Angela will never get married.
Angela is gone, and I'm talking to the mother about how I need to pick her up at 8 for dinner. I panic when I realize that it's 8:40 and I haven't done so. It resolves quickly when I realize that we are in the restaurant and Angela is already there. I begin rambling to the mother about how Angela makes me nervous, unlike other women. I tell her that I'm like a little kid, or a man from the fifties. This pleases her.
I walk around the aprtment/restaurant and the decor is a bad imitation of an Indian palace, as if attempted by high schoolers for a play. I have a conversation with a bodiless voice about the quality of the set. We speculate that this is a science fiction movie about an India that never was, or perhaps it's a historical period that we're unaware of.
I see Angela walking around the halls, but don't interact with her.
I run into the mother again, who is now an African woman. We have a converation that I can't remember.
Posted by illovich at February 8, 2003 08:03 AM | TrackBack