New glasses

A man walks into an eyeglass store. He's dressed young for his age and his movements are jerky. He scans quickly through the frames on the wall seemingly looking for something quite specific. The store clerk is in her mid twenties with a colorful vintage shirt. She approaches the man, smiling to reveal her top teeth have braces.

"We have more frames down here in these drawers."

She says as she slides one open to indeed reveal quite an impressive selection.

"I'm looking for thick black rimmed glasses that are sort of round on the bottom."

The clerk quickly grabs five pairs fitting that description and lays them on the counter in front of the man.

"These are close, but I'm looking for a more classic look; the ones that have the metal hinges showing on the front corners." He looks away and adds, "Like Woody Allen's glasses."

" That's funny," says the clerk, " I was just online trying to figure out exactly what kind of frames he has." She digs through another drawer and pulls out a few more frames all in the general ballpark of what the man has described. He closely examines each pair and finally turns to the clerk.

" How much are these?"

"Those ones $375"

" Jesus Christ that's annoying. Now that I've seen them I'm probably going to buy them"

"They're a very high quality frame," promises the clerk, "and this style is very popular right now."

"Really," says the man seeming a little disappointed, " I feel like I'm more susceptible to trends than most people, I always feel like I want something and then a few weeks later it's everywhere." The clerk laughs, " well, I'm sure you've been into Woody Allen for years."

"oh yeah, he's my absolute favorite," the man looks down a little embarrassed by his own enthusiasm. He composes himself and looks up at the clerk who's smiling, "I feel like a yuppie swine though, spending 400 dollars on a pair of glasses. It's really just vanity too, my vision's really not that bad." The clerk considers what the man has just said as she adjusts her own glasses and tries to free a piece of spinach from her braces with her tongue, "Sometimes it's important to spoil yourself, I have about six pairs of glasses and countless pairs of shoes but I don't think it makes me a bad person. It's really about being balanced." The man seems to only partly be paying attention; he looks around the room and rubs his face as she continues, "Like if I see a homeless person on my way home from the grocery store, I'll give him some of my deli meat and a roll…"

"That's hardly balanced," interrupts the man, "here's a bun for you and I'll have these 400 dollar glasses? There's no denying it's a self-indulgent extravagance."

" Well I work for my money," responds the clerk defensively, " and I have the right to waste my money the way I see fit."

"I get what you're saying and I'll probably buy these glasses, it's just that, it's just that…" The man loses track of what he was saying and then quickly starts again about something different, "I was standing outside the health food store yesterday and I'd just spent 12 dollars on a tofu sesame salad. I was eating it, when I noticed this bum with an exploded nose. I mean his nose was literally spread open like a flower. Suddenly I don't feel so hungry anymore, partly because I feel guilty about the disparity between rich and poor, but also 'cuz I feel a bit repulsed by his exploded nose. So I decide to give him my lunch and I walk away. When I get about a block away it occurs to me that the price was clearly indicated on the container and I think about the man with the exploded nose seeing how I spent 12 dollars on salad and I think he must just think so low of me. He must be so full of anger. I would be."

There's a moment of silence before the clerk responds, " I think you've made a choice, you could give away everything you own and move to the mountains, you could become a Buddhist humanitarian but you decided to live here where you're comfortable and that's fine…" The clerk suddenly realizes that the man is no longer with her, he's looking at her while she speaks but her words are not reaching his brain. He appears sad to her for the first time, until then he'd seemed comically nervous.

" I think I'll get the glasses," says the man.

" Great, do you have your prescription?" asks the clerk unevenly.

The man hands her a piece of paper.

"And how will you be paying?"

"Mastercard."

Tom has just broken up with Annie for the third time in as many months. He's sitting across from her in the family restaurant she didn't want to eat at and she's looking at him like he's nuts. The thing is Annie's not dense, she usually steers clear of wildly irrational people, children masquerading as men and other such undesirables. There is however a quality in Tom so beautifully disturbed, she's willing to be dumped at least three more times before she gives up on the possibility of a blissful union.

Sixty dollar kitty food.

She's shaved her sideburns off so that her hair is a more exaggerated bowl cut than before. She wants to look like Joan of Ark but she's looking like a conglomerate of ages, part little boy, part teenaged a girl and even like a woman. There is a new tattoo on her arm, made with a needle, ink and thread, she gave it to herself, it scrawls "Socrates". We are outside of a jam space in the industrial part of the city and she climbs on some scaffold while I pray to her because she is a fucking sight a golden indicator, I find a paintbrush and carry it like an idol. 

We end up at a 24 hour Pho restaurant with a big bearded guy wearing all black and his smaller bearded counterpart, they are new to us so we are bombarding them with ketamine wit and it seems as if they like listening. A guy we know lost his eye and some of his brain in a drunken bike crash, and we dwell on this for a while. They stop eating, the big guy doesn't eat his vegetables so I do. I like the smaller guy, he has two curly dirty blonde locks that go under his ears. He only looks at me when I say something he likes and it makes me crave the contact, but I'm also eagerly avoiding it. She says "Do you wanna go to the bathroom with me?" 

"No" I say

"Well, you should probably go the the bathroom," he says "you might enjoy it." 

We do more in the washroom and she tells me he's in some amazing defunct band. She begs them on the street corner to come to her house so that we can put them in make-up, but they don't want this and they go back the the jam space. I fall asleep on her couch watching 90210 and I dream about the smaller guy. We are kissing and I can feel his tongue twisting around mine and it lasts a long time. 

"Just one question: you say you were unhappy at home. Why didn't you leave when you could afford to -- long before you did? Perhaps you love him more than you think. You're not a jellyfish darling, you're like me, you need another person. I invented mine. Those of us who aren't self-contained need other people as 2-way channels, to feed us with a sense of reality so we can pour ourselves out into life. Through them. My person was in my imagination. That's the lonely way. I hope yours is more solid, darling."

Two women are standing at the far end of a long, straight road under construction. One is wearing a high-visibility jacket and hard hat - the other, a black and red jacket and matching black pants and shoes. The woman in the hard hat is holding a STOP/SLOW sign in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other.

The person at the other end of the walkie-talkie is having a hell of a time with it, yelling a constant stream of funny noises while pushing the talk button on and off. At this particular moment he has stopped with the incoherences and is yelling, "FUUUCK YOOOOUU! FUUUUCK YOUUUU!" like a police siren.

"I don't know what to do," the woman holding the walkie-takie is saying. "It's been going on for twenty minutes! I just don't know what to do. The idiot obviously thinks this is very funny..."

Our secret.

Hi, this is Blankity Blank Blank. I have this idea for a project called, “The Anonymous Blog.” It’s a bit of a vanity project so I apologize in advance if it comes across as insipid. I’m sending this out as a request to five people whose writing and/or ideas I find inspiring. You may or may not know each other but the purpose of this idea is not to uncover each other’s identities, but rather to feed off of what I feel are complimentary talents. I would have remained anonymous too but I felt some of you might be more inclined to participate if you know who is orchestrating this. Plus, I’m already the odd man out because I know your identities and this makes me feel it’s only fair that you should know mine. The blog has no rules as far as content is concerned just as long as you wrote it. If all goes according to plan your identities will remain secret; it is my hope that this anonymity will inspire you to write more honestly. Whether it be fictional, autobiographical or fictionalized autobiographical writing, I encourage you to get inspired by each other, explore narratives with each other’s characters, or just share insights about your personal journey (sorry about that one I’m feeling kinda new age). I do request that only the five people I send this message to write on the blog in order to maintain the integrity of the project. Participation in this experiment is not mandatory and I welcome you to simply come and read the blog if you are too shy, modest, busy or uninterested to participate. I also encourage you to surreptitiously invite your friends to read the blog but I ask you to refrain from telling them my identity, the identity of any of the other bloggers should this information become available to you, or the fact that you are one of the brilliant contributors to this blog. Regards,your friend Blankity Blank Blank