Stylish Breakfast

Stylish Breakfast
Originally uploaded by CamJansen.

Avocado, and a Lou Rawls retrospective. Smooth, like butter, but healthier.

I’ve continued experimenting with my new camera and figured I’ll continue to share the results with you until somebody tells me to stop.

This pic from this morning’s breakfast reminded me of a short story I wrote a few years ago, which I referenced about a year ago on the blog. The blog post was from when I was digging through Classified ads to find a job and a purpose. The short story was written when I was trying to win prize money my senior year of college.

I’ll post the story in it’s totality below. It’s not the best, but I don’t want this place to turn into a boring slide show of stuff I’m eating.

The story was for a contest, where you were supposed to write a piece inspired by the following picture from this photographer Gedney. I wrote from the fictional perspective of the woman in the picture:

Comics, Obituaries, Classifieds… That’s the order I read the paper most mornings. A cup of Earl Grey, two and a half teaspoons sugar, and I’m ready for most anything. But mostly nothing.

Harold always likes to take the Sports and the News. He gets grumpy if he doesn’t get to check the box scores. He’s a Cubs fan, so he’s grumpy most of the mornings anyway.

Last Tuesday I was interested in a picture on the front page. Some baby in a well or something. I started to read the article while Harold was memorizing the size of the first baseman’s jock strap in the sports print. As soon as he was done he asked me what the hell I thought I was doing.

I pick and choose my battles. I told him I forgot it was “Harold’s Herald’. He snorted out his nose when I said that. I think he would have laughed but his mouth was already full of English muffin by the time I answered him.

The front page depresses me anyway. That’s why I stick to the comics. And though I know it’s a bit morbid to start the day with the obituaries, they always make me happy. It’s like a little ritual. A kaddish or something. I dunno. I guess I do it hoping that some day somebody will do the same for me.

I found my old English teacher’s father’s obituary about a month ago. It was short, but really beautiful. The way it left the names of the survivors made it seem like an unfinished poem or something. That’s how I realized it was my old English teacher’s father. It said her name at the end just after the words “survived by”.

I called Mrs. Almon up, that’s her name, and told her I was sorry to hear her father died. She was surprised to hear from me, and I guess I was a bit surprised that I called too. I don’t usually do stuff like this. I guess I’ve felt lonely lately, and I just wanted to talk to somebody. It seemed like a nice thing to do at the time.

She asked me what I’ve been up to. I told her “not much”, but she wasn’t satisfied. I made something up about being involved with a book club. I had read about one in the Classifieds last week, and I thought that might make my old teacher happy. She kept asking questions though. I guess she hadn’t changed much.

I told her we were reading Wuthering Heights, but that I was having a hard time connecting because stuff just doesn’t seem realistic to me. I like reading about characters I can relate to. I like characters that give me hope to be a better person than I am. I like potential.

Mrs. Almon wanted to know if I wanted to grab some coffee sometime. It was a nice gesture on her part, but I didn’t want to bother her with my life. I just wanted to give my condolences about her father. Actually, I mostly called because I was bored.

Harold is always making important phone calls for work or whatever else is so important in his life at the time. I don’t really get to use the telephone much. I guess I felt like giving Mrs. Almon a call just to show off for Harold. Like I had some important business to do. Like I had something I had to take care of.

He found the newspaper in the desk drawer on Sunday afternoon. I had spent all morning with the weekend Classified section, highlighting things I was interested in. If I circled something it meant I was going to call. An asterisk was just something I thought I might be able to do, but probably not.

I also used the red pen to circle spelling errors in people’s ads. I dunno, it makes me feel smart or something when I can find a spelling error. I love looking at the page when I’m done. The red ink oozing off the spelling errors, like the words had been wounded.

Harold asked me what I was saving the Classifieds for. He asked real sarcastically if I was looking for used trucks or something. Sometimes I love his sense of humor, but I didn’t have time to laugh right now. I was too busy thinking of a way to tell him I wanted to do something during the days. I wanted a job. I wanted a purpose.