Yesterday, I went out for lunch with Friend Will He took me to the Pho place that he and Jenne are always talking about, but I had never been there. When we made plans to "go for Pho" it was really cold and there was a lot of snow on the ground. That's the best time to eat Pho, since it's basically a great big dish of chicken soup - at least the style I like is.

Having lunch with a friend - especially Friend Will who is able to take people warts and all - made me start to feel less isolated. But I was also helped by the place itself, which is what I guess you'd call "down market". It's nothing fancy, the menu was in black and white Vietnamese and English, the restaurant had industrial tile floors and long tables at which people sat communally. The food, which was awesomely delicious, was the star of the show.....

The place felt comfortingly real to me, with people of all ages and ethnicities there ( though, you know it's really good "ethnic" food when you see a lot of the people whose food it is in the place enjoying it!) Sometimes in public places like shopping malls or restaurants I start to feel sort of weirded out because the environment has been so manipulated and staged. I mean, it can be good to go to a swanky mall for a little vacation from reality but after awhile you start to realize that there are a lot of people there for whom the trip to the mall ISN'T a vacation. They are the people who strive for a sort of superficial perfection in their lives. Often young people do that, and it's not like it's a crime or anything. It takes people awhile to realize that they could dress their family to the nines, decorate the place to the high heavens and slap a velvet bow on the door but their family is still going to be insane at Christmas, and, indeed, at most other times of the year.

Another nice thing about going to a place where most people don't speak English is that I can overhear their conversations and still be blissfully unaware of what the hell they're talking about. On Valentine's Day, The Hub was kind enough to treat my to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in Columbia. We sat next to a young couple who weren't really a couple. What I couldn't help but over hear was this man pulling out all the stops to position himself as the "friend she comes to" when the woman's current romantic relationship which was on it's last legs ( lets face it, she was eating lunch with some other dude on Valentine's Day) finally comes to an end.

In situations like that, I can truly understand why Dad waited so long to get a hearing aide. It's not that I try to listen to other people's conversations - it's that I can't help overhearing them in the same way I can't block out the radio or television if one is playing. Anyway, if that guy doesn't get the girl just by dint of sheer determination then there is no justice in the world! He was by turns, sympathetic, angry on her behalf, morose because of his previous relationship problems, encouraging, funny, wry and - he went to great pains to throw this in - he can cook! Now he and his romantic dilema are stuck in my head, but I'll never know how it comes out. Well. Okay. I can probably guess. But still.

No problems like that at the straight forward Pho place! I'm going back as soon as the weather turns cold....any minute now.