As Sad as You Want to Be

Tarrant's is a half a mile from my house, but we went the long way, the three mile way.

A good friend had suggested a walk and an early lunch, so she came to Jackson Ward and we began walking east. At her request, our first stop was Lift because she badly needed coffee.

"You totally dissed me Saturday night," the counter girl said to me the moment she saw me. What? When? Seems she'd been waving madly to me at the Firehouse show Saturday and I never even saw her. I pleaded myopia and smiled as sincerely as I could. Honestly, never saw her.

Rock god Prabir (minus the Goldrush) walked up to the counter behind us, jarring my memory. "I had a dream about you last night," I blurted out. He shrugged nonchalantly.

"He hears that so often, it's no big deal," my friend pointed out. He wasn't a major part of the dream, but you'd have thought he could have been a tad more surprised to hear he'd made mine. Nope (yawn). Just another day for Prabir.

Life-giving coffee in hand, my friend and I headed down Broad Street, passing all the school buses in front of the Empire Theater for "Honk," passing the many buildings being rehabbed into apartments and condos, passing the colorful crowds waiting for buses.

She was enjoying every minute of our discovery mission, not having walked this stretch of Broad in years. We paused at the National box office to peruse the schedule, but nothing caught her eye. Eventually, we crossed over to Grace Street for a change of scenery.

We marveled at the Honey Shop (how long has that place been there?), peered in the windows of Jason Alley's new venture, Pasture, abuzz with construction activity, and admired hats at Chic Chapeaux. She showed me her favorite empty storefronts and I showed her mine.

Eventually we were almost back to Belvidere and and definitely in "early lunch" range, so we backtracked to Tarrant's for salads. They really do have an impressive selection of interesting salad choices. And a table next to a sunny window is a delightful thing.

The Cobb salad spoke to her and I got the Pear and Goat Cheese salad, a filling bowl of those two plus strawberries, grapes, cucumbers, tomatoes, mixed greens, and candied walnuts in a creamy sesame dressing. Since it had only been two hours since breakfast for me, it was astonishing that I ate as much of it as I did (98%).

Walking back, we made an art stop at Quirk Gallery to check out Shelly Klein's whimsical paintings on white canvasses. Her new show, "There's No Free Lunch." explores themes of sadness and forgetting the negatives that underpin happiness, about caring too much or not enough, about the sadness connected to the things that make us happy.

Frankly, when I'm walking, talking and eating with a close friend, sadness is the furthest thing from my mind. Without so much as an inward glance, I prefer to enjoy experiences as they happen.

Sorry, Shelly, but there just may be a free lunch, figuratively speaking, as long as you stay in the moment.

Your Unofficial Tour Guide

I may not look like a VCU tour guide, but I spent the day so far playing one. A friend had e-mailed me yesterday (subject line: short notice) asking if she could bring her daughter down today for a tour of VCU.

I'm not exactly an expert, not having gone to school or taught at VCU, but between lectures, music, films, plays, demonstrations, interviews, and even just walking, I've spent my fair share of time on campus, so I graciously agreed to do what I could.

I like to think that my spiel had a unique twist to it ("This is Monroe Park, where the annual Halloween parade starts.") and included some pertinent facts not normally shared during the official school tours ("Whether or not you like Ethiopian food, don't miss the dance parties at the Nile."). Hey, I did my best.

To be complete, I did do some actual touring, taking them into the library, the student commons, the dance building, the Singleton Center and the Grace Street Theater and pointing out any number of other big buildings.

Naturally I had to take her into Rumors so she'd know where to shop (she bought a jacket), resulting in owner Marche and I crowing over our recent shared photo taken at Ipanema, another place the potential student needed to know about.

I explained the compass, the Village, Strange Matter and Plaza Art as we headed east for lunch, making a brief stop at Lift. We heard a trumpet player near the theater and a bongo player near the dance building. I've got to tell you, showing her everywhere she might want to hang out or spend money was getting exhausting.

We lunched at Tarrant's for the variety of menu (mother and daughter were in completely different food moods) and with my infrequent daylight presence there, the staff greeted me enthusiastically (Friend: "Do they know you everywhere?"). We took a discreet table on the new side (Owner Ted on our way out, "I saw you hiding over there.").

The student was most impressed by two things on the menu: fresh-squeezed lemonade and meatloaf; apparently these aren't common menu items at home. Welcome to the south, I guess?

I went with the Monte Cristo with the hand-cut chips, which I highly recommended to my friend, who added them to her Cubano sandwich, much to her eating pleasure. The student got a cheeseburger that looked like it weighed more than she did and devoured it. She'll do well as a starving student.

We stopped by Gallery 5 on our way home so they could get the feel of a local gallery space. Leaving, my friend spotted the sign on the door saying, "No alcohol beyond this point."

"But why would there be alcohol in a gallery?" she inquired earnestly. Maybe I hadn't covered everything I needed to cover about Richmond.

"Let me explain a few more things, " I said as we headed down the street...

And I Don't Even Drink Coffee

When I started college, everyone predicted I'd never make it through without drinking coffee. I did. When I started working retail, I was assured I'd take up the coffee habit. I didn't. When I got a job in radio, the station manager was certain the pressure would require coffee. It didn't. I love the smell of the beans, the grounds and coffee brewing, but to this day, can't stomach the taste.

Growing up, my parents drank black coffee daily. In fact, they judged the boys my sisters and I brought home by what they put in their coffee. They'd never admit it, but you could see them raising an eyebrow at a guy who put cream or sugar in his coffee; better to eschew coffee completely than to desecrate it. So I've spent a lifetime not drinking coffee, ergo I'm not often in coffee shops.

Yet today, I was midway through my morning walk when I decided to drop into Garnett's to visit the charming Curt during the coffee shift and admire the morning baked goods. Curt was sipping strongly caffeinated Ethiopian coffee; I drank water. I intended to stay for 15 minutes and left over an hour later, making it officially the longest I've ever spent in a coffee shop, but the conversation was especially good.

Late morning and I get a call from a musician friend working on an event press release; he needs help with wording and editing and suggests I join him at Globehopper for some coffee and to assist him. I've been in Globehopper before (it's my friend Nicholas' favorite coffee shop) so I head down there to smell the coffee goodness and play writer/editor. When he discovers my distaste for coffee, he suggests hot tea, but I don't go that route, either.

Mid-afternoon and I'm walking the dog down Broad Street and the unexpected warmth of the day has filled the outside tables at Lift. I see friends there, stop to chat and spot someone else I know inside, so I duly walk into my third coffee shop of the day, this time with the beagle. It's got a good crowd and it's not even coffee happy hour until 3:00.

I know I'm an amateur, but are there always so many people in coffee shops all day long? Apparently so, just not usually non-coffee types like me.

Actual Conversation

I'm leaving Lift to walk home and a guy starts biking parallel to me as I walk.

Him: Morning. Nice day to be walking a dog.
Me: Yea, he's loving this weather.
Him: Good day to look for work.
Me: For me, every day's a good day to look for work.
Him: I was in prison, so I'm serious about finding work now.
Me: Um, okay.
Him: Do you have men who you talk to, you know, who call you up?
Me: Uh, sure?
Him: I'd like to be one of those guys who talks to you. My name's James.
Me: Have a good one. (Here I make a sharp right down the alley as he keeps going)

Okay, so I'm a bad person for pre-judging James. If you have a suggestion for how I could have better handled that conversation, I'm all ears.

Of Pheasant, Phone Numbers and Gay RVA

Yesterday was full of randomness for me. First I got invited to the Jenny Lewis show at the sold out 930 club. No thanks, I've had enough Jenny Lewis to last me a long, long time.

Went to Lift for lunch and ran into a bartender friend I hadn't seen in a while...who then asked if I'd be interested in meeting for lunch (so I passed on my number). While I was eating, a musician I had interviewed last summer spotted me and came over to catch up (turns out her husband is laid off, too) and got my number.

Walking home from lunch, I said hello to a guy sitting on his front steps. He was still looking for the "good" in the morning, he said. When I told him I'd been laid off since December, he bested me by telling me he was laid off last October. He's in the audio/video industry, so when he heard what I had been doing, insisted on getting my number so he could pass on some contracting work for local music shows. Sweet.

Dinner was Bistro 27 with the most amazing pheasant ravioli in a sage-butter sauce. It was so soul-satisfyingly good I didn't have room for dessert and for me, that's saying something.

Finished up at the Gay RVA LAunch party at New York Deli where my hard-working friend Scott was making the rounds. Scott is the organizer for the upcoming Richmond AIDS walk and he and I have spent plenty of time sharing stories about unemployment, men and life. We decided that next up is an afternoon at the river with much wine and lots more conversation.

I am not a phone person, have always hated to talk on the phone and used to avoid it like the plague. I have now shared my number with four people in the last 24 hours. Maybe I've become more of a phone person than I realized. ..so call me why don't you?