NSA Dinner

I do not love bagels. You wouldn’t know it because I spend most of my time here in Seattle complaining about how you can’t get a good bagel, but at home in upstate New York I usually feel relatively neutral about bagels. I would rather have eggs. I got off bagels when I got braces at twelve and they became verboten item #2 (after chewing gum) and I couldn’t eat bagels for three years; I never really went back in the same way. Most mornings I have yogurt. Sometimes I put fruit or granola in the yogurt.

However, if you happen to be one of the new friends or acquaintances or, really, anyone I’ve ever spoken to for more than ten minutes on this coast, you might think my undergraduate major had been “kvetching about bagels”. I find myself talking about the awful state of Seattle bagels ALL THE TIME. Seattle bagels are terrible. They are so, so , so very awful. God does not smile upon them. Sometimes I think it would be better if people in Seattle had never heard about the invention of the bagel so they would never have felt tempted to recreate its bagelly holiness here.

But there are only fake bagel imposters here, just like there is no cheap diner food, no decent italian or mexican food, and no pizza worth shaking a stick at (such a weird turn of phrase, but so useful). There is only Vietnamese. Or Thai. Or Indian. or Teriyaki. This is why, even though I don’t like noodles at all, I am walking in the direction of In The Bowl on a Tuesday night.

I’d walked by the Olive and Denny intersection a handful of times before noticing In The Bowl, and I only saw it because I was walking with a friend who mumbled something about “good noodles”. Noodles are the only really affordable food here, which I don’t understand, because you think people would want more cheap options that don’t closely resemble Top Ramen. I had never heard of pho or bun before I came out here, but it didn’t take me very long to figure out that these two options made up the bulk of restaurant menu items I could afford. People in Seattle were shocked when they found out pho isn’t widely available in my hometown, so I present for you folks that have no idea what I’m talking about, a description of what these two dishes are by an unnamed born-and-bred seattlite:

pho: “pho is rice noodles and broth and i think cilantro and sometimes chicken and yeah, i mean, mostly it’s huge, and that’s kind of the point, and some people put bean sprouts and lime on top, and there’s always plum sauce, and that’s usually when i find out people can’t use chopsticks”.

bun: “bun is like pho because its rice noodley but there’s lettuce and different kinds of meat and, um, i think it has carrot shavings and it’s sort of the color, i don’t know, it’s sweet and soury and i have no idea what it is but you mix it up and it becomes this big bowl of stuff and it’s very delicious”.

I am going to In The Bowl because the woman who is buying me dinner does not appear to have money coming out the wazoo. This is the first date that I’m slightly anxious about. I felt great about the first two dates (see: history of shamelessness) but I got stood up the night before sort of accidentally (one of us went to Kaosamai Thai, the other to Kwanjai Thai) and now I cannot stop thinking about all of the things that could go wrong in this situation. She might not show up tonight. She might show up and make me pay or leave before the check comes. She might be a massmurdering fuckhead. “She” might be a group of teenagers who will steal my empty wallet and run away. She might hold me hostage until all the kitties in the world are free. This could be ugly. I hadn’t thought about that. Fuck.

The woman who is taking me out is also an intimidating. She described herself in her e-mail as “43, a social worker, out for 24 years”. She originally offered to take me to the Ballet restaurant. She sent me a photo that almost made me cancel the date outright. In my original craigslist ad, I had been adamant about my being willing to go out with anyone. I am definitely desperate enough. I am clearly being tested.

I am there barely five minutes before our date begins and I can see her inside, sitting down at a table. I cannot believe I am doing this. I shake her hand, and we are immediately handed menus and talking to this stranger is going to have to wait until I decide between the yellow curry and swimming rama. Not coincidentally, neither of these dishes involves noodles. Yellow Curry. Fresh tofu, not fried. White rice. Just Water. Thanks.

The best part of the evening is that we are sitting less than an arm’s length from two old dykes on a date and they overhear every word of our conversation and they are making yucky faces at me and the intimidating woman to indicate their disgust and horror because they assume we are on a first date. The intimidating woman doesn’t notice or doesn’t let on, and like most things that are terrible, I think this is hilarious, and I begin to ask questions like I’m actually on a date that isn’t about my freeloading on strangers.

“So what are your greatest passions?” I ask her, sipping my ice water. I don’t order drinks with these women. Something about that seems unfair. I need nutrition, yes, but I don’t need a thai iced tea, and we both know that.

She responds: “birding”. Not long ago someone told me they asked all of their dates and acquaintances this question instead of “what do you do?” because this question makes people squirm, and this is a fun thing to watch. The intimidating woman embarks on a long narrative about heron migrations and going to see birds with her estranged brother who has cancer and her aging mother and I can’t stop thinking about the fact that her greatest passion is birding, much less process any of the words that are currently spilling out of her mouth at frightening speed. I become acutely aware of the fact that I don’t know anyone who loves birding and I don’t know anything about birds except for what Tom Robbins had to say about whooping cranes in ‘Even Cowgirls Get the Blues’ and this fact occurs to me while she is talking and I feel ashamed for thinking about Tom Robbins. For someone who writes e-mails professing her interest in other people, this woman is sure talking a lot. I am here to listen, I remind myself. Listen to this woman. Nod your head. Smile. Nod again.

The food arrives and we fall silent, shoveling food into our mouths. I love how in this country we cease all conversation upon the arrival of the food. We’re not here for each other, for the ambiance, for the quiet time being spent on starting to know another individual and feel a little less alone in the world. We’re here to stuff our faces as quickly as possible and complain about the food or service if necessary. My sister went to college in Montreal and the only thing I remember from the meals I ate there was the intentional slowness of the service. Dining out felt entirely different, like an event or an experience, not an appetizer for a movie or awkward, drunken, regrettable sex.

I am making an effort to eat slowly, to show that I am making an effort to be interested in this woman’s life story, but fuck, this curry is good. Yellow curry is pretty good everywhere which is why I order it. It is plain, boring, and full of saturated fat. It is on the menu at almost any Asian-cuisine restaurant and it is generally always the same. I discovered yellow curry in college at about the same time I stopped having any real faith in Judaism. Yellow curry is my rock now.

The curry, dependable as ever, comes with something that looks like chips of crispy fried naan and a sweet sauce with little bits of cucumber and shaved carrot in it. I have no idea what these things are and I didn’t ask if they had names, but they weren’t on the menu as things that came with my meal and I am, by extension, delighted. I love crispy friend things. I would probably eat fried crickets or fried tongue or fried dirt if it were offered. I like to think I have a spirit of adventure.

This woman seems lonely. It seems like she doesn’t get to talk to a whole lot of people. Why would anyone buy me dinner, people ask me if I tell them about this whole operation. Why would anyone buy a stranger a meal and not ask for anything in return? Like the other two women so far, this woman is the corporeality of niceness. She seems adventurous, which is the nice way of saying she seems a little crazy and a little spontaneous. And I think she is lonely. I wonder if she has a lot of days where all she says is ‘thank you’ to the cashier at the grocery store. I have days like that, I want to tell her. She works in social services. I want to tell her that I know what it’s like to spend all day building relationships with people who are struggling, developing allyships and listening and helping and then go home alone and stand quietly over the stove and watch the water boil for your macaroni and cheese and have no one to talk to about your day. I know what this is like too. I know what it feels like to talk and talk and talk at the first person who seems vaguely interested in your day, which is what it feels like this woman is doing right now.

Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe this woman’s life is filled with people who care about her and want to hear about her passions and her deadbeat stepfather. I have no idea. I might, though, because this woman wants to buy me more dinners. She says she will buy me breakfasts because I told her that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I’m probably not wrong about her being lonely.

Dessert is black sticky rice pudding with coconut milk; it comes with the meal. If it hadn’t come with the meal, I wouldn’t have ordered it. This pudding is everything that is bad about sticky rice, caviar, jello, and fish eyes rolled into one. I take two bites; the texture makes me want to throw up all of the curry that I have so happily just polished off. I feel bad about not finishing it.

After my brief encounter with the pudding, I am back to navel gazing about this woman. Part of me feels like I’m trying to determine who has the upper hand in this situation; who is more pathetic? The woman with no money and no food, or the woman with no one to talk to? It’s only recently that I’ve acquired housemates who occasionally ask me about my day and a smattering of friends who might pick me up in the middle of the night if I called them. She probably has enough money to not every worry again about these noodles. We’re both pathetic, which means that for once I can stop feeling pathetic. It’s like coming home to a gay bar or a room full of people your own race or weight or whatever. I can stop thinking about being broke and revel in me at the same time. This is good.

This woman offers to buy me more meals, possibly set up a longer term arrangement. Dinner or weekend breakfasts (I told her that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day) in exchange for my company. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again or if we’ll ever set up this arrangement, but as I walk home in the dark, full of curry and someone else’s stories, I enjoy the sensation of feeling poor and very not poor at the same time.