awkward pale princess
07/10/2005 04:17 p.m.
an entry from my july fourth weekend...
this is to be taken as dark & comical (think chuck palahniuk meets lewis black).

i have to ask myself if i'm in the mood to write a blog. i have to ask myself if i have enough of a verbal agenda to deposit here. i have to ask myself if what i am about to write is really worth sharing. you'll be the judge...

<< saturday, july two >>

setup: for those of you who don't know, every summer chicago throws a series of festivals downtown in millennium and grant park. the biggest and most successful of these ventures, which also always leads up to the fourth of july, is the taste of chicago.

originally established by local restaurants and food venders as a way to share the taste of mom and pop food chains from all around the chicagoland area -- it has since been overcome by bigger venders who can afford to pay the higher cost for participation. regardless- it's an immense festival of food, music, crowds and gluttony...

payoff: i meet up with kat and two of her girl-friends downtown. the sun is shining. the crowd is a herd of spectators and spectacle. at the taste you pay seven dollars for eleven tickets and each vender has a limited food list with ticket prices ranging from eight to six to three tickets depending on the type of food and proportion size.

the girls have more tickets than i've seen... it's glorious. i hadn't eaten all day. here at the taste i have a bottle of pink lemonade, two small crab cakes and a bite of kat's thai noodles. for me, this is not a lot at all, not even nearly enough to fill me up - i'm a big boy and i can eat like a boy should, two crab cakes... nothing.

we decide that there has been too much cash spent at the taste and it's getting to be about sunset time, it's cooling-down by the lake and we want to go to a bar and get margaritas... oh yea. we find our way out of the herd and we head over to a restaurant with outdoor seating. we all order our drinks, and i order a burger...

side note: this is our waitress. she looks like a pale, fragile marionette doll, a mime, a ballerina turned queen supreme theatre goddess... this is not only how she looks, it's how she walks, how she presents herself, from her introduction to the following...

climax: we all order our drinks and i order a burger. she looks around the table and all the girls are full from the stuff they ate at the taste. and this awkward pale princess turns to me and says something to the effect of, "you're the only one eating? and i'll bet you ate a ton at the taste..." to which kat comes to my defense as i say, "actually... no, i barely ate anything at the taste..." and she comes back with, "oh well i just figured since your the guy, usually guys are the bottomless pits..."

okay look. you may have some mega huge chip on your shoulder because your the queen drama guild act of your time, and you are sore about the idea that men can eat and eat and eat while you starve yourself to make the kick line, but don't come at me like i'm the fat-kid, like i'm that guy...

i have more than half the image issues you do but you don't see me saying shit like, "wow, i'll bet you were brought to tears walking through the taste realizing all the jolly sugar-fried shit you couldn't enjoy because of your super-no-carb-low-sodium-i-will-not-be-a-fat-actress diet." i didn't say that.

i didn't say, "oh, you're not eating? poor thing."
i didn't say, "you should eat less."
i didn't say, "honey, you're a failure, just eat something."

bottomless pit. please.

falling action: twenty-some-odd minutes later, little miss american dream wannabe with her facial mask of happiness returns with a wet t-shirt. she recites a monologue of self-loathing blaming a so-called incompetent bar tender for finally serving her drinks and then knocking the tray, thus dumping four said beverages all over her costume. sad story.

let's be honest. your vitamin intake is low, your concentration is off, and you're stressed about the audition you had last night. the audition that ended in the back seat of the director's mother's car... don't worry. you looked fabulous.

moments later pretty pale princess serves our drinks. and i swear under her breath i can hear a little voice saying, "i want to be a real girl."

she disappears, like most puppets do, behind curtains with hands up inside them, only to return with a tray a few minutes later. on the tray sits a burger. she walks right past our table. then reappears at our tableside with a, "just kidding..."

real fuckin cute.

not only do i not want to eat this thing, but i want to take her out back, tied down by her marionette strings and i want to shove every last portion of this carb-loaded, deep-fried burger down her ever-so-popular barbie-doll-wannabe bottomless throat. with grease tears on her cheeks i’d say something like, “you look lovely.”

sorry to inconvenience you princess posture, but we asked for separate checks.

i can't believe i left her a tip.

here's a tip. next time don't try so hard.

I am currently Divine
I am listening to jay z