 |
Pony: Open letters
6.18.2003
Dear Jackie, I hope you are having fun in Virginia and that school is fun and that you are around nice people.
Dear Lisa, I hope that you are not too bored by your job in Tel Aviv and that you are reading good books and swimming in the ocean.
Dear Mom, I hope you got your modem all delivered. I will come hook up your DSL for you tomorrow.
Dear Bike Thief, I hope you are enjoying the proceeds you made off of Voodoo Polly and that your crack was not cut with anything that will make you spin off into a violent rage and be an even greater scourge to our society.
Dear Mr. Z., or "Steven": it was great running into you yesterday outside Chippy's. I had no idea that you wrote novels. You were an ok art teacher in high school,from what i remember, but I always thought you had another calling.
Dear People I Have a Job Interview With on Monday, please do your best to put me at ease. My self-esteem is a bit touch and go these days and I get nervous at interviews and sometimes my chin quivers.
Dear owner of ideal coffee, sometimes when I come to your shop I am coming to read or think about something intense over coffee. I am not always like this, and I would like you to know that I am also capable of having light, inconsequential conversations.
Dear A. of Moonbean Cafe, I am sorry I defected to a different Kensington coffee shop. I feel bad, especially after running into you in Cheng Mai. I should have seen the coincidence as a sign to be loyal to your beans, but instead, I am go to a coffee shop where there are less babies and more fashion victims.
Dear well-kept woman who asks for change at the corner of Markham and College: What is your story? You are always impeccably groomed in new clothes and you look well-fed. Do you really need fifty cents?
Dear Cafe Man, you used to go to Future's and Dooney's and other Bloor Street coffee shops. You were ALWAYS there, all through high school, with your wirey hair in a ponytail, your beret, and the paperback you held up importantly but never seem to read, in favour of scoping the street.
My friend and I used to giggle when we passed you, calling you "cafe man" and speculating how you earned your living. One summer between University years, you came to my table and gave me blackberries to eat. After that, I stopped making fun of you for a bit. But now you sit all day at the Starbucks on College. A little more grey in your hair, but ostensibly unchanged. You seem to be there EVERY day. And you know what? I noticed that you are part of a breed of aging single men who sit in cafes all day long. This intensely visible and fixture-like solitude is intruiging and a little creepy. In a big brother kind of way.
