I think right now, as in the last few months, I've done the least talking, day to day, that I've ever done since I learned to speak. I just don't have that many people to talk to, and when I do I have little to say. Even in written form, I have very little to offer. The other day in my writing class we had to comment on other people's essays, and I just wrote one or two lines on each. But when I got mine back people had written paragraphs of comments. I felt kind of guilty. Of course, most of their comments consisted of inane blather, while my two sentences were punchy, insightful and to the point.
Still, I don't talk to nearly as many people these days as I did just a few years ago. Back then, I was living with three other people, most of whom I saw everyday, and most of whom weren't dating anyone. So we had a lot of time to kill. And I had a lot more friends that I talked to on a regular basis. And I worked places where I actually spoke with my co-workers. Some of them, anyway. Now, I sit at my desk, surf the web, and talk on the phone for brief spurts with my brother or Miss CM or maybe Ed. Then I go home, work, play games and music, watch TV, eat, work late, and go to sleep. Miss CM does about the same thing. We're both pretty busy these days, and our actual conversation time has been somewhat limited as of late. I noticed this last night while we were out to dinner. We were having a very enjoyable conversation, and I thought, when was the last time we just sat around and talked for this long? The bottle of wine probably helped too. Though I can't really remember what we talked about for those few hours. Still, it wasn't long ago when I couldn't shut the fuck up. Now you're lucky to get more than a three word reply from me. And those three words are usually "I guess so," "I don't know," Oh, shut up," Hmphh...OK. Fine," "In a bit..." "Not right now," and "I will. Tomorrow."Anyway, we dined last night at the restaurant Rose Water, on Union St. in Park Slope. The last week has been Brooklyn Restaurant Week, were several dozen of the more upscale restaurant in the Borough of Kings were having specially priced meals. For $18.98, priced after the year Brooklyn joined NYC, you got a three course meal. Not bad, we figured. So naturally when we got there, we didn't want to order the somewhat limited meal that was being offered. But in the end, we both ordered it. I felt it would have been playing right into their hands if we'd gone to the trouble to go and ordered something more appetizing but much more expensive. We both got the Half grilled poisson, and I had a lovely trout salad. The food was only so-so though, and Miss CM was very disappointed. She was of the opinion that everything tasted sort of the same. The best part of the meal was probably the bread, which was reminscent of scallion pancakes, and the wine, a Syrah that really "opened up," according to the waitress, during the course of the drinking. To help this process along the bottle was poured into a carafe.
So after that meal, Miss CM and I have imposed a moratorium on eating out, since we're both pretty damn poor. It's too bad the meal was such a bust. I had plans this evening to go with Geoff and his ladyfriend to Cucina, an Italian place in Park Slope, but those fell through. I was hoping to take more advantage of the restaurant week, but as much as I like fine foods, I'm just as comfortable sitting at home eating Velveeta rotini and cheese with broccoli.
Speaking of being poor, that reminds me of one of the topics of discussion last night. Miss CM and I don't see eye to eye on many, many political issues. Last night we were discussing the tax cuts, and taxes in general. Basically, I told her that I felt the wealthy shouldn't have to pay a higher percentage of taxes. They should pay more taxes, of course, but not a higher percentage. I thought that the fact that I don't even benefit from tax cuts lent my arguments even more validity. Just because I don't make a lot of money doesn't mean I think it's right that the wealthy should pay a higher percentage. How is that fair? Regardless of how you made your money, it doesn't make sense to me that people should pay a higher percentage just because they have more. People are always like "Oh, they don't do anything with that money. They didn't even earn it or they inherited it," or something like that. So? That's irrelevant. Would I prefer if rich people spread their money around in more humanitarian ways? Of course. But they should have it imposed on them. To me, people who bitch about the wealthy needing to pay more are just selfish. It seems twisted to say, but it's true. If you don't have something, and you see someone else with a lot, and you say "Give me some of that," isn't that considered, at the least, just rude? I'm not happy with how the world works, but you gotta take the good with the bad. You can't promote "fairness" only when it helps the have-nots. Just like to can't curtail a racist's freedom of speech, the obscenely wealthy should be treated with the same rules as everyone else. Of course, there are a lot of privelages of the rich that are totally ridiculous, and the world would probably be a lot better if many were shot, but I'm just talking about taxes here. The best part about our conversation was the it was during our dinner, which we were still eating around midnight, since we both had to work late into the evening for our low-paying jobs.
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