tender
i can‘t say for sure if i ever thought this, or if i only think i thought this, but virtually any time i pay cash for something i think of the word tender, and the notice on paper currency that the note is legal tender for all debts public and private. the arguably vague wording notwithstanding (public? private? what?) i find the word “tender“ to have been a source of puzzlement at some stage of life. did it imply that the use of cash to purchase a coffee (as i just did) was a poignant transaction? should the receipient feel thankful, should the cashier cry at this expressive moment of capitalism? tender. i hand the cashier a dollar for coffee (well, $3 in this case) and i expect tears to flow, coy smiles to rise from the frowning lips of the coffee vendor/business owner. i expect tenderness!
then i have to remind myself, the cashier is a tender. one who tends. a tender note is currency, one for tending.
just one of the things i think about when paying with cash… and i think that i did, in fact, actually and in fact think that, versus concocting the tale.
concoction. nice word. poppycock, too. i saw a place called Hedgecock Florist the other day but its sign appeared to me from behind a bus stop, and at first i saw Cock Florist. i guess chickens need flowers, too…
here come the promised rains. i am at a starbucks which summarily filled with high school kids moments after i sat down. they stand quite close to me, possibly reading these words over my shoulder. serious stuff here, kids, don‘t mess with it.
i can tell who the popular kids are. there is Nancy, whose name is probably not Nancy but who reminds me so clearly of a cheerleader and all-around Popular Girl from my grade school. she was named Nancy. there is… the other girl whose name escapes me now, but she would stare at the boys‘ crotches, shamelessly, looking at the bulges like she was looking you right in the eye. at a party once i stood next to a friend and 3 or 4 other guys as Annette (not even her name) sat on a stool and carried on conversation among us all. the friend next to me nudged me and said “She‘s just staring at our cocks.“ and he was right. i hadn‘t noticed until he pointed it out, and on that 8th grade day i was made aware of the microcosm of behaviour in which women surreptitiously glance at men‘s bulges. anyway, that girl is here, too. they are all here, all the same, all the places different but the occupants‘ behaviours more or less the same from generations to the next.
aaaand, they all left.
now i have no distraction off which to work, nothing to occupy my mind by virtue of strenuously ignoring it.
