what's happening in the atmosphere

"it's so cold today!" - every person in new york city

somewhere, a group of people are playing a very unsatisfying game of "go fish"

"behind every counter"

there is a small grocery store next to the subway stop by my house that i visit almost everyday because i live hummus container to hummus container.  it is a bit over priced.  the store has everything you want and nothing you need (an aisle dedicated to different varieties of organic nut butters; no heinz ketchup). 

my favorite employee is named alison.

alison is fifteen.  i see alison around three days a week—when my semi-daily trips to the grocery store coincide with her semi-daily shifts at the grocery store.  here is what i know about alison:

she is fifteen.

she works at a grocery store. 

she has bleach blonde hair that her mother doesn’t like.

she lives far away (i can’t remember where, but i know when i asked her once whether she lived in the neighborhood, she began her response with “i live pretty far away.”)

she has braces.

everything else i think about alison is an assumption.  i assume that she is well liked by her coworkers because they always seem to be chatting and laughing together.  she even chats and laughs with the person who seems to be the manager of the grocery store, which (as i know from experiences with managers) is not an easy thing to do.  i assume that she is in school because she is fifteen and seems to have a good head on her shoulders—plus she is articulate and i never see her working when i shop in the mornings.  i assume that she is at least partially supported by either another individual or another job, because i don’t think anyone could live fully off the number of hours alison works and the amount of money most people are paid to ring up other peoples groceries at grocery stores. also, she has braces (which aren’t cheap).

after a few months of my shopping at the grocery store and making small talk with alison, we exchanged names.  in some ways, it is astonishing how many interactions we had with each other without needing to have exchanged names.  i am happy that i know alison’s name—more happy than i am about knowing the names of most people that I know the names of—because it is a sign that we both wanted to know each other’s name.  in some ways, it is astonishing how many people’s names we all know just because we feel that we should know their names or need to know their names, not because we want to.

if alison were to make a list of things she knew about me, it would probably look like this:

i am older than fifteen.

i care about how long she has been working that day or when she gets off (as this is always something i ask about).

i only eat raw vegetables, hummus, and chocolate chip cookie ingredients.

i live close by.

i am named Julian.

i do not have braces.

everything else alison thinks about me would be an assumption.  she probably assumes that i have a job or am supported financially by someone, because how else could i have all this money to spend on groceries?  she probably assumes that i am a generally friendly person, and that i have these sorts of amicable relationships with many people who i interact with in service-industry settings.  she probably assumes that i like to cook (or at least like to grocery shop), and that i throw lavish parties in my three-story brownstone apartment where i serve all of the raw vegetables, hummus, and chocolate chip cookie ingredients that i buy to my large group of close friends, celebrities, and diplomats. 

something that alison does now know about me (because i have not told her), is that i too worked as a grocery store check-out person when i was fifteen-years-old.  i haven’t mentioned this to her because it never really comes up in our minute-or-so long interaction (as we usually spend most of our time discussing how long she has been working that day or when she gets off).  however, this secret knowledge that i have of our similarity makes me hopeful for alison.  when i was fifteen-years-old, i was working as a grocery store check-out person in a sleepy town in suburban florida: now i am a fancy waiter in new york city.  alison is already a grocery store check-out person in new york city.  by this logic, when she is twenty-three-years-old like i am, she will probably be a fancy waiter on mars.  even the sky is not the limit for alison. 

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i got yelled at three times at work today.  how many times did YOU get yelled at at work today?