Recently my girlfriend, The Activist, and I were sitting in one of my favorite eateries, The Blue Koi in Kansas City. Actually, both of us hail it as our favorite restaurant in Kansas City. This, however, was the first time we went there together to eat.
I should tell you that I have a thing for food. I have always enjoyed cooking. KC, my ex, turned me on to a lot of food that I had never had before when we started living together. For that I am eternally grateful.
The reason I love The Blue Koi so much is that the food is amazing. It is overwhelmingly vegetarian. It is mostly healthy. The menu is incredibly adaptable. There is a panoply of affordable appetizers. When I go with friends we will frequently order only appetizers and share everything. They also have unbelievable noodle dishes. These are a little awkward to share but they are wonderful. There are some dinner dishes that are a bit more pricy, but delicious. Then there is the most amazing pho and other broth-based soups I have ever had.
Every dish has something special and delightful about it. Appetizers come with 'Amazing Sauce'. My favorite pho comes with floating tofu tied into bows. Even the bubble tea has some unexpected and wonderful twists such as my favorite, red bean bubble tea.
The Activist and I practically jogged from the parking lot to the front door in excitement. And, as we sat and tittered and cooed and debated about which things to get and how many of them like doubloon-laden wizards on the Hogwarts Express we became awkwardly aware of the conversation at the next table.
Before I continue I should also tell you that in addition to having amazing food The Blue Koi also has an amazing atmosphere. It is friendly, stylish without being posh and it has the air of fun food. The wait staff always have some little punk outfits or funky hairdos. They sometimes skip to the tables and they are genuine when they compliment your food choice and your sweater. The place oozes smartness, queerness and fluidity. In short, it is downright sexy.
I guess that may be why the conversation we overheard was so troubling. Next to us sat two young adults, probably between twenty-five and thirty years of age. They were medical students, I am embarrassed to say, at the major public university I work for. As our excited humming and clucking faded their beguiled banter picked up. The two of them were lamenting the struggle they had as fundamentalist Christian medical students in finding professors and fellow students in medical school who shared their creationist beliefs.
A hush fell over the two of us. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed gal went on about how disappointed she was in medical school on the whole. According to her everyone was unduly preoccupied with evolutionism. I looked at The Activist who, without lifting her eyes from her menu, sensed my gaze and let out a tell-tale ideogram, "oohm."
It is important that I stop and explain the exact sound of this ideogram. I am not a linguist, so please excuse my layman terminology. It was short sound. The noise comes from the deep part of the throat and never rises past the base of the tongue. It chatters the teeth slightly which adds to the feeling of making it and which one, I think, senses when they hear it, but this vibration doesn't produce an audible sound. The noise has a dropping feeling. When it is done in reaction to something you have said it releases a lever in your abdomen that holds your intestines in place thereby plunging you into regret. The ending comes fast, shockingly fast. The muscular stopping action at the end of the sound squeezes the noise, chokes it really. When this sound is made in your company about someone else, it makes you feel as though you are the cohort of the oppressed and then almost by definition you too feel oppressed.
The Activist and I have been discussing ideograms, or more specifically, "mmm's." The Activist has some theories about ideograms. She has thrown around the idea of making a video about various sounds that black Americans make and the meaning of those sounds. Sitting at the table it became clear to me why this particular subset of ideograms exist: there is some really obvious shit that you can't say out loud.
My response to her "oohm," was, "I see what you are saying, now."
I proposed that instead of continuing to eavesdrop, moan and get frustrated until our food arrived that we start our own, proactive, counter-idiocy conversation. So, I asked my cute little activist to describe the harness she was planning on buying. She said, "Oh, I will show it to you later, it takes to long to describe it." I said. "No, I would really like it if you described it to me, in detail."
By this time the fundamentalists had started talking about how often they go to church. The girl went 4 or 5 times a week, but she had a young child to care for. The guy, also blonde with blue eyes went everyday. He was younger than her and by their conversation appeared to be a new med student. She offered him this sage advise:
"I learned this: the church never kicks anyone out. When you need to study, I suggest you go do it at church. They will keep it up as late as you need. And, that way you can pray and avoid your drunken roommates. I had a real drunkard as a roommate when I lived in the dorms. She would drink all the time. She was a real sinner. But, I kept at her. I used to play this one particular song, the lyrics go, "God will always love you." She went away to Europe. Some bad stuff happened over there. When she came back she started to straighten her affairs out. She told me, "I just kept thinking of that song and it made me feel good." We can do great things, but seriously, study at church."
Our food came. We ate. We discussed a friend of ours, a super nice guy. Specifically, I wondered what he would have thought of my counter-idiocy policy. His name is Wick. In light of our accidental eating company I coined the phrase: What would Wick do? I am thinking of getting a bracelet.
I told this to Wick a week or so later. He asked in earnest, "So, am I like the gay Jesus?" I said, "No, unless . . . Do you want to be the gay Jesus?" We made crude jokes like, "nail me to the bed post," and "second cumming."
The Activist asked me if I was, "An atheist with a capital A." I guess I am. I mean, I feel strongly about my atheism. For reasons that are too long and involved to go into right here I also feel that religion is an important cultural phenomenon that is rarely looked at seriously or criticized openly.
Later we decided to play a little game. We each wrote a personal ad. It had to be above all else completely and totally honest. We were supposed to address what we are like, what we want in a partner, what turns us on and what turns us off. We had one hour to do this and then post our ads on Craig's list.
The ads are very different from what I think we normally would have posted. The responces to my ad have been really short. But Sam, he really liked my post. He was moved deeply and said he should like to take the time to write for hours about his feelings. He ended his multi-page note by saying, "your ad has defiantly peaked my interest."
The Activist has gotten similarly grammatically-challenged responses and propositions, mostly via MySpace.com:
"hWat' sup ,i'm Jonhny. I just asw your profil ean dthouhgt yuo seemed coo.k Ify ou wa ntto eb rfiends or chat, I would lik ehatt. b"
"Pretty baby,
How u doin?Am terry by name. I´m a cool and gentle breathtaking young man.I live in spain and i´m a soccer player. was just surfing through the net when i came across something that really captivated and drew back my attention, and dat happens 2 be your pix.U look so charming and captivating, as d going says that BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, you are such a pretty, attractive and charming lady and i must confess that i really want to know u more and better and it will be my graet and pleasant joy if by next time i get back 2 my page and fing your reply lying sweet and charm in my inbox. You can as well add me 2 ur yahoo or hotmail chating list so we can get 2 chat online also... [ censored ] @yahoo.co.uk,,, and [ censored ] @hotmail.com. So till then pretty, take very gud care of urself and av a pleasant day."
Perhaps The Activist summed up the feeling one gets from these type of notes best, "What is it about me, my images, my writing that attracts folks that can't write a sentence?"
I lamented to a friend once, "I feel like I have come so far along this road of figuring out who I am and what is important to me that I just don't find many people who get me anymore. Muchless people I want to date." I used to be a lot more lax in my feelings about grammar. But, in light of recent messages I have come to be a bit more of a grammar snob. It isn't that I don't like the sentiment of Sam's note, or even the notes The Activist recieved, I just have a hard time believing any of them actually understood either of us.
