AN: Just a bit of a blurb I vomited out one day a couple months ago. I still like it, since the style is something I've never been able to repeat/consistently use, so yeah... enjoy. :)

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"Is This Interesting Enough for You?"

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“No,” he told me. “That’s not interesting.”

We were sitting in the park, on one of those thick, gaudy blankets that couples use to have picnics with their 3.1 kids. With the peanut butter sandwiches, and grapes and pies for dessert? Yeah. That’s where we were. But all we had to show for ourselves was the blanket, our jackets, and ourselves.

It was cold, as cold as a Chicago September could be. The blanket, a fuzzy, green and blue color, was situated on the outskirts of the fountain. You know, the one with the gold animals, that shoots up straight to the sky? The one that you can see almost up to Navy Pier? I forget the name, but that’s the one. It was windy out, which added to the cold. The sunshine was weak, but it wasn’t going to rain.

“That’s not interesting,” he repeated.

“Then what is interesting?” I asked him. I was sprawled out, like a wooden prostitute, ready to do whatever she had to in order to get through the night. He was sitting up, in a lazy Indian style, while his hand on my stomach lazily moved its thumb back and forth. Back and forth. Circles, now.

He didn’t respond. I was used to that.

He was like that at Starbucks. Always. Just like that one time, a few years ago, when met one day at Starbucks, on a rainy winters day. I was huddled in the back corner, an odd architectural triangle that just happened to be able to hold an extra table. The place was empty, save for me, and the two baristas, who happened to be flirting with eachother. Holding my hot chocolate in my still gloved hands, I had been watching the rain flicker down the glass. Mesmerizing. I think? But it was so long ago... perhaps it was snow...? No. It was rain. Because he came into the Starbucks, and he was wet. I remember, now, because I was sitting underneath a heating vent. And he came over to me, directly, and he asked if we could switch seats. He was cold, you see, and he wanted to warm up. If I could let him take advantage of the warm air?

So I moved across the table, so I no longer had the view of the falling winter rain, which should have been snow, but I remember it was rain because he was wet. If he had snow on him, I would have wanted to lick it off, like it was raindrops and gumdrops. But rain doesn’t taste all that great. It tastes like the urinary tracts of an atmosphere with an STD. So instead of the rain, I could now see the wood.

In the game of elements, doesn’t wood always beat water? I wonder...

So I stared at the wall, with the grainy wood associated with authentic fake wood that actually might be real, and I was still sipping my hot chocolate, because mochas are nasty and cappuccinos give me gas. And have you ever tried to get a real coffee from a Starbucks? It’s more effort than its worth, because their hot chocolates are almost as good as Seattle’s Best Coffee. But I’ll take what I can get, because hot chocolate makes me feel warm inside, almost as warm as that one time I was at a spa, with my mom, and we were in that room with the steam. Suna? Sana? I forget which. It’s not important. But all I remember is that I was drinking my hot coco and looking at the (fake looking real looking) wood, and then he came back.

His hair was blonde, but it had some brown in it, which I know now is all natural. Au naturale? Something like that. And he’s always wearing turtlenecks, even in the summer, ‘cause... well... I’m not supposed to tell why. It’s a secret. So yeah. But he was wearing his grey, medium grey, gray, turtleneck wit this wicked cool jacket. He calls it a duster (cleaning wiping swipe swifter?) but I think of it like the trenchcoat Neo and Morpheus wore in the Matrix but less geeky and more business and professional like. I wish he wore glasses, ‘cause he has these gorgeous brown eyes that would look like he was so much cooler and professional and more mature if he wore glasses, ‘cause he even orders black coffee, at a Starbucks! And then he sat down with me blocking my view of the (fake looking real looking?) wooden walls that make up the triangle corner next to the pick me up part of the Starbucks line.

It was okay for me to stare for awhile, but then he kinda got bothered. It was empty, and it was warm. But I still kept staring, and it must have been kind of weird for him, ‘cause I remember then that he told me later that he was (what was the word? The word he used?) weirded out. ‘Cause I kept staring.

I was about fifteen then, and he was about twenty. Twenty one? Twenty two? Twenty three? Twenty four? No.

He was twenty seven.

I think.

I remember.

‘Cause we first-

But that came later because when we met-

He told me that I have-

But right now he’s saying that

“This isn’t interesting.”

Or was he actually saying-

“You’re not interesting.”

I’m not?

I’m

not. Am I?

“What’s not interesting?” I ask him again, because now I’m not sure. His hand (thumb back and forth, back and forth, circle back and forth) is still on my stomach. It’s a bit bumpy, ‘cause I don’t do as many sit-ups as I used to do because I don’t feel so much like it anymore because-

“This whole dating thing. Seeing you. It’s not interesting anymore.”

And just...

Like...

That...?

“That’s a bit of a dilemma,” I told him, still laying down, sprawled like a wooden prostitute, spent but satisfied she’ll make it through the night. “I still want to. See you, that is. Or friendship...?”

He thinks about this. I can tell, because his hand is stuttering. Like a snail without motivation, or an old jalopy without a good oil change. Stutter-sttutter-stutter.

“It’s not interesting anymore. We’ve done friendship, we’ve done the dating thing,” he tells me seriously.

I tell him that we’ve also done the strangers thing before. Is this...

But the thing is-

Do I really want to-

“Marry me?”

“Will it be interesting?”

And then I think, because, hot chocolate and black coffee tastes really nasty-

together

or even with whip cream

Or cinnamon

But my answer is

Still

“Yes.”