Three spaces filled. All booths. Like everyone wanted to have their own little Seinfeld coffee shop space for the cast of their lives: brother, sister, family, girlfriend, boyfriend, stranger, colleague, soulmate, boo, buddy;

I was wrong,

It's actually 4 spaces filled.

In the restaurant.

No, I counted myself, don’t worry, but I didn't see another tablespace (an ENTIRE table space!) tucked into the corner of Mickey’s Top Sirloin in Denver, Colorado.

Can you believe that? An entire tablespace and I missed it?

Tablespace

What if tablespaces were an actual unit of measurement? Why not, right?

I mean, we know that twelve inches is the length of an average foot, apparently;

And we know that the meter was discovered when someone named Peter walked about 3.32 feet away from his friend Christine, turned and asked, “So about how much do you think this is”?
According to legend, he misheard her just sighing and saying “Peter” as she shook her head because of his ridiculous question. So there we have the meter or “Misheard Peter” as it’s known in a singular academic circle (I will have to double check my sources on that one because it’s most probably not true).

So now we’re at four.

Four booths filled in Mickey’s Top Sirloin in Denver, Colorado

Also, it's Thanksgiving tomorrow. I only say that because a lady just yelled out to someone "You have a happy birthday."

Aha. Caught you off guard? I meant "thanksgiving" not "birthday".

But that's irrelevant. Just a little joke.

What isn't a joke is that it's thanksgiving tomorrow (except that could qualify as a joke now since I didn’t upload this as soon as I wrote it and now it’s not really Thanksgiving tomorrow). It's always strange being in the middle of a festival that you're not used to celebrating. Especially here, in a steak restaurant, in a place where no one knows you. More importantly, it thrills me to be in a place where I know no one knows me.

I guess what I’m pondering over is this: How much of existing, living day to day is based on just knowing that other people around you know you, love you or even acknowledge you?

It’s a lot easier to feel like an outsider in this situation; voluntarily removing yourself from a place where you’re known. No one in this restaurant knows me. I can just sit and listen. Just sit and watch. Some booth spaces are definitely more lively than others. A couple argues at one table. I think?. All I caught was some clearly angry but small arm gestures as if they were conducting a miniature, aggressive orchestra, for being in a public place and not wanting to make a scene, I guess. This was followed by a hushed, but angry “You always do this! Oh, please”!

Ok.

That’s enough to know that they may be having a fight of some kind, but that’s about it. Being alone is a pretty great way to observes people as just that: people; I know nothing about them, who they are, where they’re from, what they’ve been through; all I know is they’re fighting about something.

Alright. They’re fighting. That happens to people every once in a while.

Moving on, shifting my gaze to the incoherent sports game on the television on the wall in front of me. The usual family of four out for dinner sit below it, because what restaurant is complete without that cute little fixture? My mind shifts to my family for a second, because the word “family” just walked through it, even though it was in disguise as the sentence “Oh, look, a family of four!” when I saw that family of four I just mentioned.

Oh, look she got the chicken fried steak too.

Speaking of Chicken Fried Steak, here’s my chicken fried steak… well, it’s somewhere under a salty, warming, concealing blanket of gravy. I would personally love a gravy blanket but physics makes things difficult; all the tossing and turning during sleep would not work well with a gravy blanket, I think we can agree. Also, I don't think the idea of tucking someone in is ready to involve a ladle just yet.

So about this Chicken Fried Steak; maybe it’s because I never really ate or even really heard much about Chicken Fried Steak growing up in a culture that for the most part does not wholeheartedly embrace the consumption of beef. That being said it was delicious. That also being said, it was not breaded with chicken and then fried so maybe I misunderstood what the words “chicken”, “fried” and “steak” mean when strung together in that order. Or maybe it meant something I just didn’t comprehend at the time:

But, I digress. Again.

These thoughts had the volume of ice cream during that meal. I say that because that’s what they were. They were Ice cream. They were thick, sludgy, sweet and I enjoyed them swirling around my head as I wrote them out.

Oh, not that one.

One sec.

Ah, there we go.

I guess that’s what I enjoy most about being in places where I know no one knows me. The sludgy ice cream thoughts you just want to get lost in when you and you strike up a conversation after a while. Everyone around you is just a person, doing their thing. There’s almost a beautiful little community in that mass anonymity. Oh, you’re doing your thing?

Ayyyeee, me too, buddy.

Then I got the check and left and stuff…