Lunch Reflections

Eating lunch today outside. Weather was far and away too nice to be indoors for any reason, and I'd been trapped all morning. So, I found myself sitting out in an easy breeze, chatting and telling war stories and swapping bullshit and blather with friends as sports TV from three different channels chattered on the big-screens overhead. The waitress turned up with iced tea and started pouring without asking. We're there a lot, and most of the staff has us pretty well memorized.

She smiled at me, just a hair more than the usual professional waitress smile, maybe even a touch more than the friendly recognition from all the times we've whiled away a lunch hour eating the special. Probably just kidding myself, but it seemed like there was just a flash there... Then she walked away to wait another table.

I could see her behind me, perfectly reflected in the window, the sunlight highlighting her almost as if the glass in front of the comparatively dark bar were a mirror. When one actually takes time to look at her, which I never really had before, she's very pretty in some oddly ordinary way, and has a frankly spectacular body. I contemplated her in the glass as she moved oblivious behind me taking orders.

Now, you should understand that I have no real interest in her. That part of my life has been used up -- or perhaps "burned out" is more accurate -- broken, maybe? At any rate, there's absolutely nothing left of me to go around, even if her smile was all it perhaps promised. But she was nice to look at, pleasing in some almost art-form aesthetic way. I tried to get her picture, but it was a mostly-failure. Taking pictures of reflections can be tricky (yeah, I blurred her face.)

I spotted some motion which wasn't part of the reflection, and remembered that in fact it was a window, not a mirror. There were people on the other side of it. More specifically, there was a guy sitting at the end of the bar. From his point of view, I'd been staring at him with considerable appreciation and taking pictures.

I think I may have a date. His name is Craig...