Sin

I stopped at the salad shop in the middle of the business district because I was dying of starvation.  The boy behind the counter (with his dress-code baseball cap cocked just so) asked if I wanted any chicken in my salad.

"No thank you," I said.  "I'm a vegetarian."

He nodded and went to work on my food, while I stood in bafflement.  I'm a vegetarian?  The hell I am.  Why did I say that?  In my consternation I blushed and bit my lip.  He took it as a sign that I was flirting with him and paid me extra attention while I ate.  Fine karma for my sin, there.

Now, I am not above lying.  I do it every time I go downtown or to the clubs.  "No, I don't have a dollar." "I'm from out of town, can't help!" "My boyfriend would be so mad if I danced with you!"  "I'm a felon, voting rights revoked."  I tell people these things because I know if I'm honest they will follow me around and pester me, and I do not have the time for their nonsense.

The poor salad guy, though, he didn't deserve my sudden and inexplicable dishonesty.  Maybe it was acting out from being a responsible adult all day and telling people the truth:

See, I was married, but now I'm not, so this is why I'm suddenly broke.  See, I didn't actually have any W2's last year.  Yeah, so, I still live in the house, but it isn't in my name at all, and I pay rent but not as much as the mortgage because he still lives there, too.  Yeah, I took out those loans and I'm an art major.

I know what I look like to these people, and maybe that's exactly what I am.  I am well past the point of caring, however.  There are things I need to do, and I just need everyone to either help or get out of my way so I can continue doing them.  It is tiring to constantly have to explain myself, over and over, to a million different people.

While I ate (under the watchful eye of the salad maker, who swooped in to refill my soda and offer me vegetarian cookies for dessert), I decided that it wasn't entirely an untruth.  Today I feel like being vegetarian.  I will probably change my mind tomorrow.  Instead of looking at the whole of me and labeling myself that way, I chose to take who I was that second and use that label instead.

I let the Pisces in my life take credit for my amazing rationalization skills.

That made me think of the boy that I met at the bar last weekend when I went to see Kenny play.  He came over to flirt, but he was very high and I was very sober.  He complimented me on my hair, and told me he felt a kinship with me because we were both so fair that we were practically glowing in the gloom of the bar.  We compared "tans" by holding our arms together, his skin only half a shade darker than my own.

"I've worked construction for five years," he said.  "This is all the tan I managed to get!"

I doubted him immediately because he was not only very fair, but also very pretty and soft-looking.  His hands weren't calloused, he showed no evidence of a fading sunburn, his lips weren't chapped, his build was slight, his hair was gelled.  I know a few construction workers, and none of them look like him.

Later he said, "I work at this restaurant on Chatfield, if you take a jog around the lake you'll see us.  We serve a lot of healthy food."

Less than a minute later he was saying, "I work for an off-site growing facility.  I have been trained by a guy who understands the science of it, see, and I'm one of eight people in the entire world who know how to grow it the way he does.  I could show you if you want to come?"

I sent him a silent apology for labeling him a liar.  Maybe he was just representing himself as all of his various selves at once, one assumes because of over-consumption of his own wares.  Maybe he did some light residential construction work, maybe he picked up a few hours at a restaurant, maybe he works part time at the grow.  He could be all of those things.

Or he could be like Anais Nin's Sabina, all allegory and myth.  Who am I to judge?  Apparently I suddenly become vegetarian in the face of giant salads.

Maybe I was worried that it would become the Salad of Doom and disapprove if I admitted to just not wanting chicken today.