Cedric the Sort of Entertainer

Okay, I think I'm going to do it. I know it seems crazy, extremely futuristic for someone like me who doesn't even know how an IPod works and has never had one...But I really don't watch television anymore except for football or basketball and I've never watched American Idol or Dancing with People Who Were Never Stars To Begin With and I haven't really watched a series since my son and I watched X-Files...(Although I did watch the last two years of The Sopranos just to have pasta with friends)...So I am going to do it. I am going to get Netflix. (Don't you hate when they purposely spell things wrong. Like, it should be NetFLICKS. And it should be chicken AND biscuits, not chicken 'N' biscuits. And how, actually, do you spell biscuits? And I wonder if I could eat one of those?)

So as soon as I figure out how you can get this Netflix thing, I'm going to do that. Not that I mind sitting on the couch at night and reading, which I will do anyway, but one thing I have learned this past year is that reading is very silent. It's sort of fun to have someone in the room while you're reading at night. I guess that's why people go to the library to read. I went to the library to play footsie under the table with a guy named Nathan. Maybe THAT is why people go to the library.

Footsie...There was a guy named John in my sixth grade class and I had such a crush on him and everyday after recess he would walk in and hand me his hat...The hunting kind with flaps on the ears...And I would put it in my desk and touch it all afternoon until the bell rang. Oh my God, that was the most orgasmic thing that had ever happened to me...Up to that point...And then John got kind of big and ugly as school went on and the thought of touching his hat or his sleeve or any part of him for that matter was like totally yuck. He probably thought the same thing of me. But I never saw Nathan of the foot after a certain grade and it was probably a good thing for both of us.

The hot dog man's name is Cedric. He is a handsome African American man somewhere in his late twenties, I would guess. He remembered me. I don't know why but I lied to him when he asked me what I did around there. I told him I worked in a nearby building. It just seemed too much to go into me taking vitamin drips in the area because I had cancer and blahblahblah and it's all so boring so I took the easy way out and I lied. I said I worked at a chiropracters office! I lied so easily it scared me. He told me there were a lot of chiropracters in the area and we had a long conversation about that before I changed the subject to hot dogs and his truck. He owned his truck. Ced's hot dogs. He was very proud of the fact that he had never worked for anyone else, only himself. I stupidly asked him what he really wanted to do. Acting, music, screenwriting...All the things most waiters and waitresses in Hollywood really want to do. And he looked at me rather blankly and said he always wanted to sell hot dogs. And I was so jealous. First of all, he had never worked for anyone else and I had worked on tv shows for some of the biggest assholes in the universe. Wasted years of my life sitting there and listening to these guys go on about themselves. (And yes, in my case they were always guys.) And secondly, he was a young man and already doing exactly what he wanted to do. And here I am, a person who could be his mother (and if I really want to go there, his grandmother!) and I still don't seem to be doing what I want to do. What is up with that? Why do I always feel that there is something I'm not doing that I should be doing? Why didn't I just want to sell hot dogs? Okay, I did have a child and that was and still is the greatest and that was something I really wanted to do. But creatively, just me alone, I'm still trying to figure out my career. My hair would be gray if I let it, I would be dead if I was living a hundred years ago, but here I still am trying to figure out who I am and what is that big thing that I am supposed to be doing. And Cedric is as happy as a clam, talking to his customers and steaming his weiners and setting up his chairs for the people to sit. I love Cedric. I want to be Cedric. And I hate Cedric because he's doing it. He's doing the life. I told him I had a nineteen year old son. He gave me a piece of advice. I should tell my son to pick one thing and focus. Focus on "that thing" and it will happen. But make sure it's only one thing.

And Cedric's right. I'm all over the place. One thing? But aren't I supposed to be completely neurotic and do twelve things at once?

Maybe Cedric could be my therapist. He'd probably race away in his truck after the first session.

Maybe I shouldn't get Netflix. Just another distraction. I wonder if Cedric has Netflix. I think I'll make an appointment with him for next week.