Brunch at Tupelo Honey
Asheville, NC, Sunday 4/24/05 – We’re in downtown Asheville on a street lined with specialty shops and cafés, having just returned from the computer lab at my son Josh’s college where I posted my daily blog entry and he read his email.
Inside the restaurant, my son and I sit down. I brush pink azalea petals off my jacket while studying the menu. They had fallen into thick piles onto the cement walkways at the college, and my husband, Joe, and I proceeded to pick them up in handfuls and throw them into the air, as Josh snapped photos of us.
After ordering – omelets, home fries, coffee and tea – Josh and I exchange our journals, which we are both in the habit of carrying around, to write guest commentaries for each other. Joe comes in from parking the car. I look up from my writing, having just had a revelation, and announce to him incredulously, “I have no desire to shop! I haven’t bought a thing all weekend. I’m cured. The blog has cured me of shopping.” He doesn’t answer, but I can tell from his expression that he gets it and is amazed.
There’s a stairway in the back of the restaurant at the end of a long counter. We can’t see it because we’re sitting up front, but Josh knows it’s there and tells us to watch. “What? Two waiters are talking?” I say questioningly. “Keep watching,” he insists. Just then, a waitress seems to pop up from out of nowhere. Then, the two waiters deflate and descend, disappear as if through a trap door.
“Ha! It was worth coming in here just to see that,” I said, and we all agreed.
By now our food has arrived. In between bites, Josh continues to write, Joe reads the newspaper, and I look around, people watching. I notice that all the waitresses have on tank tops, even though there are snow flurries outside. They all have tattoos too, lots of them. So I turn to Josh, who’s eaten here many times before, and ask, “Do you have to have a tattoo to work here?
“Maybe to live in this city, you have to have one,” he suggests.
“Oh, sort of like an Asheville county sticker. In Floyd we all have to have a sticker,” I answer.
Josh passes his journal on to Joe now. It’s Joe’s turn to write…
April 26th, 2005 11:45 am
SO JOURNAL THERAPY DOES HAVE EMPIRICAL VALIDITY. WHEN WE WRITE WE PROCESS OUR INNER DEMONS OR SHALL I SAY DAEMON. THUS WE GET IN TOUCH WITH WHAT IS REALLY IN OUR PATTERN, OUR IMAGE, OUR DESTINY FROM WITHIN. THUS, THE LURE OF CONSUMER GOODS NO LONGER FITS THE BILL. AS DEEPAK CHOPRA SAID…YOU CAN NEVER GET ENUF OF WHAT YOU NEVER REALLY NEEDED IN THE FIRST PLACE. TOURIST SHOPPING BEING JUST ONE MORE COMPULSIVE CONSUMPTION HABIT OF OUR CULTURE…. OF COURSE IT IS FALLING AWAY LIKE ALL ADDICTIONS DO ON THEIR OWN WHEN WE START FEEDING OURSELVES WHAT WE ARE REALLY HUNGRY FOR. SHOULD I PRESENT YOU WITH A ONE MONTH CHIP. OR CAN YOU KEEP IT SIMPLE…ONE DAY AT A TIME…ONE BLOG A DAY KEEPS THE _______ AWAY. I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU COLLY GIRL. I MIGHT HAVE TO THROW YOU A GRADUATION /RETIREMENT/ RECOVERY PARTY NEXT MONTH.
April 26th, 2005 12:12 pm
Hey..does JoeyK know he’s yelling at you? ;0) I love quaint places in college towns…people watching is the best. Every once in while we’ll sit and realize all of these people know other people, have other problems, their own lives and issues and it becomes this whole other made up world. Kind of surreal really. I wish my shopping addiction was cured so easily..*sigh*.
April 26th, 2005 1:31 pm
J&J’s, I’m the same way when I people watch…I think of the enormity of all the people who know people, their issues and problems and lives spreading out. It seems weird that I don’t know so many people. By the way, several people have confessed to me off-blog that they wish their shopping addiction was cured so easily! I’m wondering if mine was just cured for the weekend and if it had something to do with the fact that I had been in and out of every shop on past visits…and which would my husband prefer the shopping addiction or the internet one?
April 26th, 2005 4:51 pm
Shopping cured by blogging, wait until I tell my husband that one. : ) I love that you switch journals with your son. The way you write, I could almost see the three of you clearly, in my mind.
April 26th, 2005 5:54 pm
I cured my cleaning and feel very good about it….what was the waitresses and cooks doing????
December 17th, 2014 11:05 pm
[…] 13. Read about how blogging cured me of shopping HERE. […]