This afternoon I lingered a long time in a brasserie on Rue Jacob where I’d been psyched to order something off the comparatively cheap menu like what everyone around me was tucking tastily into but — because I wasn’t assertive enough with these gelid French waiters — as advertised — it’s just breathtaking, their disregard — and the kitchen closed — couldn’t and instead talked a long time, through my hunger, with the guy lunching at the next table avec ses enfants who was very smart and interesting but not as smart — not as much a purveyor of revelation — as I realize I was trying to lead him to believe he was, doing that thing I do where I act like whoever is talking to me is the first person to talk to me ever in my whole entire life, like everything they say is just blowing my sweet little mind so sweetly, like they’re just with every word bestowing this terrific cognitive gift.

I guess the thinking is that if I flatter someone with my synthetic ingenue idiocy and awe they’ll keep talking and like me and other good will come of it.