Lets fight about it.

I sat across from someone I’m tempted to call an old friend, though we rarely spend time together and our friendship has never had the time to grow old.

We talk. I talk more than him, but it’s his fault—he knows how to pull my strings. And he’s picking on my subject. Playing devils advocate, he says. Just Joshing me, he laughs. Momentarily I think he may be Burgeoning on annoying when a deep breath makes me realize what I’m feeling isn’t annoyance. It’s exhilaration. My mouth moves miles in minutes. I need this.

Need is a relative term I suppose. I don’t need this back and forth the way I need air or Kool-aid. I’m should I could live without it, and at some point I think I did. But without it, boredom sets in, and what follows boredom is worse. Complacency. If no one challenges my big ideas- and there are far too many of them- they get left to their own devices, easily becoming frustrated adolescents who lack guidance. Hands on hips, neck on swivel, hand waving in the air screaming at the top of their lungs “I’m right, I know I am and you’re wrong so SUCK IT” (my inner teenager is vulgar). They don’t look at the other side, instead remain idealistic and optimistic to a fault. They believe in changing the world, but can’t see the staircase they need to climb, too focused on what’s at the top.

I’ve always loved these fights, I think my Grandpa was probably my first sparring partner. We’d sit at the kitchen table and he’d pick fights with me about everything and anything. I’d ask him what his favorite pie was and instead of answering he’d make a list of the pies he liked, the reasons they were good and why the pies I liked best were lame excuses for pie. If I said I wanted to paint the walls white, he’s argue that you can’t go to the store and just but white paint anymore; there were all sorts of different whites and you needed to know ahead of time which white you wanted so that damn sales person didn’t give you the wrong stuff. Sometimes we fought about more important things, like me getting married too young or declaring that I wanted to be a writer. But mostly he loved to fight and always knew I was game to take the other side.

These standoffs, where someone is willing to stand against me despite of my domineering personality and epic stubbornness, are not only one of my favorite ways to pass an evening (even better when beer or wine is involved) but essential for my growth. I change more as a result of these conversations than I ever imagine I will. Blondie tests my ability to be gentle with myself and others, the composer challenges me with all that I don’t think I know anything about, with curiosity and with honesty. The poets challenged me to write, to know that I was actually a poet and to believe that what I felt about their poetry was worth sharing. Atticus, my most consistent adversary and best friend handles my emotional confrontations—only the one who knows me so well can make me admit that no, I’m not over it yet and yeah if given the choice I’d make the same series of bad decisions all over again. And then makes me sit with the embarrassment of that admission, not for too long, before sweeping the pieces into a pile and telling me to put it back together right. He can convince me to stop trying so hard to be strong, to tell others when I need them, and live with my insecurity.

I find myself continuously searching for more of these relationships, and realizing how rare they really are. It takes a high level of trust to have these kinds of conversations—we have to believe that the other won’t get angry, or hurt and walk away without learning anything except how to leave when someone refuses to say what it is we want to hear. I wonder if these relationships are sustainable; wonder if I can have it in a day to day relationship that is built around love. Can that much verbal warfare survive day to day life; paying bills, cleaning the house and walking the dog?

Free beer with every job application!

The man with the crazy gray hair, disheveled plaid shirt and thread-bare jeans stops at the service counter of the uppity, organic grocery store where I’ve just been given the title of “Front End Team Lead”. It’s a good job, though I struggle a bit with the kind of people who can spend a hundred dollars on two bags of groceries; seems a bit absurd really, since my grocery budget for an entire month is barely more than that. And I can’t help but to giggle a little bit when people pay fifteen dollars a pound for sweet cherries I used buy at roadside stands in my hometown for five.

The smell of patchouli touches my nose a few too many times in a day.

I would like to help some of the women spend some of their grocery money on bras.

Back to the crazy haired man.

I gave him the application, because looks can be deceiving; he could be a highly qualified chef or a wine connoisseur. He smelled a bit like he liked wine. About a half hour later, he returned to the desk application in one hand, bottle of beer in the other. A high quality IPA, the kind of bottle we sell for five dollars. Each. It was empty. He no longer smelled like wine, instead his breath stank of hops.

“Here you go honey.”

He breathed on me. Momentarily I was jealous that he had enjoyed a cold one in the middle of the day, then I remembered I hate IPA’s. Slamming the bottle, still dewy on the outside with a little foam left on the bottom onto the marble counter top, he grinned.

“That was good. Here’s your bottle back.”

Stunned, I looked at the cashier standing next to me.

“Did he pay you for that beer?”

“Nope.”

I checked the other registers, no one had sold a single bottle of that particular beer in the last two hours. This man, whose application stated his qualifications as “Award winning poet” and a lead role in a film for which he got paid $150 enjoyed a free beer while filling out a job application. All at once I wondered if he was a) already drunk, allowing him to think this was okay b) terribly gutsy and only filling out job applications to fulfill the requirements of his unemployment benefits/social security or 3) the man of my dreams.

I decided he was much too old and underemployed for my liking and informed the store manager of what had just happened.

“Call him, Liz. Invite him in, and ask him to pay for the beer.”