Untitled.
17 September 2000
around noon, i set off in search of an off-ramp motel to use as a real-world basis for my computer studio project. garth and chris came along with the intention of stopping at a home depot during some point in the proceedings. we headed north on 95.
stopped at the first motel we came across (that was my initial criteria), a comfort inn in pawtucket. i didn't really like the layout of it, but at least they had a pool. i went inside while chris and garth wandered around looking for spots to take pictures for various photo classes.
"hi, i'm an architecture student working on a project about motels. and i was wondering if i could take a look around, make some notes, maybe shoot some video."
"i'm sorry, but i can't let you do that. you'll have to talk to a manager. so if you'd like to come back sometime from 9-5, monday through friday."
yeah whatever, thanks so much.
so back northward we went. and it was all pretty unproductive. we did stop in sharon, ma though. you see, our landlord is from sharon, and every time we've called him, someone has answered the phone saying something that didn't sound anything like the name of his real estate company. i thought it sounded a bit like supermarket. garth thought it was pizza-something. so we decided it must be pizza-market.
and right on main street in sharon, ma, what do you suspect we found? a pizza-market.
then as promised, home depot on the way home. i bought a coat hook. how very exciting.
and straight to the store for our weekly pre-sushi night shopping.
okay, here's where my story gets briefly interesting again. at bread and circus, where we stopped mainly just to get pickled daikon, i fell in love with the cashier. for the next couple of days, anyway. i think what really attracted me was that something about me made her eyes light up. i thought briefly that she must just be one of those perky customer service types who puts on a smile and a little ring in her voice for everyone she deals with, but she didn't seem to. there was something different about the way she looked at me, how she said have a wonderful day, how she looked back and made eye contact once more as i was leaving, and smiled again, before turning to the next customer.
of course i have no idea what she was thinking. and of course i didn't say much of anything but what one normally says in the customer/cashier relationship. maybe she'll be working next week. maybe she won't smile then. maybe i'll be in a different line. maybe i won't see her again.