Reading Elif Batuman’s the Possessed, in which the author somehow chronicles the 6 years she spent studying Russian literature as a grad student in Stanford without ever once being even a little bit boring. Spent the whole evening reading after work at Novel Café, Koreatown’s version of a cozy little restaurant on UCLA’s grounds. This one, 20 miles away from it’s sister, has been outfitted with:
6 giant screened televisions on which various basketball games play
A piano, bench occupied by a bemused looking 20-something blonde woman
A handful of very attractive waitresses who, despite being different ethnicities, all look like slightly different versions of one another. Like the pianist, they seem puzzled as to where they are and why.
Leather-backed chairs that look like they should be comfortable but are not.
It is more an idea of an American café than an actual place. I order a vegetable salad, which is good, and a side of roasted potatoes, which is not, though this fact is balanced out by the fact that my waitress forgets to add them to the bill. No matter what you order, the server will bring out a porcelain tureen of tortilla chips and salsa. After that, you will be basically ignored. Living in K-town is like traveling to a different country and viewing my own through the wrong end of a telescope.
The book is wonderful. I laugh out loud enough times that I begin to wonder what the group of men across from me can possibly think. At 24, I have become the crazy old woman I always knew lived inside of me. On another note, I’m choosing classes at USC tomorrow and its beginning to become real that soon I will be teaching undergraduates how to write. How can I teach? I’m not done being taught yet.
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