A Good Day

So, I've abandoned my prior novel due to structural issues beyond my control, but that's another post for another day. It's okay, though, because I had another idea that I've been kicking around for a few weeks, and I've been plotting it out on my lunch breaks at work. We met today and I got most of my first chapter written. I have most of Chapter Two written in my head, so I think (fingers crossed) it's a good start.

To celebrate, I took my car for an oil change, and myself to the liquor store (they are fortuitously located in the same strip mall). On the way home, I drove by a pizza parlor that opened a couple of weeks ago, trumpeting their coal-fired pizza oven. I read a lot of cooking magazines, and I'd never heard of a restaurant that used a coal oven, so I was intrigued, and slightly suspicious. The parking lot only had a few cars in it, so I stopped inside to grab a menu. And then I did Something New.

The place smelled fantastic, and I decided I needed a pizza right then and there. So I went to the bar, and ordered a pie to go, thinking I would run to a nearby store and come back in 20 minutes for my food. Then the bartender asked if I wanted to have a drink while I waited.

Obviously, people do this all the time, but I do not. I don't have any objection to it; I've just never done it. I've gone to movies solo, and eaten in restaurants by myself, but never just had a drink at a bar alone. Even if I was meeting someone at a bar, I always got a table. But, they had Frankenmuth Dunkel on tap, on special (clearly a sign), and I had had a productive morning, so I cozied up the bar and had a pint. Here's where it gets weird: Then I talked to people.

I'm not an outgoing person, generally. I don't get into conversations with strangers or make friends with the cashiers at the grocery store. I'm friendly and polite, but it doesn't go beyond that. I don't think a stranger is a friend I just haven't met yet; mostly, I assume everyone is a potential serial killer until they prove otherwise. Today, instead of pulling out my nook, or my phone, or a notebook to continue writing, I talked to the people at the bar. Like, actually started conversations. The guy on my right had randomly stopped in, just like me, and I helped him make a pizza selection. The guy on my left had all kinds of food allergies. The owner came over to talk him through the menu, and we had a discussion about flour milling and filtered versus non-filtered water for bread dough, and how to make a decent meatball without using eggs. The bartender and I talked about a recent shipment of cava she had gotten, and how cutely it was packaged, and then we made fun of the table of burly men drinking pitchers of Miller Lite. It was nice.

So, nothing profound, but my random decision to pick up a carry-out menu was unexpectedly productive. Not only did I get some good work done on my novel, I found a great new pizza place with a well-edited beer list, and the folks I talked to gave me some great ideas for some secondary characters I've been struggling with developing. Sometimes, it's the little things that reap the biggest harvests. So, all in all, a good day.