Well given that John was an artist by trade and not a chef, I really couldn't sanely feel upset about him not cooking for me. But that's how it was. Maybe it'd be more precise to say that I was let down, having spent the weeks leading up to our meeting imagining what he'd feed me only to end up at a greasy diner I had used to haunt back in the day when I was doing free internships just to get my foot in the door.

Few days later coffee with Jamie put me in a slippery mood. We must've run out of things to discuss because i said something that let him know how I'd been disappointed by my meeting with John. Jamie must've inferred it somehow, because i know for a fact that I didn't say this outright. Our memories our fallible but I can trust myself not to spill such type of beans. I am a professional after all.

I considered explicitly asking Jamie not to tell John, but didn't. Partly because I honestly found my feelings to be inoffensive but mainly because Jamie didn't keep secrets. Not these kinds at least. This was too trivial, the kind of gossip that causes you a toe-ache but nothing life threatening so that's how I knew word would make it to

John Zabka

, of course in a more exaggerated form.

Within a week i ended up returning to that same 

diner

. Everybody at the office was having a hair on fire type of day, but mine was slow. I'd already finished my pieces way ahead of deadline and my editor had signed off on them. So I was basically just sitting around reading drinking shitty 

coffee

when I felt the urge to go to that diner again. 

My old haunt. I used to squat here for hours trying to write stuff because the food was packed with calories, protein, and fat, and coffee refills were unlimited. The menu claimed that refills cost a dollar, butt to my memory I've never been charged that buck once. 

I spent enough sleepless nights here to reverse my circadian rhythm. I would sleep during the day. Evenings became mornings, nights my afternoons. As my schedule grew more distant from regular society I craved that diner more and more. I don't even think I liked the food by the time I was addicted to the place. It was simply the only thing that gave me a warm feeling of hope at that late hour. The feeling that everything was going to be if not alright, at least not terrible. And that I was doing something in part for that outcome.