My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [59]
(Sidebar: These are the first hipsters I’ve seen who don’t make me want to beat them with my shovel. The kids here aren’t at all the stupid poseur hipsters currently invading my neighborhood with their beastly facial hair and lensless plastic glasses. I swear, these idiots in their headbands and American Apparel have completely ruined my favorite lunch spot with all their yawping and pouting and ennui. Why the long face, kids? Your parents still pay your rent! How can you be so cynical about a world you’ve yet to experience?)
Coffee secured, we’re off to our next stop—the donut place. Sure, I love donuts, but I’m not terribly likely to seek them out. If I venture out of the house for pastry, I’m more of a cupcake/birthday cake kind of girl. Buttercream frosting is my antidrug, you know? But Voodoo Donuts may have just flipped the script. This dark and depressing shop looks more like a terrible punk rock club yet holds treasures I never even imagined; these donuts are covered with items I’ve only seen in my dreams!
I’m pretty much mesmerized as I take in the circular case. I could get donuts topped with crumbled candy bars or crushed cookies or a generous dusting of sweetened cereal. I could have the Grape Ape, which boasts vanilla icing and grape powder, or the Arnold Palmer, made with lemon and tea powder. One of them has peanut butter and chocolate Rice Krispies on it, and one’s all covered in pink marshmallow and coconut—basically, a SnoBall donut. Can you do this kind of stuff to a donut? Is this even legal?
And then I spot it, my prize . . . my precious . . . my pastry. The hipster behind the counter promises me this is their very best donut, so I place my order and then practically run out of the store to make sure no one steals what I’ve got in this paper bag. The item in question is a maple-bacon bar. When I take my first bite, I’m pretty sure all the secrets of the universe are revealed, if only for a second. This is like a cruller on crack—the cloying sweetness of the maple frosting mingles with the smoky saltiness of the two thick slabs of bacon to create the ultimate breakfast food. I eat it as slowly as I can, and after I’m finished, I spend a few minutes huffing the bag it came in. The driver doesn’t even laugh at me—I suspect he’s seen this all before.
I do my interview (checking first for crumbs) and when it’s over, the driver takes me back to the hotel. “Are you doing anything good with your afternoon?” he asks me.
I’m delighted with myself for having made a plan for today. I haven’t done anything cultural in weeks and I can feel myself dumbening114 again. I mean, yesterday in the airport I spent ten minutes expounding on the virtues of Bethenny Frankel from the New York season of the Real Housewives until I realized the person next to me had been talking about a book by Viktor Frankl. My subsequent mortification seemed like a heavy clue about my stepping up my own search for meaning.
“Yes!” I exclaim from my spot in the backseat. “I’m spending the whole day at the Portland Museum.”
He glances up at me in the rearview mirror. “But it’s Monday—you know they’re closed today, right?”
Shit.
I probably could have found something else enriching, but I opt for a pedicure instead because my feet hurt. Granted, salon treatments don’t sound like what a person attempting an intellectual renaissance would choose, but this is no ordinary sore set of feet. Due to my penchant for shoes that are “jewel-encrusted and adorable” instead of “sensible with proper arch support,” I’ve developed a screaming case of plantar fasciitis, Latin for “Holy cats, I’m being stabbed in the heel.”
Every step I’ve taken in the past few weeks sends daggers of pain up my leg and into my lower back. I find myself staring longingly at the old men on the street clad in Rockports and little kids in their