daily stream 6-14-08

A large family, white, at least three generations worth, dressed in unremarkable middle class suburban Texan pastels, sitting down at dinner in a local mexican food restaurant. Digging in. Stuffing about four baskets worth of delicious chips and salsa in their faces while they wait for the rich entrees to arrive. The wide brims of their water glasses extend just beyond the catches of their mouths so that a few glistening beads escape and run down their jowls every time they pause their inhalación de tostada to drink. Their faces, aglow with alimentary satisfaction, boast knowing smiles as they listen to the litany of each other's adventures, old and new. All in all an ordinary sight, but for the teenage boy seated at one far end of the table, closest to our own table, wearing a frayed and faded jean jacket with the arms ripped out, an appropriately harsh band name scrawled on the back at shoulder level in dark red puff paint surrounded by white this and that, skulls and whathaveyou. The jacket leads the eyes to the crown of this glaring domestical juxtaposition, consisting of a meager wave perched on a crew cut, effecting a penciltop eraser used just three our four times. It's a scene from a sitcom. All it needs is a sarcastic grandma and a orange furry alien chasing the cat around.