01.12.23

I guess today is the day I start blogging? Do people blog anymore? No, right? What year is it?

I am as aware as the next city dweller that Sweetgreen is a bit obnoxious - a chain largely created to serve corporate masses on their lunch hours, overpriced for what it is and half as satisfying as you hope. But even though I have never really enjoyed a salad I’ve made for myself and I don’t have the wherewithal to ready all of the ingredients each time, I still need to eat a vegetable every once in a while. There’s a Sweetgreen not far from my office building, so when I decide to work from there, I tend to find myself waltzing down to 42nd Street around 2pm, thinking I will have outsmarted the lunch rush, and being deeply wrong every time.

Every time I go to Sweetgreen, I am baffled by the degree to which other customers at this location are rude to the workers. So many of them don’t bother to pause their phone calls or take out their AirPods. Some people don’t even look up from their phones at all, and bark orders at the people helping them. It’s so weird. You won’t get that salad without them! How about some eye contact!

Today, when I was leaving with Harvest Bowl in hand, a man walking next to me on the street asked me if it was my lunch. He told me he had already seen three people today with the exact same bowl. I said yes, it’s Sweetgreen, and pointed at the restaurant (feels like a strong word for it) behind us.

“What is it, like salads?” he asked.

“Yeah - salads, bowls, you know.”

“Let me see,” he indicated the bowl in my hands. I cracked the lid to show him my kale, rice, goat cheese, chicken, the rest - I don’t ask for changes. He leaned in to look at it. “Oh!” he said. “Like a Chipotle competitor. Is it expensive?”

“Right,” I said, closing the lid. “With a ‘health food’ angle. And it’s not great, but not horrible, I guess? Fifteen-ish bucks for a meal. I go once every week or two, if I’m in the office.”

He asked where I work and I told him, pointing arbitrarily toward Times Square.

“I gotchu,” he nodded. “I’ll have to check that out. I’ve already gone to Chick Fil-A twice this week. You know, when I first went there I thought it was pronounced like FILA.” He gestured toward his jacket - a FILA windbreaker. “I was saying it like that on Instagram, and to my friends, and no one corrected me.” We laughed. It made me think about how often I learn a word from seeing it written and then never feel sure how exactly to say it out loud. I’m still not sure how to pronounce “volatile” for this reason. I second guess myself every time I think I know it.

I noticed that the light was counting down on the other side of 6th Avenue. I told the man to have a good day and jogged to beat it. When I reached the west side of the street I regretted not asking him what his name was.

I like to walk around without headphones for things like this. I try to smile at people and be willing to engage in conversations with strangers. I have a friend who is amazing at making friends - she met a gaggle of her best friends in an Uber Pool. Can you imagine? I always think of her when I find myself in conversations with new people, be it neighbors, or grocery clerks, or friends of friends, or guys wearing FILA windbreakers on the street who went to Chick Fil-A twice this week. I really admire her openness to new people. It’s something I try to emulate, even though it doesn’t come quite as naturally to me. And I have to remember to ask people their names.