Talking “Feelin’ Blue”

Welcome to the intro video and an excerpt from the seventh post of my weekly serial, “Sketches from the Café Confictura.” If you’d like to share a comment, please use the comment option at the end of this excerpt. To follow the mystery of Applewood, and get recipes from Mrs. Creaverton, writing advice from Roscoe Belesprit, and fashion tips from the Fastionista, please visit www.ClarissaJeanne.com for new posts every Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. EST.

Worst among Graham’s “style choices”--if you can call baggy, worn jeans and T-shirts style choices--is his baseball cap. He’s got this great curly mop of hair you can get a glimpse of, but mostly it’s shoved up into this red cap that’s quilted and shiny, like a puffer jacket. When he’s under bright light the glare is almost as cringe-inducing as the cap itself. It’s got the logo of some minor league ball team on it: snorting, angry oxen yoked together, pulling the name Florida Crackers. Apparently, this is an actual breed of cattle, which the small City of Kickensack in the Sunshine State chose as their mascot. (Though no one from Applewood can talk because, being as near as we are to Hartford, our minor league team is the Yard Goats. No, I’m really not making that up.)

Now, you might think this is awfully petty of Violet, rejecting the advances of a perfectly good suitor just because he can’t dress himself properly. However, I ask you to consider the following:

1) Twice now Graham has shown up to the café and asked Violet to dinner, and she’s told him she’ll go if he follows some of her style suggestions, but he’s refused. I think it’s a point of pride for him.

2) Imagine your own deal-breaker. This perfect person comes along into your life, perfect except for the deal-breaker. Your heart sinks, you get that yearning in your gut. If only that one thing were different! But it’s not. And it means the world to you. And you simply can’t compromise on it or else you’d be compromising yourself.

That’s what style means to Violet, but it’s about more than just looking good. It’d be one thing if Graham just didn’t have a clue about style but wanted to learn. I mean, the woman makes clients over all the time, it’s what she does and she loves helping people look their best. But the reason she loves helping them look their best is because she believes that if you look your best, you feel your best, and happiness is really what it’s all about. She believes that what a person chooses to portray about himself says a lot about the type of person he is.

I think she sees in Doc Graham a man who, yes, has his professional life together and, yes, would most likely wear actual clothes when taking her on a date. But look at what he wore tonight, a Friday night, to try wooing his elusive love: jeans, T-shirt, cap. Based on that, she sees beyond the honeymoon phase, to their weekends spent in front of various sporting events or video games, only going out to grab a beer at the Sloshed Guzzler or takeout from China Hank’s.

At least, that’s what she usually sees. Tonight, though, as though the young doctor brought with him sun to burn through Violet’s brume, she stared into his eyes, and saw something else.

--To read the rest of the post, please click here to go to www.ClarissaJeanne.com/feelin_blue.html, and then share your comments below--

Thoughts on "Feelin' Blue"? Share them below: