Fenjoyment

I live with a pastry chef.   It is as magical and dangerous as it seems, given that I have the self-control of a labrador puppy when it comes to tasty things sitting on a table low enough for me to reach.

On a typical weeknight, Meredyth the pastry chef and I plop our backpacks, bikes and selves down in our sofa-sized living room and report on our days--stories of burnt crusts and new recipes to empathize with stories of server crashes and iOS updates.  She mills around in our kitchen (which is just a five foot extension of the living room) constructing salads with no less than fifteen ingredients from scattered and unlabeled mason jars while I sit on the couch breaking off corners, then quarters, then halves of brownies and chocolate caramel bars straight from the tupperwares she brings home.  After all, it would be disrespectful to Meredyth’s hard work not to give each of them a fair sample.  

The topic of discussion at the most recent Nightly Unwind was “Things we say we like but secretly don’t.”  When Meredyth first posed the question, I scoffed.  I am a middle-finger-to-Public-Opinion San Franciscan -- why would I pretend to follow trends when the whole point of being a hipster is nonconformity?  But as we got to talking, I realized there are plenty of things I "fenjoy". Things that -- for all the buzz and excitement and photo sharing -- seem to be a fabulous time, but upon further introspection, aren't actually that great.

For example, concerts.

PERSON: “Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival is this weekend!”
ME: “Oh really?  That’s sweet.”
“You're going right?”
“Hopefully I’ll catch some of it.”

“Nick Lowe and String Cheese Incident are playing! I can't wait! We’re going to set up camp with a big group and be there all three days.”

“Wow, that sounds amazing.  I’m jealous.”

I’m not jealous.  Live music is awesome.  Craning my neck to catch a glimpse of the band through a seaweedy sea of a thousand waving iPhone cameras is not.  The Lumineers are great.  White dudes in polos who get wasted at Lumineers concerts are not.  The excitement I get out of being only a few hundred feet away from musicians who I greatly respect and admire is not worth the time I spend watching the guy with the thick neck hoisting his cheerleader girlfriend onto his shoulders just so she can take an audio-saturated video of indistinguishable light beams.

I would rather do almost anything than go to a music festival.  I would rather watch a band that I’ve never heard of play at a bar where I can sit in a chair and drink a beer and then use the restroom.  I would rather watch an elementary school teacher jam on an acoustic guitar at the laundromat open mic night so I can chat with her about politics over coffee after she’s done playing.  I would rather go to Catholic mass than Outsidelands -- then at least I can hear what the person on stage is saying and the tiny cups of alcohol are free.

For a second example of things I fenjoy: good restaurants.

“Have you been to that new place on the corner of Someteenth and Other?”

“No, not yet.”

“Oh. My. God.  They have the absolute best short ribs in the world.  The chef is from Portugal and they make all their sauces on the table right in front of you.  You have to go.”

“Wow, that sounds amazing.”

“It’s right next to that Polynesian ice cream place.”

“Never heard of it.”

“What?!?!   Unbelievable.  They have a balsamic vinaigrette flavor - which sounds crazy, I know - but it literally makes me cry it is so delicious.”

“Awesome, I will put it on my list!”

I don’t have a list.  I have no ambitions of trying all the best restaurants in the city. As much as I like tasty food and sharing meals in good company, the frenzy for hyper-quality dining experiences just makes me sleepy.  The whole charade of dinner feels more like work than leisure.  First, there is the preliminary Yelp research comparing a half dozen options under the filters: Burgers, Within 5 miles, $$, Open Now, 4.5 stars or higher with a minimum 50 reviews.  Then there are the reservations or the impossibility of making them or getting them.  Then there’s the waiting in line until the hostess (who will mercilessly banish a party of five for arriving without all of their group members) finally leads you to your table like salmon swimming upstream through the waitresses and bathroom-goers and bartenders that all seem to be going the opposite direction.  

At the table, everyone squints under the mood lighting at the menu even though everyone has already looked at it online.  The next thirty minutes are dedicated to diligent study and discussion forum.

“What is peanut muscovado milk?”

“Or umeboshi vinaigrette?”

“What is ah-oh-lye?”

“You mean aioli?”

The girls are mentally process-of-eliminating anything that sounds too carb-y or fried.  The grad students are ruling out anything over $19.99.  The hard core foodies are searching for something they haven’t tried before.  When the plates arrive and people start eating, the gushing begins.  Everyone takes turns commenting on how amazing/incredible/so freaking good the food is.  The conversation may only take a few brief tangents away from the deliciousness of the food throughout the course of the meal.  The check-splitting process is a whole separate ordeal in which the cashless are judged and the exact-changeless are usually screwed.

It's too much.  There, I said it.  Sometimes I just want to go to a restaurant with lights more than 60 watts where the only choices are chicken or beef and everyone gets the same plate of meat and veggies and rice and beans and the crumbs you spill don’t matter because the tablecloth is made of plastic (#colombia).

The concept of Fenjoyment also works in reverse - sometimes we say we hate things that, deep down, we kind of like. Like foggy mornings and Mondays and food comas and being in a hurry and living in sketchy neighborhoods. Or maybe that's just me... (but Meredyth agrees with me on the concerts and the foggy mornings.)