The place my former student owns just earned a Michelin
star is a phrase I never imagined would come up in
conversation. Why would I ever picture a nondescript
man ordering a sampling of her menu to dissect what
separates them from the steakhouse across town? Still,
I’d wondered how he’d rate me if he blended in the back
of my English class during third period in a hoodie and
jeans and abruptly left just as I explained the importance
of logical fallacies. Because who judges us and the extent
to which we’ll go to please people varies from clique to
clique and we often grade our best and worst moments
on a curve with an unattainable rubric set for ourselves.
In a therapy session to learn how to better connect with
my wife, I felt the harshness of my words—left both the
food critic and myself poised to hijack the vernacular of
my students in confessing, Damn, that’s mid—conveying
our deflated feelings regarding my direct methods of
communication. I explain to my in-laws over a plate
of safe and neat Pad Thai that I prefer eating at a place
that isn’t so sterilized, where the silverware is spotted
and decade-old wads of gum are balled up under each
table because there is nothing more authentic than
recognizing the need for improvement while presenting
yourself as you are—the orange letters in Mongkut’s Thai
House emblazoned on top of the building, the T dangling
to the right like a crooked apology.
Daniel Romo is the author of Bum Knees and Grieving Sunsets (FlowerSong Press 2023), Moonlighting as an Avalanche (Tebot Bach 2021), Apologies in Reverse (FutureCycle Press 2019), and other books. He received an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, and he lives, teaches, and rides bikes in Long Beach, CA. More at danieljromo.com.