“Actually, we both did,” said Greg, gesturing a thumb towards Brigid, who was lurking in the corner apparently hoarding a bowl of party mix. “Why?”

“Well I just wanna know, what does ‘cogito ergo sum‘ mean?”

“Oh, that!” said Greg. “That’s Descartes. His idea was that you needed to drill down to the most fundamental level of thought you could get to, so he started with ‘if I am having this thought, there must be a me here to think it,’ or more elegantly, cogito ergo sum, ‘I think, therefore I am.’”

“I didn’t need the history lesson,” said Alex. “I just wanted a translation.”

“It’s meaningless without context,” replied Greg.

“I don’t think Descartes went far enough,” said Brigid. “There are too many loaded assumptions in ‘I think, therefore I am.’ How do you know you’re thinking? What if you only think you’re thinking?”

“Some of the folks who came after Descartes have tackled that one, too,” said Greg. “But you have to start somewhere.”

“There are too many loaded assumptions in that, too! Who says you have to start somewhere? Who says you have to start?” She waved a pretzel stick defiantly. “Throw off your shackles! Don’t be a slave to the establishment! Refuse to start! It’s the only way to be truly free! Let us begin a golden age of aggressive non-starting!”

“Eat your party mix, Bartleby,” said Greg.

“I refuse to start eating my party mix,” said Brigid, but she ate the pretzel stick anyway.

-The Gneech

<-- previous B&G

“Named Lando?” said Brigid. “Where was this, Bespin?”

“The thing of it was, the two guys had these really crazy schedules. Neither one knew if they’d be performing on any given night. At a concert, on tour, didn’t matter. They never performed together once in ten years of touring. After fighting with it for about a year, they finally came up with the perfect name for the band…”

Brigid facepalmed. “No. Please. Don’t tell me.”

“They went on to great success as ‘Tony or Lando, and Dawn.’”

Brigid sighed. “Yeah. You went there. Could you possibly have made that joke even nerdier?”

“Sure I could. Their big hit song was ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Orc Tree.’”

“Ask a stupid question,” said Brigid.

-The Gneech

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“Uh … no,” said Brigid.

Greg shook his head. “Neither do I.”

-The Gneech

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Greg, looking up from his Franjipani sandwich, scanned the shop briefly before spotting the offender, a skinny guy in his early 20s with an electric-red stripe in his blonde hair, a fuchsia T-shirt with a random logo of a giant gear with wings that had been artificially weathered, and baggy white cargo shorts. “Oh, him,” said Greg, turning back to his sandwich. “Perhaps he just stepped out of an anime.”

“He’s wearing fuchsia!” said Brigid again.

“Are you referring to his shirt, his hair, or both?”

“Guys are not allowed to wear fuchsia,” Brigid asserted.

“Don’t care for fuchsia, eh?” said Greg.

“It’s bad enough that women wear it,” said Brigid. “We can’t have guys running around wearing it, too!”

“You tool of the patriarchy, you,” said Greg.

“Listen, Mr. Sartorial Agony, you should be right on the same page with me about this. The guy is a disaster! I should be having to restrain you from going over there and forcibly putting a Harris tweed on him.”

“No, that’s not how it works at all,” said Greg. “While it’s true that Bishounen Chic isn’t a combination I would choose for myself, it is, nevertheless, a cultivated look. That kid didn’t dress that way by accident. He has a style, and he’s expressing it. For all that fuchsia is a poke in the eye, sartorially speaking he is still on much higher moral ground than the guy who slobs around in a pocket tee and jeans because he can’t be bothered to pay attention to what he wears. Fashion A-plus? No. But definitely a passing grade.”

Brigid stared at Greg for a long second, one of her patented “What planet are you from?” looks. Then finally said, “…But he’s wearing fuchsia.”

“Yes,” said Greg. “I understand that, and I’m sorry it causes you such pain. But I’m afraid you’re just going to have to live with it.”

-The Gneech

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“Do what now?” said Greg, looking back over his shoulder at her.

“You’ve been moping for days. What’s wrong?”

He blinked. “I wasn’t aware that I was moping,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I’m just fine at the moment.”

“Oh, please,” said Brigid. “You’re too damn quiet. I’ve never seen you go this long without expressing an opinion on something.”

Greg raised his eyebrows. “Um,” he said. Then he added, “Well, I just don’t have anything to say at the moment. The few opinions I’m currently nourishing are on topics that are either none of my business to talk about, or are so trivial as to not be worth mentioning.”

“Since when has that ever stopped you?” Brigid demanded. “Where’s the strangely-poetic rant about the lack of grape-filled pastries or that men’s collars are too tight? Where’s the lyrical outburst about the career of Henry Winkler or Andrew Harding? Something must be bothering you, if you aren’t babbling on about the utterly inconsequential!”

Greg scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Well, touched as I am by your concern for my welfare, I promise you, everything’s fine. I just don’t have anything to say.”

She crossed her arms. “So nothing’s bothering you.”

“Right.”

She narrowed his eyes at him. “Are you sure?”

He put his hands in the air helplessly. “Given the way you usually react to anything I say, I thought you’d appreciate the peace and quiet.”

“That’s right!” she said. “It’s about time you stopped jabbering on all the time.”

“Okay then,” said Greg. “I’ll just go back to my not-jabbering that you interrupted, shall I?”

“Yeah,” said Brigid. “You do that.”

“I will.”

“Okay.”

Greg turned back to his laptop and resumed typing. Brigid continued to look at the back of his head for a few moments, then said, “Why aren’t there any grape-filled pastries, anyway?” Greg raised his eyebrows again.

-The Gneech

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“It does,” said Greg. “And every year I think about not coming back next year, but I always do.”

“You know you would be miserable if you missed it,” said Alex. “Don’t even pretend.”

“Yo, ‘sup dudes?” called Treville, ambling over to the pair of them.

“Well, this might change that,” said Alex.

“Oh, uh, hi, Treville,” said Greg. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here!”

“First time,” said Treville. “How about those cosplay babes, are they hot or what?”

“The work they put into their outfits is certainly impressive,” said Greg.

“I don’t get cosplay,” said Alex. “I mean, spending all that time on money on something you’re going to wear one weekend and then put in the closet for the rest of your life? Crazy.”

“It’s a craft,” said Greg. “I like it. The amount of creative energy that goes into it just amazes me.”

“I like it if the right girl is doing it,” said Treville.

“Yeah, I’m not surprised by that,” said Greg.

“I just got back from the ‘Slave Leia’ contest,” Treville added.

“I’m not surprised by that, either.”

“You shoulda seen the gal who won. All I gotta say is, ‘that’s no moon, that’s a space station,’ if you get what I mean.”

Greg blinked. “Actually, no. I haven’t the slightest clue what you mean.”

-The Gneech

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