Wednesday October 7, 2009
Coffee Studio
Andersonville, a neat-o neighborhood in Chicago
Wednesday, almost noon
An exercise in observation
Me: Laptop, big latte, foam topped with heart shape (I prefer the fan-shaped leaves)
Soundtrack: One of those mixes, that range from 90s lady alternative-crooners with haunting background that sound like a twin peaks song to a new hipster quiet song of sadness and sorrow. I like it.
In front of me: My friend who I come write with. We’ve dropped our weekly meeting habit of the spring/early summer, but have recommitted to it. I like it.
A women who just tromped in here with her wheeled briefcase, is suspiciously eyeing the occupants of the surrounding tables, and sniffing her tea like it’s also suspicious. Now, she looks over to her immediate right, and takes in the tattooed, blond-streaked women to her right, who is bent over her papers and documents with intensity like a teen taking the ACT. Now she is fumbling for her cell phone (flip phone, not a razor, probably mid-range, free when she renewed her contract). Her HP laptop is open and she looks up and catches me catching her. Moving on!
I love the artwork here—I feel like I’ve wondered into a coffee shop in a Scandinavian capital---Helsinki? Oslo? Stockholm? What are the capitals of Scandinavian nations? It’s brick walls on the outside, and the space is dominated by the counter and coffee, the sitting down bar is made of plain black counter, trimmed in frosted glass, spa-colored wood and silver accents. A mirror on the back wall, 5 hanging pendant lights, 4 have working bulbs.
A man in front of me listens to his portable audio device and cross-stitches and I think, “I should take up my cross-stitching or knitting or some kind of handicraft again.” I have been influenced by the abundance of Ready Made magazines, which read to me like “YOU SHOULD BE MORE CREATIVE! YOU SHOULD MAKE CRAFTS! YOU ARE A LAXY, UNCREATIVE, NON-HIPSTER!”
Now the soundtrack has shifted..I think its Rufus Wainwright. Of course.
At least I wore my new cap…it’s jaunty and plaid. And I have on clogs…so I am approaching something that is what the judgey me wants me to be. Cool. Inspired. Constantly creating. Finding love. Balancing said love with happiness, joy, self-direction and trips to cool places and towns and travel. That cooks and is known for a certain recipe, which people beg her to bring. That heats her home with a wood-burning stove, and cools it by building windows that perfectly circulate the air in the summer.
Instead, I am here. I live in a vintage condo with mostly blank walls in my bedroom, and all the other walls are covered in my roommate’s mother’s art. I squeeze in a few of my own things, and see that the frames are cheap and from the 90s. I go on adventures in Michigan, not Minsk (the first M I could think of!), and I try to go to yoga, to class and work.
I am ready for change. And I like it.
