an hour at starbucks on thayer st.
What kind of artist doesn’t even carry a pen? I mean, what was I thinking going out into the world without something to record with?
I take my drink and say thank you. With one sip I’m warm. Not like I was cold before, after all I’d struggled out of my duster while still out on the street, but it’s a different kind of warmth. Like a flood of christmasy memories, both good and bad (but mostly the former) and slightly scented with budding romances.
I sit down by window facing Providence’s single “indie” center in the process of a corporate takeover. I decide Providence is the hub and mecca of something, but what exactly I have not yet decided. Someone once told me that at dusk this is the perfect place to write, and you know what? I don’t care that it’s not dark yet, my pen’s floating along just fine. I stole this pen off the counter after realizing my stupidity.
The guy beside me looks like Kevin Devine. Only because every Irish male in his late 20’s with a beard and mustache looks like Kevin Devine to me. Good guy, that Kevin. I don’t even need to know him to know this. Consequently, everyone who looks like him has a pleasant aura. In fact, it’s really nice sitting next to this stranger. He’s working on some spreadsheet on an ibook. A mathematician. A scientist. A future world leader? Hah. Probably not. He looks too meek to be an asshole. I wanted to borrow a spare writing utensil from him earlier but failed to muster the courage to make conversation…
I talked last night with a boy from the inner city. We spoke about why we suburban kids always end up in the hospital with our wrists split open. Tell me, what’s the curse with money? He said he thought he knew. “Having a lot makes feel like you’re entitled to it all.” And it makes so much sense, and it applies to so much more…
I think a homeless man with a bad leg just walked in… maybe he’s not homeless… maybe I’m being unfair, but he’s carrying an empty coffee cup (out the garbage maybe?) and is standing in line with it. For what? Demand free refills? … Well, I don’t think they put it in the old cup, but he got something. Good. It’s a day for a warm drink.
But I cant help feeling like he’s here just to hear the din of conversation. Just to know he’s around people. He looks lonely. Maybe retarded, maybe mentally ill. Maybe just awkward, or sick, or having a bad day. Who knows, he could have millions of dollars underneath his floor boards, but just chooses to wear torn jeans and dirty sneakers. Or maybe he saved his pennies to come here. He leaves, crosses the street to Au bon Pain… is there a homely feeling there too where he can have short verbal exchanges with people and feel like he has friends? Hah, I don’t know, is that half the reason I come here too? No, no on second thought I don’t think it is. I come here to feel together in an aloneless that I cant find comfortably anywhere else. So I paid $3.56 for this wholeness today. So what? Maybe I’ll start scraping pennies like my fellow loner.
A few scrappy teenagers walk down an alleyway across the street, probably looking for a place to smoke pot undetected. I miss that invincibly cool feeling of being fifteen. To an extent it’s still quite here. I still feel invincible, and I still feel young. I’m just not sure how linked they are, nor can I figure out why everything seems to be coated with impermanence and sadness.
I keep checking the time, but where do I have to be, really? Yeah, there’s lunch, there’s work, there are hypothetical friends to go hang out with, but where do I have to go, really?
Great, I’m getting all philosophical and redundant now. Superb. Is it me, or does this place maybe just have that effect on people? When I borrowed this pen I planned to people watch, make some pithy observations, give back what isn’t mine, and leave. I’m on my seventh bank receipt and I am not returning this pen.
I take my drink and say thank you. With one sip I’m warm. Not like I was cold before, after all I’d struggled out of my duster while still out on the street, but it’s a different kind of warmth. Like a flood of christmasy memories, both good and bad (but mostly the former) and slightly scented with budding romances.
I sit down by window facing Providence’s single “indie” center in the process of a corporate takeover. I decide Providence is the hub and mecca of something, but what exactly I have not yet decided. Someone once told me that at dusk this is the perfect place to write, and you know what? I don’t care that it’s not dark yet, my pen’s floating along just fine. I stole this pen off the counter after realizing my stupidity.
The guy beside me looks like Kevin Devine. Only because every Irish male in his late 20’s with a beard and mustache looks like Kevin Devine to me. Good guy, that Kevin. I don’t even need to know him to know this. Consequently, everyone who looks like him has a pleasant aura. In fact, it’s really nice sitting next to this stranger. He’s working on some spreadsheet on an ibook. A mathematician. A scientist. A future world leader? Hah. Probably not. He looks too meek to be an asshole. I wanted to borrow a spare writing utensil from him earlier but failed to muster the courage to make conversation…
I talked last night with a boy from the inner city. We spoke about why we suburban kids always end up in the hospital with our wrists split open. Tell me, what’s the curse with money? He said he thought he knew. “Having a lot makes feel like you’re entitled to it all.” And it makes so much sense, and it applies to so much more…
I think a homeless man with a bad leg just walked in… maybe he’s not homeless… maybe I’m being unfair, but he’s carrying an empty coffee cup (out the garbage maybe?) and is standing in line with it. For what? Demand free refills? … Well, I don’t think they put it in the old cup, but he got something. Good. It’s a day for a warm drink.
But I cant help feeling like he’s here just to hear the din of conversation. Just to know he’s around people. He looks lonely. Maybe retarded, maybe mentally ill. Maybe just awkward, or sick, or having a bad day. Who knows, he could have millions of dollars underneath his floor boards, but just chooses to wear torn jeans and dirty sneakers. Or maybe he saved his pennies to come here. He leaves, crosses the street to Au bon Pain… is there a homely feeling there too where he can have short verbal exchanges with people and feel like he has friends? Hah, I don’t know, is that half the reason I come here too? No, no on second thought I don’t think it is. I come here to feel together in an aloneless that I cant find comfortably anywhere else. So I paid $3.56 for this wholeness today. So what? Maybe I’ll start scraping pennies like my fellow loner.
A few scrappy teenagers walk down an alleyway across the street, probably looking for a place to smoke pot undetected. I miss that invincibly cool feeling of being fifteen. To an extent it’s still quite here. I still feel invincible, and I still feel young. I’m just not sure how linked they are, nor can I figure out why everything seems to be coated with impermanence and sadness.
I keep checking the time, but where do I have to be, really? Yeah, there’s lunch, there’s work, there are hypothetical friends to go hang out with, but where do I have to go, really?
Great, I’m getting all philosophical and redundant now. Superb. Is it me, or does this place maybe just have that effect on people? When I borrowed this pen I planned to people watch, make some pithy observations, give back what isn’t mine, and leave. I’m on my seventh bank receipt and I am not returning this pen.