wireless

This post finds me at a coffee shop on Chicago Avenue in a non-descript part of town (i.e west of Western). There's something about coffee shop culture that is both interesting and monotonous at the same time. The Tuesday afternoon coffee shop crowd is comprised of the unemployed, the non traditionally employed, students, retirees and recent mothers with their babies. This assortment of humanity can make for some interesting observations.

I'm not one for eavesdropping but, for the sake of this blog entry, I'll admit that I have opened my ears and allowed the limited content of other people's lives to massage my eardrums. OK fine, I am one for eavesdropping.

When I first arrived, the visual landscape was cluttered by a table of older ladies, about 8 of them. They sat at the largest table in the place and their coughing seemed to bounce about like a piss poor drum section. I immediately wondered whether they were all sharing the same cold and questioned whether I should be in such close proximity to them. They all traveled to the counter together and ordered a slew of sandwiches, drinks and chips. The pleasant waitress maintained a sweet attitude and tried to keep the ladies in line. At first I felt nostalgic for the company of older women, my abuelita, my great aunts, my grandma. But, before long, I remembered that huge groups of women, whether young or old, are not my cup of tea. I prefer my ladies one-on-one.

I settled into a booth and decided to zone out with my iPod for a while. There was a guy to my right multitasking between IM and a business project and a girl to my left doing the same. The three of us in a row represented the office contingent of this establishment. Before long, about four of the older ladies came up to where we were sitting and started observing us in the way that a child would observe a tank of fish. They asked what we were doing and we all responded that we were working. They were impressed, not by the fact that we are responsible employees, but by the fact that with computers you can now work virtually from anywhere.

The women finally grew tired of spending time at the coffee shop and went on their way. The girl to the left also left and was replaced by a couple, probably in their very early twenties. The girl in this couple is in a photo I took at an after hours club in the city about a year ago. The weird thing is that I haven't seen this girl since then but I did look at the photo yesterday. Sometimes you just have to wonder about these coincidences. They seemed to be at the beginning of a relationship, probably just spent the entire day in bed, and the glue in their bond seemed to be sex more than anything else. They discussed their messed up families, school, their schedules, other people. They had a heated discussion about the people they know in the escort and porn business. Ah, young love!

While the couple discussed their short lives, the coffee shop employees and loyal patrons sat at the bar and discussed the old ladies. The patient waitress who had served them recounted the hectic moment when they all came to the counter together to order slight variations of the same sandwich. The conversation soon shifted to Halloween. I had to chuckle when one of the guys mentioned that there were at least four cops at the party he went to last year. I was a cop last year, after all. In my defense, it was a costume that Leah had worn the year before and therefore required no expense or thought whatsoever. The way I see it, Halloween is over in a blink which is considerably shortened by the fact that you are drinking during that blink. So, I try to make the costume part of the charade as painless as possible.

It's now after 5 pm and the crowd is gradually switching over to those people who have been at work all day. The energy level and collective chatter is escalating. There's clearly something about going to the office and then being released at the end of the day that gives people a rush, the adult equivalent to recess.

It's 5:30 pm and I'm logging off. Song heard overhead, Prince's "Money Don't Matter."