I got to sleep in this morning, but I still got up around 8:30. I had forgotten how calm it is to be able to take your time on a day normally not allotted to you to slow down, a weekday. I still did my regimen at the gym to retain a sense of structure until my dental appointment at 1:30, where I was to debate what part of
my neglected mouth I could afford this month. I can't sit still with even a handful of hours left vacant during daylight, and I wanted to enjoy as much sunlight as I could that would normally be dictated by the
glint of heat coming off parked cars at work. I went to
Rue De La Course and had my usual, sitting outside to blissfully watch eclectic traffic swim by while the day slowly heated up. On the drive uptown, I saw a
Festiva like mine on a used car lot with a price tag of $3,500. Even though that's horribly inflated (our own dealership's inflated price for one was $1,500), it made me feel a little better about driving a tin can.
For some reason, I didn't want people to see that I was reading Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. I folded the cover over whenever I put it down. He's gotten to be almost an icon, and I felt like I was just another Gen Xer grasping for his wisdom. I didn't want to appear so desperate. There was a cute guy sitting across the sidewalk patio wearing a red gingham shirt, brown slacks, and black Converse low-tops that were quite clean and new looking but already had a torn sole like a flap, showing his bare heel like a scar. He had a sleepy Labrador pup by his feet. An Asian girl came over to pet it, and he looked at the top of her head while she was stooping to scratch its belly. I don't think he knew her, but they were both likely in college, so it felt safe. He watched her walk away with a more clean cut geek, her own Labrador pup tagging slowly behind her. When he rose to leave a little later, I noticed his courier bag was turquoise, and I marveled at the colors he put together almost effortlessly. Most guys I notice are like that.
One image that will always be cool to me is a guy riding a Vespa. Those things had such bubbly, stylish dimensions, and it's cool to see people my age still enjoying them. I also like the audacious colors they used to paint Ford Escorts in the early 90's, those brassy purples and pinks. The colors they choose to paint cars reflects a lot about ourselves, or at least, what corporations have discovered about our tastes.
It was around 10am by this point, and I was shocked by the number of people my age in the café. It is easy to forget that this is a college hangout and that college kids don't often adhere to the same kinds of schedules that I do; their job is to be in college, to sit in open spaces and study everything but themselves. It seems they are always missing what I catch, the magic of watching people in motion. Perhaps my head is just a little clearer. I was like them once. We all are, at some point in our lives, students.
In the bathroom, someone got creative with a silver pen and scrolled a wall sized profile of a man smoking a joint. When I sit down, I see in front of me written: Want to play toilet tennis? Look left. I look left and on the door is written: look right. Neat joke. Also written by the profile is: This is just like my life. Upon leaving, that line echoes in my head. This is like how a life is. This is what life looks like. Outside, an employee has brought out a mop to clean someone's mocha off the sidewalk. Above me, outdoor fans that seemingly do little to circulate the air swing like long drop earrings someone forgot. Out here, all the tables and chairs lean to the street, following the slope of the sidewalk. No one really gets comfortable in patio chairs, I'm convinced. We all have to shift our feet in varying positions because we know the flimsy plastic legs could buckle at any moment. We have to work hard to be aware of things that are not natural, like wood or earth, because we know that man-made things are known to buckle. They can never fully support our weight so they should never be fully trusted.
Another guy sits at a table facing me, a long herd of empty tables between us. He has on green Doc Martens and a darker green baseball cap. Thin, black-framed glasses bring his eyes out from under blonde frosted hair, which he shows me when he takes his hat off. In response, I shake my hair out from its bun, as though we are showing something about ourselves in that moment. We both are prone to staring off, away from our books, so it's natural that our eyes would meet. His book is twice as thick as mine, but his coffee is the same size. Another, more unflattering guy to my right asks that I keep an eye on his table while he goes to buy cigarettes, and for once I actually had to tell people that a table was taken. He returns and thanks me, and I am thankful he doesn't use this exchange as an excuse to strike up a conversation with me. I have my person to watch already. I didn't look at Mr. Green Docs because I wanted a reaction, but we exchanged things back and forth. A girl walked by dressed in what I suppose were the latest fashions, high water pants with ribbons of multicolored fabric sewn to the cuffs, chunky slides and a tropical pink tank top. He looked over every girl that walked by, and to this one he looked up at me right afterward to find that I was shaking my head and smiling my judgement on her dated apparel. He got up to leave, walking almost directly toward my table, then swerved gently to the left, bringing him back to the center of the sidewalk. I'm glad he did, because I don't come here for conversation.