Speaking of..
You enter to an affirmative sign and the bell rings. The woman with an employed smile asks how she may help you and she does. You could be anyone. The grad student eyes with a Macbook and ambitions, the manicured nails who prefers Pumpkin Spice, or the one who calculates that the cheapest drink is eight times the price of a full-day's meals back home. It is eerie outside and the bustle is distracting from all that self-indulgence.
The smell sometimes with a blend of vanilla, is that of schedule and nights in overdrive, the friends on the verge of jittery overdoses and rehearsed conversations for awkward silences. The sounds are that of subdued jazz, paper and typing, a whoosh of the cappuccino machine and an occasional accident with the cutlery. Things add to the aesthetic, like plants and bird-feeders, some old books by a Buddha in the corner and a photograph of the place from 1971. But it's always the people.
You see a woman sitting by the window with a temporary white moustache and a side of crumbs from apple pie. Her pug lays by her ankle as she's watching the world pass by - a kid clutching on to her toy and a couple sharing melting ice cream, some tourists, and a group of old ladies carrying souvenirs from the pottery store. She's writing on blank paper with no backspace or need for Wifi. It doesn't look like that routine book-in-progress either, rather a letter to her sibling reminiscing days of rotting teeth under her pillow for a tooth-fairy.
Then the old couple in perfect silence and triangular symmetry, the-hat reading a newspaper and too-much-lipstick eating a salad, implicitly complementary. They seem to be ones who fell in love young, spent Sundays bickering about the color of the sofas and could finish each other's thoughts without forewarning.
It is afterall about too much attention in too little space for barely any time, with coffee as an excuse. I guess self-indulgence comes in many sizes and without laundry instructions. All you can do is enjoy that hug in a mug while it lasts.
The smell sometimes with a blend of vanilla, is that of schedule and nights in overdrive, the friends on the verge of jittery overdoses and rehearsed conversations for awkward silences. The sounds are that of subdued jazz, paper and typing, a whoosh of the cappuccino machine and an occasional accident with the cutlery. Things add to the aesthetic, like plants and bird-feeders, some old books by a Buddha in the corner and a photograph of the place from 1971. But it's always the people.
You see a woman sitting by the window with a temporary white moustache and a side of crumbs from apple pie. Her pug lays by her ankle as she's watching the world pass by - a kid clutching on to her toy and a couple sharing melting ice cream, some tourists, and a group of old ladies carrying souvenirs from the pottery store. She's writing on blank paper with no backspace or need for Wifi. It doesn't look like that routine book-in-progress either, rather a letter to her sibling reminiscing days of rotting teeth under her pillow for a tooth-fairy.
Then the old couple in perfect silence and triangular symmetry, the-hat reading a newspaper and too-much-lipstick eating a salad, implicitly complementary. They seem to be ones who fell in love young, spent Sundays bickering about the color of the sofas and could finish each other's thoughts without forewarning.
It is afterall about too much attention in too little space for barely any time, with coffee as an excuse. I guess self-indulgence comes in many sizes and without laundry instructions. All you can do is enjoy that hug in a mug while it lasts.
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