Going really slow this morning. Could be all the fucking mold in the air after the total wetness of being all weekend. But it might also be the residual affects of kicking some mighty ass in two nights of pool sharking in the taverns of town. Oh yeah. Let’s just say that Snarky Boy owns the tables at Charlie O’s and McGillicuddy’s. Well, on the weekends that is. Because the young Republicans are still kicking my ass on their Thursday night romps. Curses! But then Friday and Saturday nights come around and the young yuppies at McGillicuddy’s can do little but get their butts spanked and pay the Snarky tab. Thanks, fellas.
But then Monday morning comes. More grayness. More reality. And not enough work it seems to get me to that glorious time for painters: House-painting season. And so, here I sit, blogging from where I was told was a hot place to blog from: Capitol Grounds coffee shop in Montpelier. Hot? Not.
Frankly, this place stinks of too many people with too much time on their hands. I feel like I’m watching children play dress-up as “adults.” Because it seems like everyone’s just pretending – pretending to be busy, pretending to be happy, pretending to be late, pretending to be reading, pretending to be writing and just plain pretending to be pretending. Isn’t that what makes Vermont so great? All the pretending, that is.
Oh fuck, I’m getting that feeling again. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had it, but it’s a feeling like life is one big scripted drama and you weren’t given a part. And so you watch everyone around you play their parts, follow their cues and enter and exit as if it was all meant to be. But I’m just left watching. And wondering. And thinking that I’m just a spectator in this drama all around me.
Or maybe I’m the one pretending? You never know. Perhaps I should pose the question. I should just get up and ask the young woman across from me if she’s really writing in her high-priced journal book or just killing time because, like me, she’s under-employed and sitting at home felt too loserly and lonely. Then I should ask the man who seems to enjoy talking loudly if he’s just pretending to be demonstrative because he’s had too much caffeine to cover up the unspeakable sadness that is at his core. Or maybe not.
Perhaps it would be better if I interjected myself into the script. Yes, that’s it. I will declare my own part in this morning coffee drama. I will rise from the table and begin to discuss my business with the next person who enters the shop. I won’t know him or her but I will just start telling them rather maniacally why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling and doing what I’m doing. It will be my drama. I will have my audience. Or maybe not.
Instead, I sit witnessing the drama around me. All these people coming together to think that being alone in a crowded room is – somehow – not being alone anymore. And so we sit, getting more and more hyper in our loneliness with each sip of morning brew. Our minds wondering, but not willing to break the code of loneliness that hangs over the room like an armed guard. Eyes must not meet. Glances must not be met. And emotions other than the glad-handing of the great pretenders must be hidden. Coffee! More fucking coffee!
Come on, can’t someone out there use a painter today? This coffee shop crowd is driving me nuts.
