Monday, March 06, 2017

Why I Don't Write in Coffee Shops

The other day, Mark wasn't feeling so well when I got home, so I went to a cafe to write.  It was nice enough, I guess, but it only confirmed what I think about writing in cafes:  it's really distracting and not conducive to writing or the writing mystique.  I think what I want in a cafe is more like a PG Wodehouse club, or something I imagine from Masterpiece Theatre to be a club; small tables for three or four, simply but nicely furnished with plush chairs.  Sort of like an elegant library reading room.  Only with tea and little, simple scones.

Luckily, in the real cafe I ended up at, the stereo was playing fairly bland, jazzy odes to New York, which I could tune out.  I was able to sit far enough away from the woman who was on a cell phone, using the place as if it were her own office--but that meant that I needed to share a long table with this guy who was sneezing and sniffing and snorting and talking to himself as he worked on what I thought was a sociology paper, but apparently was a music video.  There were the obligatory young women oversharing their personal lives with the crowd, but they managed to mostly speak below the ambient sound of crooners crooning New York arias.  The counter staff were very nice; the hot chocolate was OK, and the scone OK in an industrial kind of way; I really just wanted a poppyseed bagel, but they were out--next time I will have to see if they have any grapes or cheese.  

I managed to clean up some scenes and do some story maintenance in the thin hour I had before I had to go pick up The Child, who said that I smelled like coffee when he hopped into the car.  



Post cold recovery continues.  Mark decided that Saturday would be cleaning day, so he moved most of the furniture around and I mopped our floors.  And then we napped.  We didn't do a whole lot this weekend except read and nap at the house.  The big excitement was the light snowfall we got Sunday (and again this Monday), which The Child hoped would cancel school, but it melted by 10:30.  Lots of snow fell Monday morning in the hills (I guess the snow line must be about 300 feet), which made for some picturesque tree lines, but we had maybe a quarter of an inch of mostly slush.  



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