Scenes from an Italian coffeehouse

Tonight, the Boy-Creature and I are out at a coffeehouse, as we're growing tired of stealing wireless internet from the innocent neighbors. Plus, there was a near-hurricane that turned out not to be a hurricane yesterday, but it's still very windy, and we're having trouble getting a good enough signal. So we're out.

And as soon as we sat down, I started wishing I had brought something to write with. I only brought the basics: wallet, laptop, book, and lip gloss. So I am without my Moleskine, or my little notebook, or even a pen. It's dreadful. Luckily I've managed to wrest the laptop (MY laptop, I might add) from him. I really like this place. It's an Italian espresso cafe, and it's chock full of students. The Asian kids at the table directly next to us have biochemistry textbooks and little plastic containers of trail mix from Whole Foods to munch with their tea and juice and tiny cups of espresso. The blondes in UNO sweatshirts at the next table are drinking pink, frothy, iced things. The brunettes on the other side have textbooks and notebooks and papers spread all over the table, and there's a nicely-dressed young man drinking a glass of red wine and reading T.S. Eliot at the booth in the corner.

When I was still in college in Santa Fe and I had either a big block of reading or writing to do, I would go to the Starbucks on the Plaza and sit for hours, sipping chai and munching cookies or pumpkin bread or croissants. I've gotten a lot of work done in coffeehouses over the last five or six years. And here I am again, typing at a laptop and sipping some iced coffee thing with whipped cream and a caramel drizzle on top. It was pretty tasty, too