"Good Morning. Has it been busy? Yeah, just the usual to go please"
……
……
……
"Thanks. Have a good day. I’ll see you later"
And what is the usual? A plain old skinny latte. Life doesn’t get any better when you walk into the coffee shop and the barista knows exactly what you want without you having to describe it. Life is even better when you develop the relationship where you don’t have to worry about paying directly. I just drop my off money on the bench, pick up the change from a little bowl besides the till and stamp my coffee card…………twice.
I have become something of a regular down at the coffee shop, in the mornings; before lunch; during lunch; in the afternoon before five o’clock. It is where the cool and powerful people go to get coffee and something to eat. Me, I just like to be seen and I like the couches they have there, situated just below the plasma hanging off the wall. I go to get away from the hectic pace of work, to somewhere relaxing and a million miles away from worries of deadlines and emails, all of which ironically, is only situated just next door. It is a relaxing place where the smell of freshly ground coffee brews with the fragrance of the toasted bread drizzled with the smell of olive oil, all the hallmarks of a good coffee shop, just like the one in Friends or in Seinfield or in Felicity or in Sex and the City or in all those New York based sitcoms. I think this is a symptom of affluenza where my penchant for hanging out in urban cool spots stems from my need to live in a highly urbanized and populated neighbourhood i.e. Manhattan/Paris.
Life has been well in the past fortnight. Besides my gripes with the public transport system and my need to shoot all the bureaucrats who run the system and the union officials that control it, exacerbating my desire to live in a metropolis, as at today, I am reliving my past where the mounting debts is quickly shadowing any liquid funds I have. What am I saying? My debts are greater than my funds. Alas, I am broke, again. Why? Because I bought a new car. When I say I, it is me and my siblings. And when I say new, I mean undriven ex-demo. And when I say bought, I mean leant my money towards the new car. I plan to pay my contribution off, but in slow installments as to minimise the effect on my cashflow. So from now on, it is goodbye second cup of coffee, goodbye to take out lunches, goodbye to good old English bloke magazines and a big and sad goodbye to dining out.
And about that last goodbye, I haven’t exactly stuck to it. The other night, it was my misfortune to end up at a dinner table that was too small and too long forcing me to converse with people directly around me which coincidently, I ended up stuck between people I didn’t like and people I didn’t know. I’m having confusion as to which group I dislike the most and I’m leaning towards the group of people that I do know. Anyway, it was someone’s birthday *whom was mentioned early on in the existence of this blog* and I must confess, I only went because of the free feed as she was paying for it, which later on in the night, I discovered she had coupons for! Oh my god, how embarrassing. Anyway, I think I was the only one that knew this because I noticed that everyone around me was only ordering one dish and when it came to my turn, I chose something from each section of the menu. At least I got my monies worth. I mean, I did buy her a present…albeit from that $10 CD store on Pitt. But she deserves it. So a big happy birthday to her. I guess I should look on the bright side. I was able to catch up with some old friends from high school *BTW, everyone I knew there was from high school and I haven’t seen most of them in close to a year*, brought together by the dislike of the birthday girl and everyone else there. So it was a good night. But what made it an even better night was when dinner finished and at nine thirty I asked:
"What is everyone doing now? How about drinks? Newtown Hotel?" while standing outside the typical uni-student oriented/cheap restaurant
‘No thanks, another time’
"Why not? We haven’t seen each since last year and it’s only nine thirty!" while flashing my Cartier to ensure they knew the time
‘Yeah, it’s getting too late. We should be going home’
This left me dumbstruck and in awe that a group of adults could contemplate nine thirty as late, all on a twenty-first birthday, not even time for a celebratory drink. This just reminded me why I don’t talk to these people. If spending six years (over ten in some cases) growing up together doesn’t justify spending an extra half an hour to catch up on each others lives, then I don’t want to know. I know that not everyone likes a Stella in the middle of the night, but not even my suggestions of the cosy Gloria Jeans could persuade them to stay. I’m tired of trying to catch up with them. I spent more time making new friends that night than with old friends. I see why they don’t like me. So some old friends *these are the people I like* and I stayed a few good hours down in some seedy bar on King where we talked, caught up and generally bitched/dissed/gossiped/bad mouthed the people we didn’t like, which were reconfirmed that night.
So now I leave you, with a kind of bitter feeling instead of me. It is hard to describe. I guess it is a cross between that feeling of loss and that feeling of hope. Hope that I will be able to catch up with some old friends I like and that the public transport system will improve and people will leave their newspapers on the seats for me to find and read, where I discovered a photo of George Gregan on the back of the Telegraph, which did a lot to lift my hopes and spirits. Why? Because he was on the way to board a plane carrying no less, a Louis Vuitton, the epitome of travel and style. That will be me one day.
That is me.
posted by tykang @ 7/30/2004 08:22:00 AM
1 Comments:
No reads my blog
Post a Comment
<< Home