Spice of life

10/26/20 Ya know, these are dark days. I haven’t really done shit since march, save a trip or three to the rockaways. I walk or bike around the neighborhood sparingly and eat my feelings. The latter outweighs the former, more often than not. I wear the mask, but struggle with extended periods, though I remain vigilant, I feel with my pulmonary history of asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, and pleurisy that I am firmly at risk, so I stay home rather than spend much time maskless out and about. Let’s be honest, all huffing and puffing and love of walking, I am afraid. I am afraid of the virus. I am afraid of the psychosocial effects of the virus. I am afraid of the dumb and the feckless. I am afraid of the chodes and the maskless. I am afraid of teeing off on some ignorant maskhole. The way I see it, my industry doesn’t come back anytime soon because selfish ignoramuses feel that it is more important to be able to go to fucking walmart without as mask than it is to consider their fellow citizen. All lives matter, right. Spare me. This type of behavior is tiresome, and policing it is often left to a teen or twenty something making minimum wage. Folks that staff our favorite local haunts commuting and putting themselves out there to bring us our luxury goods and essential items, keeping my money from the maws of amazon and other needless online purveyors of needless consumption. I am a brick and mortar creature to a fault. And frankly, my neighborhood has it all. Because of the pandemic, and a former half assed excuse for employment, I have been home 11 of the last 12 months. It has been 23 years since that last time I have been locked into the 11222 as such. So getting out of the house regularly, and enjoying even the most minute and distanced social interaction is very important. With remote learning, sobriety, and however many years of telecommuting, the coffee shop is my haven, my safe harbor. The place I can go be miserable and alone and not be so miserable and alone. Now with the closed restrictions on any indoor idling, my wonderful local coffee joint, tar pit, is a nonstarter. Pity , because I love eating day old baked goods off of chipped plates and savoring a lovely Americano out of a thrift store mug in the window , talking of fatherhood and music and sobriety with my old friend jack martin or talking movies and music with one of the kids that works there, and marveling at the musical tastes of another employees ‘best of flying nun’ mix on whatifi. But we cannot currently do this, so hunched over my phone sitting in a board by the curb whilst some local character screams for tampon money to keep their you know what running out of their you know where. Neither relaxing, nor awesome. Luckily, we have a plethora of options to caffeinate in the hood, and the nearest bestest option for me is Variety, a little oasis on mcgolrick park. They have constructed a lovely outdoor seating area on Russell street, which is enjoying the relative perks of the current closed streets program. Pre pandemic, I am not a super regular sitting inside here, as you have to fight the the laptop crowd who assume that any wifi connection and two top is their home office for the day. Once could argue that the price of 2020 pour overs times 20 days per month, and it might be that the premium cable that they likely eschew due to the price is pennies on the dollar, but hey, fuck the man.. All that aside, I have been bringing my caffeinating custom here almost exclusively, of late. This corner is people watching central- dog walkers, families, yoga Nazis, cyclists, walks of shame, decoupling couples-, which makes the short jaunt from home worth braving the elements, provided you time it right. Given that I am an old fart that keeps fogey hours, this usually plays to my advantage. There’s nothing worse than being in the midst of a flock of sheeple unable to get their coffee order together at volume. The place seems to be playing a pandemic blinder in observing covid protocol and maintaining some semblance of their business model. I am sure that they are taking a hit financially, but there are almost always 3 people behind the counter keeping the traffic flowing and the atmosphere stress free. Of course there are the occasional exception of air kissing eurotrash straw slurping their respective macchiatos over the milk tray with their mask around their chin for . It is at these times that I wanna scream ‘you fucking idiots are not drinking bespoke cocktails at the dog and vomit lounge. Mask up and get the fuck out before you are wearing plate glass with that eau de gobshite’. But ya know, I don’t wanna lose a fight to some hair cut in boat shoes, nor do I wanna waste my Americano on their pret a porter. I sigh and bear it to the dulcet tones of leslie feist and Emily haines whispering through “anthems for a 17 year old girl’. I don’t want to cause a kerfuffle and instead lose myself in the music . as I am leaving , I overhear one of the kids behind the counter saying(in reference to the airkissing covidiots) “I better not die because of people like that”. I feel for them . they didn’t escalalte a situation that was likely going to solve itself more safely by allowing the tone deaf to leave without conflict. I leave knowing that I have found my spot. The kind of place you can enter in any mood- good , bad, or ugly- and exit a lighter person. The simple and supercial social interaction of ordering a coffee and being able to say thank you to someone in person and actually mean it. Hearing snippets of glorious music somewhere other than your own apartment , and exiting to sip a delicious brew in the cool autumnal air, knowing that life exists beyond your four walls.