All this Coffee is Making me Drowsy

I've decided these coffee shops are really devised to hide you from the day. Their awnings shield you from streams of sunlight. You can see leaves rusting in the oak trees, and hear buses lugging from stop to street as you would in bed those last early morning hours of sleep. The lamps are always dim, and everyone is silent and alone. (Thank God it's not a social scene, with everybody pretending to be reading in between sneaking looks to see who else might be doing the same. But that must have been another time, of catholic school girls smoking on the back patio, shivering with fall excitement before that night's football game. Really?)

Let me get the context straight: I go on weekdays. That means the 5-11er crowd. No wonder we lack the energy of those who stop in early for an iced coffee and pastry treat before their 8 a.m., smoothing still wet strands of hair, taming wind-tussled coats; or the relief of the afternoon crew, neatly inking in that morning's crossword, chewing on their cigarettes like straws. Time is different to us. We content ourselves with caffeine, the drug that speeds up the insides of the sedentary, inducing an illusion of movement. And then we sit all day, trapped inside our heads, while outside, lights change at a busy intersection, and boys play basketball across the street.



I am drawn to Magazine Perks because of how it is juxtaposed with Ms. Mae's, a sober fox hole in which to wait out the daylight hours before ducking next door at the acceptable hour. A way of life carved out of commercial space. One little piggy went to the coffee shop, one little piggy went to the bar.

When I lived In Spain, some of my favorite bars were operating coffee shops during the day. You'd hang out, enjoy the free wireless with a cappuccino or espresso, and then as the day waned, the vibe would change. A dj would start spinning, a new crowd pack in. This conflation of day and night, the pensive and celebratory, business-as-usual and festive, could only exist in a culture of moderation, in which business-men sip small glasses of beer outside the work place at the break of siesta, and you have to specify "cafe americano" if you want more than a dose of espresso. Here, we could never combine the two. Can you imagine Ms. Mae's as coffee shop, Jim and that other guy (what's his name? the tall disgruntled one?) pouring cups of joe to a crowd of readers and quiet conversationalists? The only joe they got is in the cigarette machine. And Mae'd come by around happy hour to usher in the drinkers, bade the thinkers good evening? Turn on the game and the jukebox.

So here, the coffee shop is wedged in next door to the 24-hour bar, revealing ours as a culture of accepted extremes. Separate, but equal. With a festival nearly every weekend, we are used to bouncing back and forth between the lenton and the carnivalesque.

Though sometimes, it does feel like we're just killing time until the next party. Mardi Gras is 44 days away. (Sounds far, but it isn't.)



A view of Mae's from the day.