I’m sitting in one of those cafes. You know, the kind that formerly housed a family grocery or hardware store, where the window front is covered in concert posters, Blik decals, and magazine cut-outs of community bestowed accolades. The now Mojito Green and Palm Springs Peach painted brick walls are thick with layers of paint with trendy names of time’s past. The tin ceiling tells us that this building has been around a lot longer than any of us have.
I’m in the Mission District, San Francisco. I’m in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. I’m in Hawthorne, Portland. I’m in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
I’m anywhere.
But I’m actually sitting in Austin, TX and watching a beautiful, lanky young woman in glasses that resemble that of my great aunt Stella’s, talk very purposely to her similarly clad friend, with a cigarette in one hand, and a Lone Star beer in the other. She was the gawky twig with the overbite that kids had no option but to make fun of in 8th grade.
She gets up from her seat. The manner in which (more…)