vignetted

Conversations of frustration over coffee, a glimpse of what feels like a third world country black market down the street, best-laid plans go so awry, ran into a friend of mine from high school and his wife, haven't seen them in ten years... they've got two kids and lots of tattoos and he's so deadly serious in ways that I saw glimpses of when he was a typical teenager with lots of extra cash for fast cars and a CD collection, helped paint a front porch around the corner, went to the bibliotheque to get books for the paper I'm writing and bring pickles for Randal and came out to find the little back window broken and all the contents of my glove compartment in the front seat.

Awesome.

So I call the campus police and just stand there with the art books scattered where I dropped them and the weather is beautiful, the cop really nice and wonders why I'm so chill but the reality hasn't completely kicked in and it's really not that bad (the car is still there, mostly intact, nothing's missing as the thief isn't interested in books of Byzantine folklore or Alice in Chains CDs).

So I head back from errand-running with all intentions of catching the Cloud Nothings at Ingenuity Fest under the fantastically beautiful bridge, but it's not safe to walk the almost-hood alone and there's no parking to be found anywhere, as the spaces close by are reserved for More Important People, and the one space I did find I relinquished to the gigantic pimptastic white Buick that I cut off, only to have an angry figure in a shiny dress and long nails come storming up to my car and I'm not going to get into a fight over a parking space on a dark street so I acquiesce.

After circling around the block a few more times, getting cut off by countless Lexuses and minivans that either don't care or never drive downtown, I'm fed up with everyone, tell my friends waiting for me this, and while one of my very good guy friends offers to come and pick me up when he gets off work I don't want to put him through the hassle and I'm just too tired to be around all the stimulation, everything's starting to hit.

Too many people, too much noise. So I'm at a coffeeshop down the street on the gold coast reading about Russian art movements, drinking tea, the barista's playing 90s hits and I forgot about all those one-hit wonders that weren't very good, but the general peace here is comforting even in the ennui.