One of my favorite things to do is go and work on stuff in public places and people watch. In this instance, the still poorly laid out Starbucks in my hometown of Lake Placid, NY, and reading TJB’s novella, Rehabilitation.
Half way through the work I’ve found that it’s finally picking up, and I simply have to finish it.
It’s normal for me to take a tour of the town when I come home. I stop at Zoe Noble and see Bridget who gives me plans to meet up after our dinners with respective families; I’m going to the Grants, she’s going to the Thomas’s. I walk into the Christmas Store where I see Kristin who says Scott is out to lunch with Kayte, we vow to meet up later on in the night where everyone who is doing anything will be at one of the two or three places at the end of Main Street. Swinging back around toward Starbucks, I see Dan on his way to Steak and Seafood where he’s a waiter. He tells me he’s going to have people over tonight at his new apartment above Imagination Station that’s owned by Trolley’s parents. I walk over to the News Stand that has been my sole source for comic books in this town for as long as I can remember. I feel like I’ve been the only consistent customer for that place in terms of comic books. I can’t see why they continue to get them, but they do and for a while there they were always a month behind in the solicits, but not so much this time. They have last week’s release of Sensational Spider-Man, Cable & Deadpool and Thunderbolts. Though the rest are about a month old as well. I consider buying up everything on the stand to justify the reason they continue to order them since I no longer live here.
It’s raining in Lake Placid and the bullshit saying that is common in this town in regards to the weather is, “If you don’t like the weather—wait five minutes.” Today, the token phrase for July 4th happens to be “It wouldn’t be the Fourth of July in Lake Placid if there wasn’t the threat of rain.” This time, it appears that the threat is reality. I can’t remember a Independence Day around here that there wasn’t the threat of rain. Though, this is the first time since moving to New York that I’ve spent this holiday at home.
The Barista working the counter at Starbucks calls out drinks she’s finished and yells to me: “I hope you’re not trying to get school work done, this place can be a little noisy.”
“Nah, I can’t stand working in silence,” I reply.
Then the conversation leans toward the requisite comment of it not being the holiday unless it was raining, that I’ve had with everyone I’ve stopped to visit today.
There is a CD with some interesting selections sitting on the coffee bar across from me. The CD is called Sounds Eclectic and features covers of songs by some interesting people: Damien Rice does “Creep”; Paul Weller on “Wishing on a Star”; “Harvest,” by Rufus Wainwright and Chris Stills; The Flaming Lips covers Radiohead’s “Knives Out”; and M. Ward does “Lets Dance,” which I know will tickle Warren’s balls. I consider ganking it but I don’t think it’ll be worth it, considering I’ll probably be very disappointed with most of the songs.
