waiting

the sun here is relentless

/ København

Nomad Cafe, Holmbladsgade

The sun here is relentless, and with my body disbelieving we are not still in Brooklyn, I barely slept in the five or so hours of paltry night.

Left the sour sheets and my first-night digs at 7 this morning, so ready to get to a better way of being, and trudged forty minutes to upscale Amagerbro, where I will wait out the hours until I may collect flat keys from an Inga who will trust me to care for her cats and sleep in her bed while she enjoys Paris for some days and nights.

A small cafe that is making the most of the light and was empty of people and manifest evidence of food service had that look like You’d better come in here, and a proprietor — bearded sweetly — appeared and welcomed me in English and said back that my mondo pack will be fine at my feet, that if the place fills up we’ll put it elsewhere.

Now I am having a latte that is the best and realest thing to pass my lips in two whole days, maybe longer. The sandwich board-advertised croissants and pains au chocolats have appeared in the pastry case, two of each, hot from his oven and exhaling fresh pastry smell, and now a lady with a baby has come in and bought and borne away one pain au chocolat like she knows something, and so I will ask for the other, quick quick, because I want to know something, too.

this episode was written...

into her journal
from Denmark
on cafe + coffee + food + movement + sleep + sun + waiting

the sun here is relentless Read More »

I’d arrived at the uncool hour

/ Berlin

~ i wrote ~

Outside Berghain — I’d arrived at the uncool hour of half-past midnight, as instructed by savvy locals — I joined the growing queue and tried to be cool about getting in, as instructed by same, until someone let me know that I was in the line for men, and I was escorted right through a side door designated for the lady-identified and waited no minutes at all be body-searched by a very tall non-binary German who did not think I was cute or interesting.

this episode was written...

into an email
with Birdie
from Germany
on body + club + gender + safety + searching + waiting

I’d arrived at the uncool hour Read More »

my endless summer is almost over

/ Chora

08h15 EEST

Beach Bar Finikas

The first amazement of today is how sleepy this resort town is. I was up at seven and, by half-past, out and ready to be writing with a cup of coffee as one does in any functioning municipality, but this is the first establishment where I found so much as a sign of life, and still I was 20 minutes too early to be served. They told me I could sit and wait, though, so I am. 

The swathe of sand that underlies most of the table seating at this beachfront restaurant is raked carefully, with very few footprints in it, which means it is part of someone’s job to take up all the furniture, rake the beach, and put all the furniture back while stepping anywhere almost not at all. Who is that person, and what are they thinking about while they do it, and how does my or anyone’s patronage fit into their socioeconomy and consciousness? Who came up with the best practice for the fewest footsteps, and who enforces it, and who has anxious work dreams about it? These are droll observations for people who work in restaurants. 

This seat is directly beneath the gap between the end of their structural overhang and the roller of their awning, and I am chilled by the condensation dripping onto my shoulders. My endless summer is almost over. Maybe I won’t after all wade out while I wait into the Aegean, which is so still I don’t recognize it. Even the waves sleep late here, I guess. 

Now my coffee has arrived and is, as expected, a proper cup of sludge. I asked for it Greek with milk — διπλό ςελληνικό ςκαφές, με γάλα— and then when the waiter brought it there was visibly none in it and so I was like Hey can I have some milk and he was like There already is milk in there. But I will bring you a little more and brought me four additional creamers that I poured in, one by one, watching them be swallowed up by darkness.

this episode was written...

into her journal
from Greece
on coffee + culture + labor + language + restaurant + sea + sleep + waiting + water

my endless summer is almost over Read More »

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