page 24

Oddly enough, the café is busy.  God, people in this city are such losers.  Black clad, rain protected Vancouverites sipping Americanos, soy steamers, vanilla lattes, and munching on gingerbread biscotti and healthy muffins.  I order from what looks like a fetus wearing M.A.C Viva Glam lipstick and a push up bra.  She rolls her eyes at my boring choice of Sumatra (I think it sounds sexy) with room for plenty of cream, and an Urban Apple/Spice muffin.  The duo costs a whopping eight dollars and seven cents.  I ponder whether it’s the muffin or the coffee that is forcing me into bankruptcy and why, for this price, they don’t let you post a picture of yourself on the door stating to the public that you are so cool and rich that you get your coffee from this particular cafe.

Window bar seat.

I pull out my little notebook (a social crutch I keep with me to look intelligent in public) and I start to jot down some poetry that’s been tumbling around in the rotary of my brain for the last few days.

 

How Hatha is your Yoga?  How tantric is your sex? 

Reach your arms around my shoulders, put your hands around my neck

How trendy is your downtown?  How amazing is your chest?

Untie my shoes, unzip my lungs put my breathing to the test.

Think about your free time, think about your past

Hire me at you business and make the time go fast

Do you read the paper?  Do you watch the news?

applaud the Black you saw today, ‘cause he gives you the blues.

You were in my movie, you were…

“Mind if I sit here?”

“In…my…show,” awkward pause.  I just spoke out loud a line of shitty poetry to a total stranger as I was writing it down and I can tell he’s thinking of a way to brush the comment off and sit down before his coffee is cold.

“Uhm, yeah, I prefer the term ‘turf’, or ‘hood’ even but ‘show’?  Never heard that one before.  Works just as good I guess.  I’ll have to write that one down.  No, it’s just there aren’t any seats left and your jacket…” he’s motioning towards my coat on the empty seat beside me and I realize that I can’t multitask.  Thinking and talking simultaneously is far too difficult.  His attempt at being funny was still pretty miserable though, even for a grown-up.

page 23

Hey there, you’ve reached Katharine Henry’s residence.  To your dismay I’m out or unable to come to the phone.  Leave your name and number and I’ll call you back whenever possible.  Thanks.

Beeek

Oddly enough there isn’t a message and instead, the awkward shuffle and caluk of a phone hitting its receiver.  I curse myself for rolling over to check my messages this early on a weekend.  I guess it’s good that I did though because it’s got me moving a bit.  Saturday mornings always induce a little panic in me—my stomach sloshes and tumbles around, apprehensive with the thought that the weekend is already slipping away as I lie in bed.  The dim aluminum-grey light filters in through the rolled up foot of white Venetian blind over my apartment’s large window.  The rain of last night has stopped, perhaps only a few minutes ago—it’s resting.  The roads outside echo with the sounds of gulls and other city birds, bleating at each other over crumby wrappers and bits of soggy toast from the dumpsters.  They’re not complaining though.  Aside from the hustled squawks and caws, the streets are pretty silent, and 7:00 flashes a wounded red on my alarm radio.  Having not set it and already feeling ineptly awake, I swing my legs over the edge of my bed.  They bend at the contact with the hardwood floor, phone cord lying stupidly across my lap.  Everything hurts.  I consider a jog but my small intestine squelches the idea and instead I opt for a shower and then coffee at Horoscope.

There’s ringing in my ears.

In the shower.  Warm water from the rusted showerhead drizzles over the knots of my spine.  The lull of the water hitting the porcelain in the tub tempts me to sleep, it tells me that I should just return to my bed and let the headache figure itself out amongst the mess of pillows and woven blankets.  I resist with thoughts of caffeinated goodness.

The walk to Horoscope is mildly refreshing: irriguous air clinging to the brick facades of the buildings on South Granville and to my skin, fogging up my glasses.  When I get there though, Horoscope’s unassuming windows are dark and I panic thinking that they’re closed and that my excursion is in vain.  I actually wrenched myself from the cool bliss of my bed, from the indecision and procrastination of a Saturday AM at home for this?  How dare…

…the fog on their inner windows suggests coffee is being brewed.

Open.