P-Bread

Just chillin' at a Panera, happened to have my laptop with me, figured this was as good a time as any to post some musings. Anytime I come across free wi-fi, I'm somewhat intrigued, as we don't have wireless at home, so I have to use my mom's iMac. Beautiful as it is, it's weird to not have my usual arsenal of bookmarks and the like to browse upon. Me and the internet have a strange relationship. Billions, possibly trillions of pages of information to peruse, yet I'm seemingly locked into reading the BBC, the Minnesota Twins, facebook, and CNN, in addition to my e-mail. Other than that, it's like I don't know what to do. Thank God now I can expand into Fire Joe Morgan and Office Tally.

Panera is such an interesting place to people watch. People watching, unfortunately, is a lost art in the United States. Maybe it's because we're all so damn busy, we don't have time to just sit around and observe. That's really too bad. We should learn from our French brethren and just chill the fuck out a bit. But then again, all French people are horrible, we would never want to imitate them at anything.

It would be intense to own a sidewalk café to try and encourage this behavior. Someplace in the Parisian style, where you can sit down, order a coffee or a pastry, and be entitled to that table for however long you wish. That's the thing about a true sidewalk café, you're not so much buying an espresso as you are leasing a bit of real estate. And it couldn't be one of those shitty ones, like many of the ones I saw in Brasil. It would have to be nice, with metal tables and chairs, and a wide sidewalk to spread out on. On a busy street, so there would be much to observe. Maybe that will be my retirement project. My retirement projects now include owning a jazz club, owning an English pub, becoming a rock god, and owning a sidewalk café, so I guess my work is cut out for me.

That's beside the point. The point is, the people you see here. Over there is a gaggle of old retirees, clucking loudly over coffee and some form of soup. Hair done up just so, pearls weighing down their necks, taking those little sips of decaf. Then there's the people who are probably just retired, who are surely in some sort of state of denial, fighting the power that nature inevitably has over their previous good looks. They attempt to be stylish, but they're only stylish in that AARP sort of way. Of course, right in front of me is the dude on his laptop, looking exceedingly stressed out. Sort of a prerequisite for owning a laptop that operates on Windows. You have to be burdened down by the weight of capitalism, of business. Outside to my right, there is what I would consider to be a pretty attractive young woman, sitting alone, eating a sandwich on whole wheat. It has to be on whole wheat, it always is. It seems so odd, why would someone so attractive be eating alone? At Panera? Shit, if I was eating alone, I'd probably run into McDonald's or something, complete the pathetic story. (Sidenote, I actually did this last night at work. I immediately regretted it)

A group of what I thought was a Catholic women's group was sitting across from me, and I was pretty sure they left about 20 minutes ago. However, in reality, they migrated to the door area, where they found a friend and have been talking to her, standing up, since whenever they thought they were leaving. And they're being real frekking loud. It's always the laugh, the loud laugh, that gets me. A cackle, as it were.

Anyways, I should probably go. I bought go irresponsibly purchase an R.E.M. album at the half price bookstore. Or maybe a Bud Powell CD, if it's still there. More accurately, I should save said funds for the new Sigur Rós album coming out next week. I recently got an iTunes gift card from my dad, which I used to download the Hvarf/Heim CD. I wish I would have gotten something else, because their music is so stunning, it's really only appropriate to own it in physical form. So anyways, I'd highly recommend it. I especially like the track "I Gaer." Can't wait to get the new one that comes out next week.

From Panera, signing off.