The Ghetto Starbucks

I am at Starbucks.

This is probably not surprising. I go to Starbucks almost daily, and sometimes even more frequently than that. I lug my oversized laptop here to think and to write, because nothing stimulates the brain like a half-decaf no-whip sugar free cinnamon dolce soy latte - a drink which, when the barista announces it at the bar, never fails to elicit a response from one of the other waiting customers.

"Whew," they whisper, almost invariably. "That's a mouthful."

What is a departure today, however, is the fact that instead of going to the Starbucks near Seattle University like I normally do, I headed the opposite direction from my apartment and ended up at a Starbucks that is much closer to my apartment, but at the same time sits precariously perched on the border between the posh newly-remodeled townhomes of the Capitol Hill neighborhood and, for lack of anything better to call it, the Ghetto.

The Starbucks near the University is always virtually silent, full of trust-fund kids who'd rather not talk to one another and law students huddled over piles of books that look really thick and really boring. But here it's bustling and noisy. Everyone is talking to everyone else. They're strangers, but they're not. I find this unsettling.

I'm sitting in one of the plush oversized chairs by the window so typical of Starbucks everywhere, my laptop in my lap, headphones in my ears. I'm enjoying the energy, but I'm not entirely sure I want to be a part of it. A large woman in a thin coat comes over and waves at me dramatically.

When I take my headphones out she motions to the chair next to me and says, "Is anyone sitting here?" I say no, and she sits down. I return my headphones to my ears and my attention to my computer. The woman next to me starts talking to a man at a nearby table.

Five minutes later she waves at me again. She asks me if I'm a student. She asks me what I study. She asks me what I'm doing sitting at Starbucks with a laptop. She tells me I'm a very nice lady.

I say thank you. I go back to my writing.

Another wave, and the lady motions to the man at the table. "He's drawing you," she says. And he is. He's got pastels and brushes and paints spread out around him, and he's going back and forth between studying me intently and scribbling furiously. I'm blushing. From time to time people are stopping to look over his shoulder. A man stops and looks at the drawing, motions to his own chin, and says something in a language I can't understand.

I love this place.

The artist asks me what my astrological sign is.

"Taurus," I say.

"Oh, you were born in April then," says the woman.

I correct her and say no, the early part of May.

"Hm," says the artist. "Do you know anything about your sign?"

"Not much," I say. And he says, "I think it's the money sign."

"Oh, is it?"

"I think so. Well I don't really know, but that's what my friend said. She said Tauruses are good with money."

I laugh because I am not good with money. Money involves numbers. Numbers are not my friends.

The woman has gotten up and gone across the street to Taco Del Mar where, after prodding me for every manner of information as to the nature of the food there, she has decided to purchase a hard taco. She's been replaced by a tall skinny man who sits holding on to the arms of the chair like it's a roller coaster car. The artist at the table just handed me a drawing of myself.

I think we miss a lot in life by putting up walls, by burying ourselves in books, by looking at everyone around us in suspicion. It's striking how much the atmosphere here, where in theory I might have reason to be frightened of the people around me, is so much more alive and friendly than it is in the "good" neighborhood a half a mile away. Right now I am the opposite of frightened. It's a good feeling.