19 posts tagged “coffeehouse”
Longtime readers of course know that I've been trying to implement a fairly radical new lifestyle this year -- quitting smoking, bicycling daily, gaining weight, or at least these are the goals. And how is the struggle going, you might ask? Well, here's the latest numbers...
Number of days since my last cigarette: 107, or just under four months, or a third of a year
Total distance bicycled since May 1: 231.5 miles (372.5 km)
Average per day: 6.1 miles (10 km)
Number of days I haven't bicycled, barring inclement weather: 0
Weight difference since May 1: Have lost 2 pounds
So except for the weight, I'm actually at the exact place I wanted to be by this point in the summer -- still averging six miles a day on my bike, still getting a longer trip in at least once a week, and unbelievably enough still cigarette-free since way back in early March when I originally quit. Now to do something about that weight gain...
Pictured: A detail from the extremely eclectic bathroom at Pause Cafe in Edgewater (Berwyn just east of Broadway), a coffeehouse I've been spending an increasing amount of time at this summer, because of it having so many good-looking employees and customers, and because of it being a nice even two miles from my house.
Okay, so I'm about six weeks into both my new lifestyle and the start of the warm weather, and I'm starting to get some routines set for myself: up around 6 or 7 am; two hours of emails and reading RSS feeds; three to four hours of "work" work (arts center, writing, freelance stuff, teaching myself new software, etc); then three hours of bicycling, errands, cafe loitering and other outdoor activities; then another hour or two of "work" work; then two hours of dinner, "The Simpsons" and goofing off; then an evening of maybe a Netflix movie, or a BitTorrent show, or catching up on podcasts, while usually taking care of some online chores as well (like checking out new photos at Flickr, new people at my social networks, tips that readers send along, the latest artistic blogs getting notice at Technorati, ad nauseum), along with updating my blogs whenever I come across stuff I like; then more "Simpsons" and time for bed.
And that's 16 hours! Whew! So that's in answer to all those schmucks who ask, "What do you do for 16 hours a day and that you need a time-management system for, if you're unemployed? Getting Ass-Loafing Done?"
And now that I'm on my bike every day and have considerably widened the scope where I hang out (to a roughly four-mile radius from my apartment now), I've started settling on a series of cafes I like the most too -- the old standby, of course, Intelligentsia in Lakeview, or Pause in Edgewater (pictured here) when I want the same environment but to beat the Lakeview crowds, or Metropolis in Rogers Park when I want a longer ride or feel specifically like hanging around undergraduates, along with others. And why do I take my cafes so seriously to begin with? Well, for one, as a barely employed guy who is most often flat broke, my cafe outings often will be my only exterior entertainment of my entire day, as well as my only opportunity to physically interact with other humans that day, so needless to say it's important that I pick the right place. Plus, as pretentious as it sounds, there really is such a thing as an urban 'cafe culture' that's rapidly disappearing; places in a city with low overhead, which in return can afford to let artists and intellectuals loiter there, creating a space much better and creatively condusive than a park or library but that costs barely any more to patronize.
For those of us who appreciate the cafe culture, and especially the self-employed who rely on such spaces for professional and social reasons as well, it really is fucking offensive to watch a place like Starbucks try to turn the whole thing into a very consumerist, American, fast-food experience -- "Fake smile, here's your coffee, five bucks please, get the fuck out, NEXT!" -- which is why people like me always seem to be flipping their wigs over such trivialities as a new Starbucks opening up, and why I go so out of my way to find great laid-back independent ones to patronize instead. Besides, if it weren't for cafes, I'd never talk to attractive women at all -- ain't like my friends are any help. Oh, except for you; I LOVE you!
I'm having an utterly unproductive day today, which I'm feeling a little guilty about -- I didn't even get out of bed and going until almost 11am, because of a late night last night, and so far (2pm) the only thing of note I've done is bike out to California Park, to get some more photos I needed for my next bike map. And now here I am the delightful MoJoe's Cafe, at Roscoe and Western, which I actually thought about partnering with last year, when I was planning on doing live events through my arts center; I'm just killing some time until my dealer gets home (who lives not too far away), at which point I'm sure it'll be back to my apartment for yet more time-wasting.
Then again, I've been awfully productive over the last week, and actually worked straight through last weekend without a break, so I guess I can cut myself a little slack. It's the weather, man, the weather -- now that it's finally warm for good in Chicago, I find myself just wanting to be outside in it during all my daylight hours, just bicycling and having cafe mochas and flirting with girls and boys, the sun on my face and the wind hopefully to my back. I promise, once the sun goes down today, I'll sit down and actually be productive, including getting back to the several dozen emails I've been blowing off in order to go biking in the sun this week instead. I promise!
Unbelievable, I know, but today I'm celebrating 70 days (or ten weeks) since I last had a cigarette, or indeed even a puff of a cigarette. Well, FUCK ME, MAN. And why does this particular attempt at quitting seem to be taking so well, as opposed to the other nine times I've tried quitting and miserably failed? You got me -- just a combination of age, I guess, my rapidly detiorating health my last year as a smoker, and the fact that I used nicotine patches this time as well, the first three weeks of quitting. Whatever the reason, I'm grateful.
For those who are curious, by the way, the temptation to smoke hasn't gone away one bit for me; right now, for example, I'm sitting in the outdoor seating at Lakeview's Intelligentsia Coffeehouse (Broadway and Barry), and there's somebody next to me smoking a cigarette, and to this day the smell of that cigarette smoke is awfully enticing, and reminds me of just how goddamn good that first cigarette of the day used to be. And to admit the pathetic truth, the main way I'm dealing with such temptations is to run away like a little girl -- to simply walk away from smokers when their smoke gets too tempting, or better yet not be around smokers at all, which of course is ridiculously easy to do in Chicago where all indoor smoking is banned except in certain bars. In fact, now that I think about it, that's probably something else that's helped with this particular quitting attempt; the city is more hostile these days towards smokers than during any of my other quit attempts, meaning that I'm not always running into smokers on train platforms and in cafes, and of course and bicycling a lot more this year so am not running into them at bus stops either. That's part of it, to tell you the truth -- to just have cigarettes in general be out of sight, out of mind, and not have any reasons at all to spend even an extra second of my day thinking about them.
Anyway, I'm still slowly counting the days until my 100-day anniversary -- I'm still considering myself in my "dangerous" period of quitting until then, and in fact am not planning on referring to myself as an ex-smoker until my one-year anniversary. Until then, here's hoping I can continue avoiding temptation.
I really surprised myself this week, my first week of the year of daily bicycling: I ended up putting in a total of 42 miles (70 km), or an average of six miles (10 km) a day. Well, that is awfully good news; it puts me right on track for taking on the 18-mile trip I want to take on Memorial Day, from my neighborhood to Jackson Park on the southside (where the Museum of Science and Industry is), completely via the lakefront path. Given that these distances simply wouldn't happen if I hadn't quit smoking (68 days now cigarette-free and counting), and that for a long time I thought I'd never be able to quit smoking, I'm grateful for any length I can go at all.
I'm at Metropolis Coffeehouse right now, Granville and Kenmore near Loyola University and Rogers Park, finishing up my photos for my second customized bike map in Google Earth, this time of Lincoln Park North; as always when at Metropolis, I'm surrounded by sexy Loyola undergraduates, none of which I'll be taking a picture of today. Then I'll be biking back via inner Lincoln Park, right next to tony Marine Drive for two miles; then an examination of Clarendon Park at Montrose, and a check-out of a tea store near there, and then finally home. Well, for an hour -- then it's off to an art gallery in River West to meet up with my friend Patrick Welch. See you later!
And here's a shot from Intelligentsia Coffeehouse as well, where I'm posting today's entries from my Treo, while checking out all the pretty girls who hang out at Lakeview cafes on Sunday mornings. By the way, there are a lot of pretty girls who hang out at Lakeview cafes on Sunday mornings.
I'm at Emerald City, a cafe next door to the Sheridan red-line stop, in the Buena Park/Uptown neighborhood where I live, my first trip out since my unexpectedly traumatic oral surgery last Thursday. And once again, I'm sitting here staring at the "Getting Things Done" action lists I maintain in my Moleskine notebook, noting with some alarm how large they've all gotten since this oral surgery began two and a half weeks ago, difficult to get through because of the time my body needs to recover. (This photo, for example, shows three of my busiest context lists combined on one page -- things to do at home, things to do on my computer, and things to check out online.)
It's true, I think -- that no matter how busy we might actually be while unemployed or self-employed, trying to do the things that will lead to increased paid work, it usually comes off that we're doing almost nothing, besides maybe watching a bunch of weirdo movies and TV shows that have been illegally downloaded. Believe it or not, a good six hours or so of my day each day is usually devoted to the lowly duties of an underemployed freelancer; of offering free spec advice in all kinds of random situations, building up one's portfolio, maintaining one's social networks, responding to a ton of emails each day, trawling the internet each day for new opportunities, spearheading cutting-edge projects that will get you further noticed, ad fucking nauseum. That's what's so frustrating about all this oral surgery right now, is that it's preventing me from getting all this boring daily crap done, the stuff I rarely mention at my blogs but that's as important to freelancers as that time you got arrested by Boston police for a viral marketing campaign you created.
Anyway, the good news is that the worst of it is behind me; this time a week and a half from now, I'll start the hard work of my mouth's reconstruction, with hopefully most of it done by the time Memorial Day and summer roll around at the end of May. For now, though, it's yet another week of soup, pasta and yogurt; another week of Vicodin-induced foggy sociopathic distancing from humanity; another week of dejectedly watching my GTD lists fill up more and more, helpless at this point from getting any of it done. Sigh! It's gotta be done sometime, I guess; now's as good a time as any.
It's above 60 degrees again today (15 C), which means time for another bike ride, although less intense than yesterday's -- just to Intelligentsia Coffeehouse this time, on Broadway near Barry in the Lakeview neighborhood, which is only a mile and a half from my place (2.5 km) instead of the three miles of yesterday. Of course, I did take the scenic route in the park to get here today, which upped the distance from 1.5 miles to 2.6; that's part of my goal this year, in fact, to not only use my bike for most of my neighborhood traveling (which after two years I'm pretty much doing faithfully now), but also to add some distance to each trip as well, an to get in at least 3 miles (5 km) of biking each day, more like 6 to 10. As mentioned before, that's my ultimate goal, that by the end of the summer I'll be able to lay down ten miles at a stretch without getting too bent out of shape, and hopefully a couple of times even put in an occasional 30- to 50-mile day. (There are lots of interesting destinations 30 to 50 miles from my place, after all, in situations where I could ride Metra back into the city at the end of the day.) Hmm, any suggestions? Hmm!
Another shot from Metropolis Coffeehouse, Granville and Kenmore near the Loyola campus, this time showing some of the endless sexy undergraduates here, all of them without exception freaking out over their upcoming final exams. Calm down, Legolas, and get rid of the camoflauge pants! Oh, that's right, you're an undergraduate, you're legally obligated to wear camoflauge and sweats.
Spotted at Emerald City coffeehouse, Sheridan and Irving Park Road, Chicago -- a coffee device with a curiously Modernist (or Mod) logo attached to it. My 'modar,' in fact (or natural ability to spot Mod things in public) has been in overdrive recently, ever since deciding to base the first wave of my Second Life prefabricated houses off the architectural and design style. It was only 45 years or so, after all, since the height of the style's popularity; there are still lots of original examples to spot in a place like Chicago, not to mention the contemporary companies who have adopted classic Mod ideals.
