Into the world: People watching
People watching is the best thing you could possibly do. For this reason, I love to spend some mornings at the Coffee Emporium on Central Parkway in Over-the-Rhine. The veritable hodgepodge of extravagant personalities that presents itself there at any given time will floor you. It’s the worst possible place to get any work done unless you can find a seat facing the wall and you wear over-ear headphones. But, by god, you’ll get a peek at the true characters of the world.
On a given morning you’ll see button-down dorks from Kroger, hippies with dreadlocks, hipsters with MacBooks, young lovers, and handsome gentlemen like myself. If you go early enough, you’ll see all the young artists from the School for Creative and Performing Arts getting their caffeine fix before first bell. While you’re waiting for your veggie quiche (I get it cold) you might see an elderly couple sharing a spot of tea juxtaposed with a couple necking dramatically on the leather chairs.
You’ll also see the local who’s-who from city politics. Sittenfeld, Seelbach, David Mann himself. Rubbing shoulders with their constituents, telling me my Instagram sucks. You’ll see cops and detectives, druggies and ministers, girls trying too hard and guys trying even harder. It’s a cornucopia of humanity.
This has to be the draw for people to places like New York City. You just have every single type of person that exists: nationality, orientation, height, weight, style, age, political affiliation, religious zealotry. Every stripe. You get a tiny taste of that when you sit in Coffee Emporium for a few minutes. Despite the fact that everyone in the room probably has a favorite chili, judges people by their highschool, and says “pop” instead of “soda”, they really are a human cross section.
Being immersed in people is a mixed bag, emotionally
I love this and it overwhelms me. It makes me sad in some ways when I think about how “different” I feel I am (or could be) and how boring I probably appear and act. Right now I have jeans, dress shoes, and a sweater over a button down on. I’m not exactly turning heads with people saying “wow I bet he’s interesting as hell.” The only fascinating thing about me right now is my willingness to leave the house with my beard as ratty as it is.
I dunno.
It’s good for me, for all of us, to see everyone else like this. To put a face with the ideologies and sympathies that we read or hear about or interact with only digitally. To see that everyone still digs in their pocket for loose change or gets scone crumbs on their cheeks. We’re all part of this fabric, this condition, this situation. Why we’re not all on the same side in a fight against time that none of us will win, I’ll never understand.
This makes me want a coffee.
