Coffee Bean. Americana. Glendale, CA. Late June, Early Evening, a Wednesday.
I'm in a chair against the window with my computer on the table. There's a lot of action in the store, a continual flux of new folks. I can't keep my attention on my screen for more than a few minutes before looking to see what's new - mostly just keep looking at the same people, though. Directly in front of me is a group of Chinese women rendezvousing for some ice coffee. One of them has a six year old boy who is thrilled to be a part of the group. The other's don't seem to care one way or the other that he's there. He's a demanding little guy, holding his Iphone like a rotten Banana - dangling it between the index and the thumb. A fifty year old Armenian lady sits in a chair a few feet away with white apple headphones inserted upside down. She's watching a graduation of some sort - locked off shot from the back of a room with folks in robes on stage. Every time I look up I catch her eyes and at least one of the Chinese iced coffee-ers. If I'm lucky they're not looking, but it's too busy in there; they're doing what I'm doing. What you do is you end up looking around until you lock eyes with someone, which forces self-consciousness back into you. reminding you to get back to the damn work.
About fifteen minutes in to my session, I get this sense that more people are looking at me than normal. I wonder if it's more women than men, and this becomes the unofficial game - are women looking at me? An Asian lookin' Armenian lookin' lady holds the hand of her five year old (male) at the pickup counter. Hundred percent looks at me, then back to her kid, then back to me, then to the counter, then to me, then to her kid, then back to me. Is she into me? Is something on my face? Would I be interested in her even though she has a child? Stop. A teenager enters, walks by me, no look. Thank God. A twenty year old enters, does she glance at me? Maybe. Stop. A guy across the room, sitting alone - mean face, Bernard from 90's version of 'Guess Who' - looks at me. Something's up.
Of the two hours, I do about twenty five minutes of work and stand up to leave. As I curl my charger to pack it up, I glance at my shirt. Right! A sentence of small white font across the chest of the black T, "Baltimore: Actually I like it." Lesson: If you want to feel liked, wear shirts with text. High contrast, Helvetica. Bold. Under 20pt. Then forget you're wearing it.