Sadly for your imagination no, but there was a lot of conversation about art, ideas and how you are a great sounding board for creative ideas :)

I am so sorry for not getting back to you.  I am often lackadaisical about responding to email...but I wanted to reassure you that there is no problem whatsoever...I had a wonderful time on Sunday and you should feel no compunction about magic mondays...it is very low key, no pressure whatsoever.  I just wanted you to know it was there if you ever needed it.

Once again, sorry for stressing you out.  With kind regards, hippie lou

Hi... Hippie Lou!!! I miss all of you already....😥.  Won't be able to make the last MM before I leave for tomorrow AM... Hugs and kisses to ALL......👩🏻😇😉

I haven't quite finished it. I am a bit tired, but I wanted to send this to you before I shut down.

thanks for thinking of me and sending it.  he (i'm assuming) might be making good points but, due to his language, i find the work inaccessible.

Get real, Dave. You are still a trained economist. You can't play the aw shucks I am just a simple hayseed game with me.

hi, i sincerely apologize for not being in touch...it has been a long time.  i meant to respond to your email but just never got around to it.

i'm not claiming to be a simple hayseed - i just prefer to operate in domains where i don't have to make a huge investment to understand a language, professional or otherwise.  perhaps i am lazy.  perhaps i believe transformational ideas can be expressed in clear, simple language, accessible to all.  i'm not in favor of and no longer traffic in languages where one has to be a member of the elite to understand them.  these languages divide, in my humble opinion.  these languages may hold the buried treasure of our brighter future so i fully admit, through my obstinacy and/or laziness, i may be missing out.

hoping this message finds you well.  with love and kind regards,

Dad I promise I will come down one of these weekends and I will spend the whole weekend with you I'm sorry if I'm being a bad daughter and not keeping my word when I say I'm coming and then I don't show up but I promise I will come down one of these weekends and I will spend the whole entire weekend with you okay. Im sorry :-/

I don't want you feeling badly or beating yourself up about it at all. You have done nothing wrong. The fact that you want to come visit me is as good as the visit itself. You are the best daughter anyone could hope for.

Thanks.

I love you very much :) xo

I love you to. Too **

:-) :-) :-)

Lol.

We have a lot to look forward to. :-) Together xo

ode to the coffee shop.

i have this romantic notion of what a coffee shop is.  a place of contemplation, reflection, community; an oasis of sorts; a melting pot; a place for serendipitous meetings, connections; a place for epiphanies, insights.  a shelter from the storm.  a place for something new, something different to take root and bloom.

the beautiful music, the beautiful baristas, the curated community, the hospitality; the warm hospitality.  a petri dish, a warm gel, for a counterculture to take root, to take bloom.  an idealistic vision, perhaps; a romantic one, but one nonetheless.

it is with such a view, such a perspective, that i find recent visits to local coffee shops so jarring.

yesterday, i was in la colombe on lafayette street listening to one woman loudly sell or talk about whatever her thing was.  words like platform/social/metrics/growth punctured the air.  punctured it.

then today, i got a bagel at konditori, a compact space near where i live.  in there was a guy who was having a conference call with his board of directors.  are you fucking kidding me?  do you think anyone waking up and enjoying the calm respite before the start of the day wants to hear that?

then over to el rey; a slightly larger but still intimate space.  a woman waiting, another enters.  the one that enters starts interviewing the other.  questions like, "so of all your classes in college, which were your favorites?"  again, are you fucking kidding me?  do you honestly think that ppl coming here in the morning want to hear your stupid fucking interview questions?  want to witness you put someone through this asinine, outdated, arcane, asymmetric ritual?

lest i stop here, i want to add laptops to the mix.  another local shop, bluebird, has wide open windows that look out to green trees beautifully lit by the rising sun.  on the window ledge are often perched laptops.

laptops laptops laptops.  the bane of my coffee house existence.  ppl sidle up next to you and pop them open.  some of them pound on the keyboard.  pound pound pound.  for me, they just kill the aesthetic.  starting with the visual.  and seeping through the rest of our senses to the soul.

many of my difficulties in life arise from having unrealistic expectations of the world.  the people in it.  and perhaps myself, too.  maybe i am a crabby old man.  perhaps i have unreasonable expectations of the coffee shop, the coffee house.

but to me, they are sacred spaces.  they are where people come together, to appreciate each other, to commune, in the best sense of the word.  to savor.  to appreciate.  to do all those things that one cannot do in our oft oppressive world.

would one conduct a job interview in a temple?  a conference call in an art gallery?  would one pull out a laptop and start hacking away in the theatre? in a concert hall?

here's to sacred spaces, to free spaces.

here's to the coffee shop.
here's to the coffee house.

long may it live.

Hippie Lou! It was so absolutely amazing to see you! I don't mean to be selfish, but you made my day, my week. I feel horrible that I left and wanted to grab a coffee with you. Im greatly looking forward to seeing you Sunday.