Evidently my entire town runs on coffee.\u00a0 With a population considerably less than 20,000, we have three Starbucks and a bunch of other specialty coffee places.\u00a0 In the village alone, you can buy a different kind of brew every few yards.<\/p>\n
I visit them all.\u00a0 On days when I want comfort and\u00a0no surprises, Starbucks is\u00a0the place to be.\u00a0\u00a0I like that it’s predictable.\u00a0\u00a0It’s very clean and cozy.\u00a0 The staff is kind and\u00a0I like the music and the\u00a0coffee tastes good and I like the way it smells and the small tables by the\u00a0west-facing windows feature views of\u00a0Mount Tamalpais.<\/p>\n
A blogger writing about writing,\u00a0cautioned “Don’t be caught with your laptop out, working at Starbucks.\u00a0 It’s geeky.\u00a0 It’s not cool.”\u00a0 I have a couple of thoughts about that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0 I’m not sure\u00a0anyone, \u00a0anywhere\u00a0can define what’s cool.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
2)\u00a0 I don’t have a laptop.<\/p>\n
However I am guilty of writing at Starbucks.\u00a0\u00a0I’m writing this at the one around the corner from my house.\u00a0 Writing it by hand on a yellow pad with my\u00a0favorite Pilot Prestige pen with the extra fine point and blue ink.\u00a0 When I’m done with my tall non-fat\u00a0latte, I will tuck all of this back into my tote bag and meander on home and no one will have ever mistaken me for a writer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No one will say look at that writer with her laptop out in full view.\u00a0 To\u00a0the untrained eye, I am just another\u00a0person\u00a0making a grocery list.\u00a0 Which is also true. But today I have,\u00a0during the course of one\u00a0latte, messed around with the outlines of several writing projects that are due, and I did it all right here, working undercover.<\/p>\n
I’ll bet many writers owe a\u00a0credit to Starbucks.\u00a0 Geeky or not, my playbill should read:\u00a0 The part of the angst-and-coffee-soaked\u00a0location will be played today by the Starbucks at the corner of\u00a0Miller Avenue and Camino Alto.\u00a0 The part of the writer will be played by:\u00a0 To-Be-Announced –\u00a0when we discover his or her true identity.<\/p>\n