Author: Amy D Lux

I somehow arrived in the Bay Area in a completely different situation than originally planned. Everything was rapidly crumbling and the words “lost” and “stranded” kept shouting at me. While initially disturbed, I refused to allow more than a brief pout. Sadness has expired and would not be tolerated. It was true that this particular leg of the trip was not fully planned. It was impossible to plan. I didn’t understand what I was doing, or why I was here. The reasons I had last month were vastly different than they were now, not to mention there was a sad truth uncurling that for the first time in my life I did not know exactly who I was. I could not, at this time, justify the junction of my confusion. Yet while all of this mystery was occurring, I ignored my troubled mind as my survival depended me to do. My stubborn mentality was doing something useful, saving me from a meltdown.

Since I was so fervently living in the moment, I quickly turned my head to realize that while I was stuck in deep Oakland, I had landed in an enormous dance studio. I was alone for the first time in months, and the very walls of the building were demanding Missy Elliott into the stereo and the worries that had been crawling on me be thrown out the window. I complied; I danced.

I hadn’t danced since July 13^th, 2004.

I have never been good at not knowing. I am made completely of curiosity and an insatiable hunger for learning. I dissect everything that passes me, from electromagnetic fields to the psychology of fashion at LAX. There is not enough time in the day to learn everything I want to know and I can’t decide if that is a flaw in Pope Gregory’s design or the fault of the moon. After some hearty self-analysis, I decided to do an experiment in unknowing. I made bold moves. I bought plane tickets. I stopped calculating my expenditures. I talked to strangers like I knew them for years. I forgot to worry. Sometimes my decisions could be considered unwise but they screamed of necessity anyway.

The biggest of these twists was renting an apartment in Ocean Beach while I was working in five other cities and did not have any prospects in San Diego. I paid rent but never lived there for more than one weekend. I had tons of work and stability in Austin but I was experiencing an undefined aversion and fled. I could not decipher if the discontent was brewing within me or if I had too much disagreement with the city itself. In the past I had always stopped and faced my demons. This time I ran from them, ignored them, beat them around the corner and hopped on a boat before they could get to the dock. Was it smart? That remains unanswered but it was definitely liberating.

I still have several days to kill before I get to work in San Francisco. I’m running out of money, bored with myself, and spending an exuberant amount of time in coffee houses expecting to be fulfilled and surprised like I was when I was graduating my teen years at The Last Drop in Philly. The next thing to do was always found at that vortex of 13th & Pine, even if it meant just sitting on the stoop at 13th & Pine. You could get drunk, get drugs, get a boyfriend, get dumped, get coffee, get inspiration, get philosophy. You could link up, meet up, hook up, grow up, grow dreads, shave your head. The world was completely available and if it wasn’t cheap, it was free.

These days I don’t tend to expect much more than a good cup of caffeine. Some tasty grub helps the experience and good tunes certainly don’t hurt. I suppose that was what I was expecting when my friend recommended Muddy Waters on Valencia. To be fair, he hadn’t been here in a decade and said he couldn’t really vouch for the current operation, but the last time he was here they made some damn good coffee. That is true. The brew is so thick I had to double my creamer.

Since even the suckiest places in San Francisco have delicious food, I wasn’t expecting my egg & cheese bagel to form in less than a minute with the egg shaped like it popped out of a plastic mold and the orange slice of Velveeta shockingly unmelted. I thought Velveeta was born melted.  I did not want an egg & cheese bagel in the first place but the menu is sadly limited and even Dunkin Donuts can pull those off with a smidge of flavor.  Judging by the cute butch in the Anti-Racist Action shirt sitting next to me and the fact that one of the baristas looks like a Palestinian Freedom Fighter and the other looks like a quintessential seventies feminist at a jazz lounge, young punks and anarchists surely adore this place. The walls haven’t been painted in at least twelve years and they only take cash, which means they are really stickin’ it to the man. The paintings on the wall have rage and potential but they are lazy and unfinished, which does not stop them from being overpriced. Most of the time there is not an ounce of sound outside of the boisterous table near the window but every once in a while the barista gets bored and starts watching youtube on her iPhone which is connected to some dime store speakers behind the counter. It is a dim and distant sound and within nanoseconds the phone rings, or a customer comes in, and she turns it off, keeping her dine-in audience feeling distraught and discombobulated, a perfect emotional stratum for a protest on the square.

Recommended for anyone with an abundance of angst or a simple taste for coffee to go.