It's a DeLorean in a coffee shop! The place was called The Wormhole and was decorated in all '80s stuff. There were cartoon lunch boxes and posters Goonies, Top Gun, Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark and more! They had a video game corner and an old Trivial Pursuit board game! THE BATHROOMS HAD CALVIN AND HOBBES FRAMED PRINTS.
Yes, I took my phone to the bathroom to take a picture. It's a perfectly valid reason to.
Why does Boston suck when it comes to coffee shops? This is THE college town. Yes, I realize there are places in Cambridge and 1369 is an all right place but where are all the ones that are supposed to be right next door to me where I can go and be a pretentious writer with my laptop and a latte? No, instead I have 3 Starbucks' on my street. That blows. That is an unimaginative coffee establishment. Chicago had a place called New Wave Cafe with couches and old Duran Duran records. Chicago had Cafe Moustache which was separated into sections, all to support someone wanting to work on a laptop in private. Hell, maybe I'd do more work if I wasn't stuck home all day but I don't want to go to Starbucks! I need panache, pizzazz, and other p-words (providence? Pulmonary embolism? I guess that doesn't count) for my coffee shops because, well, I don't really like coffee I just like the production (production!) of getting it and settling down to work with it by your side.
Anyway, Chicago was amazing. I got to see two of my best friends (unfortunately the last member of our group wasn't there and I still feel a twinge about that but hey, Des you have a life! Deniz and I don't. This is how we make ourselves feel better. Besides, San Francisco is on my list. I'm going to descend upon you at some point next year) and had a glorious time. We went to the zoo (oh my God the big cats. I loved them so), and had burgers at a heavy metal burger joint (which you can read about here), and watched Firefly and smoked nargile/hookah every night. My lungs probably hate me (delicious jasmine and mint and orange tobacco every night) but it was exactly what I wanted. Plus, I got to reintroduce myself to Firefly, a show I always forget I love, and I still get chills watching some episodes. My favorite, "Out of Gas," still brings me to the verge of crying. It is fantastic, I recommend it. My friend also recommended me a book with the same title as this entry, and I've started reading it, as visiting Chicago has made me all curious about it. It's a fascinating city with a cool and sometimes twisted history and the book is all about the famous World's Fair and how that came to be along with the murders that took place there. It's exactly the kind of book I like; historic but with grisly little touches. We went to see the site of the fair even though it's just a museum now, the rest of it burned down decades ago.
That was the day we spent downtown seeing the city and the famous "bean," sculpture.
My Denny Bunny, Deniz, in front of the bean. I have stupid nicknames for my friends. Kit has become Kitten and Destine is Desi.
All three of us reflected in the bean. What a well-planned photo.
We also went up 96 floors on the John Hancock tower and had drinks up above Chicago. It had a beautiful view of the lake and the city and we got to watch the sun set.
I really liked it. But it did live up to the moniker of "The Windy City." We didn't so much as fight the wind as get attacked, abused, and beaten down by it. It was pretty funny trying to walk downtown with my dress around my ears. At least I was wearing leggings so nobody really got to see a show. In my underpants. It's still a city I'd be happy to live in though. I always need bodies of water where I live and the giant lake makes it seem like it's right on the shore of a great sea.
Oh I almost forgot! I met a woman who toured with My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. The really cool/terrible band in The Crow. At a tapas restaurant I complimented the waitress on the music and she said that iTunes had a good Halloween mix and named that band and I made an offhand comment about liking them and she was like, "Uh yeah I know them."
!!!
Okay this is exciting to me. I even did some stalking and found out who she is. She's not blonde anymore but I recognized her face. I am so creepy. Hahaha.
After cooking us many delicious meals, Kit sent me back home last Friday right as Elliot got back from his business trip to Seattle. The cat was happy to see us. But that goes without saying.
Pinkness! At the top of a tall building downtown at night.
We both came back on Friday because we had a concert to go to. It was his birthday gift; I got him tickets to The Devin Townsend Project along with special access to meet him. He is the funniest, most personable, silly man. Meet and greets are usually so stiff and boring but he just hung out with a group of us fans, answered some questions, played some songs, and basically talked like we were all old friends. That's how meeting someone you admire should go and I'm so happy I got to give my boyfriend a gift he really loved.
The concert itself was so good. It was so fun, and he had so much energy, the entire place was vibrating. I just a wrote a piece for it for MetalSucks so when that gets posted, I'll add a link.
Yesterday was Halloween but I was a feeling a bit under the weather so I half-assed my costume. I was Lydia Deetz from the cartoon Beetlejuice.
I put my hair in a high pony-tail, lots of purple eyeshadow and just wore a black poncho I had with red tights. How sad is it that I basically have this weirdo outfit in my regular wardrobe? But I love Lydia, she's another great female heroine I admired when I was younger. I think I identified with her, surprise, surprise. Don't fit in anywhere? Call up your wacky, possibly deranged ghoul of a friend and go to an entirely different, bizarre place. It'll be like coming home. I thought it was so funny and so weird and so pleasingly gross. But, we just went to a friend's house and watched a terrible movie, hung out, and came home before too late.
It was a lovely end to a wonderful week and now I'm back in Boston and back to writing. I have a challenge this month. 50,000 words by the end of November. It's National Novel Writing Month and I'm sort of taking part but also just trying to get this story out of me and done, at least in a first draft. When an idea sits in me too long, I start doubting it and it turns stale. Like the script idea I had a couple weeks ago. It kind of dried up before I managed to spit it out but hopefully I can revisit it at the end of the month. I have till the end of January to get all this shit together. Can't let stupid worries of wasting my time prevent me from actually doing anything with my time...
If only I had a quirky coffee shop right next door. Or a giant dinosaur sculpture.
L'Aroma is a fav of mine, right down on Newbury across from H&M and Filene's Basement. It's not charger friendly, but pretty sure they have wifi and the food and coffee is fab. We should have lunch there sometime.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check it out, thanks!
ReplyDelete