It seems too pristine of a moment to forget about completely. Most of my college weekends have been spent on the road, driving one place or another. I don’t go places that are exceptionally notable, though I have had fun. I go home a few weekends a semester and usually visit friends a couple weekends. It usually accounts to about seven weekends on the road driving and two weekends flying somewhere.
Sitting in Starbucks on State Street in Ann Arbor, I look up from my laptop and through my reflection in the window I see a moving truck park at the curb. When I am not driving, I am usually sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop by the window hunched over my laptop computer. I am undoubtedly wearing my yellow headphones with the right ear speaker taped on.
The mist feels fresh on my face and creates a refreshing distortion through which I can view the dire night lights of Ann Arbor. I stroll by the fountain outside of the League and sip a medium house coffee with a half second of sugar mixed in with a knife. I like the feeling of loneliness that comes with being alone. I would rather manifest grand expectations by myself as the darkness leads me. Go to law school and graduate. Get a job. Settle in somewhere and make friends with the neighbors. Take trips to law conferences in Lake Tahoe with my wife before we have two children three years apart so that they can go to the same high school. The older one can drive the younger one to school and hate it, but that way I will only have to buy one car for the both of them. I do plan on buying them a car. I had one in high school, and it seems to make sense to me. It doesn’t have to be a nice car. The main thing that matters is that it is safe – especially if one of my children is a girl. If I have two boys, I am not really worried if their car breaks down. In fact, I would prefer it. My car has never broken down and I think dealing with a broken car would help my son(s) build character. It could be a convenient break, such as running out of gas, blowing a tire or whatever else can simply go wrong with a car. It has never happened to me so I don’t know.
Rockefeller Center is insane below me. I am sitting on the second floor of a Starbucks across from the famed tree and ice rink, warming up with a cup of mild yet nutty Holiday blend coffee. I can’t believe the chaos outside. I love it. Nothing I have experienced before has been similar. I have been to busier places, but nothing as fervent and well dressed as this.
I am sitting in a Starbucks at the south east corner of Washington Square in the heart of the NYU campus. It is a blizzard outside and my feet are soaking wet because the only shoes I brought with me are worn out deck shoes. That was a slight oversight on my part.
Wall Street is eerily quiet on this snowy Saturday evening. I am sitting in a Starbucks just south of the New York Stock Exchange, warming up with a cup of mellow yet bold Yukon blend coffee. It was only by accident that I found the coffee shop in which I am seated. As always, I am facing the window looking through my reflection in the window to a darkening night setting between the formidable buildings. I not only feel lonely, but also look it as I slump in my chair writing this. The whole scene deservedly fits with my mood. I am tired, cold, and I just saw the WTC site for the first time in person. It looks like any other hole except for the rusty iron I-beam cross that peaks through the falling snow reminding you that two thousand people were crucified in a matter of hours.