in the city

this town sucks* at being a city. public transportation sucks. downtown amenities suck. it's all spread out and suburban and very much requiring of a personal vehicle. now, i have just previously yesterday in this space covered the fact that i enjoy driving myself to work, so let's try not to get confused, okay? my enjoyment in driving myself to work is relative to the other choices. if i could get on a train and clickity-clack into the city, that would be ideal. if you live 20 driving mins from your office in NYC or in chi-town or virtually any real city, you don't take your car to work. you get on a train or a bus. if you live 20 walking mins from work, you probably walk many days. this city is trying. developers are creating urban living spaces but that's not enough. you cannot have urban living without urban shopping and i am not talking urban outfitters, i am talking walgreens and piggly wiggly. if you reside in a real city, you don't have to get in your car to purchase tampons and bacon bits.

there's a coffee shop kitty-corner across burdock's pasture (haha, little AHM jokie there)... kitty-corner across the parking lot from my office. i like to go to that coffee shop every morning and spend a ludricrous amount of money on a cup of coffee because besides the fact that the coffee is actually very good, going over there feels cityish. walking across the parking lot and then crossing a 3-way stop intersection, i am in the midst of a smallish bit of "traffic" and exposed to a smallish bit of sounds and smells of a "city". there's a ginormous construction project down the block that lends some distinctive busy-city noise - the beep-beep of trucks backing up, honking horns of cars navigating the construction zone, crash of dump trucks dumping, and lots of other mechanical and people noises that form a backdrop of cityish sound. crossing the parking lot, i can smell wet pavement and exhaust and a whiff of the dumpster. yes, i can hear you thinking i am crazy, but those are city smells that i savor. closer to the coffee shop, the coffee blends into the air.

i push into the shop and the vaguely hippyesque staff greets me. they all have long hair - guys and girls - and make equal use of kerchiefs and beads. they are friendly. they know me. they don't have a loyalty program, but because i asked about it, they started one. whoever rings up my coffee draws a picture on the coffee sleeve, and i bring back the sleeve until there are 9 pictures, and i get the tenth cup free. today, the guy had his hair all down and flowy (probably a health code violation) and he drew a little doggie face on the coffee sleeve as i explained that yesterdays "mark" was the date, and i had to write it in because the guy working there didn't believe me about the "program" and flowy-hair said that's probably because i am the only one they do that for.

i enjoy my walk back over to the office. no, this town is not a city, but it's got potential and could get there with just a little more effort.


*i don't like the word "sucks" because it sucks as a word and reflects a sucky vocabulary; however, in this case it seemed to fit the bill.