My new office
Christopher and I lived in Prague for most of 2004. We had a one-bedroom furnished flat on the top floor of a four-floor walk-up in Namesti Miru where the streets are all cobblestone and named after countries, like Italska for Italy. We lived on Belgitska, for Belugium. At one end of Belgitska there was a large, beautiful public park with a vineyard, and the other end dead-ended into St. Ludmilla’s Church at the Namesti Miru tram stop. The street itself was lined with trees and little restaurants and internet cafes and markets—it was amazing, and idyllic, that fantasy you talk about with your friends: “I’m going to live in Europe with my new boyfriend and we’ll sit all day long in cafes and write stories and drink wine and go to museums and dream, dream, dream,” and I haven’t thought about all of that in a very, very long time.
What’s setting me off is I’ve just found a new coffee shop, this little place in Lakeview called Dollop. It’s small, with tons of comfy chairs to sink into and stay all day, and really good coffee—Metropolis, if you pay attention to such things, which I do—and there’s crazy art all over the place and little nooks and crannies and desks and corners and exposed brick and exposed pipes and good music and very nice people working the counter and, it seems, people all over the place doing actually work, as opposed to sitting and pretending to do work while really you are scoping the girl sitting next to you (I’m talking to you, Filter!) and I walked in and thought, yes. Here. Here is the new place where I will give my money and my hour after hour: this is my new office.
I felt this way in Prague, with a café across the street from our flat called Kavarna Meduza. In fact, one of the reasons why we took the flat was because, on our way to see it for the first time, we stopped into Meduza’s for coffee and I thought, this is the place where I’ll work. There’s a vibe there, something in the air. It’s difficult to explain. If you’re not a part of this coffee shop culture, this’ll probably sound very silly to you, but for me, getting out of my house and away from all its distractions (Wash the dishes! Wash the floor! Watch 24! Play on the internet instead of writing! Read books instead of writing!) is a necessity, but the trick of it is you need to find a place that COULD be your house, like, maybe this is some room that you would design for your own home—that kind of comfort, that kind of ease. Meduza’s was it for me, and every day I’ve missed it, but this—here—this is it.
Jeff and I were waiting for the nice girl behind the counter to give us our coffees and he said, “Do you want to give her a hug?” because I’m that much of a dork (not enough to actually do it, though). But I’m sitting here in the corner, in this green puffy chair, thinking of Meduza’s and, consequently, that whole time in my life: Christopher and I so new, so far away from everything, going to the market every morning for food, walking the Charles Bridge, drinking coffee all day and wine every evening, Frankovka and Kozel and Becherovka, writing at Meduza’s in the afternoons and wandering the city at night, and then, to clinch the deal, like some weird sign, I look up and on the wall above my green puffy chair here at Dollop are two framed photographs from Prague. Here—here is the new place.
(and also they have tabletop Pac-Man).
from my journal, August 2004:
“In my office, the back room at Meduza’s: four tables, two by windows with sun and breeze (and power-jacks, necessary for prolonged laptop use). Big, open, airy, all mismatched wood and framed photos and good coffee, windows and light and a big wormhole that sits me down at the computer at ten and then I don't look up 'til four or five.
Every day, a crazy woman comes in around noon and sits at the table next to mine. She is fifty, maybe sixty or seventy, terribly wrinkled, tan, tan skin. She wears a yellow cardigan sweater past her knees, pleated shorts and a man’s wig. She has a little dog whom she talks to very loudly, sitting at a table in the backroom and drinking beer. She asks, in Czech, for a cigarette. I don’t understand her words, but I get the gesture. If Tracy is with me, she gives her one, and the woman offers a 50 kc bill—that’s $2 American in 2004. $2 for a single cigarette. Tracy declines, gives the woman a light, and she thanks us, again and again, Dekuje, dekuje, dekuje. When I am alone and she asks me for a cigarette, I try to gesture that no, I am sorry, I don’t smoke. But she associates me with having given her a smoke the day before. No, not me, I try to tell her. My friend—she’s the redhead. She’s the smoker—I’m sorry … but the crazy woman walks away, angry, as though I’ve lied, yet never fails to smilingly ask me again the next day.
When she walks in today, all four tables in the back room are taken.
The first, by a wrinkled, older woman having eggs and coffee. The waiter addresses her loudly, I can hear his rapid Czech—the language heavy, from the back of the throat, from under the tongue—through my headphones (it’s Roberta Flack right now) so perhaps she is hard of hearing.
The second is by a very beautiful young woman, my age, sunglasses on top of her head, dark hair, tank top, shorts. She’s dressed to go to the beach on a day when it will rain, the clouds are gray and heavy in the sky. I was told, early after moving here, that the Czech can tell that I’m American by my shoes. If this is so, than this girl is definitely American. Her flip-flops are orange and have platform bottoms, adding a couple inches to her height. She is reading a book, something hardcover.
There’s a guy, also my age, at the other table. I’ve caught him glancing at me, then at the flip-flop girl. Which one, he maybe wonders. One reads, the other writes. Both are pretty enough, but the dark haired one is … more … put together. There are earrings, there is makeup, the hair brushed smooth and sleek. The blonde has on a black sweater with arms that are too long, so she folds the ends at her palms. Her hair is wild, like she washed it last night, slept on it wet and this morning left the house without brushing. She’s surrounded by STUFF—wires and cords plugging into the wall, books and notebooks on the desk in front of her—bobbing her chin to whatever’s on the headphones. She yawns, pounds coffee and is either A. a real writer or b. a total fake (history will determine the answer to that). But, back to the original question: which girl will our man chose? He is reading something, a battered paperback. He is smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. Dark hair, muscled enough. He scratches his forehead. There is bracelet made of twine knotted at his wrist. He’s into the book, then looking at the dark haired girl—she’s smoking now—then the book, and then I feel that unmistakable awareness of his eyes on me.
In the meantime, there is the crazy woman, standing in the door. I suddenly wonder if all four tables filled throws off her routine: perhaps she is schizophrenic like Tom who eats every Friday at the Bongo room, needing exactitude to keep himself together? One thing after the other and any deviation leads to confusion, and confusion to panic. She leaves, and after a half-hour or so the older woman—the one from the first table, eating the eggs—gets up to leave. Before she’s out of her seat, the crazy lady is there. She’s been standing in the front room, staring at the four us, waiting for someone to go. Now, she sits and begins to methodically go through trash bags. My music (now, Van Morrison) is on high, and I can still hear the rustle of plastic bag, her speaking aloud to her dog. Now she drinks more beer, now, adjusts the wig on her head. I am struck with the sudden wonder: is she a woman, or is she a man? I suddenly can’t tell, nor can I stare at her, ‘cause she’s staring at me. Which maybe gives me leave to stare. Maybe we should sit here, the two of us, staring away. Maybe there’s something in my naive American soul that she needs to extract, whereas I need the wisdom of whatever she’s seen in post-war Czechoslovakia that maybe wandered her mind.
The guy is eating now, sopping yolk with bread. He has the book open on the table with an ashtray at its center, holding it flat. Every time he has to turn a page, he puts down the fork. Now his cell phone is ringing, he takes it from a bag and I turn down the volume to hear: it’s Czech, the voice deep. As he speaks, he looks at the dark-haired girl. Soon, she will look back. And soon, the crazy lady will look away from me, and I’ll be free to inspect her: the wig is cheap, the hair synthetic and cut rough, part bowl, part mullet. Her skin is taut and brittle from too much tan, like she’s been in the bathtub too long and her fingers and toes are pruned, or forgotten under a heat-lamp, too long toasted. Her limbs are skinny, her voice, talking continually to her dog, is full of cigarettes, and as I stare at her she stares off in to space, in to the wall, at her own two hands, maybe wondering when and how she changed to this woman I see now.”
