cafés are important to me
I've been obsessed with this and only recently been able to admit to myself exactly how much. They're like a protest to my life at home or in most other places, the former that keeps me self-destructively bound to my weird shit and addictions and pleasure that constantly become detrimental in some way; the latter being confusion with some irritability usually.
So I go to cafés sometimes when I can figure out how to get myself out the house when I'm not on a schedule or taking the dog out. I used to do this pretty much most days of the week to read books and write, but now it's where I go to cross things off my to-do lists (lists of the big and small, and the boring and the fun). I take my phone, a book, my diary, the laptop, and other things. I have to find a place that isn't trying to be a restaurant at the same time but has many tables, and – I hadn't thought about it that much but – I look for a wall to put my back to so then there's minimal or no movement from other people behind me.
It's the ones that have this that I get to be a bit productive in. I don't know how libraries don't work for me but they don't. The actual coffee in cafés is essential, to be clear.
The ones that have wooden tables and dark tints on a summer's day are the best.
I do sometimes feel like a burden though, to baristas. Like, I'm a person who's alone taking up a place occupied by four chairs, who only now and again begrudgingly orders food that could be considered a meal with or after my usual americano. But I might say (I won't) that I'm not from here, and my habits are different and something about principles.