procrastinate

okay. so maybe this is just more procrastinating, but i think i'm having an iareawriter moment. she always is good at spotting these scenes.

so, here i sit at caribou coffee, where, much to my delight, they have free wifi and, if you order a large coffee, housed in a small mug, they'll refill it for free until you leave.

i'm working on my sermon. it's dragging. but something new has come in. you have to remember that i'm in boystown, so interesting people come in all the time, but i think this is just a plain girl/woman. she's dressed, head to to in black (that's not unusual, so am i). her hair is even dyed to match. but she's got on super cheap looking, hooker red shoes. and a matching, cheap hooker red bag to match. she's not a hooker. she's just a little out of place. she sits, in front of the fireplace, small coffee in hand, and puts on her makeup. black liquid eyeliner from a large ink-like jar, applied with a long, painful stick pretending to be an eyeliner brush. and then she pulls out the perfume and coats herself in it. the strange stench fills the coffee shop, the wrong aroma for this place. and there's the strange intimacy of watching a bathroom routine, the secret applications of potions and polish, done here in the midst of the communal coffee shop living room.

she's all done now. black nails, black clothes, black makeup, save the hooker red lipstick. sort of a young, goth liza. harsh looking, yet looking overwhelmingly lost, waiting for someone who has yet to arrive. the caroller sings on, wishing me a merry christmas--the muzac of the season, all too familiar now. she tries, in vain, to reach him/her/them on the phone. she tries to blend, to belong and to not look anxious. it doesn't work. and so she waits, hooker red highlighting the rainy, dark night.