September 27th to October 10th, 2022.
When you stopped bartending to freelance write full time, you were bursting with wild fantasies of what your newfound freedom could provide. No longer would you hunch over a trash can eating a clandestine meal as fast as you could. No longer could a nightmarish regular tell you a breathless, nine minute monologue about Where They Went Yesterday. No longer would you have to look through a mountain of refuse because another hapless individual covertly wrapped their Invisalign in the napkin you bussed away twenty minutes ago.
When you pictured who you would be when you left the service industry, you imagined a structured, balanced woman, who wrote in coffee shops in handsome, inspired outfits. You imagined you’d bring your trusty laptop everywhere you went. It would comfortably (effortlessly!) slip into your imagined harem of chic, snake leather (vintage—guilt-free!), laptop-sized bags.
Anytime you had a spot of down time during your fantasy life, you’d open your laptop and tick tack away, working an hour or two here, an hour or two there. Your freelancing could ride a train with you. It could come with you to the park, its blue light illuminating a thoughtfully packed picnic. You could even write midair, as you flew over the atlantic (Fantasy You is always Off To Tanjiers). Your freelancing wouldn’t control you, you’d control it.
The reality of freelancing is a little different. More specifically, the reality of cafes is a little different. Perhaps to another person—one more socialized or sociable than you—a cafe is a lovely, unblemished place to sit stylishly and tick-tack away on their laptop, a machine without half-visible crumbs beneath each of its keys.
You have very few similarities in personality to those who sit in stoic confidence in public. You tell yourself that’s because cafes have too much humanity on display. Who could focus on their writing when a guy just touched a stranger’s dog and then used the same hand to pick up his banana bread which he placed into his mouth? But it has more to do with your nature than anything, Virgo.
You spent years accusing everyone within the walls of the bars and restaurants you worked inside of mistakenly believing they were in a movie, and double mistakenly believing that you were interested in entertaining that fantasy. As angry as that behavior makes you, Virgo, you’re always performing too.
Your lifelong belief that it’s somehow useful to cut the beating heart out of your chest and hand it to a service employee certainly disqualifies you from being the chic gargoyle you long to be. You’re too busy trying to demonstrate your self-serving allegiance to the baristas of the world by putting your dishes into a bus tub with a faux-weary expression meant to communicate something like, I’m not like the others, I understand the intricacies of the bus tub system.
You wince in useless condolence to the waitstaff who must listen to a too-confident guy tell a too-loud anecdote that serves only as a demonstration to the rest of the room that this is his place—where he goes to be him. Not to be outdone, you take the stage with eye rolling and pointed sighing, announcing with palpable self-righteousness that you find the deafening storyteller insufferable. Your encore? The focus-pulling yet wistful cleaning of muffin crumbs from your table, a somber, anointed zamboni—a beast of practicality, sure, but certainly compelling beyond its mere function.
Sitting in cafes is an unbearable reminder that you have absolutely no chill at all, while you sit furiously noticing the same in others. You loathe the loud voices discussing The Industry a few tables away, but is your dramatic posture as you read your daily curated reading any different from that?
Unfortunately, even the debonair put on airs when they’re in cafes. Isn’t that a part of going outside as a human? The cosmos are only ever outside, so it’s hard for us to relate to the apparently sacred differences between indoor and outdoor.
If it’s, apparently, impossible to completely be yourself in a cafe, then why not decide to perform a different role than your typical typecast? I’m not saying don’t make the employees a priority, but perhaps instead of cutting off your arm and handing it to the shift lead on a platter with I’m sorry written in tepid tea leaves, you could just be quiet and courteous in their environment.
There’s the larger question to consider too, Virgo. Does your complete non-enjoyment of being in cafes perhaps serve as evidence that you…don’t enjoy being in cafes? Could it be so simple as an indication of your truest feelings instead of a personality failure requiring adjustment? You have plenty of personality failures, please don’t misunderstand, but a lack of connection to cafe culture is certainly not chief among them.
Your relationship to freelancing has felt, at times, like Sally Albright’s relationship to the blonde man named Joe she kisses at the airport in When Harry Met Sally. Sure they always talk about “flying off to Rome on a moment’s notice,” but they never do. And if they never do, is that so bad? Maybe when two people1 never fly off to Rome on a moment’s notice it’s because they don’t actually have any interest in flying off to Rome on a moment’s notice. Sure seems that way, since Sally’s character arc doesn’t end with her enjoying a trip to Rome at long last.
It can sting when your Fantasy You meets your reality, but these crises are not the fault of freelance writing. I implore you to concoct new fantasies (a la Harry Burns) that are influenced by your real desires. Since being around a quiet group of strangers is something you loathe, I recommend you stop trying to pretend like you yearn to be around a quiet group of strangers, for starters.
Dear sweet readers—it’s the stars again. Is there anything we can do for you? Do you want the stars to give you some advice for a change? Simply respond to this email with your desires, and you will be heard.
Blessings to all those who reached out in the google form last week about their ghost opinions. No one was aggressive in their non-beliefs, which made me celebrate that I have seemingly left the phase of life where one is surrounded by belligerent wet-blankets. Anyway, the google form where you can—once more—showcase the differences between yourself and every man I knew in my early twenties is here and my instagram is here. Thank you for reading!
with as much financial stability as Sally Albright and the blonde man named Joe she kisses at the airport