The parallel universe of sleep

There was some sort of self-help writers convention in town. I was in Stauf's, which did not resemble the actual coffee shop, but some other Stauf's. I saw Dr. Phil alone at a table writing on one of those longer notepads, when I passed him I glanced at what he was writing. There was one long ass list being started. It was all numbers down the page and the rest was blank. I guess Phil had some work to do.

There was also an author named Jerry Spears. A name I do not know as a writer but as the owner of a local funeral home. The coffee shop was in some sort of indoor mall and authors whose faces I recognized but names I was not sure of were walking in trios into bars, one in front of another.

I kept trying to get on my iPad to post to Facebook that Dr. Phil was writing a list but the keyboard kept messing up.

Another author came over to me and I called him the wrong name, which made him very pissy. Oh well, that's life in the publishing world.

No room for cream, but thanks

I'm not on the I Hate Corporate Coffee bandwagon. Do I try to support my local coffee shops? Absolutely. I get my beans from Stauf's and think One Line has the finest cup in the city. Did I like Starbucks' business practices when they were opening shops across from many independent coffee shops in town back in the nineties? Not really, no. But I did not go to them.

That said the Starbucks I go to has very friendly and dedicated staff. When I work early weekend mornings, I frequent one close to my workplace for coffee and a bagel. The people who work there are amazingly cheerful and efficient for being at work at 6:30 on a Sunday. Certainly more perky than I can ever aspire to be, even at mid-day. So I salute the people at the Starbucks on Olentangy River Road.

This morning the store's music was playing this song. Grim subject matter, but energy providing.