Sadly, I have become one of those people who have to have their seat at the local coffeehouse. It’s embarrassing. Everyone I know in Davis knows they can find me at the local Peets. And if I’m not in my seat “ the seat all the way to the left, closest to the bar, at the counter facing the plate glass window with the million dollar view of the parking lot“ they ask me what happened. I tell them that the usurper obviously didn’t get the memo. It’s surprising how few people have received that memo.
In fact, the person in my seat probably didn’t get the memo about my parking spot either. It used to be directly across from the windows in one of the two unmarked (but not red-curbed) spots by the mail box. When I first started parking there, no one did. (Maybe they were being polite and leaving the spaces for the people who wanted to use mailboxes?) Once I started, everyone else in Davis must have realized it’s okay because now the spot is never open. My backup parking spot, the one the person who took my seat inside Peets parked in, is the 10-minute (green curb) parking spot on the corner in front of Jamba Juice.
I come here most weekdays. In between impromptu meetings with bike club members and fellow parents, I actually get a lot done. I like to come to this particular Peets because it’s close (walking and bike riding distance, you know, on fair days) and usually not too crowded. I need to leave the house to write because I cannot write in the house on these dark winter days. And I need to go to Peets because they have a loose-leaf Sencha that gives me a buzz that meshes perfectly with my writing mojo.
Over and above all of that, I need my seat because it is perfect. It gives me just enough elbow room to be able to set everything around me (iPhone, headphones, tea pot, strainer, tea cup). It also allows a physical buffer, giving me the peripheral-vision space I need to avoid feeling like I’m being barraged on both sides. And it is the only seat at the bar that has access to a power outlet. I don’t necessarily need that. But it allows me to have all the programs I want booted up (Safari, Scrivener, Mail, Messages, iTunes) without compromising the roughly two hours I can manage to sit and write.
There is an alternate seat at the other end of the counter I can make work if I carve out a nice writing nook by swinging the end stool sideways and piling the piles of free weeklies on it. But it’s by the door, and on these cold days, the constant comings and goings of customers creates a steady blast of cold air the chills my hands, which is no fun when typing, let me tell you. In times of desperation, there is also a small table that works; but it’s cramped, and it sits right by the oven at Noah’s, which frequently emits an ear-piercing beep that is painful.
It’s absurd, I know, this fixation I have on making everything just so. Pathetic, really. I realize I am obsessing over these ridiculous details. At the same time, I am totally obsessed by them. And as long as I am able to crank work out at Peets, I’ll probably attribute my success to getting the private space I’ve improbably claimed in the midst of this common public area.
Fortunately, there is no problem most days: I get my seat. I plow through the words, sip my tea, and generally have a great couple of hours being with my characters. So long as I get my spot and assuage my neuroses, we all have a pretty good time.
