Stella's

I am currently sitting in Stella  Espresso Company (even though I won't post this blog till later so I can get home and upload the photos I took from my Wednesday outing). My iced mocha is already gone, not very surprisingly. I saw this coffee shop in the Time Out - a magazine Krista and Jim get about the weekly happenings in Chicago and thus decided to come. I like it here, but the problem is it the northern part of the city. This means it took me forever to get here. Worth it?. Maybe. I really like the north side of Chicago. This is of course due to my Radical Journey love where I spent a month living in Uptown. I am even more north than that today.

It is fairly peaceful right now. Maybe it's not being on the West side that makes things seem calm. I mean we are definitely in the city - someone just laid on the horn while some guy was just trying to get into his car and there is some dilapidated building across the street covered in old, weathered horror film posters. But my mocha's espresso shot was pulled correctly. (Praise God for no bitterness today) and there is folk/bluegrass music playing on the overhead sound system here. Two good things. Another plus: it is so beautiful outside now that the cafe's door is open and a lovely breeze is flowing in. Ah, life unlimited by air conditioning can be beautiful.

And yet.

And yet, I am still fairly bored. I came up all this way and so I should be drinking in the coffee and atmosphere while working on various writing projects. Unfortunately, I came very unprepared for those "writing projects." I really like going off on adventures, (even if I have moments of panic when I really don't know where I am going). But they are generally solo. And spending a solo summer is fairly uneventful. They make me miss my sister a lot. I would rather talk with a friend in a coffee shop then spend the whole time messing around on my computer, waiting to be here for a long enough time for me to justify coming all the way up here (over an hour on the el). I really need to push myself to find more non-journalistic freelance work. ah. I don't even really know how to do that though.

So what's the "fix" for this current situation? I think I will pack up for now (I think I've been here over an hour) and maybe walk around for a little bit as I try to enjoy the "solitude" I seem to find in the city.