Feeling feral in a food poisoned delirium at Driftwood in St Petersburg, Florida. A trans guy, next to me, at one of the tables, reads aloud a handwritten poem through sobs, screaming and crying mad loud about people dying in war—brought to tears in public, I think, by his own poetry. A friend sits next to him, listening, nodding. When he is done reading the poem, they get up and hug each other tight in the middle of the room. The trans guy leaves.
I try to write code for Microsoft but I get distracted. I get up and buy a coffee. As always, the coffee does not help me concentrate, but does precisely the opposite of that. I sip it, while I import useEffect from React. I am building a component for the component library team at Microsoft. My Indian boss tries to call me. I decline the call. “Stomach ache, sorry,” I type into Slack (I can be rude; they can’t afford to lose me). The trans guy comes back inside, for some reason. He sits down next to me. He has the haircut and face of Screech, from Saved By The Bell, except for his brightred, tradcath-like dress. He commences some chatter with the person sitting next to him, i.e., two tables down from me. The man looks like a “surfer” type of guy. This pisses me off too. I’m extra pissed cuz I felt like I had just gotten on a roll. Whatever, I bust out my Switch like I sometimes do at work. I can’t decide for a moment whether I want to play Pokemon: Sword or Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!, but decide on Let’s Go, because I am at a much earlier stage of that game.
I review my team. Level 19 Charmeleon. Level 22 Ivysaur, level 24 Wartortle. Level 26 Pikachu. Level 20 Rhydon. Level 23 Gloom. I forget how to get to Celadon City. I begin to feel weary of the game, a remake of Pokemon: Yellow, itself a remake of Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue, which I had played to completion as a child in 1998, and which I had played, also, in the form of their remakes as a child in 2004, during the Generation III releases, i.e., Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green, in which I completed the national Pokedex and developed a fearsome team consisting of Venusaur, Blastoise, Charizard, Pidgeot, Mewtwo, and Gyarados, all level 100.
I get paid 60/hr to play Pokemon for the next few hours, basically.
i feel like i’m in the café with you
Dream party