The past four days I've had a spider webbed between my drivers side side mirror and the drivers side door. He's been camping out day and night (I assume) and it's not until I'm on the road, making my way to wherever I'm going at a cool 30MPH that I remember he's there. When I glance over he's usually balled up, hanging on for dear life, and cautiously making his way to the safest spot where the wind can't get to him. I contemplate stopping so he'll have a better chance of making it to where he needs to be. I cheer, directing him to move left or move right or to "hang on!", around corners. And, when I finally make it to where I'm going, he's settled, in the safest spot he can find. And we repeat the same thing on the way home, me forgetting he's there, and all.

In my neighborhood, there isn't much of what I like (besides real culture and real community) - except for a new really, truly, inspiring coffee shop. The kind of coffee shops you and I used to study at during college. The kind that has fledgling musicians strumming and humming in the evenings. Artists' photographs, paintings, and collages hung haphazardly. The kind of coffee shop that remembers your order, even if you only come in every-once-in-a-while.


SOHO COFFEE Company is just up the street from my house, and despite having fresh grounds and a french press at home, I brave the mean streets of the CD early morning. Because, it's the kind of coffee shop that deserves to be here, in the city where people come to visit the kind of coffee shops that don't exist anymore, except for Soho Coffee Company. It's the kind of Coffee Shop that, I hope, despite the sharp corners and growing trends of prim and proper (and snotty) coffee shops who sling cupcakes and hire unapproachable barista's, hangs on for more than just a few rides at 30MPH.