I find it amazing the places I find myself at home (and where I don’t).
Working from home can make me a little stir crazy. In the evening I like to go to a coffee shop to do some work. For most of the last 2 years I have gone to a very nice coffee shop/bar in a the trendy part of Baltimore. The space is beautiful, the kitchen is great, the staff is always full for cute young ladies, and the client tell is hip and my age. Even after two years and developing rapport with the staff I always felt like an outsider. Like I was not quite cool enough to belong. It was okay for me to be there when there wasn’t lots of people, but the instance the place got close to filling up, I was taking up too much space and felt compelled to leave.
I have found a new place to sip some tea and do a little work in the evening. It is a pinko coffee house. I am not joking. It is called “Erma Red’s”. There is a small book store in the shop. The cash register has a bumper sticker which read “Profit is Theft”. In reading the web site it sounds like the staff isn’t being paid yet, though one day they hope to pay the staff. The hold “collective meetings” every Sunday. The magazines they sell would be the first choice of the kids who protest at the World Bank Meetings. All the conversations I over heard last we very political in nature. (I would call them whack job political conversations, but I am libertarian and don’t have much room to talk). There are only four tables. Never any room. Everyone ends up sitting on top of each other. For some reason it is much more home.
I have known I have always felt more comfortable as the outsider. It is what I do for a living. It is how I spend most of my leisure time (traveling to places I don’t know anyone). I room full of people I know (or at least know I am going to see again) can be horrifying. A pub in Northern Ireland couldn’t be more comfortable. I guess the revelation isn’t new, I am just wondering “why?”

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