No free coffee refills in the city that never sleeps
MANHATTAN, NY — I’m sitting darkly in the corner of an East Village Dunkin Donuts (2nd Ave, between 9th and 10th Streets) watching the rainy night passers-by on the sidewalk outside. Their thoughts and ideas and memories focused on a distant target or a damp memory of a long-lost time.
I was thinking about coffee as I drank the last stale sip of black mud from the Styrofoam cup.
No refills at Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks, unlike any decent diner at any time. No hemispherical ceramic cups … each one with its own galaxy of mismatching stories. Each cup absorbs the dreams, nightmares and failed plans spoken over it during the course of decades.
Single use. No Big Plans. No dreams forgotten or promises lost. Even Starbucks’ recycled paper cups have beginnings in a tree farm someplace. The recycled paper contained ideas, hand-written death threats, love letters … it was held in human hands.
Styrofoam is a petroleum distillate. It was never held fondly in the hand of an anxious lover or hidden in fear of scorn.
I thought about my preference for Starbuck’s or the gritty sort of coffee one gets late at night in a diner. It’s good for planning big adventures over the ground-earth aftertaste of an unclean carafe. It has tooth to it, you know its coffee. You get a feeling of its organic beginnings – its “roots”, if you will. This kind of coffee is an eagerly invited part of the group … its like trying to escape an avalanche and tastes about the same.
I’m going to drink a lot of coffee
I’m on my second cup of coffee for the day.
As of this past Friday I’m no longer a bike messenger. I welcome this change with open arms with anticipation of the positive changes in the works but also it leaves me with no income – as meager and unable to pay my rent as it was.
Interviews, phone calls, email, resumes … the job-search process is itself a part time job for the casual practitioner. That, of course doesn’t count the time waiting for editors and hiring people to read resumes, talk to their people, drink coffee and decide. 
I just sold a camera to another photographer for exponentially less that I paid for it originally. I’m trying no to think about it so much and just moving forward. I still have 1.5 working 35mm Nikons and a collection of plastic cameras including a Holga. I have a mountain of film to develop and scan/print … even if I never took another photo I still have quite a lot of work to do. At some point I want to get my Nikon F (with DE-1 prism!) restored to 100% working condition – at least the innards. I don’t care about the dents and wear on the outside. Another wonderful thing would be setting up my darkroom somewhere in the city instead of having it in storage in Connecticut. I think if I have an apartment of some sort with either no room mates or other photographers where they wouldn’t object to having a B&W darkroom in the apartment.
Outside of the window here: (asa 400) f5.6 @ 1/250 should work fine. I can get by without a meter … maybe lose two stops for inside and maybe just one for the guy near the window. I’m rusty …
As always, I’m limited by funding. That’s a universal problem not just with photographers so I take some comfort with it. There are a wealth of resources and an almost equal wealth of money floating around to fund people like me. The real question or challenge is figuring out how to get it.
These few days of moving about slowly allow me the rare chance to see the boring details that I was previously unable to stop and see. Even on my busiest days as a bike messenger, I still tried to stop and look around once in a while but now I’m almost forced to.
I left the bike at home. I only have a few places I need to go today and my feet or the subway are just fine for that. We were supposed to have some icy weather which confirmed my decision … so far, its just cloudy.
Never mind that.
I love this city that never sleeps as much as I hate it. I want to stay forever and study every brick and foot print but I want to get the hell out ASAP. Some days I feel the opposite; some days it just doesn’t matter. Its as if anything can happen for good or ill. I have a renewed feeling of infinite possibility and a renewed passion to pursue the reasons I moved to this damned city in the first place.
I’ve decided to drink a lot of coffee, it seems like a good idea.
