I fled the house because I wasn't getting any work done. Instead, I was admiring my chromed nails and certainly not Googling a gaggle of people or reading (former) Mayor Jim Baca's blog while downloading Johnny Cash off iTunes. And while any other day, I'd count the above as being an especially productive Monday, it wasn't working, since I'm kind of facing that page one restart again.


Chrome. Chrome. Chrome. Bop-bop-bee-bop.

So, here I am at my favorite coffee shop on the corner of Alameda and Hippie Hate, but things? Are different. There's a shrill new barista who SHOUTS EVERYONE'S ORDER, even though the place is as silent as a tomb, given everyone's abandoned the shop for the shiny new Flying Star up the block. And she's kind of snippy in the manner of girls who have a wealth of self-confidence capital and feel no shame in spending it like drunken sailors.

(Yeah, I know the metaphors are getting out of hand. Bear with me. If I go nuts here, I can be more conservative on the restart.)

Also, the soundtrack's out of whack, given the venue. In days of yore, they stuck to mostly soft indie bands and classic jazz. Oh, but every Wednesday, one of the counter girls would finagle Dave Mathews Band "Crash" all the way through, followed by some John Mayer, which was extremely endearing. I like local joints that don't take their hipness quotents too seriously.

But today? First there was the Kenny-G-trying-to-channel-Benny-not-my-uncle-Carter track followed by a bebop-esque French singer who got a little to pleased with the scatting and managed to make the exact sound the cat makes when she has a particularly henious hairball. I'm now listening to Pearl Jam and wondering when they recorded Evenflow in an echo chamber.

I'm stalling. I totally recognize that I'm stalling. It's intimidating to go back to that first page and say, "Let's do this again." I'd much rather blather about mundane details of the process, in a hope of forestalling the inevitable.

I have too much I have to write. Time to get to work.