#7

Once a week sit in a coffee-shop or cafe for an hour and listen to other people’s conversations. Take notes. Blog about it. (Carefully)

Take little dips in other people’s lives. Listen to their speech patterns and their concerns. Try and get them down on paper. (Don’t let them see. Try not to get beaten up.) Don’t force it, don’t hop from table to table in search of better eavesdropping, just bask in the conversations that come your way.


So I am failing pretty hard at this because I haven't found any interesting people yet. I was at Barry's on 12th and Alder for over an hour, and I ran into a friend and I think they our conversation was by far more interesting then the other patrons in the cafe. Roma seems to be study and less talk except for outside where the people discuss how to change the world while chain smoking. Milky way offer a glimpse into the Asian mafia. I have yet to go and dread to go to Starbucks/Quiznos I also think Pergino downtown might have a more intellectual ease dropping.

Update: Glenwood on Saturday was pretty priceless, I need to use my words carefully but a very afro-centric group was sitting in the booth next to us, and I could tell they were not in Kansas anymore. I can't really begin to describe their tones or topics of conversation but they sure complained a hell of a lot about the Glenwood not having french fries.

Also there was this couple who looked so unhappily married it hurt. The scrunched their faces at each other and didn't speak for the whole meal. It was a Saturday night and it was as if they didn't want to eat alone, or with each other for that matter. They sat in total silence reading the paper.

I was also at Sys pizza on Saturday night at around 12:45am. There were two largely jolly "ho-ish" looking Taylor going girls. They definitely were not on the same planet we were on. The kept bitching about AOL im's and couldn't believe they were getting an IM through their phone. They read the IMs out load, they were dirty. Someone pretty funny was playing a joke on them pretty well, because the content was nasty, especially read out loud in a pizza parlor.