Another Cafe.

I’m seated at a small table on the ground floor. My head is abuzz from coffee.

The room is warm. There’s the ambient sound of relaxed conversation around me, and in the distance I can hear the self-absorbed whirr of coffee makers.

I’m working on a Formal Analysis assignment. Some Statistics stuff. Statistical power, p-values, all that.

I think this cafe has a very interesting layout. It’s not such a large space in terms of ground area, but it’s got considerable elevation.

The ceiling is pretty high. High enough to allow for an additional floor of tables and chairs up in the air. This wooden storey lines the wall in an interesting U-shape around the room.

I tried working on the suspended floor. That was the first time I was here, I think. I spent a number of hours doing some readings and assignment stuff. I was seated at a cozy table along one of the prongs of the suspended “U”.

The setup felt immensely precarious to me. Walking along the wooden floorboards, they felt somewhat shaky. Like the entire structure was gently swaying from side to side.

I thought to myself, “This obviously can’t be indicative of a structural issue, because everyone seems pretty chill with it”.

It felt like it had been that way for like a number of years possibly. Like the sway was a part of the structure’s character or something.

I don’t know, what do I know about wooden structures.

It’s probably one of those structures that feel somewhat sketchy, but last for a pretty long time regardless.

I don’t know.

---

There were two waiters at the counter when I came in. One was a mixed-race black guy. Like, the sort of black guy that has hair with large curls, and dark-green eyes. He cut his hair short, but I could still tell from the texture. I thought he looked interesting.

There was him, and then this slim lady waiter- blonde I think. They were smiling and teasing flirtatiously with each other. Definitely having fun at work.

I’m currently typing at my computer.

There’s this Indian-looking guy sitting at the table to my left. He seems to be typing nervously on his phone.

I headed upstairs earlier, to see if I would come across a free table on the sketchy upper floor. I came across a classmate. She was also working on her Formal Analysis assignment. She seemed happy to see me.

I sat at the table and we spent a little time chatting while we worked on our assignments.

I think I’m gradually developing a crush on her.

At some point I realized I wasn’t really getting any work done. I was too distracted sitting with her. If I intended to get anywhere with my assignment, I needed to go sit somewhere else.

I fiddled with my computer for a bit, and then came up with an excuse to go sit elsewhere.

---

Now I’m making good progress with the assignment.

The Indian looking guy to my left- now he has someone else sitting across the table from him. His voice is a bit strained and anxious as he tries to communicate some ideas to his guest.

I think the new guy at the table is some sort of investor, and the Indian guy is attempting to sell him on a startup idea. I believe that is what is happening.

I keep working on my assignment.

---

It’s dark now. I’m like locked in- music streaming in through my headphones- vibing and working through the assignment questions.

Someone is standing next to me.

I take off my headphones and turn.

It’s the classmate. The one from upstairs. I think she’s done with her assignment. She lets me know she’s heading back to the dorms.

We smile and say our goodbyes as she walks out of the cafe.

Hm. Yeah.

Yeah. I definitely have a crush on her.

---

Image: Working on an assignment at the Chinatown branch of the San Francisco Public Library.

California Street: A Psychoactive Gift On The Fire Escape.

There’s this musician I’ve been listening to recently. A rapper.

His name is Tumi. I think his music is cool.

He’s from South Africa.

I’ve had his “I’m killing” song on replay for a while now. The song has some seriously dope vibes.

The whole Spotify thing is still somewhat surreal to me. Streaming songs on repeat.

That is something I probably would’ve never done about a year ago.

In Nigeria I always had to conserve my internet subscription. Internet subscriptions cost money, and so if I planned to listen to a song more than once, it made more sense to just download it.

But that’s not the case here in San Francisco.

There’s wifi everywhere. Our college dorms have super fast wifi and that’s just wonderful, but even out in the city free wifi is not hard to find.

That sort of access to the internet makes you see things differently.

Now if feels like my computer is really just a screen, a keyboard, and maybe some RAM.

And the entire internet is my hard drive.

Because you can access files on the internet so quickly- it’s almost like they were already on your computer.

I find all that really interesting to think about.

---

My roommate isn’t around. I’ve got the room to myself this evening.

I think I have some weed in one of my drawers.

A while back this Israeli guy was hanging out at the dorms. I think he was couchsurfing with an Israeli classmate or something.

I went to the patio downstairs to do something, and we crossed paths there. We got talking.

His first name was Roy.

His last name was literally something from the Bible. Like, the name of some fire-bending prophet or something.

People in Nigeria are generally very religious and so names from the Christian bible are very common. But physically meeting an Israeli guy with a Bible name made me see Bible characters as being much less otherworldly.

Like, these people in the bible were human beings. That clairvoyant prophet I’ve been hearing about in church since I was a baby, was just like this guy that’s smoking weed across the table from me.

They were all human beings, not surreal mystical characters existing on some esoteric metaphysical plane.

It felt like a very profound realisation and awareness.

---

Roy said he spent like the past few months working at a weed farm.

Sorry, a what?

A weed what?

I thought that was super interesting. I had never heard anything like that before.

He offered me some weed.

I took some time to weigh the situation.

I had class the next morning, and I didn’t want to be disoriented from the weed or anything.

I probably thought: I don’t know, I’m probably enough of an unserious student already. I don’t think I should aggravate my situation even more with some impromptu weed.

But he seemed like a really cool guy, and I felt like I would enjoy spending time with him.

I obliged.

---

We spent the next few hours smoking different strains of weed and talking about a bunch of different random stuff.

We talked about surfing, and about his time in the Israeli army.

He said the stress levels in the Israeli army could get very high. And that people relieved the stress in primarily two ways. Jerking off and fucking.

We talked about Fela Kuti.

Everybody knows Fela Kuti.

With a lot of people I meet randomly, whenever they hear I’m from Nigeria, usually Fela Kuti comes up in the conversation somehow.

Like, everybody knows this Fela Kuti guy.

At some point Roy would open up another small weed container and be like “This one. This one makes you laugh a lot. This one makes you laugh for no reason at all”, and he’d proceed to roll it into a joint.

It was a super interesting evening.

---

Surprisingly I did pretty well in class the next morning. It was a Formal Analysis class, and during my pre-class preparation I sort of independently came upon the concept known as “regression to the mean”.

I think it was “regression to the mean”. Some concept in Statistics.

I mentioned it in the course of the class, and was surprised to learn that it was an actual thing. Like, an actual statistical phenomenon.

That was really interesting.

Hm. Maybe I should smoke more weed.

Hm. Or maybe not.

Hm.

---

Tumi’s “I’m Killing” is still playing on Spotify.

Earlier in the day, I was playing the song on loudspeaker while I walked to the bathroom for a shower.

A classmate was walking by and she started nodding to the music and smiling at me.

I felt very good about that. Very very good.

I’ve had a crush on her for a while. But she doesn’t pay much attention to me. Or at least I don’t think she does.

She has a boyfriend. Some guy like that. Also a classmate. I’ve got mixed feelings about him, but generally I think he’s cool.

He can be kind of an asshole though. Everyone in the class generally agrees on that. He just has this persistent tendency to disturb and rile people up.

Hm, maybe I myself should begin to disturb everyone a lot more.

Maybe I should begin to play my music on loudspeaker, and make sure to bother everyone with it.

Maybe then my crush’ll begin to pay me more attention.

Hm, maybe that’s what makes her like that guy in the first place.

Hm.

---

Roy- the cool Israeli guy, he left me with some weed.

By “some weed”, I mean like three different strains. Or four even.

I’ve had them in one of my drawers for a while. I haven’t touched any of it since he gave me. That was like over a month ago. I’m not really a weed guy- I just don’t really have the space for it in my life.

But this evening I’m especially free. And I’m kind of in the mood.

I go get some.

I think smoking in the dorms could set off the fire alarm.

I heard something people do, is to head out onto the fire escape to smoke.

I’ve always thought that was kind of exciting, but I’ve never really given it too much thought.

But this evening I seem to have a lot of free time, so I find myself actively contemplating it.

---

I’m on the fire escape.

The night is dark, and California street is glittering with electric lights.

The air is chilly.

Tumi’s “I’m killing” is still playing in the room.

I light up a joint.

At some point I hear giggles.

I turn my head to the right, to understand what is going on.

There are two smiling faces in the window.

It’s Jakob and Fiona. They’re on the bed in the next room. They both look very excited.

Fiona opens the window and calls out my name. We all spend some time exchanging thrilled pleasantries- They from the warmth of the room next door, and me from my chilly spot on the fire escape.

We laugh and talk for a while. We’re all very excited to interact in this exhilarating situation.

At some point they close the window and return to indulging in their enviable romance.

I proceed to take a few more puffs at my joint, feeling accomplished to have scored some “cool guy” points in the books of two people I admire.

---

Image: View down California street on a random night.