My favorite café on Hoxton square went bust. Now, I didn’t feel it when my last company lost a client or when the pound took a beating. But I’ve been officially hit by the crisis, even if the UK just came out of recession in this past quarter.
Mocondo was the first place I went to in Shoreditch. A friend of mine took me there, a true pioneer of East London and its hidden secrets. The first time I went there with her I order a chocolate cake to share. I did not. Share. The second time she took me to the flower market on Curtain Road after an espresso. She bought dry flowers because her room was not getting enough light. I resolved to go back and buy an orange tree. I never did. Last time I spoke to my friend she was back in the US taking care of her family. Mocodo closing down reminded me that I should have written to her sooner.
Mocodo closing down upsets me. Everything that I want and I can’t get lately upsets me. It also reminds me of the loony Marques village where everyone got insomnia for a week. Or was it a month. I could really do with a bit of insomnia these days, but, alas, my sleep is sound as a baby’s. Also sound as this guy on Grey’s Anatomy who had brain tumor. But that’s thinking is just a function of me and my roommate’s obsession with doctors’ TV shows. They are just so miserable, they make my life look like a breeze. I could take the Mcodo simile further by talking about magic realism and how academic and the constant vortex of job applications I am stuck in lately make me feel like living in a made-up place, but I won’t, because nobody likes a whiner.
In any case, I’m in another café now. It’s not as good, but it will do. The barrister is pretty. And this is not me having a soft spot for men behind bars (as in horizontal bars, not vertical). This situational appeal only works for men during the night. It’s 3pm and she’s a well, she. So my opinion is objective. Anyway, she has the “I wish I were in Mocondo gaze too.”
