The Cult of the Coffee Shop.

For the uninitiated, it's easy to see only another storefront, another hole in the wall peddling caffeine to the great tired masses.

But coffee shops - real ones, not commercial Star cafes - are really havens. Here you find the artistic, slightly-intellectual, moderately pretentious, wry-humored wanderers who are looking for a place to belong without really fitting in. Awash in the glow of Mac apples, shaking slightly from the extra shot of espresso that the drug-pushers behind the counter dropped into their cups, they sit.

(or I sit, as it were...)

The thing about my coffee shops is I get unreasonably attached to them. Some serendipitous inclination attaches me to one shop or another, and if I depart from my home-base, I feel like I'm cheating on a true love with a less-than-adequate lover.

In the past three year's, I've nested in three different cities, and therefore in three different coffee shops.

In Boulder, CO, it was Saxy's Cafe.

Not the closest to home, nor the biggest, nor the smallest. Just the best (I think...). It's where I watched World Cup matches at 6AM, where I knit together May Day posies, where I crafted an ode to artwork, where I tapped out a million posts on this very blog.

Then there was Cafe Verde in Lawrence, MA.

I couldn't visit this lovely little place as often- no transportation to its green walls and light-strewn windows and delicious Brie-and-apple paninis. But I escaped every now and then to sit and sketch and dream myself away from the snow-trapped stillness of the most silent winter days.

And now, back in Philadelphia, wandering past American monuments of history and freedom every day, hoofing it every weekend to the market for cheap produce and fresh meats, to new friends' apartments for hours of construed productivity, to old friends' apartments for hours of patching up the soul and renewing old hopes and new, to yoga class or salsa class or hipster bars or irish pubs or dance clubs - trekking mile after mile in discovery of life... now, I have Cake.

Or more properly: Cake and the Beanstalk. Green walls again, bedecked with images from Jack and the Beanstalk childrens' books, furnished with mismatched furniture painted with quotes and pictures and Giving Trees and Where the Wild Things Are and Picasso, and boasting an in-house baker with an impressive talent for crafting cakes and brownies and blondies. I've found a new home base.

So if you're ever in Philadelphia on a weekend, come find me up the beanstalk...

Well. Shall we begin again?

Updates seem like silly things. Trying to cram a million moments, changes, and inspirations from months of The Whirlwind into a brief caption of relevant but un-overwhelming type is all but futile, more often than not.

So I'm not going to bore you with an update, except to say: I'm back. Back in Philadelphia, Back in employment, Back with friends, Back in fabulousness, and Back in Gloriosity. And I'm as full of hope as ever.

New Year's was like a jar filled with Christmas lights... coming off the high of a magical December and hurtling headlong and sparkling into a music-filled party at the Crystal Tea Room at the top of Philadelphia's Wannamaker Building. Just me, my Philly-ettes, and 1600 of our nearest and dearest.

After an unutterably wonderful evening (the details of which range from exciting to ridiculous to shocking to lovely to brilliant, and can only be summed up in the quite non-descriptive but ultimately perfectly useful punctuation: [...] - after all, the ellipsis says everything that words can't-) I woke on New Year's morn to find three resolutions nestled in my heart. 1) Start drawing again, because it makes me happy. 2) Start blogging again, because life is too glorious not to share. 3) Accept wonderful things as they come, and don't ask for more. Life, in all it's varied experiences, is meant to be organic. Hope so much, but love to let life happen.

It's good to be back.

Paris @ Midnight

Have you ever seen Paris at Midnight?

You should.

I am an Italophile, through and through. But like all good Europeans in pursuit of personal fulfillment and an enviable cache of life experiences, occasionally I dally on the side.

After seeing Woody Allen's latest film last night, I'm pretty sure Paris would make an ideal mistress. She's always dressed perfectly for any occasion, and she has plenty of secrets and stories and grace.

I've never been to France at all. I may just have to find a way.

Paris at Midnight. The film is the improbable combination of the fairy tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Woody Allen's inimitable comedic style.

It's every romantic's dream, combining multiple memorable Parisian epochs to weave quite a story.

Add to this the delight of not only seeing actors and actresses pop up on screen that spur the thought, "Oh I love her!" "Oh I love him!",

and oohing over the inspired costume design (fashionistas beware; you'll be aching to accent your wardrobe with 20's-inspired items), but the characters themselves make up an echelon of the cultural icons who challenged the mores of society and created cultural milestones, markers, and entire classifications of art. You'll come home and pull out all your school books, desperate to begin reading and learning and reacquainting yourself with these greats.

And until you can feed the hungry intellectual giant that no doubt broods inside your skulls, you can just ooh and ah over the costumes and sceneries, and giggle over Allenisms given renewed vitality by contemporary actors.

And you'll probably find yourself making plans, like I did, to somehow, some way, go dancing in Paris.

Play it Again, and Again, and Again.

It's coming...

The Atlanta Symphony is presenting Casablanca this Friday, film on the big screen, while the magnificent Atlanta Symphony Orchestra plays the score. CAN YOU IMAGINE!

This is not to be missed. And maybe to prepare, I'll do a little 'round robin of classic films starring the truly fantastic actors and actresses of the Silver Screen. We'll start with Bogey and add Audrey for some Sabrina.

And then there's Audrey and Greg Peck in the inimitable Roman Holiday.

Next is Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall in Designing Woman.

Then How to Marry a Millionaire for some keynotes delivered by Betty, Lauren, and Marilyn.

Marilyn and Tony Curtis warm things up with Some Like It Hot.

How about the more obscure Kings Go Forth with Curtis and Natalie Wood.

Also starring The Voice himself, Mr. Frank Sinatra.

Which of course means I'll have to take time for one of my favorites: Sinatra and Grace Kelly in High Society.

And next is Kelly and Cary in To Catch a Thief.

Then Bringing Up Baby with Cary and Katharine.

Or The Rainmaker with Katherine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster.

From Here to Eternity stars Lancaster and the lovely Deborah Kerr,

who starred in The Journey with Yul Brynner.

(And was photographed by him!)

Apparently Brynner was a marvelous photographer, because while on set of Anastasia,

he also captured the beautiful Ingrid Bergman.

Which brings us back to where we started, to Bergman and Bogey at Sam's piano in Rick's Cafe Americana.

So if you're in Atlanta this weekend, head to the amphitheatre in Alpharetta and catch the sweeping drama of Casablanca with a LIVE soundtrack. If it plays and you're not there, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon, and for the rest of your life!