Tuesday 26 May 1998

I’m at the First Sun Cafe, which is a little cafeteria style cafe down by the poor end of the docks that haven’t been ritzed-up yet, though it’s only a matter of time. I guess “First Sun” refers to when the sun hits the United States first, which is somewhere in Maine, though not here exactly. Maybe this is the first cafe in Portland that has sun pass through its windows. I’m looking out the window, which has no sun passing through it as it is overcast, at the Commodore Hotel across the street, which is not a hotel, but apartments. I’m sure it was once a hotel. There’s a nice old sign, and also a sign for a coffee shop. The hotel coffee shop is one of the nicest concepts I can think of, though they’re very seldom actually nice. I guess they often feel they have a captive clientele—all the people who won’t walk across the street or two blocks to a good breakfast place. But sometimes they’re good.

Poor people are hanging around outside of the Commodore smoking. It seems to me you always see poor people smoking more than rich people anymore. Lots of rooming houses and hotels and such don’t allow smoking, and people are always congregating in the area right outside. They essentially stand in their own ashtrays. And offices are the worst—people gathered outside of their office building. As squalid as that is, people feel a sense of comradery with the other smokers. I don’t know if that’s touching or pathetic.