June 25, 2025

Look 116: The sidewalk was bare

Fellow angler,

I come to you with a tragic story. I’m writing this on a day when I didn’t walk much because New York City saw temps over 100 degrees and the Mets continued to suck by blowing a lead against Atlanta. They’ve now lost nine of their last 10 games, which I mention because what the hell, Mets! Get your shit together!

The biggest tragedy of all is that my coffee table was stolen.

To be clear, this was not actually my table. It belonged to a coffee shop. And it wasn’t a coffee table. The label on the bottom said it was made by a sewing equipment company. Stolen is also inaccurate because it was taken away by the owners of the table.

My statement is correct, though. It’s kind of like when Fat Amy gets hit by a burrito and yells that she’s been shot. Both things are true.

What’s in a table?

There’s a coffee shop a few blocks from me that had two tall tables outside on the sidewalk. No one seemed to care much about these tables; it’s been at least a year since they cleaned the surfaces or put out chairs.

I had grown quite fond of these tables. They were on a small, tree-lined street, so they made a perfect spot to stand with a coffee. More importantly, I like to work standing up and these were the perfect height for me to work on my laptop.

These magical tables have turned me into a regular at that coffee shop. Multiple baristas now know my usual order. I even chitchat with them while waiting. I usually hate talking to people, but these tables had me under their spell.

For weeks now, I’ve had a morning work routine: Order my coffee, tell a joke to make the baristas laugh (60% success rate), get two napkins before going outside, use one napkin to wipe the table surface and save the other in case I need it (I never do and now have two dozen napkins in my backpack), then take out my laptop and work for about two hours. I usually get a decent amount of work done.

This is a pretty new process, too. I work for a remote-first company, but it does have an office I can use. Historically I’ve gone in two or three days per week. It’s nice to get out of my apartment — I get more done in the office than at home lately — and talking to some coworkers is pleasant. Over the past two months, I’ve mostly stopped going in because standing at a sidewalk table for two hours has proved more productive.

That’s the real magic of these sidewalk tables. Finding a spot to work productively is difficult. That’s true for my daily capitalist job but also my (as-of-yet) unpaid writing work.

When I write these blog posts, I have a specific setup: I sit on my couch propped against the arm and a pillow; I angle my adjustable standing desk just so; then I put my headphones on so I can filter through all the songs I’ve thought of using for titles. After I settle on a song, I basically don’t move again until I’m done writing the post. (In truth, my laptop always complains at some point that it’s going to die, so I do final edits and readthroughs while sitting on the floor by the charger.)

This setup is unique to my blog writing. Sitting on the couch normally kills my ability to write. It certainly doesn’t work for me when I’m trying to do novel writing or my day job. I don’t know how I settled on this setup. I think I wrote the first post standing up but the next time I was tired and sat down. It stuck.

I suppose my point here is that finding the right writing environment and setup is a challenge. It influences my productivity at least as much as having actual ideas about what I want to write.

Back to the table

One glorious Spring day I was working at my sidewalk table when a van pulled up beside me. Two men wearing shirts with the coffee shop’s branding (an inside job!) got out and started looking at the table I wasn’t standing at. Then they got back in the van and drove away. Strange, but I had too much work to think about it more.

A few minutes later they appeared again, making multiple trips in and out of the coffee shop. They walked away but soon enough they were backing the van right up to the other table. Then ripped the top off, picked up the legs, and started packing it all into the van!

Then they started pointing and whispering to themselves about the table I was standing at. One of the guys said something about how the coffee shop wanted to add other outdoor seating. I think he said it for my benefit — so I’d feel less upset about having my table stolen out from under me.

I wasn’t getting any work done by this point but I continued pretending to do something important on my laptop. What could I do but hope they’d decide to leave my table because it was in use? Alas, one of the guys walked nervously toward me and said, “Excuse me but we need that table.”

That was it. No apology. No mercy. With my heart now torn from my chest, I packed my laptop, picked up the coffee I hadn’t even had time to finish, and walked away. I didn’t say anything to the man and and I never looked back. I couldn’t stand to see my poor table squirreled away in the back of a stranger’s van. Some may argue they were just men carrying out orders, but I’ll remind you that’s the same argument people made in WWII Germany!

But the thing is that I have a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that require a standing table. If you let my table go now that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.

Anyway…

I have gone back to the coffee shop twice in the two weeks since these tragic events. There are more standing tables inside. It’s not the same, though! I can stand inside anywhere. Standing outside is what makes life worth living. So I have started making more coffee at home. My savings are up, but my work productivity is way down. Oh well. I’m sure my company will completely understand why I haven’t done any work in two weeks.

Title song

I’m a big fan of a little-known folk musician from the 1960s who was born Robert Zimmerman but is known to some people as Bob Dylan.

One of his most famous songs, Simple Twist of Fate, has heartbreaking lyrics about a guy who doesn’t get the table he loves because of a simple twist of fate. Or it’s about a woman. I don’t know. The sentiment just felt right.

The title was inspired directly by the lines:

He woke up, the room was bare.

He didn't see her anywhere.

The final stanza is also good:

People tell me it's a sin

To know and feel too much within.

I still believe she was my twin but I lost the ring.

She was born in spring but I was born too late.

Blame it on a simple twist of fate.

One of my favorite versions of the song is Take 1, recorded by Dylan in the studio. It’s slower and more melancholic than the final version.

This video is the best I could find of this lesser-known take (remember, I don’t have Spotify and thus can’t share the song link like a normal person). If you actually watch the video, please marvel at how hard they make the lyrics to read. Why can’t we have a simple font that displays the words before they’re sung so we can easily read along? This is a criticism I have with many modern lyrics videos on YouTube. Luckily, no one watches such videos except me.

Until next time,

Happy fishing!