I’m sitting in what very well may be the world’s most obnoxious coffee shop. It’s too bad really, because I enjoy the atmosphere here. There’s interesting art on the walls, good coffee, and even the seating is fun. So what’s the problem? Well, there are a few… The overhead speakers are blasting the absolute worst major hits of the seventies and eighties (Billy Joel, Wham!, Neil Diamond, etc.), an employee keeps circling the floor, getting unnecessarily close to customers when she passes, including me (it’s so fucking bizarre), and a middle aged guy is knitting about ten feet away from me and I keep catching him staring at me as I type. Ha! And to top it off, just now [as I was writing that last sentence], a woman came in from outside, sat in the chair next to me and introduced herself. Thankfully she picked up on my confusion and asked, “Is your name Ethan?” My name is not Ethan, so I said ‘no.’ She apologized, stood and said, “Oh sorry, I’m meeting a guy here.” She paused. “Several guys actually.” I had no idea how to respond, so I took another sip of coffee and she found another place to sit on the farthest side of the cafe.

I came here to write Chapter Five of Fight Tub. I wrote a couple broken [terrible] sentences over the span of about 45 minutes, so I gave up and started writing this blog post. For some reason I’m able to write this and not Fight Tub. Maybe because this requires no real thought. I’m just rambling. Whatever it is, it makes me feel like I’m making good use of my time. It’s going okay so far. Look how much I’ve already written!

This week I’ve really been pushing to get a decent first draft of Fight Tub finished. I was pretty optimistic on Monday, after having written 2,500 words in just a few hours, but as the week went on the daily count has dwindled. And here we are today, with me sitting on a mostly unusable 30 words. Ugh. Well, the good news is that I only have two chapters left to write, maybe 9,000-10,000 words in total. Not bad. I’m excited for you all to read it! Maybe I’ll share a chunk of it sometime in the next few weeks. It’s essentially a love letter to the films of Shinya Tsukamoto, but infused with all that Eighth Block madness. You all know how I roll by now.

Alright, coffee is finished. I’m gonna take one quick look around at all the art then head home. I may give this place another shot sometime. Maybe it’s just a bad day. Maybe I’m irritable. I’m definitely irritable. Maybe most of this is really my fault. We’ll see. But next time I’m bringing my own damn headphones.

Pre-order FIGHT TUB here.