April 9th 2010

(Spokane Wa)
There was definitely something familiar about walking around downtown Spokane. Although for the life of me I couldn't remember where Aunties & Uncles was. I vaguely remembered it being near the Opera house, and with enough sidewalk stumbling I found it. It had changed somewhat inside. Downsizing to almost only the bottom floor. Still bright and loving, the walls the same muted white with that almost obnoxious green accent. It felt different this time. As I walked amongst the neatly lined shelves it felt like something was missing. Perhaps it was the lack of the oppressive weight of floors full of books above me. Even the attached cafe had changed. From the artistically over colored photographs on the slate gray walls to the perfectly handwritten chalkboard menu above the stereo playing french nouveau jazz. The quaint cafe had become that psuedo-neighbors dining table style of upscale fine dining. It reminds me of the Kitchen in Boulder and I feel sadly under-dressed in my hoodie with my americano and Byron. (Book: The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron)

Don't get me wrong, I love it in here. The manager, whom I talked to for the better part of an hour, and the owner have done a fantastic job. It is just that feel like a stranger in a town that was once my home. Oddly it only spurs my desire to be back on the road. At least that is familiar from my past, a feeling like I always needed to get out of Spokane.

The music changes slightly, still the words are in french, but the beat feels distinctly Cuban or Puerto Rican. I is with this change that I am blindly following Byron through the Mediterranean eastward. Funnily enough, I am continually distracted by a particular patron within the bookstore. From where I sit I have a clear view of the magazine rack and the books on Astrology and Metaphysics. It is there that he has been perusing for the past twenty minutes. As if the answers that he has failed to find in his anarchy might be hiding in the pages of an untold horoscope. All black clothes with various slogans of the anti-corporate, gauged ears, and long black dreadlocks that reach towards his studded belt. If eel as if he is a cross between several of my friends and a cliche. I think he knew I was watching him, for he looked right at me, walked away, then circled back a moment later to return the books.