Nowheresville

starbucks - semeron blvd, orlando, fl - 1706, 30 Oct 2013

It is interesting to be sitting in a Starbucks far from where I first learned what a Starbucks was and what it was for and yet it still smells, look and feels the same.
Burnt, a certain manufactured ease and pretentious.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. I suppose it's comforting knowing that I can get a passion iced tea, shaken, with a few pumps of raspberry and a few Madeline cookies in Germany, England, New York, Chicago, LA, Grand Rapids...Lake Mary, Florida (don't ask), but even that gets old, I want something new. Different.
The only thing that changes about places like these is the scenery outside the plate glass windows. Right now, I'm rocking palm trees and lots of traffic outside mine.
If I ignored the windows, though, I could be sitting in a Starbucks anywhere in the world.
When I am visiting another city, I try to ignore the place all together and look for something out of the way, off the beaten path, preferably with free WiFi, where there is almost always sure to be some much better offerings. I'm usually right.

OH!

Why am I sitting in Starbucks right now? This is Orlando, Florida. Everything here is manufactured. There are no better offerings here, which is sad. Except, maybe, Panera, but that's even sadder because it's like a little sister desperate to like her big sister. The little pockets of individuality and creativity are run over like so much roadkill and left to fester on the hot southern asphalt as an example to anyone who does not fit the mold...whatever that means...all for the sake of tourism.
Sunshine State indeed. I hate this place. I hate myself in this place. It's killing me. I am making an escape before they tie me a palm tree while a giant anthropomorphic mouse god forces the KoolAid down my throat.