Libraries, coffee shops bring adventure to writer

I’ve developed a Friday routine when I’m kinda-sorta off from work.

I say kinda-sorta because newspapers devour copy the way football players eat pizza at Cici’s.

They don’t care if you’re on vacation, sick, wheedled a day off or recently died; they still need stories for the next issue.

So I write one story on Friday and another over the weekend to keep the insatiable monster at bay.

I’ve learned to make the kinda-sorta work fun by going to the library to write. For one thing, I’ve loved libraries since I was knee-high to a card catalog; for another, it’s not as tempting to sleep, read or contemplate all my problems as it would be at home.

I’ve also given Library Tour 2015 extra zest by picking a different library each week. I even keep a brochure with me with all the branch locations and addresses.

It’s not like I check them off – that would kill the adventure – but the list serves as a handy reference if my gut doesn’t tell me where to go.

One Friday I might be in a Claycomoesque mood, another maybe more Lee’s Summitish.

Sometimes when I’m not particular, I’ll choose a library simply because it’s close to errands, a QuikTrip or near a thrift store I like.

But sometimes I like to merge library roulette with my desire to roam; a friend calls me a gallivanter.

One Friday I hit two libraries in one day in addition to seeing enough corn, windmills and old barns to keep me and my camera occupied.

It was kind of a long jaunt, but you can’t count miles when you’re saddling time off with story writing.

I even ran into a guy that day who fixes cars in a shop behind an old Interurban depot. At some point, he and his building (it’s full of antiques, collectibles, dust and dead mosquitoes from the Calvin Coolidge administration) might become a story.

I recently had an early doctor’s appointment and strayed from my routine by substituting a Starbucks for the library. I’m kind of a senior-coffee-at-McDonald’s cheapskate, so this was a big departure for me.

The Starbucks was across the parking lot from a thrift store, so it made perfect sense.

What I like about libraries is their tranquility and the spacious worktables I can use to spread out my array of notes, notebooks, laptop computer, personal communication devices, gum, Lifesavers and other writer’s paraphernalia.

I also people-watch – usually there’ll be a man even older than me writing some sort of tome, maybe a memoir about the battles he fought during his 30 exciting years as an insurance underwriter.

It’s also an opportunity to test my theory that, on any given day, 94 percent of librarians will be wearing cardigan sweaters, regardless of season, and carrying reading glasses on a silver necklace.

Big-city libraries may be different, but the ones I frequent are hustle-bustle-free.

Starbucks was different. While there was still at least one male retiree working on an opus that would become his legacy, the Starbucks was a beehive of activity and offered a scribe of my ilk a table the size of a dinner plate.

I was committed to working there, so I bought a $3 coffee Americana, half-regular, half-decaf, and moved two circular dinner-plate tables together to make room for the tools of my trade.

I finally found a place to plug in my computer charger, but it was below the table and to my left, a location better suited to a yoga instructor than an arthritic scribbler. With my unique brand of inflexible contortionism, I was afraid I’d take an embarrassing tumble.

Not only would it be disruptive, but a fall could create a domino effect and spill a line of $4 mocha latte double espressos at the adjoining tables and leave the klatch of texting, tweeting hipsters all a titter.

I wouldn’t say the coffee shop was a bad experience. You live, learn and realize that sometimes breaking a routine is the best way to know just how much you like it.

Tell me your library/coffee shop/gallivanting story at davidknopf48@gmail.

This story was originally published September 22, 2015 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Libraries, coffee shops bring adventure to writer."