MeMadeMay 2019 Day 17

“MeMadeMay (2019) day 17. Back to freezing here in Chicago, so my white dress gets paired with a turtleneck and my photos get taken indoors. This time at Beans and Bagels, which became my regular cafe after Dollop ruined The Grind.”

Fuckin’ DIPPO.

Once upon a time, there was a cafe in Lincoln Square called The Grind. Some of my earliest dates with Kenneth were on their back patio. When I still worked a normal job, I dreamed of having a life where I could sit in the cafe every day. And then I did that thing! I went to The Grind every single day for SEVEN YEARS. I filled masses of notebooks, mostly with awkward fanfiction and reductive anxiety. I edited SO MANY naked lady photos, in full view of the general public. (Just kidding, I always tried to face my laptop toward a wall when I was editing burlesque photos.) They were my internet for the two-ish years that mine was disconnected. I loved all the baristas, and Tara, the owner. I went every day, even when I was so broke I was counting change for my coffee. Because it was an important part of what I wanted my life to look like. And, to this day, I am SO SICK OF ROSEMARY, because they used to put rosemary in the eggs in their breakfast sandwiches, which I also ate every single day.

And then, one day, Tara had had enough of Chicago (which, I can’t really blame her, honestly), and sold the cafe to Dollop, which is a local-ish chain. They promised her they wouldn’t change anything, and then promptly changed literally everything six months later, with the owner smirking to Block Club Chicago that “no one liked it the way it was anyway”. It’s gone completely now, and the space has been empty since like 2021.

Enter Beans & Bagels. They have a green business certification, they generate (I think) zero non-compostable/non recyclable waste. They’re just on the other side of the neighborhood. For a short while, I went there every single day to sit in the cafe with a breakfast sandwich and a mocha. Exactly the same, just in a new place. And then the world ended and we still went every day, to their walk-up window. And, actually, I got to sit in the cafe with a breakfast sandwich and a mocha today, for the first time since 2020. My life looks very different now, but I’m glad there’s still room at the table for me sometimes.

Dress is, again, Simplicity 4105 from 1952.