talk to me nice
VOL. 01 — 2026
When you find yourself in another country, not knowing anybody but the person you came here with, and she doesn't know anyone either, you find yourself wandering around, figuring out where you are, and what you have done.
Most places go for a look, to be visited by people going for the same look. It’s like they’re part of the furniture. As you go around vibe checking certain intersections you can ascertain their values from across the street, and whether they align with yours. The act of sitting down becomes an exercise in taxonomy—best be honest with thineself, lest ye become stared at.
Sometimes, you want to go where everybody knows your name. But in most places conversations don’t extend between tables or staff. The staff is the staff, those people are those people, and you are you. If you go alone, you will be alone, even if you keep going. That’s fine, I suppose—there must be order in this world.
I wandered the same streets for an entire fall and winter before I found mine. Lord knows I passed by long ago. It was the kind of morning Spring considers becoming itself. The street buzzed with matte tan overcoats, umbrellas, sweatpants and backpacks. The bright sun made wet surfaces white and blinding.
I heard the place before I saw it—the same music played out of house windows in Washington Heights, echoing under the arcade on a noisy street in the center of Athens. Cars parked out front, jamming traffic for several blocks while their drivers took their coffee at sidewalk tables beside them. Blinkers make everything ok.
A metal counter is fixed into the side of the shop, below the open window next to the open door. The ledge stands about chest height, comfortable and sturdy in a way that would make Pythagoras happy. I leaned on it and looked up.
Her blonde hair was backlit in a halo, and an innate joy protected the enthusiasm weariness normally steals. She looked about my mother’s age, if she were still alive, and right away I felt like one of her sons. She greeted me as if she agreed, and proceeded to fix me the best cup in the city.
I’m not sure if we spoke that day or what about. My first impression was that her English was better than it is. Like my Greek, she understands a lot, but many words either fail or come too slowly. Despite this we get by.
Her son is around my age and the shop is actually his. He’s had it for 13 years and he’s 34 now. I got him addicted to Wordle like a peddler of five-letter drugs. Malaka, I have a nice vocabulary, he likes to say.
Under his regime, many different looks are accommodated: lawyers, pharmacists, clothiers, secondhand jewelers, travel agents, photo copyists, beach club operators, off-duty cops, and all the other old professions that still exist here; they arrive from the fray for the goods and gather around the copper boiler like an ancestral spring.
Some stay for a while, exchanging a mutual affection that doesn’t really exist where I come from, where it is cold and rainy.
Greeks don’t tolerate cold or rain very well.
They discuss basketball, the news, what happened yesterday, what’s happening tomorrow. Mothers in the hospital and trips to China. They bemoan their country, but in a way that doesn’t seem to embitter them. The corruption is to be countered by kindness and cash. You can get just about anything you need here except good weed. Nobody in this country seems to have any of that.
When I wanted to get married, he called the priest. When he wanted to propose in Central Park, I called the musicians. At my wedding, when I forgot the rings, he drove my best man to retrieve them. Two tattooed men in Sunday best, barelling down side streets on a mint green Vespa, back in record time. What I would give to reciprocate that.
I must have been a kind of novelty to them, this foreigner who showed up one day and stayed. They watched me soaking them in, eventually offering the same question: “Why are you here?” I don’t know, really. It’s complicated.
Some days, there just isn’t much to talk about. These are special days. I like to sit and watch waves of customers come and go like the tides. To listen to the traffic roar, horns squawking like the gulls.
When you find yourself in another country, not knowing anybody but the person you came here with, and she doesn't know anyone either, you find yourself wandering around, figuring out where you are, and what you have done.
Most places go for a look, to be visited by people going for the same look. It’s like they’re part of the furniture. As you go around vibe checking certain intersections you can ascertain their values from across the street, and whether they align with yours. The act of sitting down becomes an exercise in taxonomy—best be honest with thineself, lest ye become stared at.
Sometimes, you want to go where everybody knows your name. But in most places conversations don’t extend between tables or staff. The staff is the staff, those people are those people, and you are you. If you go alone, you will be alone, even if you keep going. That’s fine, I suppose—there must be order in this world.
I wandered the same streets for an entire fall and winter before I found mine. Lord knows I passed by long ago. It was the kind of morning Spring considers becoming itself. The street buzzed with matte tan overcoats, umbrellas, sweatpants and backpacks. The bright sun made wet surfaces white and blinding.
I heard the place before I saw it—the same music played out of house windows in Washington Heights, echoing under the arcade on a noisy street in the center of Athens. Cars parked out front, jamming traffic for several blocks while their drivers took their coffee at sidewalk tables beside them. Blinkers make everything ok.
A metal counter is fixed into the side of the shop, below the open window next to the open door. The ledge stands about chest height, comfortable and sturdy in a way that would make Pythagoras happy. I leaned on it and looked up.
Her blonde hair was backlit in a halo, and an innate joy protected the enthusiasm weariness normally steals. She looked about my mother’s age, if she were still alive, and right away I felt like one of her sons. She greeted me as if she agreed, and proceeded to fix me the best cup in the city.
I’m not sure if we spoke that day or what about. My first impression was that her English was better than it is. Like my Greek, she understands a lot, but many words either fail or come too slowly. Despite this we get by.
Her son is around my age and the shop is actually his. He’s had it for 13 years and he’s 34 now. I got him addicted to Wordle like a peddler of five-letter drugs. Malaka, I have a nice vocabulary, he likes to say.
Under his regime, many different looks are accommodated: lawyers, pharmacists, clothiers, secondhand jewelers, travel agents, photo copyists, beach club operators, off-duty cops, and all the other old professions that still exist here; they arrive from the fray for the goods and gather around the copper boiler like an ancestral spring.
Some stay for a while, exchanging a mutual affection that doesn’t really exist where I come from, where it is cold and rainy.
Greeks don’t tolerate cold or rain very well.
They discuss basketball, the news, what happened yesterday, what’s happening tomorrow. Mothers in the hospital and trips to China. They bemoan their country, but in a way that doesn’t seem to embitter them. The corruption is to be countered by kindness and cash. You can get just about anything you need here except good weed. Nobody in this country seems to have any of that.
When I wanted to get married, he called the priest. When he wanted to propose in Central Park, I called the musicians. At my wedding, when I forgot the rings, he drove my best man to retrieve them. Two tattooed men in Sunday best, barelling down side streets on a mint green Vespa, back in record time. What I would give to reciprocate that.
I must have been a kind of novelty to them, this foreigner who showed up one day and stayed. They watched me soaking them in, eventually offering the same question: “Why are you here?” I don’t know, really. It’s complicated.
Some days, there just isn’t much to talk about. These are special days. I like to sit and watch waves of customers come and go like the tides. To listen to the traffic roar, horns squawking like the gulls.
When you find yourself in another country, not knowing anybody but the person you came here with, and she doesn't know anyone either, you find yourself wandering around, figuring out where you are, and what you have done.
Most places go for a look, to be visited by people going for the same look. It’s like they’re part of the furniture. As you go around vibe checking certain intersections you can ascertain their values from across the street, and whether they align with yours. The act of sitting down becomes an exercise in taxonomy—best be honest with thineself, lest ye become stared at.
Sometimes, you want to go where everybody knows your name. But in most places conversations don’t extend between tables or staff. The staff is the staff, those people are those people, and you are you. If you go alone, you will be alone, even if you keep going. That’s fine, I suppose—there must be order in this world.
I wandered the same streets for an entire fall and winter before I found mine. Lord knows I passed by long ago. It was the kind of morning Spring considers becoming itself. The street buzzed with matte tan overcoats, umbrellas, sweatpants and backpacks. The bright sun made wet surfaces white and blinding.
I heard the place before I saw it—the same music played out of house windows in Washington Heights, echoing under the arcade on a noisy street in the center of Athens. Cars parked out front, jamming traffic for several blocks while their drivers took their coffee at sidewalk tables beside them. Blinkers make everything ok.
A metal counter is fixed into the side of the shop, below the open window next to the open door. The ledge stands about chest height, comfortable and sturdy in a way that would make Pythagoras happy. I leaned on it and looked up.
Her blonde hair was backlit in a halo, and an innate joy protected the enthusiasm weariness normally steals. She looked about my mother’s age, if she were still alive, and right away I felt like one of her sons. She greeted me as if she agreed, and proceeded to fix me the best cup in the city.
I’m not sure if we spoke that day or what about. My first impression was that her English was better than it is. Like my Greek, she understands a lot, but many words either fail or come too slowly. Despite this we get by.
Her son is around my age and the shop is actually his. He’s had it for 13 years and he’s 34 now. I got him addicted to Wordle like a peddler of five-letter drugs. Malaka, I have a nice vocabulary, he likes to say.
Under his regime, many different looks are accommodated: lawyers, pharmacists, clothiers, secondhand jewelers, travel agents, photo copyists, beach club operators, off-duty cops, and all the other old professions that still exist here; they arrive from the fray for the goods and gather around the copper boiler like an ancestral spring.
Some stay for a while, exchanging a mutual affection that doesn’t really exist where I come from, where it is cold and rainy.
Greeks don’t tolerate cold or rain very well.
They discuss basketball, the news, what happened yesterday, what’s happening tomorrow. Mothers in the hospital and trips to China. They bemoan their country, but in a way that doesn’t seem to embitter them. The corruption is to be countered by kindness and cash. You can get just about anything you need here except good weed. Nobody in this country seems to have any of that.
When I wanted to get married, he called the priest. When he wanted to propose in Central Park, I called the musicians. At my wedding, when I forgot the rings, he drove my best man to retrieve them. Two tattooed men in Sunday best, barelling down side streets on a mint green Vespa, back in record time. What I would give to reciprocate that.
I must have been a kind of novelty to them, this foreigner who showed up one day and stayed. They watched me soaking them in, eventually offering the same question: “Why are you here?” I don’t know, really. It’s complicated.
Some days, there just isn’t much to talk about. These are special days. I like to sit and watch waves of customers come and go like the tides. To listen to the traffic roar, horns squawking like the gulls.
