You can get anything you want - including a big shaved slice of off the gyro meat thing, and eggs, at Pete's

(scroll down and start the Elvis Costello music video – it makes a good audio backdrop to this story)

It’s a quarter til midnight. It’s 18 degrees f and the incherso of snow that fell last night in Denver squeaks and gives just a little under your tennis shoes. Mom and Dad and the SUV are nestled snug in their beds and most of the streets are black cold and quiet.

But, here at Pete’s Cafe a different world buzzes along it’s own course. If you forgot your glasses or squinted kinda hard you’d think you had walked into 1962 when the bell over the door announced your arrival. But, no one turns around to see who came in the door. This ain’t Mayberry SC. It’s a hardcore downtown city cafe.

I’ve been in here at 3am on a Sunday morning in Saturday night mode, people all dressed up and screaming drunk or coked out of their skulls, hell-bent for breakfast or chili fries. I’ve seen the Colfax cops, a hardy bunch, drag a meth head off a stool at the counter, still screaming at the cook, eyes bulging, flinging spit, ringing the bell on the way out into the snow.

Pimps, hookers, cops, robbers, punks from the Ogden Theater still vibrating from the show, gypsies, a couple of ultra-caucasians who apparently couldn’t find the IHOP, and down at the end of the counter, me.

I try to overtip the 20something very nice blonde waitress. She smiles and says THANX, but, the $2 isn’t going to change her life any more than spending it does mine. But, it’s a moment.

I’m the bald guy in jeans and black Vans, typing on a Mac laptop between forkfuls of forbidden biscuits and gravy. I’d like to say that I am an unlikely customer amidst the kids, cab drivers and night crowd, but I know I’m just trying to romantisize my ego. Being the only one of your kind IS the crowd at Pete’s.

But, from the inside out, I have to tell you that right now I’m feeling a particular kind of contentment, being a face in this scene. I’m 55 years old, single, live alone with a red miniature pinscher with an attitude problem, and I do whatever the hell I want to – whenever the hell I feel like it. Like leave home at midnight and end up here.

Of course, its arrogant to say this, but I don’t own a watch, I don’t own an alarm clock, I go to bed when I am sleepy, and I wake up when I’m done sleeping. I do not own a neck tie and I swear to God I do not have one single appointment scheduled beyond a phone call with a consulting client tomorrow (always after noon) for the rest of my life.

“Again, for the unbelievers – I do not have a plane ticket, a meeting, a deadline, or one single appointment for the rest of my life. My Google Calendar is blank except for a few birthdays reminders.”

Despite writing books and making a living nearly my entire life by crafting words – it is only in the last couple months I’ve started to say – to myself – what I have wanted for so long to be true. I’m a writer.

“Last night I was too fat, and too old, and hated my shirts and there was nothing on cable but the State of Disunion and the usual regrets lined up to have a word with me and it was all shit and what’s the use and I went to bed with the help of Nyquil.”

But today someone said yes to something I wrote. Today I got a lot done and figured out the membership software that sought to destroy me. Today I had a spectacular nap from 5pm to 6 and worked until 11pm when the biscuit fairy whispered in my ear. And tonight I’m the Catcher in the freakin Rye, I’m Holden Caulfield listening to Elvis Costello on my iPhone and trying to write like Anne Lamott and letting it fly.

So while everyone else runs their traps I get to sit on a barstool in a diner (the skinniest guy in the place just dove into pancakes AND biscuits and gravy – I predict trouble) and play with all the words I know, hammer the punctuation and paint a little snapshot that just might make you smile.

(This story goes very well with Elvis Costello’s “Watching the Detectives”)

I would love your response in the comments below?