Mildfire Coffee Roasters; San Antonio, Texas

Sometimes when you trade a sure thing for the possibility of something unknown, and when the unknown is grasping to the veiled promise of distinction, when the bust fireworks of the commonplace, or contemporary comforts, are subconsciously expected you are more than likely to miss out on the subtleties of life. So now, with an intro like that, how can you not continue reading this blog? And although this intro might be a little heavy handed considering the inspiration for this thought was roasted and steamed and sipped from the saucer of an Spicy Aztec Mocha from Mildfire Coffee off of Huebner Road in San Antonio, Texas. I am inclined to defend my position with fierce veracity...

I spent the morning at Local Coffee at the intersection of Military Highway and 1604, it was packed, hardly a seat left un-millennialled, Starbucks would have been put to shame, if they were to be bothered to look up from the happenstance of their political dark roast; I ordered a house drip, the Guatemala, it was, um: coffee. The internet however was quite reliable, which was essentially the reason I was there. I wanted to get out of my cluttered living room and observe our species in their natural habitat while pushing through the monotonous droning work of SEO, but after the trendy muzak and metaphorical poo throwing in the unconscious arrangement of thoughtless commentary I began to Google “alternative coffee shops near me.” Fortunately, and only a short 8 minuets away, was the small coffee roaster Mildfire Coffee Roasters.

It was quiet when I walked in: five people including the two baristas, whose suggestion (the Spicy Aztec Mocha, remember?), was fantastic. The small square tables were tiled, there were bags of coffee beans on the floors, and various couches and armchairs anywhere that it seemed remotely plausible. The walls were red and yellow. Oh, and the internet, even after confirming the password, did not work. I wouldn't be able to continue monotonously reworking the SEO for Communitea Books. However, I also probably would not have enjoyed the several settled moments of quiet humanity that followed. What is it really, then, that we sacrifice when our expectations crumble beneath us?

While I was there I nurtured a minor crush on the barista because the atmosphere demanded it, and she had a nice smile—she wore flannel. I like unique, and it's situational. The smell of the entire coffeehouse changed several times while I sat writing this—that's cool. I couldn't help but be reminded of the aroma at Local, there was only the unbalanced steeped residue of an overly-ambitious state of pseudo progressive conformity in the air, and yes it was stale. Like the chalky thud of an old fire pit after tossing a rock to put a dying ember out of its misery. Local, unlike Starbucks (generationally I should think, Starbucks belongs to the mistakes of an ignored generation, my generation) is the patchouli habitat of under-developed progressive trend setters. My attitude towards such characters, when perceived through my fine tinted primrose Starbucks impulse bought sunglasses (Disclaimer: I have never, nor will I attempt to buy any such thing, especially at Starbucks), is, at its foundation, a product of subtle irritability ignited by my inherent misunderstanding of being driven by the deeply-rooted construct that "cool is sexy," for all intents and purposes I'm afraid of them; though, honestly, I have nothing against these young idealistic plighters beyond my own stereo-typically unexplored trepidation of their socially vogue agenda and, having developed and fought for idealistic progressive sensitivities myself, I, and maybe with a degree of unfairness challenge their motives. You see, from my perspective developing and standing up for ones ideals is one thing, but it is quite another to be progressive for the sake simply of being progressive, you know, as if fighting for a persons rights was trendy—like the eighties—or a way to “let off steam,” cause it might get a few hundred likes on Instagram. Caring about ideals vs. looking like you act like you care about ideals, in even an ideal world, would normally be the same thing, because someone might even accidentally change something for the better, however, and not without a few hours of sleepless directive thought towards the contradiction, I've discovered that somehow that is just not the world we leave in; When I overheard "I'm a sapiophile. Intelligence is so f$&king sexy," at Local, and the way that it slipped from their tongue without any apparent regard, just irked me a little more than it probably should. Intelligence should not be sexy for sexy' case.

Shit, where was I going with this?

I heard a song on Pandora a couple of weeks ago, some of the lyrics caught my attention and I thought, after the song had ended, I should post that on Facebook. Only, I didn't post it on Facebook. I forgot. I heard the song again a few days later and I thought, Oh, that's right I was going to post that on Facebook. Only, I didn't post it again on Facebook. The third time that I heard it, tried to remind myself, and then again forgot to post I decided to go hunting for it. Although I couldn't remember the song title or the band, I did know that it played multiple times on the Brown Bird Pandora radio station (is it still called radio?) I took this search as deep into the rabbit hole that I could fathom, well as deep as Google would allow me, and guess what, after all of that I still have no clue what it was that I wanted to post on Facebook, just a few simple lines from a song that played on Pandora. I've been listening almost all day today hoping that it might come on, it hasn't, or I simply missed it, again. But, you know what, I can still remember the smell of Mildfire Coffee Roasters, and the feel of the tiled tables, and the taste of the Aztec Mocha. 

Do you ever get the feeling like you're imploding, but you can actually foresee it as if the impending implosion is being organized unobserved from beyond you; the recreation of an explosion that has already happened but you are only becoming aware of it as the reaction returns to your center? Meanwhile you feverishly fight to disarm the detonation which has, for all intents and purposes, already taken place, and you watch as time counts backwards and, knowing the simplicity of disarming this device you offer yourself as a means to "make things better," only to watch time conclude and then proceed to reset itself, over and over again for eternity? No, yeah me neither...

​The point? Pssh, I have no clue. I know only that it started with a Spicy Aztec Mocha which, for me, seemed to stop time, if only for a little while...