California Multilogue Three "Something Regular"

"Why do we have to have our coffee in a quiet room, where it's not that quiet, actually, there's the jabber of the employees who sound almost antagonistic with each other, the price paid for being polite and obsequious with customers?"
"Well, the carpet is red and spotty and hasn't been steam cleaned since that earthquake that made that bridge go wobbly like a world-sized sine wave and because it was the first place we saw when we got off the BART."
"I wasn't asking for a direct response."
"And also because the circular marble tables mismatch and have patchy stains on them. Sticky puddles from sugar and milk and the employees who have so much paradoxical tension about them won't be cleaning them anytime soon."

Clink. Also: clank. And the flibberty flip of the seal on the front door as it struggles to find equilibrium each time it opens.
"Do we dare ask about the narrow stairway and what's upstairs? This place has the feel of an old hotel. Abandoned by life and home sweet home to ghosts and wraiths and their undead horror pals."
"I don't think we need to see up there to know there's a hallway lined with doors on each side, all closed, each one decorated with a specific dried flower petal to indicate the services dispensed therein."
"One might have ascended the staircase colored with excitement and shame."
"One might very well have indeed."
"Ought we?"
"You haven't finished your espresso. And you were thinking about a muffin."
"Scandalous talk."
"I noticed you don't write a lot of dialogue anymore."
"Is there a question in there?"
"It's like you forgot how people talk to each other."
"It's like that yes, and it probably also is that."
"Tell me about what that's like."
"I think I'm fully on the record expressing what the inside of my skull sounds like. And also why I put headphones on and fill the space with music to provide a background score or if I'm lucky replace the thoughts entirely with something more eloquent. Something regular."
"Just now we went out to where our friend was designing a t-shirt on the computer and suggested she move the pocket from the upper left breast area to the middle of the torso, around the navel. And why not? Why not shake things up a little?"
"Maybe it's better to keep the headphones on. Clinically speaking."
"It's that when one has been alone for a long time one learns to laugh at one's own jokes, to celebrate inconsistencies, to look one's flaws in the face and say I See You and You are Loved. In this way it's a healthy way to be, if you think about it."
"Like how you're eating that muffin, right now, with the crumbs spilling all over the place and raining down onto the spotted carpet like moist fluffy boulders from the sky, and if you knew how to go about cleaning up the mess without the woman who brought you the muffin making a big scene about how it's not your responsibility, a deference you notice all too often as you get older and sometimes confuse for respect and hope it's not because they see you as a doddering old fool incapable of taking care of himself or eating without soiling his clothes."
"We found the broom in the garage the other day when we spilled the peppercorns all over the floor and were afraid the goofy pit bull would lick them off the tile as we haven't seen him refuse any morsel or scrap of any kind, animal vegetable or mineral."
"Found it and were proud of ourselves and of finding the dust pan too, like an idiot, and had a nice time of it talking with the dogs, and we appreciated the way they pretend to understand and share our concerns."
"And in a way the lack of comprehension is as much the point as the point we're trying to make, that the feeling that it's all going somewhere is the purpose in itself, an impression made by rhythm and enforced with repetition, it's like music in that way, a vision we had from sneaking into church services a few times and listening to the sermons but not comprehending the text or the references but letting the sound move us along and lift us toward what felt like revelation, the same joy we got from fairy tales and movies about overcoming evil in outer space."
"It's an understandable desire, to be the embodied flame in a pale container."
"Did I mention the whole reason behind the way I ate the muffin?"
"Certainly not."
"Interesting that you should wonder about that. You see, I rarely eat a muffin, and I'm not sure I really buy the idea that it makes for a proper breakfast..."
"Listen I'm not going to stop you but I am going upstairs to the haunted prostitutes' rooms to see if any of the doors lock."