I bet she smokes French cigarettes.

There is no Bigger Picture point to make here. I just like this passage that I ran across:

She sits at the back of the café with her lined notepad, her books — poems by Billy Collins, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead — and a look of dreamy possibility.

Where will her thoughts take her today? To the unfortunate man, head drooped in sleep, at a nearby table? To thoughts of love, for she is young, pretty and unattached? To a play she will soon be acting in?

What matters is that Tracy Michailidis writes, three pages every day and often in this café, Alternative Grounds. "I'll write about anything," she says, "anything to get the pond scum off the top of my brain."

Does she wear a black turtleneck and a beret? And does she snap her fingers when she wants to applaud?