I park my Honda Civic equipped with CD player in front of two cop cars on King Edward and stroll up the sidewalk to Main. Past me walks a boy my age, dark-haired and dark-skined. He eyes me quickly. My Gap bag doesn't belong, I know. As I pass I catch his head turn to look at me again. No bother. Under this materialistic overcoat I'm wearing I am really your average East Van girl. I enjoy luxuries but I could live without. You could catch me on that street corner one day, smoking a cig casually in dirt smudged jeans, messy ponytail and a genuine smile on my face for once.

Have I convinced you yet?

On with the story. This part of Main is a little past the Punjabi Market so the streets are crammed with Punjab, Chinese, and white-trash buisnesses mixed in with a diverse and flavourful aura. The bright sign for The Locus stands out, the cafe that competes with The Grind, but The Grind still pulls me in with its ethnic brown and red wood, abstract art and Bob Dylan serving as background music to scruffy college students who drink their lattes and eat their cinammon buns amidst mountains of textbooks and papers. I love the antique piano sitting in the corner over there, but I'm afraid to walk over and press the delicate keys, in fear of being shushed. With this crowd, however, I shouldn't worry about uptightness. The young man in the center of the room, unkept beard and paint splattered coverals may rise to his feet and call, "Bravo! Bravo!"

As I walk into the Grind the cute 20-something coffee-boy behind the counter has a bemused look on his face. Must lose this Gap bag, I think to myself. I order my cinnamon bun with a please and coffee-boy smiles and asks if that is for here or to go, and it is for here of course.

The girl sitting on my left doesn't belong either, but for different reasons. I get the feeling she doesn't belong even more so than I do, despite her dark hair and tan skin. She sits at a large table alone, as if expecting a couple other people. She's wearing a Gap turtleneck in burgundy, ooh the sin. But it is the expression on her face that is a dead giveaway she is not truly one of them. She looks annoyed, nervous and cynical. Not cynical in a way that is humourous, but cynical in a truly pessimistic way, as if she is thinking, god help me. Finally, after sipping the last of her Diet Lemon Nestea (the shame!), she pulls out her flip cell and speaks angrily with another person in Spanish. Just brushed her hair away from her face, checked her Motorola pager before laying her perfectly made up face in her hands to read a textbook. She may live around here but she is a low class girl struggling to get out of here and be like me, and by god she may very well be succeeding. I'm a high class girl struggling to fit in here, in an area of town I find truly alive.

The entire shop just froze as three cops strolled by. All three glanced at me before disappearing down the hallway, yelling "Wait! Wait!" to someone. Girl beside me jumps a little and packs her bag quickly, throws her empty Diet Nestea in the trash (recycle glass, people!), pulls on her expensive looking black Gap jacket and prances quickly down the same hallway the cops just went down. I am such a goddamned innocent bystander.

The grafitti on the wall beside me reads, "God is dead" - Nietzsche. Someone has scribbled beside this, "Nietzsche is dead" - God. Even the graffiti here is creative and humourous, not to mention 'Nietzsche' is actually spelt correctly which is a feat in itself for some. The graffiti we get in Richmond doesn't reach past the notorious "retarded horse" symbol and "Brown Power" scrawled across a few fences. Oh, and don't forget the lame high-school pranks - Strikers Rule. Packer Power. McNair sucks.

Long live your bright and challenging future generation. Meanwhile, you can find me on Main, washing my high class problems away in an area that seems to understand that to live doesn't necessarily mean to prosper.

I think as long as you know yourself, you're as good off as gold.


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