A tedious argument of insidious intent

There are good days, and there are not-so-good days.

Sunday was a not-so-good day. I mean, it was good. Nothing bad happened. (I was at work.) No one was rude or anything, no one complained about me being slow, no one said anything rude or anything like that. It just...

Sunday was the hottest day of the year so far. I don't do well in heat - I don't do well in extreme temperatures, period, but at least I can bundle up with cold weather. In heat... well. The coffee stand where I work is wonderfully insulated and retains heat beautifully... on hot days. On hot days it's like a bloody greenhouse. On cold days, it's a refrigerator. It's BRILLIANT, right?

So on Sunday I was working a seven hour shift, in 90+ degree weather (probably 100 in the stand, I should bring a thermometer of some kind one of these days), by myself, and the patronage was on par with the 5:20am commuter ferry. Somewhere in between the 5:20 and 6:20. FOR SIX HOURS. (One hour for closing.) And yes, tips were insanely good, but ambient stress levels were NOT.

Granted, this was through no fault of the customers. They were all wonderful - most of them were fine, just getting coffee and moving on, you know? A few were complicated but still fine. A handful were beautiful wonderful human beings who laughed at my 'I am stressed and worn out and trying to be quirky and personable' attempts at humour, asked concernedly if I'd had a break, sounded mildly indignant that I was there alone (not in a 'You are slow hurry up' way, in a 'You need backup, this is too much for one person' way), and/or were generally lovely people in some way shape or form. I absolutely adore the clientele who come through the place where I work. They're all fantastic (well, the overwhelming majority are).

It was just... have you ever had a day where you felt like you couldn't catch up no matter how hard you tried? You weren't necessarily falling behind, but you started out a bit short and couldn't quite catch back up no matter what? Yeah that was Sunday. Add to it the fact that I really hadn't eaten anything, the fact that it was much much hotter than I can comfortably deal with, the fact that I'm still defencive from the time I was 45 minutes late and the other time I completely forgot about a mandatory class and the OTHER time I almost didn't have my food handler's permit on time...

So yes Sunday was crazy and hectic and somewhat intensely stressful.

So that's the not-so-good day.

I wish I could think of a good day off the top of my head. Everything lately has been full of so many mixed feelings. The other day when I posted about the woman who said she'd follow me if/when I leave my current job? That day ended with yet another lecture on how my room is a 'shithouse' and I think I ended up online until way too late just to try to erase that feeling of worthlessness.

And then there were just Days and nothing really stood out

And then I'm currently running on less than five hours' sleep, no caffeine, and no food (I should go eat something like SOON), and a reiteration of the nicest thing that's ever been said to me.

At work this morning, I didn't get 'MY' window (I was stuck MAKING the drip coffee, that window usually stresses me out like no other, but today it was pretty alright) but I DID get to end up NEAR 'my' window during the rush before the 8:45 ferry, and LO AND BEHOLD my lovely friend came through and she had a very pretty blue turquoise-ish looking necklace on and she laughed and said she likes 'our' morning routine and I thanked her for what she said last Wednesday and she said that she meant it. No matter what industry I go into, where I end up working, what I end up doing.

But now I am tired and crashing and waiting for my cousin to call me back (phone tag FTW) about tomorrow/Thursday and woo.

Off to go eat.

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

(I struggled to find an appropriate quote for this; most of the poetry I know off the top of my head is actually insanely depressing or introspective or at the very least moves me to mild depression. I'm still not happy with the one I chose, but it's Prufrock and Prufrock is almost always applicable - and it mentions coffee, which is one of the focal points of this post.)


I'm not sure how to preface this, other than please bear with this massive text block. I know I've neglected this blog somewhat of late, and I do apologise for that (sorry, all zero people who actually read this) (seriously if you read this, comment or something or email me to let me know you exist? I am reachable at shisler.grace@ymail.com), but I'd like to share something that happened today that affected me very deeply.

So I work at a coffee shop, as I believe I’ve mentioned before, and I have done for… oh almost 11 months oh wow. And for most of the morning shifts I worked for the first… eight months? I worked at the same window - doing brewed coffee, tea, and food. That side is only open from about 4:30 ‘til 8:45. (It’s not-so-secretly my favourite window, still, to work.) Once in a while I get it again, which is nice, because the people who come through there are the ones I recognise most readily.

Another thing that happens when I’m at work is that I try to mention when people look nice or have nice smiles or something that stands out about them or what they’re wearing. I mean, we all know what it’s like to put effort into our appearance and have no one comment, right? It’s frustrating and you wonder why you bother since obviously it doesn’t matter. I know that I’ve always thought to myself when people have obviously made a bit of an effort, or even if they haven’t when they look nice, and since I started working at CC I decided that I was going to tell people. I’m just a barista, after all, people aren’t going to be like ‘Hey you’re that weird person who commented on my -article of clothing- *weird look*’. And if I can make someone smile when they get their coffee, then I’ve done my job.

So I got ‘my’ window this morning, and there’s a few faces I try to look for - people who have good reactions to compliments, people I have ongoing conversations with, people I try to make a little extra effort for, people I have good rapport with, etc. There’s this one woman who comes through for the 8:45 ferry who I find to be very cute. If someone ever told me I looked like her, I would be extremely flattered. She’s got short brunette hair, cropped to about her jawline, a heart-shaped face, pretty eyes (can’t remember what colour, the sun was in my eyes this morning), and the coolest dark-magenta-maroon-burgundy-wine-coloured glasses frames. She also has one of the more flattering reactions when I tell her she looks nice (which she always does, pretty much, I don’t see a lot of skuzzy-looking people on commuter boats).

This morning she came through and saw me and before I could even say anything aside from ‘Good morning!’ all happy because I like talking to her (she talks BACK and there is CONVERSATION, I LOVE conversation with people in the mornings), she told me that she’d decided if she saw me she was going to let me know that if I ever leave CC for whatever reason (people move on, and all) that she would follow me to wherever I ended up working as a ‘devoted customer’.

This happened at like 0830 this morning (it's almost 1500 now) and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m STILL blushing.

This is without a doubt the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me EVER. Telling me that she would change her habits and patterns of movement JUST to have me as her barista? Do you KNOW how flattering that is?? I’m still giddy and I am so insanely pleased and it is SO nice to know that people like seeing me.

I mean. I’m not gonna be all self-deprecating and ‘I suck I don’t matter no one would notice if I was just GONE’ because it’s not one of those days (partially thanks to this young woman). But, I’m just ME. I don’t feel like I’m anything particularly spectacular or noticeable or out of the ordinary. Yeah, I try to make people feel good, and I try to get them to start the day with a smile, but that’s just my job. (Even if my coworkers kind of laugh at me for how over-the-top I can get sometimes) It’s how I feel people should be, and I don’t see people decidedly NOT doing it, so I don’t feel like I’m doing anything special really. I’m not doing anything that anyone else couldn’t necessarily do BETTER. If I left my job for whatever reason, maybe a few people would ask after me, but I wouldn’t expect them to do and I would be surprised if people actually DID.

So to hear that I’m enough of a positive aspect of this woman’s life that she would voluntarily seek me out if I changed jobs, is just so utterly overwhelmingly flattering and I hope she knows that she gave me the best compliment anyone ever could.

Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think

I'm not sure that I really have anything new to say. I just felt I should update this since I found out someone actually does read it periodically.

I'll probably write more later. I just wanted to bring this back into the forefront of my mind.

Yet there the nightingale filled all the desert with inviolable voice

Life moves on. No matter how bad things seem, life always keeps going. The only thing you can do is keep moving along with it.

I suppose what's prompted my most recent wave of introspection is - and I have no qualms about posting here, since no one actually reads this - is the fact that a week ago, I received an 'apology' note from someone who hurt me very deeply. I suppose, on the off chance that someone stumbles across this, that I can at least try not to mention names or specifics. Suffice to say, I allowed myself to become very attached to this person and s/he decided her/his feelings had changed and as a result s/he treated me very poorly.

In a nutshell, the note described how s/he was in a similar position to the one in which s/he had put me, saying how awful it felt and how s/he realised how I must 'feel' in regards to her/his treatment of me. The note was delivered by a dear friend of mine with whom this person had recently begun associating; I hadn't been close to my friend when everything had happened, so I spent last Friday explaining how s/he who had written the note had hurt me.

What I didn't realise before starting to explain was that the act of explaining, and revisiting those memories, would put me back in that frame of mind (basically take me back to how I felt when everything happened). I spent from about 3pm Friday afternoon until probably 2pm Saturday in a state of extreme emotional instability - Friday night I kept crying for no apparent reason, and Saturday I was anxious and tense until I got in the pool and started swimming laps instead of just dinging around.

As of yet I have no real solid plans to respond to the 'apology'. I have difficulty believing it's truly sincere, especially after what was said to me. It also feels somewhat weak - as if s/he is just apologising because s/he believes it's expected. This goes along with my earlier feeling that this person has been acting like I'm the one being irrational for being hurt (some of the things said include 'You're clearly still obsessed with me' and 'You know you're not going to be able to meet your goal, right?' among others) and like I'm completely out of line for not wanting anything to do with her/him.

Maybe I AM out of line for not wanting to be around someone who treated me like putrescence and expected me to magically forgive and forget the next day, because s/he 'didn't mean it'. I firmly believe that 'What's said is said' and that very few things said are truly not meant - sometimes you don't mean to SAY something, but that doesn't mean you don't feel it or you don't believe it. It just means you let yourself SAY it.

Partially because it's coming on April again and partially because of my general mood of late, Eliot reigns supreme in my head once more. Prufrock seems to be wandering in the Waste Land with several of Old Possum's Practical Cats... recognising the reasons for my melancholy and rectifying the situation seem to be completely unrelated. Music and coffee seem to help.

On the topic of coffee, I've discovered a new drink: it's called a cherry cordial and (when made properly) it tastes almost exactly like one of the Queen Anne cherries they sell at the grocery shop. It's just hot cocoa with cherry syrup and vanilla syrup - black cherry is optimal, and French vanilla (although the latter is a personal preference).

I've been considering moving. Not just out of my parents' house, but possibly further. It'd be lovely if I could make it on my own in the city, but I'm wondering at the feasibility and the practicality. Above most things I want to keep my cat and my current job - I adore my coworkers and my kittyface is my dearest companion (soz to all my human compatriots, but Scamper is... it's difficult to explain). I can't imagine starting someplace new without my kitty.

I suppose I'll post this for now, but hopefully I'll have something more eloquent to say later.

I may post the note I received, as well as drafts of a potential response if/when I write them.

Perhaps. I'm not sure yet. In the meantime, holding onto the thing with feathers - my internal nightingale, filling me with an inviolable voice...

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

Gotten into a rut. Dunno who reads this anymore, if anyone ever did or if anyone still does. I can feel myself slipping back into old learned behaviour and it is somewhat frightening because it reminds me of how I used to feel. As in, how I felt... two years ago. It is terrifying. I don't want to go back to that. I don't know how to not go back to that. I am so scared that I am going to go back to that.

I graduated high school. I got dumped. I went back to him - why'd I do that? I shouldn't've done that, I must've been out of my mind - and got dumped again. I learned that some people aren't who I thought they were. I got a new job - I love being a barista. I wouldn't trade this job for the world.

I don't want to go into too much detail on how helplessly Prufrockian I've been - constantly - of late. It doesn't really matter outside my own head anyway.

If any ladies read this, girls, be careful of boys. Don't ever trust them 100%. Boys, I suppose that applies to you as well: never trust girls 100%. It just leads to getting hurt. If I can save anybody from getting hurt like I got hurt, then I guess it'll've all happened for the best. No one should have to go through that.

'Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

'I do not think that they will sing to me.

'...We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.'

Annual Christmas Post

We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of THE SUN:

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.

Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.

Papa says, "If you see it in THE SUN, it's so."

Please tell me the truth: Is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O'HANLON.

115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

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VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, VIRGINIA, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank GOD! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, VIRGINIA, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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I'm not quite sure what I can add this year. I have never stopped believing that Santa Claus is real. In the past I've talked a little bit about belief, or about faith, or stuff like that. In light of everything this year, I really don't know that I can discuss belief or faith with any degree of legitimacy.

Well. I suppose I actually can. Despite everything this year, I still believe in Santa. I still believe in love, and in fancy, and in poetry, and in romance, and in faith. I still cling to hope, and I believe in love, and that's faith enough for me.

... I think I just quoted Rush in my Christmas blog. o.o That is awesome. And a sign of how tired I am.

At any rate. Christmastime is a time to remember the good things about the previous year, and anticipate the better things of the year to come. It's like New Year's, but with more love and joy and family and less alcohol. Hopefully.

Being nineteen this year, and having been a legal adult for more than twelve months now, I think I can pretty safely exhort you all - whoever reads my mindless drivel - to NEVER LET GO of that childlike wonder. Don't let it go, don't lose it, no matter WHAT. That is what keeps us human, that is what keeps us going when things suck so badly that we want to give up because what's the point, it's never going to get better after this... that innocent joy in the simple things - Santa. Snow. Eggnog. The magic that is the Internet. Seeing people you've not seen in years, people who mean the world to you - THAT is what defines who we are and what our lives are. Don't let that go, whatever else you do, stay innocent. Don't give in to the skepticism of a skeptical age.

"He lives, and he lives forever." Santa is the age-old embodiment of that childlike wonder we all need so much. Besides, if you believe in nothing, what point is there in living? Consider a modified Pascal's Wager. If you don't believe in Santa Claus, and he turns out to be real...... how much joy and surprise and love have you missed in your life, just because you had to see to believe?

One of my favorite holiday movies is Miracle on 34th Street. The old, old one, the original movie. No one ever conclusively proved anything; Kris could've been Santa, he could've been a nice old man with a beard. The fact remains that Doris and Susan believed, and so for them, he WAS Santa. That is all that mattered. Perception shapes reality. If you believe in goodness and right, then that is what you will see. If you believe everyone hates you, that is how the world will seem to you. It's as simple as that.

(No it's not, nothing ever is, but if you believe, then that's more LIKELY how you'll perceive it.)

Yes, I am spinning out writing this so I can post it on Christmas Day proper instead of in the last moments of Christmas Eve.

I really don't know how to wrap this up, except... "Fill your hearts with the Christmas cheer, 'cos Santa Claus comes tonight." :)

I will talk to you all tomorrow morning - a more sane hour of tomorrow morning - "'cos tonight's the night the world begins again."

I hope you've all been good this year! I haven't been perfect. I know this. But I have been true to myself, and I believe that is what matters.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. <3

Torturing Food

I am a kitchen NINJA. Having spent the morning craving something unknown, I ventured into my head and attempted to discern what it was I was craving. The answer: COOKIE DOUGH. However, cookie dough takes approximately twenty minutes to make, and then you have to actually bake cookies. I don't have time for that at present, as I have someplace I have to be in less than an hour.

My solution? Make a much smaller, improvised cookie dough, maybe a quarter the usual size. But then how to cook it?

FRY IT.

GRACE'S FRIED COOKIE DOUGH

1/4 c sugar

1/4 c brown sugar

-mix, then add

1/4 c butter, melted

1 egg

- mix, then add

vanilla extract, to taste

pinch of salt

- mix, then add

3/4 c flour (a little bit at a time)

- put a frypan on medium heat. Melt butter over heat. Add cookie dough; fry till done.

I have yet to finish the last step - we'll see how it turns out!