I Smell Like Coffee

I don't think I will ever stop smelling like espresso beans. This is not definitely a bad thing, because I really do like the smell of coffee. But my guess is that I wouldn't like it if it lingered in my room indefinitely, which is why my coat is in the kitchen right now. The reason for the aroma is my first 6-hour shift earlier today, which also left me with tired legs and a scratchy throat, but was fun.

My shift started at 7am, and I showed up a little early. There's a giant clock above the entrance to Broadway Market, and it said it was 6:55. The doors were locked, so I hit them with my mitten a few times, which was kind of like knocking. The girl behind the counter shook her head and held up five fingers. "I work here!" I shouted silently, because the counter isn't near the door at all, so the regular kind of shouting would only have attracted attention from people outside the store. Not that there was anybody else wandering down the street before 7 on a very cold Saturday, but there's just something generally sad about futile yelling.

But my silent pleas were ignored. The girl shook her head again and continued doing whatever shadowy activity she'd been in the middle of. She was now my New Work Enemy Number 1.

Another girl came into view, and I tried again, pointing at myself and then into the store, and mouthing "I WORK HERE TOO!" as clearly as I could through chattering teeth. This girl avoided enemy status by looking genuinely sorry as she said, "Sorry - I can't let you in yet. It's company policy."

Company policy is chilly. I eventually got let in, and learned the first of my Important Lessons Of the Day: the Broadway Market clock is five minutes fast. I ditched my layers, grabbed my green apron, and met my New Work Enemy Number 2, the computer training program. It took a good two hours to go through the modules that were designed to train me to use the cash register, because the program wouldn't let me click "next" until a voiceover had finished reading what was on the screen. And within my first five minutes of actually using the actual cash register, I discovered that the changes in the system since 2001, when the program was made, were considerable.

So I ended up learning the way I learn best, which is by being asked to do things I don't understand, trying likely solutions, and getting corrected. Over and over. My New Work Enemy Number 1, once she was no longer standing between me and a room temperature environment, quickly got downgraded to New Chatty Co-Worker, and then upgraded to New Annoyingly Interfering With My Learning Process Co-Worker when she displayed her inability to let me do things like push buttons on my own. In her defense, it was taking me more than one second to find the correct button on my screen. But in my defense, back off, NAIWMLP! I'll never learn how to do it if you push me aside every time I'm about to figure something out!

My only other New Work Enemy of today was the woman who lied about what size drink she wanted, allowed me to charge the larger (requested by her!) size to her credit card, and then said, "didn't you charge me too much? I didn't want this big of a drink!" Which, okay, the customer is always right, I'm so sorry I "misheard" you, and yes I would love to go find my shift manager now to get her to void your previous credit card transaction. No, don't worry about those seven people behind you in line. They probably woud enjoy waiting longer.

Most customers were much more pleasant to deal with. Sometimes they would confuse me, though. Like, after about 10 hours of standing behind the register, people were still coming up to me and saying "good morning." Were all people incapable of telling time? What was going on? If I wore a watch I would have been able to confirm that it actually was 10:30am, and therefore a completely valid time to be saying good morning. So I started dancing in place a little bit, which made the last few hours go by much faster.

Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work

I think that most people reading this know that I'm looking for a job in publishing. And many people know that I've been babysitting for about the past month for an MIT professor whose husband now works five days a week in New York. And before today, only a few select people knew about my new job, the one that will allow me to not be homeless during the publishing-job search.

The new job is at Starbucks. I am now officially a barista. About halfway through my interview, the store manager said, "I think you'll really fit in well here. The girls are all so nice, always singing and chatting and dancing. " I wasn't sure if this meant I was being offered the job. Then she said, "I'm not sure what the training schedule is going to look like, so I'll call you Monday and let you know. " Let me know whether I'm hired? Or let me know when training will be? These were both questions I did not ask at the time. "Okay!" I said.

On Monday she called me and told me to come in to the Broadway Market store on Friday with photo ID and wearing dress code. Still, no one said the words "hired" or "congratulations" or "welcome to the team." It wasn't very likely that she'd want me to bring a passport just to verify my identity for a second interview, but it was still possible, in my mind. I'm used to celebrating over a phone interview, let alone a request for a second meeting, so this all seemed too easy.

But it was true. I came to the store yesterday and filled out lots of forms, probably incorrectly, so next year I will have a tax return from a lower circle of hell than what I usually face. But I was definitely hired.

I had believed the manager's statement about the girls being nice, but I didn't actually expect it to be illustrated down to the details at the moment I walked in the store; when I got there, two of the four baristas (baristettes?) were dancing in place and singing along to the store soundtrack, while somehow also managing to talk animatedly to the other two. Two of the girls were wearing glasses. One of the girls was Barb Urbanczyk.

I worked with Barb two years ago at Let's Go, and then she was the receptionist for a while, but I hadn't talked to her in at least a few months, so it was strange and exciting to find out that we're co-workers again. She offered me a (free!) drink, and gave me the (free!) advice of making sure to arrive at shifts on time or early, because your lateness makes life much harder for everyone else. This made sense.

I got to grind 5lbs of coffee beans and measure it out into filters for brewing later. It was much more fun than grinding and measuring should reasonably be, but it was (A) a new experience and (B) delicious-smelling. Then I got a tour of the store, backroom, and dangerously low-ceilinged bathroom. In the latter was a sign that I didn't consciously notice at first glance, because at this point in life, my brain doesn't bother to process things it's really used to, like signs that say "Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work." I did notice it this time because it actually said "Employee's Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work." I actually thought, for about a second and a half, of finding some white out or paint to get rid of the apostrophe, but then decided that it's not worth it to try to edit everything I see in reality, instead of just in my mind.

But instead of moving on from that thought to fond memories of the time Sameer peeled off and corrected the accent on a label of "mas mild" salsa at a Rubio's in San Diego, I thought about how weird it is to see that kind of sign and have it actually apply to me. I always do wash my hands, but now I must do it, because I'm an employee. Come visit me at work!

The Movie of My Life

I'm not sure whether it's because of the ever-increasing prevalence of movies and movie soundtracks in society, or because of the upsurge in ever-more-portable music playing devices, or if it's entirely borne out of a strangeness inherent to me, but more often than not, when I'm walking somewhere or sitting on a bus and listening to my iPod, I start to wonder whether this could possibly be the opening scene to a movie.

It never could be; at least, it would never make anything but a very boring movie, but there's something about watching the lights of Cambridge Common slide past my reflection in a bus window that becomes somehow interesting (poignant, maybe, or like it's building to something else) when set to "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters." It could be the title sequence of a semi-artsy film - credits rolling over shots of a girl riding a bus, exiting the bus, walking along brick sidewalks through remnants of blizzard slush, all to the beats of the Postal Service.

Clearly, no one would see this movie, quality soundtrack or no. The scenes of me on the bus and walking home are never followed by a mysterious discovery or an alien visit or an explosion. They're followed by me walking up the steps to my apartment, finding my keys, and opening the door. It's boring even to me, or it would be if I didn't have "Young Pilgrims" being piped into my ears.

But still, every time I walk through Cambridge to various tunes of the Magnetic Fields, which is pretty much every weekday, there is at least one moment in which I try to figure out how this movie could be made interesting. In the movie I am played by Kirsten Dunst, who for the role has dyed her hair brownish blonde, for which dozens of her fans thank me. I guess they don't like Kirsten to be a redhead or blonde or whatever she is now; for the record, I liked her hair when it was orangey red. But anyway, the movie starts with Kirstin (me) riding on a bus and then disembarking, looking thoughtfully up at the night sky as she does so, to the sounds of Bob Dylan or the Darkness or sometimes an audiobook that gets pulled up randomly by the iPod's shuffle feature. Oops.

It's unclear what happens next, although I would guess that Kirsten (I) get(s) an awesome job and rocket(s) up the ranks of the company, passing judgment on manuscripts while quipping cleverly with her (my) co-workers. If any flashbacks are needed, the movie will use actual scenes of Kirsten Dunst as a child, either in Jumanji or Interview With a Vampire. Which movie they're from depends on whether I had gorgeous curly hair in that particular flashback, or was being chased by increasingly dangerous jungle creatures. The distribution will be about even, I'm guessing.

Now I don't want anyone to think that I actually believe that I look anything like Kirsten Dunst. Although it has been said by more than one person (two, actually) that this one picture of me looks remarkably like her, I do realize that in reality we do not resemble each other. But since she is just a year older than I am, and doesn't seem to have anything to do right now other than film Spider Man: Whatever Number They're At Now, I figure she's a good bet.

Coincidentally, I think the studio is actually going to name my movie something like, "Spider-Man 3," which may be confusing to some people. It definitely is about me, though you may notice that I've had the screenwriters change a few names and details in order to protect the innocent and the litigious. Apparently, this happens all the time in Hollywood, and no one should take much offense at it.

Fine Then

I feel better about my reaction to the movie now (the next afternoon), since it's become evident that the impact of it is, in fact, more melancholy than sobby-sad. Last night, I spent two hours curled up on the couch, having self-prescribed an hour each of House and Law & Order to clear my system of emotionally charged Rocky Mountain landscapes. It worked for a while, but I still woke up feeling vaguely unhappy about something. Oh, Ennis and Jack, why couldn't you two crazy cowboys work it out?

Hype

I'll admit right off that I cry easily at movies. It doesn't even have to be really sad; the last time I watched Back To The Future, I teared up when Marty told Doc he was going to miss him. I have a very quick tear reflex. Please don't tease me about it, because I will probably cry.

So anyway, Ella and I, being the only two people in Cambridge who haven't yet seen Brokeback Mountain, decided to remedy that situation tonight. Ella had been warned to "bring lots of kleenex," and before the movie we discussed the ease with which both of us cry at movies, and stocked up on tissue, and settled in to watch.

And it was a very good movie. There were a lot of technical and cinematic and thematic aspects of it that make me want to see it again, because I know I will appreciate them more the second time. And it was a very sad movie - of course I cried. Every damn time they showed those shirts, up sprang a bunch more tears. But I didn't cry for the entire last hour of the movie, which was what I had kind of steeled myself to expect. I was sad, yes. Very much so. But it pretty much just a few sniffles compared to what I went through the first time I read the last chapter of the latest Harry Potter book. And the second time. It's a book set in a fictional world with magic potions and centaurs and wizards, and it made me have to stop reading partway through to find a new kleenex box and wash my face.

But every time I started getting sad near the end of the movie, which is about human characters living in the real (albeit past) world, I was so distracted by Jake Gyllenhall's awful, awful mustache that I forgot to cry. Also distracting, though to a lesser degree, were the fake sideburns they gave Heath Ledger, and my extreme confusion at finding out they were supposed to be in their forties by the end of the movie, despite the fact that the only visual evidence for this was the slight frosting of Jake's hair and the weird (though well-done) crusty makeup under Heath's eyes.

But the mustache was the most distracting part. It was sad in a very different way than the movie is sad, and those two types of sadness kind of clashed with each other. During a scene when the characters are actually crying themselves, half of the time I was too busy being freaked out by the way the mustache made Jake Gyllenhall look like Nic Cage, and the rest of the time I was amazed that that fly or mosquito on Heath Ledger's neck was staying there for the duration of the scene.

It might just be that I'm a bad moviegoer. Or that I did actually watch the movie correctly, and it's supposed to be more melancholy than outright sad for the most part. In any case, I don't so much feel that the movie let me down than that I let it down. So maybe when it comes out on DVD I'll watch it, curled around a box of kleenex and sneaking glances at my copy of The Half-Blood Prince whenever that mustache comes onscreen.

But I still do get choked up thinking about those shirts. Maybe they should get the Oscar.

Short Thoughts

Something You Might Expect:
In Austin, I got coffee a couple times from a placed called Texpresso. It was very good coffee (by which I of course mean a good iced mocha; i can make plenty good plain coffee myself), but when I ordered it the first time I thought it was kind of expensive for a "medium." But it was a Texas-sized medium, in other words, a lot of coffee.

Something You Could Have Seen Coming:
I'm now kind of great at cooking. I cook dinner several nights a week for the family I babysit for, and I'm getting rave reviews from everyone but the four-year-old, who in my defense only wants to eat cherry tomatoes and slices of cheese. Especially popular is my salad, which I can't really claim as my own actually, since it's an almost exact copy of one Jeremy's mom made.

Something You Might Not Expect:
I found out I really like yoga. I know, I was kind of dismissive of it for a long time. But honestly? It's about the most extremely yuppy-hippy sounding activity ever, what with the combination of eastern power-center-mystical-energy ideas with the marketing of special mats and designer yoga clothes. But it's very cold in my apartment during the day, and yoga is a surprisingly warm activity.

Something That You Almost Couldn't Exepct:
Far better than the chantey, made-for-yoga music are the chantey, cockney-slacker tunes of The Streets. Would Mike Skinner (who is incidentally the same age as me, probably not as well-educated but much, much more successful) be mad if he knew I was using his slang-filled sampled beats to accompany Downward-Facing Dog? I almost think it would amuse him.

Something That Might Shock You:
I can now french-braid my own hair. In the 18 years or so during which I've had remotely enough hair to make a braid of any kind, the only time before now that that braid had been French was when I would carpool to Cotillion with Tim, and Melinda would take pity on my limp ponytail and find the requisite brushes and bobby pins to fancy it up a little before driving us to the Mesa Verde Country Club to stand awkwardly and consume cookies and fizzy punch.

I still remember all the dances we learned in Cotillion, incidentally. Not that it ever really becomes relevant, because despite what Jeremy will unashamedly argue, he can actually not do any real dance steps. And before he attempts to post a comment claiming that this is not true, let me just say: he's lying.