Saturday

My boss does Bible dips.

Monday

Discover crazy lady's name is Athena Smith. She tells me she is 13 and keeps it a secret from her dad how much money she spends on food.

She takes a liking to the new boy, Nate and asks him what time he gets off work. Nate turns red.

Sings for cash in the smoking section but doesn't get paid so she storms out. Other customers chase after her hoping for a picture. She escapes.

Fat boy comes in. Asks whats good and I tell him the greek sandwiches. He asks if I'm greek. When I tell him I am not he says, "Good, I can't stand those people."

Sunday

The crazy woman is back again tonight. She has a new wig. Sits next to creepy guy who comes in every night and pays for his coffee after he gives her his phone number because "Nothing in this life is free."

Am hoping for true love and their first date to be at Maleks.


"Do you like vodka or amaretto?"

Saturday

Boy leaves a poem for Nick and I.

"Thing was
It's all love.
It's always
All love."

Friday

The owner makes me talk into his personal voice recorder. Afterwords I tell him I never want to do that again. He follows me around playing it back to me all night.

Girl I work with never shows up. Nobody seems to care but me (who has to do double work now.) Spend the rest of the night devising ways of getting her fired.

Wednesday 10pm -3am Shift

The woman with the torn up and reassembled photograph comes in again tonight. She sits in the back room and cries over it only occasionally taking a break to play a few notes of air guitar. She tells Nick of the magical creatures who once roamed free in the Himalayas. Drinks tea and coke. I forget to charge for the coke. She does not leave a tip.

The two boys with turrets come in. They leave a good tip.

Older middle eastern guy comes in and leaves this on the back of the check:
"Please be merciful and give me your number"
He can not pay so he gives me his number and drivers license. I'll see him tomorrow.

Hispanic man sits down and calls me over. He speaks with a heavy accent and is very inarticulate. He demands that i "Listen to him." while he proceeded to tell me that some American people are good and some are bad. He asks me if I understand. I say I do. He tells me some american women are very good and asks me if i understand. He starts to yell at me to listen to him and tries to get me to sit down. I tell him no and walk away. The people at the table next to him are quick to follow. He yells at me a few more times to listen. I avoid eye contact.

Boy in grey shirt comes in. He is drunk and runs out the door with a stolen baklava. He comes back a little later and keeps using the phone. He isn't buying anything and isn't leaving. Nick tells him to leave and he tells Nick to make him. He makes a scene, a scary one. Nick calls the cops. GUy runs out the door. Nick = Hero.

Jalal writes a story for english as a second language class about him as a young child. "I did not listen to them. And I did not understand. All I understand was playing and playing."

Well, it's good to be home and to be swamped by work again. I haven't slept in two nights because I've been working the late shift at the restaurant(10pm-4am) and a few 12 hour shifts here and there. Not to mention I was hired as a caterer this morning and the owner wanted me to work a long shift today too. I told him no expecting to come home to a nice long nap waking up only for dinner out with my father. But, of course, here I am dicking away on the internet.

The plane ride home was a long one with a three hour layover and an hour and a half delay to top it off. Lucky for me the cat seemed to sleep through the entire thing. I, however, was not so fortunate and was forced to talk to just about EVERYONE in the Denver airport. We talked about all the important things like what's my cats name and what their cat's name is and did I have to drug him because once they had to drug their cat. I was also easy entertainment for all children and no parent seemed to hesitate to send their restless little ones over to "Look at the kitty!" Needless to say I heard a lot of, "I have a cat at home, he's black and white and his name is oreo but I haven't seen him in like five months and my friend has a cat and he's grey and his name is smokey and he hasn't seen him in like 3 months." (true story, by the way)
Honestly I was beginning to seriously consider running away as a viable option too.

Oh well, we're home now. Kitty is being over fed while I am being chastised by my mother for not taking good enough care of him.

I'm thinking it will be diet time come the move back to Arizona.

Well, it's good to be home and to be swamped by work again. I haven't slept in two nights because I've been working the late shift at the restaurant(10pm-4am) and a few 12 hour shifts here and there. Not to mention I was hired as a caterer this morning and the owner wanted me to work a long shift today too. I told him no expecting to come home to a nice long nap waking up only for dinner out with my father. But, of course, here I am dicking away on the internet.

The plane ride home was a long one with a three hour layover and an hour and a half delay to top it off. Lucky for me the cat seemed to sleep through the entire thing. I, however, was not so fortunate and was forced to talk to just about EVERYONE in the Denver airport. We talked about all the important things like what's my cats name and what their cat's name is and did I have to drug him because once they had to drug their cat. I was also easy entertainment for all children and no parent seemed to hesitate to send their restless little ones over to "Look at the kitty!" Needless to say I heard a lot of, "I have a cat at home, he's black and white and his name is oreo but I haven't seen him in like five months and my friend has a cat and he's grey and his name is smokey and he hasn't seen him in like 3 months." (true story, by the way)
Honestly I was beginning to seriously consider running away as a viable option too.

Oh well, we're home now. Kitty is being over fed while I am being chastised by my mother for not taking good enough care of him.

I'm thinking it will be diet time come the move back to Arizona.

"This is a touching end to our relationship"

My lit analysis teacher after I told him that I didn't hate him.

Also after he told me I am too smart for my own good.

My cat brought a lizard into the house by holding it in his mouth by his head. He then broke his tail in two different places and pinned the writhing thing down so he could chew on him. When the lizard finally escaped to hide under my roommates giant hockey gear bag said roommie grabbed the bag and dragged it across the floor, crushing the lizard and scraping his belly on our dirty tile. He then grabbed his hockey stick, lifted the bag, and sent the lizard out the door. The awful smack was rivaled only by the metal reverberation of the limp little body ricocheting off the screen door before landing hard on the concrete.

He laid on the concrete for a full minutes just breathing hard with his legs tucked up under him at odd angles before running off under a bush.

What a horrible day.

Honey Smacks are the Krackle bar of the cereal world.

Tonight I can bathe in the glory of a functioning hot water heater.

See that, I learned to appreciate the simple things.
I'm building character.

This is my favorite story from this weekend.

My grandfather was an incredible businessman. He was so good that the Church asked him to carry the collection plate every Sunday at mass. The son of one of his friends tell me a story from one Sunday a pretty long while ago.

"My father is sitting in the pews next to his best friend Tommy. It comes to collection time and Frank (my grandfather) comes down the aisle with his basket, not the kind you pass up and down the aisles but one of those stuck to the end of a long stick. He holds it out in front of my dad and he puts a five dollar bill in. Keep in mind, that was a lot of money back then. Next Frank turns to Tommy. Tommy reaches around and pretends to search his back pockets for his wallet. Of course he doesn't have it, he never did, the guy didn't even have a license so what would he be doing with a wallet? Anyway, Franky starts to get impatient with Tommy so he pokes him with the basket a few times.

"Come on, cough it up."

But, of course, Tommy doesn't have anything to cough up so Frank turns back to my father and starts poking him with the basket.

"Cover him."

My father can't do anything else so he reaches back into his wallet and pulls out another five dollar bill."

This thing is getting silly.

I'm thinking of renaming my cat.

Goodbye Stuart Ransom Miller...

Hello Biggy Fries.

(Though Stripy is still in the running.)



Maybe I'll just get another fish. I do miss The Lyrical Assassin.

Sigh

Oh my.

Do you ever have one of those days that's just so good you feel like a jerk for complaining about all those other days?


Leah and I have perfected the oatmeal chocolate chip raisin cookie.

It involves 2 parts chocolate to every one part raisin

and extra brown sugar (but Leah doesn't know I did that.)



"...what's clear is that you can do A work if you want to." From my English Lit teacher, at the end of my most recent paper. Thank God SOMEONE is looking out for my self-esteem is all I have to say.



I'm going to sleep in tomorrow because I did so much work these past two days.
No class until 2. I'm going to eat cookies for breakfast then sit around my house and play my music too loud

and sing

the wrong words.

Then I will go to class late and sit in the back looking unapproachable pretending that I haven't just been singing in my room with my cat and Steve.

It's that time of year again!

It's time for the annual COMPANY PICNIC.

Yes! The end of April has rolled around once again and with it comes your invitation to the company picnic.

Saturday April 30 at Reid Park. It starts at 11:00 and goes until 3. I know you know what company I'm talking about because I know you all got the exact same invitation that I did this past Friday.

So, I will see you there.

And maybe we will play tether ball

or volleyball with Glenn

and he will bring Peaches the dog.

Don't worry, I will remind you in person...

a few times.

<3

pity whore

I sense an impending ebb.




I think it's ok to have a bad day if your hair doesn't look good anymore

or if Dinese is getting transferred again

or if your teachers talk too much about things you aren't interested in

or if it's too hot

or if you miss your kitty because he is sick and living with you will only make him sicker

or if your house floods.



Today was a bad day.

There is a certain arrogance surrounding the coffee business. People have this idea that working in a coffee store is more respectable than working in any other form of food service. If you don't believe this ask any Canyon Cafe (coffee) employee if they would ever consider quitting and working at the Three Cheeses and a Noodle (Italian restaurant.) I guarantee they will laugh and then be disgusted by the idea. Coffee jerk is a 'better' job than any job at the noodle restaurant. In fact, the lowest position in a coffee store seems more respectable than higher positions in other restaurants.

Working in a coffee store gives people an odd perspective on their own importance. Cafes lack the concept of working your way up. There is no bottom. This is one of the reasons that it seems more respectable than other food jobs. Baristas were never dish washers. You can walk into any other place and kind of assume that at some point the person working there had their arms elbow deep in greasy water or walked around with stains on their shirt from busing tables. There is no bad or hard job in the coffee business that the employees can be embarrassed or humbled about having to do at some point.

This lack of job stratification also creates a lack of hierarchy. Nobody is above anyone else. Who would be taken seriously if they decided to take charge (even if they were technically in a higher paying position than their coworker) and demanded that someone else needed to put out more lids or a new box of straws? You can't dictate easy jobs to other people, it just doesn't work that way. So everyone feels like the top of the ladder right from the start because no one is telling them what to do.

There's also no hard jobs, nobody is any better at making coffee than anyone else to a degree of any significance. When was the last time someone requested a specific barista without everyone else rolling their eyes at her? Right, those people are crazy. But there are good waitresses and there are bad ones, same with cooks and even dish washers. Coffee people are safe from the possibility of someone else being better than they are. We are all the best at what we do.

I have forgotten why I started this and for that reason I am not sure what to conclude.

Proof I am a bad person

Excerpts from my most recent favorite fiction class stories:

"Believe me when I tell you that I was dying inside when I told you those horrible words, I was hurting too, however when you left I thought that maybe you would forget about me and have a better life, or so I thought."

"She tried desperately to erase all those ill feelings away, but it was impossible, the simple fact of being rejected and denied love was a consuming pain for her, and to be not loved back, it meant death. So instead she closed herself in her own shell, but now the same person who put her in it was trying to get her out."

"It was the kind of day where you could toast a piece of bread outside."

...

This is where I live

Last night Todd had a party at my house.

He invited the fifteen year old he broke up with last semester because she though she was pregnant

and many of her friends.


This morning our bathroom was torn up.

The backyard has turned into a trash heep with torn up magazines, beer cans, and the five pieces our kitchen table is in scattered about.


When I fed my cat this morning i found that someone had put a knife in his litter box.

If you want to change your name just remember

It doesn't matter what the first part is if your name is followed by "the Great."