but now that i'm rich they give me coffee

--from "Free Coffee" by Ben Folds
and BusBarista is back!

i apologize for my lengthy hiatus. i've been super busy with school, work, theatre, and the drama that comes along with having a personal life.

this will be a brief post, but i'm going to try to do some more posting over the next few weeks since theatre won't be taking over my life as much as it usually. does.

speaking of theatre...

two weeks ago i closed a show called The Dining Room. i was the stage manager, which is NOT an easy task by any means. it requires more time and energy than acting does. i had a truly amazing cast, crew, and director to work with, but we still had our moments. one of my cast members ran into a metal pole and knocked out a few of her teeth. on opening night both my director and another one of my female cast members were violently ill. i had to do the curtain speech and let the girl leave before her last scene. there were more minor mishaps as well, but i won't go into those.

my director is just as coffee-obsessed as i am, so he required that my assistants and i kept fresh coffee in the rehearsal space every night. the cast drank a lot of it, too. it was really pleasant. just like the previous show he directed, A Miracle in Bedford Falls, people took solace in coffee when rehearsals were going poorly and joyously poured themselves another round when thing were going well. we clung to our cups in the cold during smoke breaks in the snow and faithfully kept them at our sides when discussing the ins and outs of the play.

until.

one day we ran out of coffee. not a big deal, right? well, sure. it just meant that we would go without it for a rehearsal or two. just until the department tossed some cash our way and we could run to Ingles to buy some more.

we went without for one rehearsal and that was one rehearsal too many. so the next night our director brought in...instant coffee. i'd never had instant coffee before that night, and i hope that i am never in a position that requires me to drink instant coffee again. i had to put cream in sugar in it. my cast looked at me like i had a large animal crawling out of my face when they saw the cream-colored liquid in my mug. it was the look of, "surely that's not OUR stage manager! certainly not! she drinks her coffee black."

even with the powers of cream and sugar combined, this coffee was SHIT. it was very oily and tasted like it had been grilled--not roasted. it had a very distinct chicory taste.

the next night our director brought in a can of delicious maxwell house coffee and we drank our fair share of it, forgetting about the rotten experience we'd had the night before.

i had a cast member take a picture of me with the instant coffee so that i wouldn't ever forget about the horrible taste and remember that as long as i'm drinking coffee that has to be brewed, not stirred, things can always be worse.