and in between i drink black coffee

...i'm out of good coffee quotes and lyrics right now.

2009-03-24T18:14:00.001-04:00

so, the blog has a new title. i'm not completely thrilled with it, but we'll see. if you're not familiar with the song, go to YouTube and type in "Black Coffee" it's a beautiful song.

today's topic is my personal coffee awakening.

i didn't start drinking coffee until i was seventeen. i worked at a coffee shop for almost a year prior to my coffee awakening. which makes me really sad for all of the people i served before i started drinking coffee. their drinks probably tasted terrible.

i hated coffee for a really long time. it's kind of silly. i knew that black coffee was very bitter, and the people my age that i saw drinking coffee put lots of cream and sugar in theirs. adults told me that i probably wouldn't enjoy coffee very much. so i believed everyone and every time i tried coffee, i loaded it up with lots of cream and sugar. and i HATED it.

it would have been very simple for me to make a connection and drink coffee for years previous: i drink unsweetened iced tea. i hate sweet tea. the only thing close to sweet tea that i like is Arizona Iced Tea with Lemon and if i'm feeling sassy, Firefly: the sweet tea vodka. so, if i'd thought about it for a few minutes, i would have realized that because i liked tea without sugar, i would also like coffee without sugar.

so, one night i was closing up java jitterz and i was pouring out the carafes of coffee. while i was doing this i thought to myself, "self, you're wasting an awful lot of coffee. why don't you drink some of this?" so i did. i drank two twelve ounce cups of sumatran coffee. it was delicious! it was the best thing i'd ever tasted! that night i was to meet janna and her friend toni at waffle house to hang out. so when i went to waffle house, i ordered coffee and drank it black. and that was even better than the hours-old sumatran from the shop!

i didn't go to bed before four for the rest of the summer. it was ridiculous. i didn't drink soda until about a year ago (now i'm a recovering diet coke addict) and so my caffeine intake was mostly non-existent.

so there you have it. if any of you guys are on-the-fence about how you feel about coffee, try drinking it a way that you haven't before! you may really like it. you may go crazy. or you may just enjoy reading about coffee. that's perfectly fine, too. but i encourage you to give coffee another try.

in other news:

i went to wilmington last weekend to visit my boyfriend. it's a really adorable city with lots of sweet little independent bars and stores. it very much reminded me of asheville. except for one thing: coffee shops. the city is overrun with Port City Java. i have no beef with Port City, i just wish there was more independent coffee to be seen around town. i saw one independent shop and dustin told me about one more. if you're thinking about opening a shop, head wilmington's way! they definitely need it and it's a really great city.

this summer i am trying to get a job in a theatre somewhere in the southeast, so i think this could be my very first coffee-free summer in two years. it makes me a little sad. i might try to see if Caffeind, aka my living room, needs someone to pick up a couple of late night shifts over the summer.

cheers.

true hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings

2009-03-13T12:07:00.003-04:00

--william shakespeare

hey guys. my cause today is not coffee, but hope and friendship.

i have a dear friend with a truly unfortunate condition. ashley (laacreativity.blogspot.com)is plagued by a disease called Mycoplasma. i'm not exactly sure which specific strain of it, but i know about ashley's symptoms and how it affects her, her art, and her friends. when i complain of sore muscles, ashley is plagued by rock-hard muscles that often freeze up and prevent her from moving freely. when friends and colleagues in the department get a cold, ashley gets incredibly ill. we all try to take care of her to the best of the ability, but sometimes her health is out of our control.

right now ashley has the flu on top of the Mycoplasma. her immune system is incredibly weak and her body is shutting down. she went home early for spring break so that her doctors could give her treatments and her family could take care of her.

so if you are a person of faith, please pray. if you believe in the power of optimism, please send your thoughts ashley's way. she is a dear girl who needs all of the optimism and hope she can get right now. if you feel so inclined, drop by her blog at laacreativity.blogspot.com and leave her a comment.

thank you.

my three best college girlfriends. from left to right, amber, me, ashley, and jen is peeking up from the bottom.

moment of silence

2009-03-03T00:07:00.002-05:00

well, BusBarista is BusBarista no more.

i am sad to announce that i have had to take my leave from the Double Decker Coffee Company.

and i mean it. i'm really sad.

it has come to pass that my art has taken over the better part of my time and i can no longer commit to a job. my wonderful boss has mostly let me keep it as a favor anyways. i was only working one day a week. but now i have auditions and performances and commitments that are beyond my control and prevent me from keeping the best job i've ever had.

: (

but once a barista, always a barista! hopefully i will be able to get another job soon.

and with my lack of job, it's probably time for me to change my username. ...also, as much as i'm married to the title of this blog, i feel it's probably a little inaccessible for anybody who doesn't like or know Jump Little Children.

...suggestions my dear friends and readers?

but now that i'm rich they give me coffee

2009-02-24T18:10:00.004-05:00

--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.

another picture post!

2009-01-08T07:31:00.003-05:00

hullo again.
here are some more pictures of the java jitterzjunkiebean in mount holly, north carolina. it's actually where i'm posting from right now! aaand thanks to the lovely anna diemer, i have pictures of le bus in downtown asheville.

here's a shot of the cafe area at the java jitterzjunkiebean. which, really it has only been that way since it became java junkie and has stayed like that for the java bean. it's a really cozy space. we can control the lights with a dimmer for the music that comes in and during the day we close the blinds when it gets really sunny because the shop heats up like an oven. when all of the side work is done and there aren't any customers, i usually curl up on one of those couches and read...and try not to sleep.

behind the counter. it's really strange switching from the double decker, which has almost no wiggle room to a full-size bar with plenty of room to run.

there she is from the other side of the street on Aston.

and this was taken from the garden. we have outdoor seating as well as indoor. the garden is really pretty and wonderfully pleasant on summer nights in asheville.

and this is just for fun. i took a picture of my coffee with the flash on at waffle house the other night. i thought it was neat that you can see my camera.

---

today is my last day at java. i'm going back to school on saturday afternoon and so i'll be back in the bus, which i'm pretty excited about. but i will miss java. i really miss my regulars. i've been serving these folks on and off for two and a half years and i always miss their company whenever i have to go back to school. we don't have very many regulars at the bus because we don't have a bathroom and people don't like to stick around for too long. i'll be back for winter break next year though. no matter what stage of java the shop is in.

stay caffeinated.

pictures!

2009-01-07T12:12:00.006-05:00

picture post!

heya addicts.
here are some pictures of the double decker taken by me.
i'll also post a few that my friend paul took of the inside of the java jitterzjunkiebean.

enjoy!

this is a shot i took of the back of the bus. it's taken from where the barista sits at the computer or takes orders. see how tiny it is?

a barista's-eye view!

here's a view of our brews and flavors. underneath the counter you can see how little storage we have for our coffee beans.

this is one of the pictures that paul took. it's behind the bar of java bean. i love this shot.

another cool shot from paul. that's me, apparently moving with some conviction, serving some folks.

aaaand last one. preparing a drink.

hoorays for the picture post!! i'll have another one soonish of the outside and upstairs of the bus. i'll also take some pictures of the seating area and outside of the the java jitterzjunkiebean.

stay caffeinated.

yes please.

2009-01-05T16:15:00.002-05:00

more animals

new addition!

2008-12-28T15:38:00.004-05:00

hey guys! if you look to your right, i've got a nifty little new gadget that i can update through twitter.com or my cell phone. the plan (thanks to the innovative david tw0things.blogspot.com) is to update my twitter via cell phone when i'm out and about drinking coffee all over the place. hoorays!

The adventures of the Super Baristas

2008-12-25T00:00:00.002-05:00

or, Kimi and Joan's Not So Coffee Christmas Debacle

this piece reads a little bit like David Sedaris's Santaland Diaries, but that's probably because I listen to that piece on my iPod at least once a month.

but here it is. in all it's glory. i've been working on this piece since it happened a few years ago. all of the events actually occured, but some of them have been a bit embellished. it's not perfect.

enjoy.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Christmas. The family and the gifting and the cooking are fun, but I’ve never been a Christmas Enthusiast. You know the ones I’m talking about. The people who have knit sweater vests adorned with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus and mistletoe. The people who put up their Christmas trees in late November because they are so excited that they simply must prove it to someone. Who that someone is, I’m not exactly sure and I’d bet two candy canes they don’t know either. Well, it wasn’t until I was seventeen years old that Christmas became my enemy.

My best friend Kim and I worked in a coffee shop called Java*. We could tell from day one by the name alone that this shop was doomed for mediocrity, but it paid our way to the movies pretty regularly, so we weren’t complaining. Come December, our boss decides that it’s time for a very long family vacation just in time for the shop to take a nightly residence in the local botanical gardens. So Kim and I agree to run the shop as well as the coffee stand at the gardens on top of being full-time students. We didn’t agree to do it because we wanted to. We did it because we didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t tell our bosses that we were quitting right when they decided to go on vacation. Or, well, we could have but then we would have lost our really cool jobs. Kim would have been out of a job and I would have had to go back to being a cashier at Bi-Lo. Ew.

What we didn’t know when we signed up for the Christmas job was that we would be doing everything. We made schedules, ran errands, went to the bank, placed orders, etc. etc. I think back on it and now and I know our bosses must have been doing drugs to let a seventeen-year-old me and an eighteen-year-old Kim run the entire coffee shop. And of course we were breaking all kinds of laws. We were both pulling sixty hour weeks and we were still in high school. I really can’t stress that enough. So everyday after school I would go home, walk my dog, swing by Kim’s place to pick her up (we almost always refused to work without the other), and we would head to the shop to relieve the morning help (our boss’s sister who was completely incompetent and really rude to our favourite regulars) and take care of the day’s to-do list. Then, Thursday through Sunday, we would schedule someone else to work at the shop at night and we would go to the gardens. Except on Sundays when we would both open the shop and then head to the gardens. Twelve-hour shifts were the best. I’m really surprised our parents didn’t call OSHA on the owners of the shop.

But I digress.

The purpose of the coffee stand was for us to sell coffee, hot cider, cocoa and cookies to all of the Christmas Enthusiasts bringing their loved ones to go on carriage rides through the gardens or watch gospel choirs sing gloriously dramatic versions of Christmas carols. Kim and I assumed that there wouldn’t be too many people hankering for a cup of coffee or cocoa, so we came with enough supplies for (what we thought would be) the week and about $100 in change in our little cashbox. I laugh when I think about how stupid that was. Not only did we barely have enough supplies for the first night, but we made a total killing. After counting the box down to $100, we made a $400 profit, which was more than Java made on a busy day.

Kim and I suddenly realized why our boss skipped town for this wonderful little endeavor.

The hundreds of people who swarmed our stand weren’t patient. They were toe-tapping, watch-checking jerks who clearly didn’t care that there were only two young girls behind the counter working as fast as they could. They wanted cocoa and they wanted it NOW. We had people who would walk up to the stand, quickly realize that we couldn’t make them a latte due to lack of espresso machine and in their forlorn state order a cup of cocoa. Then they would get their cocoa and realize that it wasn’t made with milk and roll their eyes and pay for their drink. WHAT DID THEY EXPECT!? They came to the gardens to enjoy Christmas festivities and, the way Kim and I saw it, they were LUCKY to have us there to provide them with hot, delicious beverages. And then there were the people who couldn’t decide what they wanted. We had regular coffee, decaf coffee, hot cocoa, and hot apple cider. What, pray tell, is so difficult about that? Kim and I were perpetually pleasant with everybody, but we really just wanted to start screaming at most people because there was a line that seemed miles long and some people couldn’t decide what they wanted. The memory makes my eye twitch.

After about three nights into (what was about to become) the fiery pit of Christmas hell, Kim and I figured out a system. I took money and distributed drinks and did the customer service thing while she kept us stocked. She heated cider, ran back and forth from the kitchen to the stand to make coffee and mostly made cocoa. One night (I've purposely forgotten which) we were at our usual stations when something really didn't feel right. I heard a splattering sound and felt my feet getting wet but disregarded it because I had a line from me to the Christmas tree-shaped tower of Orchids. Oh by the way, if you've never smelled Orchids in large groups, please, I beg you, do not go out of your way to do so. They smell like horses. At any rate. The splattering sound got a little out of control and Kim was in the zone, so she didn't notice it. I looked down to see that the spout on the percolator we were using to warm the cider was in the "pour" position. We were spilling gallons of sticky apple cider on to the carpeted floor of the botanical gardens.

This is when the Christmas coffee stand adventure went from slightly inconvenient to catastrophic. Our night spiraled out of control.

After the apple cider fiasco, we couldn't let it sit and soak into the carpet and so we both had to stop what were doing in order to clean up the mess. And that made the line a lot longer. And that made the garden staff angry. And when they came over to speak to us they saw the tip jar, which was apparently against the rules. They gave us a talking to about speedy service (which only slowed us down because we had to focus on them and not the increasingly belligerent customers or lake of cider on the floor) and asked us to get rid of the tip jar. It didn't move an inch. I will never understand what inspired them to give us that talk while we were in the middle of a fiasco. We knew that the line was long. We knew that we weren’t moving very fast. BUT WHEN YOU ONLY HAVE TWO CARAFES AND THREE PERCOLATORS, YOU DO THE BEST YOU CAN. So approaching us while we were cleaning the floor was a really bad idea and made us really angry. We got agitated and increasingly short with the garden staff. The staff member who came to speak to us just kept repeating himself about speed and customer service and the tip jar and blah blah blah. Just repeating the same things over and over and over. At one point Kim finally said, “Sir. We understand. We are doing our best and will get your patrons through this line as soon as we are done cleaning the floor. Thank you.” But what she meant was, “Excuse me, sir? Yes. If you don’t go the fuck away in the next three seconds, I will be forced to pour the rest of the decaf on your crotch and that will slow us down even more. So why don’t you leave us alone?” He opened his mouth to continue his lecture and I snapped my head up from the mess and said, “Thank you. Sir.” He shook his head and walked away.

Once the staff member left, we caught up with ourselves and the rest of the line, and took a second to knock back the rest of our $1 jumbo iced teas from McDonalds. Then, of course, another rush came through. And this rush was epic. Full of testy parents who were sick of their own elderly parents, wielding screaming children who were throwing fantastic fits. To top it off (we thought) Kim and I were constantly spilling hot water on our hands. I know Kim still has a burn on the back of her arm from this particular rush. We did our best to notify parents that the hot cocoa was very hot and that their children should wait to drink it. We forgot to tell one parent. Just one. And the next thing we knew, there is another screaming child standing at the coffee stand. Kim and I hung our heads and very shamefully apologized to the cooperative parent who said that they should have thought of it and we need not worry. I still think about him and what might have happened if he’d been angry. What if it had been one of those ridiculous court cases like when the woman sued McDonald’s for their hot coffee? What if, indeed.

During this rush, we didn't notice that the giant vat of hot cocoa we thought was prepared was actually quite the opposite. Kim sat down and started working on it and I took care of everyone who didn't want cocoa and told everybody else to hold their horses.

So there we were. Sitting on the sticky floor over a hundred cocoa packets filling a bucket with said cocoa, hands covered in Christmas cheer, clothing laden with stains from the sugary drinks, hair matted against our necks in fallen ponytails, and we laughed. We looked at each other and laughed so hard that we made other people laugh. The joy that we were emitting was putting people in the Christmas spirit. You could tell by the way they looked at us with adoration and nostalgia, remembering what it was like to be our age. But what they didn't know was that it was in that moment, that brief moment of childish laughter and fun, we had been pushed over the edge. We weren't having fun! Fun was the last thing on our minds. We had gone crazy. Christmas and Christmas's Enthusiasts had become the bane of our collective existence.

We probably pumped out close to 300 cups of cocoa that night. At the end of it, we took down our hair and washed out the coffee pots. On our way out the door we nodded to the tired Santa Claus who was collecting his belongings and walked out to my car. It took us a minute to find the strength to sit down. It was probably twenty degrees outside, but it felt like a breezy summer night in comparison to the hell we had just endured.

I will never feel the same way about Christmas again. The experience at the gardens was far more eye-opening than any last-minute Christmas shopping experience I have ever had. I would rather fight for the last Hello Kitty toaster at Target all day than go through the gardens again. When you’re on the other side of the counter, the customer-service side, you get to see people for who they really are. And during Christmas, when people are with their extended families, they get crazy. What little patience people had left is gone. I don’t care to see people for who they really are anymore. I enjoy my false sense of people. I take solace in it. This year I have been celebrating Christmas since mid-October because I performed in a world premier musical version of Capra’s “It’s A Wonderful Life.” I have come to terms with Christmas a little bit better because of the magic of the film. But still, whenever I see a Christmas Enthusiast, I cower a little bit inside.

in the early morning

2008-12-24T07:36:00.005-05:00

when you wake each other up
coughing like you might not make the afternoon
you keep the curtains closed
and carry off a conversation
but you both know that it's still far too soon
to say
you'll be OK
la la la la la
-"Smokers in Love" by The Lucksmiths

it's seven thirty nine AM and i am dead. this is the third morning in a row that i've had to get up at five forty five and before this, i had not woken up before eight forty five since the beginning of summer when i worked at the bakery.

i miss being the bus barista...the bus opens at some wonderful hour like eleven or eleven thirty during the winter.

so this morning i am not my springy happy self. i'm not even sure where i left my "self" but i'm drinking plenty of caffeine so that i can perhaps find her. i just indulged in a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast and now i'm watching the sun come up and the early morning traffic drive by. i think the sun is feeling a little sluggish today, too. it feels like she's taking longer than usual.

well, it's christmas eve. i wish i was one of the few and the proud to have today off. but the bean is open for the people who have to work and shop today. i've had a whopping TWO customers so far and i think the rest of the day is going to prove to be about as busy.

okay now i've had three.

i am grateful for everyone who comes in here and simply wants brewed coffee. i had a fight with the espresso machine this morning and we still haven't made up. he bit me and i haven't forgiven him.

today when i go home i'm making a tiramisu for christmas dessert. nom. coffee desserts are my favorites.

TOMORROW i will be posting a short story of mine. it is christmas afterall, and this is a story very dear to kim and i.

so happy christmas everybody. enjoy your elves.

rainy days and mondays always get me down

2008-12-23T08:05:00.005-05:00

whew.

yesterday was a helluva day.

like i mentioned in my last post, i am back home for winter break working at the coffee shop where i got my very first coffee job. but now it's under new ownership...again. i've gone over this before, but let's review: first it was java jitterz then it was java junkie and now it's the java bean. so here i am at the jitterzjunkiebean. i am actually inside the shop right now. it's a really great place to be in the mornings. you can see the sun rise because of all the big windows and watching morning traffic over coffee and cigarettes is a wonderful thing. i also get a pretty great mix of morning regulars. most of whom were jitterz and junkie regulars as well. it's really fun to see them and chat them up.

this morning i couldn't get the shop to warm up so i finally punched the thermostat up to 76 and now it's cozy in here, even next to the big windows.

i could go on and on about the great atmosphere in here, but that's for another time.

so now for the main attraction: yesterday.

yeah, carpenters. rainy days and mondays always get me down, too.

so yesterday. i bounced out of bed at 5:45 AM, really excited and ready to get to work. especially because kim and i were going to work together for the morning shift just like old times. the catch is that kim had the key. i arrived at the bean at 6:25 sharp and sat in my car and waited. and waited and waited. i called kim about sixty times (not exaggerating) but her phone was dead. why i felt the need to call a dead phone a stupid amount of times, i'll never know. at any rate. kimi made it at about eight thirty. and because this blog is for coffee and coffeeshops NOT airing dirty laundry, all i'll say is that she did NOT get fired! hooray! hokay. anyways, we got the shop up and running and all was well. kimi went home for the rest of the day and i was left to run the shop by myself.
not a big deal.
until two PM rolled around when my shift was over.
then taylor didn't show up.
so i called my boss and asked her if this happened a lot and she said no, but to wait until two thirty because taylor may have been confused.
i called my boss again at two forty five, still lacking my coworker.
she said she would be here as soon as she could, but she had errands to run.
she showed up and we redid the schedule and i was under the impression that i would be pulling a fifty hour week.
i left at four with an hour to run errands get dressed and go on a date.

but luckily today they called one of the other girls from the fayetteville shop and she's going to come down and relieve me. and she and i will be covering a lot over the next couple days. oy.

however, what made yesterday so bad was not solely the insane turns of events. while all of that was going on i ran out of cigarettes, got a complaint about a milkshake (-_-), and oh yeah, i was trying to get to charlotte for a date. and i thought that i would have to work thirteen hours today. which would have been pretty rough.

so my day ended very chaotically with a quick run to the gas station for cigarettes, a stop by the ups store, and a glorious 30-second sprint through my house while getting ready and out the door again. once i got in the car i realized i hadn't eaten all day and quickly forgot as traffic was hell.

but yesterday is over!

and today i have managed to spill half a container of iced coffee, half a gallon of milk, and hit my head so hard that i almost knocked myself out.

*awkward laugh and thumbs up*

i've missed this shop a lot. it's been difficult getting used to a normal-sized coffee shop, but i love it.

more posting later about the shop in general.

tips! ha!

2008-12-18T23:50:00.001-05:00

tips are important
to people like
captains and barmen
for them it's a tip, see?
for me, i'm a gypsy
just toss me a coin
and i suddenly feel like i'm carmen
--from WORKING: the musical

tipping.
do you tip your barista?
are you supposed to tip your barista?
WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU TIP YOUR BARISTA?

well. it's important. that's why.

even if it's only a quarter, tips are important. we don't do the work that waiters and waitresses do, but it is similar in some ways.

we serve. that's about as similar as it gets.

but we also create. we direct you toward the drink that we think you might like depending on the small bits of information you give us. (see: the barista game in the coffee dictionary.)

we (those of us who take our jobs too seriously) try our best to entertain you to the extent that we can for the amount of time that you're in our shop.

and baristas, like elephants, never forget. we remember the tippers and the non-tippers. if we're in a position to see what you drive or meet your family, we'll probably remember what you order after a few visits to the shop.

so how much should you tip?

well, just like when you go to a restaurant, tip what you can and what you feel the barista deserves. if you're a regular at a shop, you don't need to feel obligated to tip every single time, but a dollar here or fifty cents there will make your barista very happy.

if you've ever worked in a restaurant or coffee shop, your money probably works something like this: your check goes to gas, bills, food, etc. and tips pay for your habits. so remember that your barista is living on tips just like a waitress does.

there's also the tipping dilemma for baristas: will people tip if the jar is full or empty? whenever i start a shift, i put a dollar in the jar. it's habit and it also reminds people that there is a tip jar there and if they can spare some change for their caffeine provider, they can put it in there. but then, usually (unless you have a particularly large tip jar), your jar fills up to the point where you need to take some money out.

here's my system:

if there are any bills larger than a $1, i take them out and put them in my wallet. i have experienced tip jar robbery and sometimes fingers will get sticky if they see a $5 bill.

after removing large bills (which i RARELY have to do), i count how much money i have in the jar. if i have ten dollars, i put it all back. if i have fourteen dollars, i put four back and pocket the ten and so forth.

my theory is that customers are not sympathy tippers. if customers see that you've been an efficient, pleasant barista, they are more likely to tip. it is likely that your customer won't know how long you've been there, but they'll assume the worst when it comes to whether or not they'll give you their money. so a full tip jar will secure a full tip jar.

hope everybody is having a fun, safe, and sufficiently caffeinated holiday. i'm back in my hometown working at a coffee shop. it's the building of my very first shop with its third set of owners. all of whom i have been hired by, now. i'll be back at the bus in a month or so.

it's a wonderful life

2008-12-05T22:05:00.004-05:00

it's remarkable astounding every minute
it's a wonderful life
it's a treasure and a pleasure to be in it
full of joy and revelation
it's beyond imagination
an intoxicating gift
emphatically sublime
it's a wonderful wonderful life

--"it's a wonderful life" from world premier musical, A Miracle in Bedford Falls

currently drinking: ethiopian harrar

i am currently in a world premier musical called A Miracle in Bedford Falls. it is the exact story (and most of the time the exact script) from Frank Capra's 1946 masterpiece, It's A Wonderful Life. the lyrics posted above are from a song that occurs twice in the show and most of the musical is that happy. for real. now, as a general rule, i'm not a big fan of christmas, christmas spirit, christmas sales, etc. but It's A Wonderful Life is a great movie. and i'm sure if you came here to read a movie blog, you'd be thrilled to read this, so allow me to get to what i know best. coffee. (for a pretty good movie blog, check out paullascara.blogspot.com)

the rehearsal process for this show has been painful. we've been celebrating christmas since mid-october and it's barely even december now. we've spent our time together singing dreadfully happy songs, doing dances that send many of us (specifically the smokers) backstage wheezing and coughing (but our choreographer is A-MAZING), and not to mention this is all during FINALS. sheesh.

however, we have an amazing stage manager. anna is a petite girl of twenty who can stage manage ANYTHING...and this show is proof. and anna is a coffee drinker. she understands and embraces the importance of coffee.

so this translated into a wonderful rehearsal period in which anna had her assistant stage managers making pot after pot of delicious coffee. (granted, it took them a minute to learn how to make coffee...the first couple of pots were so light that we could see to the bottoms of our 8 oz. styrofoam cups.) some nights rehearsal would go poorly and people would seek solace and warmth in coffee during our short cigarette breaks. other nights we, the cast, would sit in our theatre's old, cushy seats, coffee in hand, scripts and scores in the other, cheerfully singing the show's tunes and participating in witty banter. but no matter what, there was a line for the coffee and that made me happy. it proved that once more, coffee brings a certain safety and warmth to a situation.

coming soon: how busbarista's friends take their coffee. it's fun.

decaf? DECAF!?!?!?!?!

2008-11-24T17:45:00.001-05:00

decaffeinated coffee...what's the point? right?

wrong.

i do not drink decaf coffee. i am too much of a fan of caffeine and it doesn't keep me up all night the way it does some people. i don't know that i can even recall ever drinking a decaffeinated anything. if i had a real religion, decaffeinated coffee would be against it.

but i have come to terms with decaf. i had an awakening (no pun intended) one night while i was at the bus.

people who drink decaf are dedicated to coffee on a whole different level. the people who drink decaf are dedicated to the taste of coffee--not the effect. how cool is that? i love the taste of coffee, i think i've made that pretty cool. but i don't know if i'll ever be able to drink it unless i am required to.

one morning when i was working at java jitterz/junkie (i can't remember which), a man came in and ordered a large cup of decaf...at six thirty in the morning. he read the paper for a bit, finished his cup and ordered another. it was fantastic! his love for coffee may be even greater than mine!

so decaf coffee, as silly as it may seem, is a good thing. it allows people to enjoy the bean that they love so much, without the negative side-effects they may suffer from caffeine.

so...i haven't posted in a very long time and i am sorry. i'm going to try to get some extra posting in over thanksgiving break. i'm currently in a world premier musical at my college and it is taking up every ounce of energy that i have.

brief update

2008-11-11T02:27:00.002-05:00

so, i know i haven't updated in a while, but i wanted to make a couple of shout outs to my other friends in the blogging world and direct you to their little tiny corners of the intranets.

enjoy!

tw0things.blogspot.com
-this is the blog of my former housemates. it is deliciously fabulous.
silverwearclayworks.blogspot.com
-this is the blog of my former housemate, mallory, who is a wonderful artist! check out the other links on her blog where you can purchase her art.
paullascara.blogspot.com
-blog of a friend and academic movie critic
laacreativity.blogspot.com
-blog of a dear dear friend, ashley. it's for a class, but she says some REALLY amazing things about art and the creative process

so there you go! enjoy. indulge. comment. love. peace. santa claus. what?

news flash

2008-10-31T21:14:00.003-04:00

halloween in asheville is a lovely experience.
lots of good costumes.

at any rate.

this is to tack onto the regulars/chatty barista post.

someone in a skull mask just came to the bus without identifying himself and he got about three words into his first sentence before i said, "MICHAEL!!! WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

i take care of my regulars and i miss them when they're gone.

the chatty barista cares.

it was 20 years ago today

2008-10-31T17:10:00.004-04:00

sergeant pepper told the band to play!
--The Beatles

it's here. my two-year coffee-versary. two years ago today i stepped behind the counter of java jitterz with a game face and i began to brew. my best friend, kimberly, trained me on Astoria Argenta AEAP2 espresso machine and i haven't been the same since.

allow me, for just a moment, to sing the praises of the Astoria Argenta AEAP2. it is a really great machine. we have the same model at the bus and man, was i THRILLED when i started working here and reunited with my dear old friend. the Argenta is a solid machine with basic controls and she pulls a damn good shot. at the bus it's tricky because the weather greatly affects your shots due to lack of stable environment inside, but that's nothing to complain about. caffiend, the 24-hour shop i frequent, has an Astoria Gloria which looks like a spaceship and could probably make you a sandwich if you asked it to. and i must admit, i really really really want to pull a triple from the shop at caffiend. that's right. A TRIPLE WITH ONE BASKET!! *drools* but the Argenta is like a tank. i don't know how old the machine is at the bus, but i can imagine she's going to last a while.

but back to the coffee-versary. i am at work as i type this dressed as a french press. (picture to come) i am dressed in black boots, spiderweb tights, a black skirt, black shirt, black beret and a press badge. if ONE person gets it without my telling them, i'll be happy.

this post is dedicated to my amazing friendship with kimberly and the shop that we damn-near managed. java jitterz. kim and i were best friends before she helped me get the job at jitterz. i also spent copious amounts of time there before i got the job. my friends from high school and i would go there every friday night and have a giant cuddle puddle on the couch and be ridiculous. i got the job at jitterz and until i went off to college, the place and i were almost inseparable. and even then, i would come home and love on it until october 2007 when it closed. kim and i have lived and died by the jitterz. we found out about the death of a dear friend while on the clock one day, we spent sixty hours a week there during the christmas season, we made dear friends with regulars, we spent our summer elbows-deep in ice cream, we shared secrets and mornings-after and shed tears in that shop. for our senior trip, she, janna (our other WaHo and coworker), and i went to hilton head for a week and poor david had to hold down the fort for us. i thought our bosses were going to murder us. we have even made coffee in a trailer on the day of our senior prom. i am certain we attended our senior prom coffee-stained and scented! kim has sat through countless gigs of mine at that shop. jitterz was it for us. it was junior AND senior year of high school.

"what are you doing tonight?"
jaaaaaaaaava!

now kimi and i live in different cities. she actually works at the java bean (what was jitterz and junkie) and i am in asheville, but we live the same way. smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and gabbing through the slow parts of our shifts. it's just over the phone now. and whenever we're in the other's city, we go to her coffee shop and do even more of the same.

it's who we are. it's what we do. it's how we survive the weeks-long moments away from each other.

so, here's to good coffee, good friends, a really tacky halloween costume, and being a barista.
cheers.

of the bean that they drink

2008-10-24T19:20:00.005-04:00

every day
every week
you should quit...
--jump little children

i just made myself...a latte. I KNOW. i know. but it is probably the most delicious latte i have ever had...and it's rainy and disgusting at the bus. i made myself a mocha, but instead of a regular mocha, i used our hot cocoa recipe to make it. i haven't decided if i want to share this delicious recipe with you because it's kind of a secret. i have probably exceeded my usually alotted number of coffee sins for the week, so no more lattes for a while...hopefully.

and for tonight's post: The Chatty Barista, or Why won't she shut up!?

depending on what kind of coffee shop you go to, you could encounter a very chatty barista. (which, by the way, barista is gender neutral. i'll probably be referring to the barista as a she...because i have mostly worked with/encountered women...and i am one. please don't be offended, boys.) i am a chatty barista. at my first shop, jitterz, i worked with my best friend, kim. our friends janna and david later joined us. (that's probably a story for another day) when kim and i were working...you couldn't get out of there. especially once we started smoking. we would chat up customers to the point of no return. they would spend hours outside with us, smoking and talking. even the customers who didn't smoke would spend lots of time with us.

the most interesting characters were:

frank: our dearest regular. got a large sumatra every day after work. we got to hear about his son, his wife's boob job, his drinking experiences in college--everything. on christmas he gave us a twenty dollar tip. i miss frank.

frankie: frankie worked at a really sketchy adult book/video store across the river. he later worked for coca-cola, sued them and went back to the adult store. he called janna, kimi and i "frankie's angels." he is a lovely person and never ceased to make us smile.

karen: karen is the coach for the olympic white water kayaking team. brought in lots and lots of gorgeous boys to see us. and she just made a great conversationalist.

we also had our fair share of creepsters and flirty regulars. it happens.

but i digress. the method behind our madness is that we worked at a very intimate, low-traffic coffee shop. we had the time to talk to our customers, if they had the time to open up to us. we have taken our jobs as baristas to the next level--for us, it's a way of life. we invest time and emotion in our customers because they have allowed us to do so. we care about them. even the ones who scare us.

now, as a barista in a VERY high-traffic coffee bus, i've had to alter my means of communication. we have very few regulars at the bus because we are positioned in a city that has a mostly tourist-based economy. and we don't have a bathroom. so now i get to meet lots and lots of people who are simply passing through. if they have a map, a camera, a mast general store bag, or a shocked expression, i start by asking them where they're from. i want to know. i want to know why they're here and what they're doing and if they're having fun. i love recommending bars and restaurants. tourists, despite their naivete, are fun. especially the ones who are REALLY excited to be here.

as a barista and coffee enthusiast, i feel the need to get to know who i am serving. i feel so strongly about coffee and the way it makes people feel and consequently want to know about who will be consuming my favorite addiction.

I never knew what it was

2008-10-17T17:22:00.002-04:00

about this old coffee shop i love so much

--Landon Pigg

i have worked at four cafes. one of which was a bakery as well, so it only really counts as a barista job on paper. two of them were different cafes under different owners in the same building. and the current is in a double decker bus.

as an actress, space is pretty sacred to me. and i don't mean personal space. that's something i'm still working on. but spaces where i work and play are so very sacred. for example, the theatre on my campus was the first church in the town. that makes it so much more special to me than it just being a theatre. especially when little old ladies come in while we're working and talk about where the preacher stood, where they sat, etc.

but my coffee shops are a completely different story...

java jitterz and java junkie (and what is now the java bean...i think i'll work there over christmas break) is stationed in mount holly, north carolina. it's at a fork in the road on the way into down town. it is quite possibly the worst location for a coffee house. it's literally on the fork in the road and the shop is brown. it just doesn't reach out and scream COFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. but there is something very special about java. when it was built, it served as a gas station. i'll take a picture when i go home tomorrow. it's a beautiful old building. the inside is pretty simple with a small hall in the back leading to the bathroom. but the outside is stone with a big awning jutting out from the side and a rectangular stone column coming down into what is now a flower bed. you wouldn't really know that it was an old gas station until you took a good look at it and thought about it, but even still. it's a great building. i have slept, cried, laughed, found out about the death of friends, kissed, hugged, and loved in that place. i am so grateful for it.

my current job is in a 1963 lodekka double decker bus called the double decker coffee company. we are stationed on biltmore in downtown asheville. she. is. beautiful. pretty soon i'll have a giant picture post to show you guys the beauty that this bus is. i love working here. it's a very intimate setting and it makes the tourists so happy. we have delicious coffee and coffee drinks, homemade brownies, homemade pumpkin spice walnut bread and sugar momma's cookies. i am very lucky to have a job here.

hokay. so. coming soon: the chatty barista: why won't she shut up!?, flavored coffee and why it isn't against my religion, and the picture post

if it's not too late for coffee,

2008-10-12T14:36:00.001-04:00

i'll be at your place at ten
we'll hit that all night diner
and then we'll see
--Copeland

coffee and comfort.

hungover?
have a cup of coffee.
break up?
coffee.
unexpected pregnancy?
decaf.
don't have a single thing to say to someone you think you would really get along with?
try going out for coffee.

i can't count the number of "mornings after" that i have woken up and either immediately gotten in my car to get coffee or dragged my dehydrated self out of bed and turned on the coffee pot that i purposely set up the night before. i know that coffee doesn't do much for dehydration, but it's the hot, bitter, cozy concept of it.

coffee, on many occasions, makes a (coffee drinking) person just feel better.

the other night a dear friend of mine texted me in a situation of distress. so i told her i would pick her up and we would go to Waffle House for coffee. we were there from eleven thirty until three thirty. we did nothing but talk, drink coffee and water, and i smoked. we talked about everything. because i took her out for coffee, i was able to get her to safely talk about her problems and simultaneously get her mind off of them. if we hadn't gone out, we probably would have just headed back to her apartment and sulked on the couches until we fell asleep.

i know that coffee doesn't work for everybody. and i also know that it doesn't cure hangovers and it ESPECIALLY doesn't sober you up. my friends and i joke that if you drink coffee while drunk, you're far more prone to make stupid, drunk, mistakes faster. but coffee, like caffeine is more of a psychological thing. you feel better because you know you're supposed to.

coming soon: my two year coffee-versary is on halloween! hooray! (i think i'll dress up in all black with a press badge and a beret and call myself a french press. try not to be too impressed.) also, coming soon, my history with kimberly, my best friend, and the way we drink our coffee.

Is there anything you want to know about? Read about? I would love some feedback from whoever is reading this. And thank you for reading.

"he was my cream, and i was his coffee

2008-10-07T23:52:00.004-04:00

-and when you pour us together, it was something."
--Josephine Baker

this post is dedicated to a coffee establishment where i have spent many a long night.

caffiend.
asheville's very own 24-hour coffee house.
their motto is "SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK."

while caffiend is (usually) a GREAT place to get into study-mode with other asheville-area students and gear up for the week's tests and papers, it has been and still is something so much more than that for me.

i have made some really fantastic friends there. there's luke, alex, jc, alicia, jay, paul, stefania, james, matthew, ian, sarah, nick, river, crow, blaize, other nick, mina, brandon, corwen, salem, lindsey, tess, neil, and more. these are people that i have bonded with over coffee, cigarettes, and hours-long conversation.

i am so lucky.

i have even had the pleasure of hanging out with many of these folks outside of caffiend. tomorrow night, luke and alex are coming to the opening night of my play. it's incredible that i could build such relationships with people that i simply met in passing at a coffee shop one night.

caffiend, because of its hours, has an atmosphere that is out of reach for most coffee shops. caffiend is my living room. it's where i go to curl up in a big chair or fluffy couch and study, read, run lines, exist outside of my dorm room, or meet new people. no matter what time i go, i know the barista and then some. the coffee tastes very much like the coffee at my house does because it is simply that familiar. (except i can get a latte or an americano at caffiend! hoorays!) i go to caffiend because, well, because i can't go home. i can't go back to my hometown and have coffee with my mom, so i do the next best thing.

i am so grateful for caffiend. if it weren't for caffiend, i wouldn't have survived my previous year of college and i wouldn't have so many wonderful friends.

hats off to matthew hebb, the owner.

coming soon: coffee and comfort: how coffee is relied on to make bad situations better.

"I never laugh

2008-10-02T00:29:00.003-04:00

until I've had my coffee."
--Clark Gable

in my previous post, i mentioned that i drink black coffee. if i had religion, anything but black coffee would be against it.

i don't drink lattes.

tonight at caffiend, asheville's 24 hour coffee shop, i got a latte. i humored my favorite barista, ian, and let him play the fun barista game. this is the game when someone walks into your shop and says, "what do i want?"
usually, at this point the barista gets over-excited and starts asking you lots of questions.

"hot or cold?"
if hot:
"caffeinated?"
if cold:
"blended or over ice?"
then:
"do you like chocolate? white chocolate? fruit? nuts? strong? weak?"

tonight, i was on the other side of the counter and played the game.

"hot or cold?"
hot.
"caffeinated?"
yes.
"chocolatey, nutty, or fruity?"
chocolatey.
"okay..."
small. skim. have fun.

he made me a delicious peppermint mocha. he can foam the jesus out of some milk. (does milk have jesus? SHOULD milk have jesus?) and he completely reaffirmed why i don't drink lattes.

they're too delicious and sinful.

i started the consuming process by taking off the lid and enjoying the foam for a bit. then i started on the latte. it was creamy and delicious and not too sweet. i finished it and drank every last bit of foam and stared at the bottom of my empty cup with great disdain.

after i realized what i had done (drank the latte, enjoyed it to the point of feeling contempt for the small size i chose, and thought about getting another one), i wanted to take myself out back and give myself a good talking to.

that is the last latte i will drink for a long time. it was a perfect, delicious treat that i will not let myself indulge in for quite a while. and, well...sugar and milk aside, there simply isn't enough caffeine in lattes. a small cup of coffee would have given me a little more of a jolt (or psychological jolt...caffeine is a topic for another day) and i wouldn't have felt like i'd just committed a mortal sin.

i am grateful for that little creamy, foamy, sweet, delicious drink. but the next time i go to a coffee shop...it's back to black drip or espresso.

"I like my coffee the way I like my women--

2008-10-01T00:50:00.004-04:00

in a plastic cup."
--Eddie Izzard

ever since i started drinking coffee, i have had a problem.

...and it isn't my ridiculous dependency on the bean. that's for another day.

i take my coffee black. i have been known to occasionally put a little cream, skim milk, or soy milk in my coffee if it is old, over ice, or if i just get a wild hair. and that's usually only in the afternoons. in the morning, i drink strong, black coffee.

and consequently...i...well...

i am completely vulnerable to falling in love with the young men who come into my shop and take their coffee black.

when someone comes in and asks for a cup of drip coffee, a series of questions gets thrown their way.

"small, medium, or large?"
"medium or dark roast?"
"room for cream and sugar?"
(at this time i usually ask them for their mother's maiden name or their shoe size just for shits and giggles)

when a boy says "no" to the last real question, my heart soars. there is a fifty percent chance that they will drink it black.

after they pay, i'll usually start pretending to clean or, if i'm feeling especially saucy, i'll chat them up. all the while i'm watching them like a hawk to see if they're going to put anything in their coffee. if they don't, and they stay at the shop, i am completely smitten. i get a little flirty and almost too thrilled to talk.

there is no explanation for my attraction to men who take their coffee black, it's just the way it is.

one day i called my best friend (and the woman who trained me on the espresso machine), kimi, and the conversation proceeded to go like this:
me: kimi!! i just met the cutest guy. he took his coffee black.
k: joan, you have to stop falling in love with boys who take their coffee black. that's just wrong.
me: i know, i know. i mean...i've seen him elsewhere. i saw him at waffle house and the record store, too...
k: you're ridiculous. did he have a big nose?

and that's where we'll leave the conversation.

so what should you, my faithful readers, take from this?

your barista is watching. they may not be judging you for what you do "wrong," but what makes their caffeinated little hearts go pitter-patter.

the coffee dictionary has been added! read it! love it! embrace it!

also, i have a hit counter now. i am very happy about this. but if you could leave me a comment and tell me that you're reading this, i would be really grateful. and if you like what you read, recommend it to other coffee-enthusiasts. i'd really love some feedback.

"way too much coffee. but if it weren't for the coffee,

2008-09-27T15:49:00.006-04:00

i'd have no identifiable personality whatsoever."

--david letterman

today i thought about taking you through an afternoon at the magic bus, but something else struck me while i was enjoying a cigarette and a delicious cup of our fair trade, shade grown, organic, darth vader roast.

waffle house coffee.

there are very few things that make me feel as safe and warm as drinking waffle house coffee with my best friends while chain smoking and listening to the god-awful music that the good old boys in my hometown play on the juke box.

for my birthday, kimi, janna, steph, and i went to waffle house to celebrate. we ordered four cups of coffee and four glasses of water. none of us take cream in our WaHo coffee, but kim takes sugar. one of our usual waitresses was serving us. her name escapes me. when she brought our drinks to us, she was holding a vat of cream and upon seeing that i said, "oh, sweetie, we don't need cream." (i always feel the overwhelming need to call waitresses things like "honey" and "dear" because they get shat on by so many other customers.) she looked up and realized that it was just the four girls and not the pile of boys that we usually bring with us she said, "oh, that's right. that boy ain't with ya'll," referring to kim's boyfriend at the time. we all had a good laugh and moved on to our usual ritual of smoke, coffee, water, repeat.

in the past year and a half, so much of my life has revolved around these moments at waffle house. my girlfriends and i even named ourselves "the WaHos." we spent an entire summer participating in various forms of debauchery and ending the night (or the morning, when the occasion presented itself) at waffle house, drinking obscene amounts of coffee and smoking clove cigarettes. when i broke up with my boyfriend last february, one of my best friends chris said, "c'mon. get in the car. we're going to waffle house."

at this point i can imagine you might be a little disturbed by the great pleasure i take in drinking one of the worst brews in town. but the thing is that waffle house coffee, like pabst blue ribbon, is the best of the worst. i have had some really bad coffee. joe muggs is still my absolute least favorite cups. joe muggs is worse than the free coffee that i had at discount tire while i waited for my tires to be aligned. it tastes like the barista found some papertowels, filled them with last week's grounds, and ran them through their brewer. i've had gas station coffee, i've had coffee so dark that it almost crossed the line of tasting like dirt, i've had my fair share of bad coffee. despite the fact that waffle house is hands down the weakest coffee i drink and that it's probably about as fair trade, shade grown, and organic as a polyester shirt from china, it's my comfort coffee.

coming soon: coffee mix! this could take a lot of time. a friend of a friend made a cigarettes mix that took him eight years.

also, check out the sidebar for new drink creations and also coming soon, a coffee dictionary.

i drink good coffee every morning

2008-09-26T17:37:00.001-04:00

comes from a place that's far away
and when i'm done i feel like talking
without you here
there is less to say

this morning, upon my arrival to music theory at about 8:50, one of my classmates said, "I love pre-coffee Joan."
...right.
needless to say i wanted to pour my cup of coffee in his lap, but i wouldn't waste such a precious breakfast.
what his statement said to me was, "I love it when Joan comes to theory in the morning because she's tripping over stuff because she's still sleepy. She's so irritable! It's great!!"
i have nothing against this classmate. i was just a slightly annoyed that he pointed out my sloppy, pre-coffee state while i was in said state.
next time he should not be so lucky to walk away without a coffee stain or a slight dent in his pride.

coming soon: a coffee-based music mix

crockery and coffee cups

2008-09-25T00:14:00.001-04:00

i am no different from any other barista.
i wear clothes from second-hand stores and on any given day i look like i accidentally fell into my closet, my dad's closet, my homeless friend's closet and then came to work.
i listen to a lot of music that some people might consider less pleasant than listening to cows mate.
i traumatize my indecisive customers, who always tip me the best because people like to be told what to do.
i speak in quick witticisms.
i am a pretentious fuck.
and i smoke.

but coffee is really important to me.
it's ridiculous. i didn't even drink it until i was almost 18.
once i got into the barista scene, i started paying attention to who drinks what kind of coffee. it was almost a sociological experiment. this is an ongoing experiment that shocks me almost every time i go to work.

coffee is exciting.
and delicious because i work at the shop in town that has THE BEST coffee. maybe not the best iced coffee, but our drip and espresso are forces to be reckoned with. i say this without a doubt. i have been most if not all places and ours is my favorite.

in this blog i will document my experiments in the coffee world and my passion for the bean.

"...when you're on a stage and you're

2008-08-20T17:10:00.000-04:00

singing and you can feel the beat of the band shaking
the boards on the stage, you feel like you're drunk.
Yes, you do, baby."
--john kennedy toole's "The Neon Bible" (aunt mae speaking)

my shots have all been poorly pulled today.
there was even something wrong with the first shot of the day that i pulled for myself.
i love the first shot of the day.
it's like an exquisite little prize you get for being a barista.
not only do you get to spend your whole day with beans that create many moments of joy for their consumers, but you also get the very first taste of what your day will be like.
it is as if the first shot predetermines everybody's day.
everybody who comes into the shop, that is.

when i saw the crema was short on this morning's espresso and it wasn't quite creamy enough, i knew that it would be a rough day.

of the bean
that they drink
everyday every week
they should quit
coffee's bad
makes you crazy, fucking mad
but they say in defense
(with a pause for suspense)
'it's the stuff of the gods!
sexy, smart, hot, bods.
rollercoaster hurricane
supersonic jet plane...'
-"habit" by jump little children

i have allowed coffee to become my religion. i am the worshipper of this delicious bean that has become my savior.

i frighten myself with these words,
but i think i am just feeling strongly about them
because i have had a bad day.