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.

it's a wonderful life

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.

I never knew what it was

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,

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.