The Back Porch, the people that come and go.

I take my breaks on the back porch.

I've watched the seasons turn over from this porch - I watched early summer turn to late, steamy, fever-like August, and August turn to orange and red, and now I stare at bare trees and shiver. I used to gulp iced coffee & eat cold sandwiches; now it's hot hazelnut coffee and squash soup.

I have a nice view of the parking lot from my spot on the porch. Nothing much happens here, not much to look at. C tends to be below, grilling and talking to himself. Sometimes he'll notice I'm up there on the porch, and he'll talk to me about grilling things properly, or the Crazy People that crawl through this town, or his cats, or that the Wall Street Journal is located in CT, and isn't that something?

I can always hear the clanking of the dishes inside, the hum of the hustle and bustle that I am happily and finally sitting away from. I can see the stone wall of the church next door. Next Door.

Next Door is a beautiful stone church, except it is no longer a church from the glimpses I've caught of its inside. It's been made into a company headquarters of some sort. I like to try and imagine who the customers are that get to work in such a lovely building. Sometimes when I am on my break, I have an urge to tear off my work shirt and walk on in, just to catch a glimpse. I like to imagine the inside is just as beautiful/wondrous as the outside.

I don't know why I am so fascinated with a place. I suppose I have nothing better to do, and after the 10th cappuccino of the day, my mind needs to be elsewhere. And what better place than fantasizing about Next Door?

The grand architects, the well-dressed men in their shiny shoes and pressed shirts, their colognes and perfumes fusing my coffee air, ordering their food, collecting their change and continuing into their days - I often feel like a fly on the wall, watching the entire town of Acton come and go and live their lives. I like to wonder about the things they go off and do after they've gotten their egg sandwiches and their triple espressos. I like to wonder about people, especially the ones I see every day and know so well, yet know nothing about.

repetition blend, with a shot of Tip advice.

the days blend together.

i work so much that lately, i've started to dream about being at the cafe. i woke up the other night sitting perfectly upright, overturning my covers looking for a woman's salad she'd ordered.

my clock will read 3 a.m. & i'll quickly figure out how many hours i have left to sleep before i have to really be worrying about To Go salads and large iced teas.

i wake up an hour or two later, usually. same ordeal. stress. sometimes, i dream that i am driving to work, and in the distance, a large truck is swerving into my lane. or sometimes, i am driving and look up in time to see the bumper of the car in front of me just 5 feet away, and my car is going 60. i always wake up on impact.

regular customers are in my dreams now, too. anne - the salad & large iced tea lady. she's very nice, and i believe she works next door (many of the customers work Next Door, though I have yet to know what Next Door actually is. I like to imagine they are all architects - they strike me as designers). today, we were out of the salad she normally orders. i felt badly.

lately, i've noticed that people like to order large & extra complicated hot drinks, take two or three sips, & then leave. i don't know if it's pure luxury for them, but i think it's very wasteful, and my arm muscle doesn't enjoy cranking out 8 large soy lattes with shots of chocolate, coconut, and vanilla, half-caff, for just a taste. DRINK UP, PLEASE. or just order a small.

& yet - i know that i was a part of their day. i provided that source of comfort - that sweet little taste, even if it was indirectly. & because of my great perky smiling skills that i have mastered down to a science, i usually can crank a dollar or two out of them.

the science of Getting Tips:

1. the faster you can tell a customer their total, the more chance of a better tip. everyone in america is programmed for instant information & gratification, so tell them their total ASAP. while they are counting out their money, take action. grab that chocolate chip cookie, begin that soy latte. they will look up to see their muffin practically jumping off their plate into their mouths, & they will be thrilled.
2. enunciate. each. word. calmly. no matter what the circumstances.
3. smile. pretend you are delighted to see them and make them believe they are the center of your entire universe, and that you would walk into oncoming traffic for them if it meant obtaining their coffee.
4. small talk. (for me, small talk is actually a result of pure curiosity. because all i ever do is work, and all the people i am ever exposed to aside from my family are customers, i am genuinely trying to get to know someone a bit more. however, this can also be easily faked through smiling, laughing at things that aren't that funny, & noticing your surroundings).

& now, the science of Getting Tips from Men: (p.s., i am sorry, men).

1. smile too much. way too much.
2. laugh at their joke ("joke" - i honestly never know if it's a joke or just a strange commentary. laugh at the method of introduction/moment of interaction) no matter how overly ridiculous, confusing & nonsensical it probably is. (today, i had a man walk up to me and do a three snap with the head side-to-side, "oh no you di-in't" sort of ordeal. he then confessed he had no idea where that came from. i certainly couldn't have told him either. laughing was pretty easy in this case.
3. wear good jeans. & a good shirt if possible. when we got new shirts in august, our tips increased by at least $15 per day. some of us at the cafe believe it's because of our lovely new counters, but M. & I secretly know better.

okay, just kidding, sort of. i am terrible.

but these days - they blend together so much that i get various events from various days mixed up into one. a woman who's sandwich was missing the tomatoes, where is that? oh wait, that was from 2 days ago. sorry sir, we're out of the chicken salad. wait no, that was yesterday. the decaf coffee needs to be ground up for tomorrow - oh wait, that thought was from last week. it's tuesday, not monday, and the broom is missing and the dish room was full to the brim five minutes ago.

dirty dishes. coffee grounds on the trash rims. coffee grounds on my jeans, over & over again. coffee grounds scraping my skin, scraping my dreams, caught deep beneath my fingernails, again & again.

these are my days.

P, cookies, the 3 o'clock coffee men.

i don't know many names, but i do know many faces. many. i know the lines in their foreheads, their jackets, & most importantly, the way each and every one of them takes their coffees & what they like to eat. i know their credit cards, or if they will have exact change, or if they prefer to pay later.

there's p. she's the first one i memorized because she was my first customer. as i clumsily looked through the case for the cookie she wanted on that first day, she told me, "oh darling, don't worry, you'll be great at this. we're all nice here." & she was right, though at the time, i had high doubts.

a small guatemalan in a white mug and a chocolate chip cookie. $3.93. every day. she eats only half the cookie, taking the rest in a white napkin. sometimes she'll come back later in the day to finish the cookie & take her free refill. she has that luxury - she is old, retired, i gather. she likes to talk to me at the counter when it's not busy. she tells me that she used to be "practically anorexic" back when she was younger. "I weighed 90 pounds," she tells me. "can you BELIEVE that?" she is fussy about her weight still, even today, and I always tell her she looks just fine, because she does. she is short, old-lady-like, rounded, but not in a heavy way. she has short dark hair & i can tell she worries a lot. she tells me that she lives alone. once, she came in sweating because she'd just been in a car accident - her fault. i gave her coffee on the house that day, even though i'm not supposed to do that. once, she began to tell me about a trip she'd taken to China, but a whole slew of customers came in, & our conversation was abandoned. I still wonder about that trip. I wonder if she's a world traveler. I wonder what's beneath all those years, what wisdom she has to offer. she tells me that i work too much (i do), & it's nice to have a total stranger worry about me. I wonder why she is alone, and I know she doesn't like it. When it's quiet in the cafe, I often want to just sit down and chat with her, because she is lonely and I can tell, she just wants to talk over a cup of coffee with someone, anyone.


& then there are my afternoon coffee men. three of them, all tall, older. a medium guatemalan, a medium dark, and a large dark. room for cream in all three. $2.07 & $2.28 they always pay with exact change.
they aren't the friendliest of guys. the guatemalan guy is probably the most outgoing and friendly of the three - he's the one with the beard and kinder eyes. the others seem distant, clawed at by life in some way or another. they all work together, i gather, probably in the nearby office i imagine is somewhere in the general vicinity of the cafe, though i have yet to discover where. they don't joke with me like many of the regulars do - they are very serious about their coffees, & i know they notice me as much as they notice the color of the door or the other coffee flavors - irrelevant. they dress casually, and they like to stand outside after they pay, smoking cigarettes and talking. coffee & cigarettes & breaks from the day. occasionally, one will order a chicken parm. sandwich - to go - & he'll sit quietly with his coffee, sitting & staring at his thoughts, i gather.

coffee jeans

the coffee has permanently stained my jeans. little coffee finger marks imprint themselves along my back pockets, my knees. my jeans have become my permanent wash-rags - they take what my hands must discard.

when i come home, my jeans smell like the cafe. it's funny how places - their smells - can seep themselves into the threads of our clothing. it's as if the places want to be remembered, and weave themselves into our fabric threads. those moments when we come home from a long journey or a place - say college, a backpacking trip - one whiff from our bags is always enough to relive the journey in its entirety, pleasant or not. my jeans smell of sour milk and long hours, and glimpses into hundreds of lives, & rubber floor mats.

i remember when i used to sweat in the summer heat behind that counter. hauling milks, grinding espresso, the sweeping and stooping - my pores cried with sweat, my shirt would drench & i'd hope nobody noticed. it was always the same thing in the summer - fill the iced coffees, brew fresh tea, & make sure we have plenty of lemons. in the summer, people were laid back & less frequent. in the summer, i was still the New Girl.

& now. i shiver in the morning when i grind the coffees in the basement. that cold, it creeps through my threadbare shirt, and i remember my flannel bed sheets and the days when i'd lie wide awake in my winter bed drinking coffee & reading poems & watching the snow fall silently over ithaca. i miss ithaca. it's in the mornings at the cafe, standing in the cold basement, alone in my coffee filled jeans that i miss it most.

cafe mornings.

it's always chilly in the morning. i stick my fingers along the heat vents in my car until they burn - anything to find warmth.

when it's 7:13, i am rounding the corner to get on the Highway. if it's a minute earlier or a minute later than this when I reach this bend in Littleton, I know I'll either be way too early, or five minutes late, haphazardly tossing my purse into the file cabinet, dodging disapproving glances.

when i get on the highway, i can breathe again. the sun is always rising and lately, the trees reach for the blue sky with their fiery leaves. fiery fingers. the warmth from the vents floods through my coat. i fumble through the radio and land a perfect song.

i've dodged the death trap merge onto route 2 hundreds of times now. i know when to slow, when to speed, when to cut someone off, when to honk and yell and flash the bird. i realize now how many profanities emerge from my mouth at that intersection on a daily basis.

& then it's the race against the clock. it's usually 7:43 by now, and i have exactly 17 minutes before i have to be standing, dressed in shirt and hat, smiling and pouring the coffee. i always get in the right lane and take off - route 2 is hilly but straightforward and by now, i could drive it with my eyes closed. praying there are no cops around, i fly with Little Red and we both always secretly know there are no cops. i think i have a sixth sense for cops - i have yet to be pulled over, and i attribute this to pure instinct.

arrival.

i let my hands linger on the vents for a minute or two, answer a few text messages, power down. outside, C is grilling. At 7:30 in the morning. lately, the leaves have littered his grilling area, but it hasn't stopped him. nothing stops C. ever.

i throw my purse in the designated second to last drawer of the old filing cabinet. the basement has turned so cold, now that it's fall, and i shiver as i pull off my long sleeved shirt, trading it for my Work Shirt. I throw on my old baseball cap, glance in the mirror, feel briefly ridiculous & wonder how i landed here. Clock in.

Upstairs, I can hear dishes clinking. Soft voices, murmuring into the morning. The little bell announces the arrival of more customers. The early morning hush is still present, though - I can always feel it as I walk up those rickety orange stairs, in the way the coffee steams from the pots, the machines lightly hiss, the gentleness that still resides in people's voices that is so absent come midday. I watch it every day - the way the cafe slowly opens its arms and eyes.

Coffee beans, esspresso machines.

This is my life right now as I know it, and I am going to write about it.

dimly lit living rooms at night time, with the crickets chirping outside and the doors wide-open, tend to make me remember that everything will be okay.

straining colors into paper helps me remember to appreciate lime greens, wild pinks, & brush strokes.

sometimes i feel so blank.

a midsummer night's update.

i forgot i created this blog a few weeks ago. life's changed a little since i last wrote...not a whole lot, though. i am currently working at a cafe part-time. i don't love it, but i don't hate it either, and tips are always nice. customers are interesting. many rude. i often burn my hands on hot drinks. i've been told i have "dainty hands" on numerous occasions and almost every customers asks me if i go to Acton high school, and if so, what year am i.

going along with the dream theme, i absolutely need to record this bizarre dream i had the other night.

i was in Corning, NY for my aunt's wedding this past weekend, which meant i would be staying at my nana's house, sleeping on this little pad-like chair-into-a-bed deal on her basement floor (the basement is finished off). now, every time i have slept down there, i have the weirdest of weird dreams and everyone looks forward to hearing about them over breakfast the next morning. this visit's dream went as follows:

i was hanging out on the side of the road in Dunstable, by Larter Field (a nice place to run), and it was night time. I was with a random high school friend and was telling him that I really wanted some soy sauce. Like, I absolutely HAD to have the soy sauce or else....Now, in real life, there is a little gas station down the road from Larter, and so in my dream, I decided to run to the gas station to buy a bottle of soy sauce. As I ran, I noticed the moon was extremely bright, and I was suddenly barefoot and running through knee-deep puddles full of....things....like pieces of lettuce, or something, all of which were sticking to my feet. I finally reached the gas station only to see my sister's best friend being carried out by two boys because she was completely wasted. I ran into the store, only to find there was no soy sauce. Heading back through the puddles again, this little pull-over area by the gas station was suddenly an enormous field, and I began to run through it. As I ran, the ground was covered in deep snow, and it hurt my feet. I began to run faster, and when I looked behind me, there was this huge, black german-shepard-like dog coming after me. And I was so terrified and tried to scream.

And then I woke up with a jump, sitting up and freaking the hell out.

Someone please tell me what, in God's name, does this mean is wrong with my head?? WHO DREAMS ABOUT GETTING SOY SAUCE FROM A GAS STATION?

In other news, I apparently took clumsy pills this week and have proceeded to drop my iced latte that I was actually purchasing at a different cafe and not, for once, MAKING for someone else. I was so excited to finally be having my very own latte, and the second I set it on the coffee station, I elbowed it off by accident. Latte + foam + ice all over the place. Lovely. Later that day, I was paying my $1.00 toll at a toll booth and conveniently dropped my dollar in an effort to get it to the toll woman. I had to hop out of my car (but wait for my old school seatbelts to roll themselves forward...good God...) and of course, hit my door on the side of the booth...hard.
I also forgot my shoes for work. I drove all the way there. All. the. way. Only to look down in horror at my Birkenstock clad feet. I knew they would probably murder me if I tried to work in sandals...so I drove all the way home (my car goes up to a whopping 85 mph, which I thoroughly abused on the highway). I somehow made it to work by 12:30, which was the allotted time frame (I was called in on short-notice & LUCKILY told them I would be there sometime around 12 or 12:30...whew). Moral of the story: I will never forget my stupid, black, ugly work shoes that make my feet scream a little. Ever.

Thing I've enjoyed this week:

1. Blackberry sangria
2. Visiting Tahleen and Julia
3. Tip money
4. In Defense of Food. Read it. This is why I don't really ever eat processed food.
5. Considering writing poetry. Considering. This is such a progression. (hello, writer's block like never before).
6. Drawing in the backyard while listening to all new music.
7. The Counting Crows: Sullivan Street.
8. The way the track turns my running sneakers red on the bottom.
9. Cleaning gum wrappers, receipts, and spilled sangria on the dash (thanks, Spencer! haha) out of Little Red (my car...yes, laugh). I enjoy cleaning.
10. Tzaziki dip
11. weddings. beautiful dresses. grooms that cry during vows (aww). the thrill of sneaking wine to my underage sisters. dancing to thriller with my entire family. my dad's disco dancing.
12. grilling kabobs with steve. steve mimicking me. steve steve

i also am suddenly obsessed with a band called Company of Thieves. I can't stop listening to them. Oscar Wilde. great tune.

"we are all our own devil, we are all our own devil. & we make this world our hell."