Friday Quotes

I'm starting my weekend now.


"Does anyone have a soda they're not using?"
-Grant

Me: Don't hit your brother, Eden.
Will: I'm not her brother. I'm a boy.

"I let someone else pack my pedal bag, so it's still sitting at Urban Lounge, probably getting Hep C."
-Randal

Me: You can have one of my fries, Noah.
Noah: I'm going to use this for long term energy.

"He's trust falling all the time these days."
-Garrett, as he looked vacantly out onto the beach at Hayden

"Makensy, we don't trust you. You're unAmerican. You hate cinnamon rolls, and you probably hate freedom too."
-Philip

happy, reprise

Yesterday, one of my regular customers (one who I have barely talked to that much) announced out of nowhere that he had a Christmas present in his car for me, and then walked away.

I got uncomfortable as all of the other girls gave me a weird stare, and then he suddenly appeared again and handed me a framed picture, and said, "From one Midwesterner to another. It's a little piece of home." And it was a black and white picture of a lonely barn out in the middle of nowhere, Illinois.
I started crying.
I didn't know what to do. I haven't been back since May, and I know I'm going back in January, but it is just the time of year, and the fact that in all of my fuzzy-headed foolishness and mayhem, it was a reminder of the solid rock I have to stand on in the Midwest, and the solid rock I have in Jesus, who sees my loneliness and wants to take care of me.
"I'm going to hang it up in my room," I told him, not knowing what else to do, and if I was supposed to hug him or what. But now the photograph is sitting on my desk and I can't stop staring at it when I come in and out of the room, and it's become its own person, living there, haunting me when I wake and when I brush my teeth and it says to me, "Have you made all the right decisions? Are you really supposed to stay in Salt Lake?" But what I mumble back to the photograph is that it doesn't know what it is talking about and to stop trying to break my heart.

And then we all went to a women's basketball game, and Wesley threw up real vomit on us, which was disgusting but we still got smothered burritos anyway, after we'd cleaned up and changed.

And this is my life. 
Getting thrown up on.
Working out with Emily and Philip and Krista, and Ken asking me if my parents are Calvinist.
Sleeping long naps in the afternoon and killing my plants slowly by forgetting to open up the blinds.


But after today, there will be a little more sunlight in each day, because God is kind enough to give us seasons so we don't think we're living the same days over and over again.

a love note

The deep truth of it is, I love Starbucks right now.
Like, really love it.

I love my coworkers, I love 25% of our customers, and I love that my job is handing people a cup of something that I believe in. Everyday.

People keep asking me what I'm going to do now that I'm done with college, but truthfully I just want to keep paying my bills with espresso until I don't love it anymore, and then I'll look for something else.

I love that everyday brings surprising people into my life, and that I only have to invest 90 seconds into them.

I am extremely blessed.

Starbucks Days

Eat Raisin Bran, groggy.
Hope car starts.
Say hello to the same customer as yesterday, and wonder if you already saw them this morning.
Grind, brew, repeat.
Grind, brew, repeat.
Fake a smile to a mean guy.
Fake happy attitude to rude rich woman who smells wonderful, and has glorious hair volume, and when she goes anywhere, men line up to buy her a salad. Buy her a sugar-free anything. Buy her a piece of celery coated with self-loathing, and watch these business people flood the lobby with business meetings and hear them suck up all the internet until it moves like a whale from the router to the patio.
Open pastry case, smell the Maple scones, and know that autumn will come back for you, in approximately 86 days.
Grande iced hazlenut americano. Receive wink, feel heart flood with patriotism and another rogue emotion that you should probably guillotine with the bagel cutter next to the oven.
Get your heart back to business.
Eat a bucket of Spaghettios.
Worry that your boss knows all your sins. Worry about that thing of getting fired.
Recall 2am nightmare and decide to stay awake forever. Realize your liability for the television medicine you've been living on.
"I'm going to marry your brother," Emily says, the way she said yesterday, and the day before, but with different hairstyles, and varying quietude in her voice.
And you compose a letter to your brother.

Dear Philip,
I realize with gravity, the way we are never supposed to express familial fondness, and although this has been charged of us in austerity, I secede.
I miss you knowing my jokes. I miss the way you would work the 7am to 3:30pm shift, and the way this enabled me to sleep in and work the evening shifts, and never feel the desperate eyes of the automobile salesmen.
I miss your computer being around, and my music that you took with you on your computer.
Our coworkers miss you because they'd like to get rid of me back to night shift, as I am quite louder than you are and sing more songs than you do.

Mostly I miss the thing about the jokes.

Love, or just even just like,

Rachel

I keep living the same day over and over. But I saw the Moores one day in this week, and that's the only thing keeping me from blowing my brains out.

Today Megan was telling me this story of how she got a nose bleed in her car, and couldn't find any tissue anywhere.
"So I stuck a tampon up my nose to stop the bleeding," she told me. I laughed really hard and turned to Zeth.
"This is why you are gay, isn't it Zeth? Girls are so gross." And he laughed and just nodded.


I'm counting the days until school starts again. I can't pretend that my job is real life, at all.

I told my friend Emily a week ago, how we kind of do courtship/dating at our church. I narrowed it down to basically seeking counsel from your wiser friends, praying, and then waiting around (it's even foggy to me, sometimes, because I have screwed it up in the past). Over the last couple years she would periodically ask me if I am dating anybody yet. But yesterday as we were slowing down at work she said, "So are you consulting about any boys yet?" 

I thought it was hilarious that she got "consulting" out of seeking counsel. It's cute. And kind of right. Like you are consulting a panel of people you trust the most about whether or not you should end up with this person.

Also on the note of Starbucks friends, I was thinking today about Becka, and her huge wedding ring. She would always have these guys commenting on it when she was ringing people up in the lobby about how big it was, and how can a guy afford something like that these days. Sometimes she would say something modest, like, "It's just the lighting in here," but sometimes she would say, "Oh this? This is the one I wear to work." I laughed to myself on the bus.

I wonder which of my friends I will still be so close to when I am 30 or 40 or 50. And most of the time, I just hope it's all my same friends from now.

I got a Twitter a few weeks ago, when I was sitting next to Matt in our story telling class, (because he basically told me I should) and while I don't fully understand it, it is kind of fun.

The phenomenon that is happening to me, is that I feel like I have friends that don't know I exist.

I forgot about my Twitter account until I was reading this girl's blog post for Hello Giggles (Annie Stamell) and she was so hilarious. It gave a link to follow her on Twitter, and then I figured out this way to get her Tweets sent to my phone. (I am living in the stone age, I do not have a smart phone. I'm trying to make my dumb phone do smart things.)

So the result is, I get her text/tweets in the middle of the night, or when I wake up in the morning, and it is kind of like having a best friend who texts me all the time, and texts me quality, funny things.



So.
I've worked 19 of the last 28 hours. Three shifts.  I think I just put mini travel shampoo on my hands thinking it was a mini travel lotion. I am very ready to go walk the dog, make some tacos, shower, and nap. The Lord is my strength. There is no other reason I could still be so happy but His love. He just keeps answering prayers, yes, and no, and maybe. He is good to me.

When I first worked at Starbucks, I had this coworker named Jamie. And while she was a little wacky, she kind of inspired me, because she would do these weird challenges. Every year on her birthday she would challenge herself to something crazy that she would have to carry out until her next birthday. One year it was not drinking, one year it was being vegan. Stuff like that.

I thought about her this morning as I ate two pieces of cake with my Christmas Blend coffee, and thought about how Uncle Bill asked us to fast and pray for the church building today and tomorrow morning, and I thought, at the very least, I could just eat fruits and vegetables for the rest of the day and for breakfast tomorrow. (I have a hard enough time not passing out even when I am eating.) So I went to the gym to burn off the cake, and on the way home picked up a whole bunch of stuff that grows from the ground to eat for the rest of the day.

I didn't drink any alcohol last night, even though I thought it would help me sleep better. It's one of my favorite lies I tell myself. And I was really proud when I woke up this morning. I won't have any tonight, either. If I did this vegetable thing twice a month, I think that would be good for my heart and my prayer times with God, and my self control issues.

I don't have a paper to write, and I have two days off of work and school. I think I'm going to catch up on the last six months of movies.

Happy Sunday!

My favorite coworker is Elaine, I think. I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but Elaine is an exception because she is awesome. I think she is everyone's favorite.

She's a fiery red head, with what I can only describe as a deep California voice. 

"What's open at ten-thirty?" She looks at me, walking out for her lunch.

"La Frontera," Alex says.

Elaine fakes throwing up.

"Subway?" I say.

"That's right, you're a good woman, Rachel. I forgot about that."

"You forgot I was a good woman? Or about Subway?" I ask her, but she's already gone. I walk back to the other side of the pastry case and re-brew coffee.

The phone rings.

"Thanks for calling Starbucks, this is Rachel."

I can hear a deep throaty laugh.

I start laughing. Neither of us can even speak for ten seconds.

"What's up?" I ask.

"The milkman is here," she laughs. I keep laughing too, because the best thing about Elaine is she legitimately thinks every thing she says is really funny. "And it's not his baby!"

I can't stop laughing, even though a customer is standing there, waiting for me to get off the phone. 

I can't think why she would call to tell me that. There is literally no reason, except that she thought it was a hilarious joke.

Everything is funny when you get four hours of sleep. I missed this in ways I couldn't remember.

I feel like I'm teenaging again.

"So my brother says to the guy, 'Oh look, your iPhone screen is cracked.' And the guy stands up and says, 'No I don't do crack anymore, I just like the way it smells.'"

-Elaine

"I made orange juice from concentrate and showed her the trick of squeezing the juice of one real orange into it. It removes the taste of being frozen. She marveled at this, and I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again. The day felt like a birthday, our first, and we ourselves were the gifts, to be opened again and again."
from Miranda July's Ten True Things. I love how she writes, I get lost in it.

and as Jenny Lewis would say, the days come to me like sailors, and I watch them as they sail away.
I don't have much of my own words to say tonight. I don't get sad, that's good. I still get happy, that's very good. I had a moment of euphoria, even, at work the other day.
The day started a beautiful way of me driving to work when it was just starting to get enough sun to light up the sleepy, crystal clear valley. It is only this way in the cold. And my heater was starting to warm up the air, and I was so pleased to be wearing gloves and a jacket at 6 a.m.
This is a very hard thing to explain, this crystal clear thing. It is like a moment when the colors pop out to you, and you realize how wonderful your life is when you don't have a headache, and you don't have any social engagements tonight, and you can't think of a single sin. It's the moment you clean your glasses and put them back on, and then you realize the world is a lot different than you just thought you were looking at a second ago.
So the moment of euphoria came three or four hours after that. Mixed with sleepy giddiness and one latte, and Jordan wasn't there, I looked around the room and I wanted to say, "I love you. I love you. I love all of you and I want you to come to my party." And at the party, they were going to laugh at all of my jokes, and I would smile, but not smile so big as to crinkle my eyes, and the weather would be like falling asleep in a soft bed. And the music would be Frank Sinatra and Grizzly Bear, and the hors d'oeuvres would be sushi.


It is a powerful thing to have a moment like that. And a very surprising one to have it at Starbucks.

"You're always coming to me with a problem. Just once I wish you'd greet me with a sparkler, and cotton candy, and tell me I have the number one album in America."
-Veronica (Portia De Rossi) on Better off Ted

I love fall. I love everything about it. Cool mornings. Pumpkins. Midterms. Bus rides. The sun going down earlier. Baking things in the oven rather than avoiding the oven at all costs. People starting to do things inside. Hoodies. Long showers. Warm drinks. People showing less skin. People wearing boots. The smell of books. Cookies. TV shows starting back up again. Routine. Schedule. Heavy blankets. Hot tub. Planning a vacation to escape the routine. Thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas without Retail. Friends. Family. Wine and cheese. Finding reasons to go to bed early. Gloves. Mail.

I can't wait for every day now.
My life is cured of Starbucks.

My first week of college is great so far. I gave up on the bus ever coming though, so I took my car all the way downtown and then TRAXed up and ran into Ten, Ben, and Niels. And when I ran into Ben he said he had a class down in the anthropology building, and I said, "Oh I love that building, it's cute like an old old old elementary school!" And then I wondered how I knew that, and remembered that I had a thing for a while that I was trying to go to the bathroom in every department/building on campus. I have accomplished a lot of these bathrooms by now, I hope you know.

My first teacher of the day sounds like McDreamy if you close your eyes, and also has a big nose which I like. And two of the books for his class have naked ladies on them, so you know it'll be good. I read a poem called Don Juan in Hell and I like to say this to myself now and then because it slips off the tongue.

My second teacher spits a lot.

And then after that I found Emily on a grassy knoll, and we went and bought our books together. We are making a friendship that really works.

I then drove past Shannon's Starbucks and did a U-turn when I saw her car, and ended up hanging out with Scrib, Soper, and the D'Amicos all night by accident, which was really wonderful.

I guess I don't mind being a student forever.

There are people that are involved in my daily life, that I don't even ever really talk about. I am there for them everyday and I want to start profiling them so that I remember them when I leave Starbucks and never come back.

Handsome and Sweetie
He comes in and pays for her drink every morning before she wakes up. He works in construction, and is fun to joke around with. He drinks coffee even though he is LDS, which is something I like to see in a person.

Grumpy Old Guy
I don't know his name because he always pays very quickly, with cash, and always tips us almost as much as his drink costs. He is very pessimistic and grumpy which I really appreciate when it's early morning. He likes us, he likes talking to us, but always acts like he doesn't. I love him. I want him to be a third grandpa. I would sit around and smoke with him, even though he probably doesn't do that, and neither do I.

Chocolate Shavings Lady
Likes sprinkles on top of her mocha, even though they don't make a difference in the taste, and claims that she needs the coffee and chocolate because of medicine that she is on. Usually comes through 3 times during my shift, for a total of close to 1200 calories, probably, but never seems to put on weight. I think some people live off of Starbucks nutritionally.

Brian and Indy
Literally my favorite. Brian comes in with his dog Indy through the drive thru (also probably 3 times a day) and we probably are technically his third home. He's unmarried and has no kids, and we are always as happy to see him as he is to see us. He is always happy, and Indy always tries to jump through the window.

Okay. Now I need to go to bed.

Some days I realize that I am not in love with Kayleigh anymore, and that she was a serious figment of my imagination. But I find her footprints. I hear her echoes.
When my vision starts to get worse, I think about her.

I can't believe how long I've worked at Starbucks.

I start to wonder where my life is going. I'm too mean to these people, or too nice. I say the same things over and over. Will I say fake things for years?
Phony earth, grumpy people...

I miss seeing the vulnerable side of them. I want to get that back.