No Joy in Mudville

it may not always be so;and i say
that if your lips,which i have loved,should touch
another's,and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart,as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know,or such
great writhing words as,uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be,i say if this should be-
you of my heart,send me a little word;
that i may go unto him,and take his hands,
saying,Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

well everything is looking different
since the rains started pouring down from
the heavens i miss you but you've only been gone for 3 days
maybe 4 months since i first tried to replace you
with pictures of sunlight followed by daydreams

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

This is the first (thing I remember)
Now it's the last (thing left on my mind)
Afraid of the dark (do you hear me whisper)
An empty heart (replaced with paranoia)
Where do we go (life's temporary)
After we're gone (like new years resolutions)
Why is this hard (do you recognize me)
I know I'm wrong (but I can't help believing)

I'm so lost
I'm barely here
I wish I could explain myself
But words escape me
It's too late
To save me
You're too late
You're too late

You're cold with disappointment
While I'm drowning in the next room
The last contagious victim of this plague between us
I'm sick with apprehension
I'm crippled from exhaustion
And I dread the moment when you finally come to kill me

Americans have failed me.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

So there was an art gallery opening across the way from my coffeeshop tonight, and Mari, a local artist who uses the coffeeshop as her office/home/hangout spot, apparently took the art gallery up on their offer of free wine and booze. This produced some very interesting Musings from Mari (that should be a t.v. show), who is already quite outspoken without the aid of lowered inhabitions. I believe I heard her entire lifestory tonight, some of it hilarious, some of it very sad. For starters, she told me about her father, who worked as a police officer in Mpls, among other things. Apparently when she was little he used to bring home marijuana and cocaine from drug raids. He used it as a deterrent, rather than for its traditional uses. He would tell the kids to smell the weed, and smell the cocaine (being very careful not to sniff any), and it is solely becuase of this "smelling process", mari assures me, that she never once used either of the drugs later on in life.

The other stories will have to wait for another day, for I am quite tired and I have to be back to work in less than 12 hours.

P.S. to the guy that was playing music tonight: Out of tune covers of Train, Green Day, John Denver, Dave Matthews, and U2, played at unbelievably loud decibles, all the while singing badly out of tune, will NOT make you instant friends with the workers, so please don't shake my hand and ask me what I thought of your playing, because whatever I answer is NOT what I'm thinking. Thanks.

This conversation is going on as I'm typing this, one table next to me:

Gravely voice man : You could've been a perfectly sober human being, in a different situation. This isn't a recovery issue. This is a life issue. But this life issue can affect all of those other areas.
Sad Man : When i went backwards, there was a lot more good than bad. I don't say, you know what joe, you did a lot of positive things, you worked through a few mergers. What I'm doing is exactly what i accused Kathy of doing. Taking the old, negative moments and projecting them on today. You follow me?
Gravely Man: ...um.....
Sad Man: I accused her of using the negativity of old moments, i'm now doing the same thing, looking at negative business moments and projecting them onto her.
Gravely Man: Because the negative experiences are having life impacts on you TODAY. there are 2 issues: one is your recovery program, one is life....um...problems. and they are getting intertwined.


I realize I probably shouldn't be writing this and airing this guy's dirty laundry when he's struggling with a real problem, however, gravely voice man has some very funny comments, however i'm not a fast enough typer to keep up with them, so just take my word for it.

So I think the girl that I worked with today, who will remain nameless, has some sort of fixation with asses. First of all if I made the mistake of turning my back to her at any point throughout the day, I would certainly be assured of a hearty slap on the behind. I think that's gotta be some form of sexual harrasment, but who would buy that? Next, she liked to talk about how her ass was turning into a "long ass". "I'm only 22 and already my ass is drooping". I told her that I didn't think her ass was long in any way, shape, or form, however, she insured me that if I were to stand in front of a mirror naked, being in her body, I would most certainly think that I have a "long ass". Thirdly a lady came into the store after running around the lakes and as such she had on her little track suit thingy. My co-worker kept commenting to me on "what a nice ass that lady has" and "that's the hottest ass I've ever seen." In my humble opinion, this lady's caboose was nothing to write home about, but I didn't dare contradict my co-worker, for fear of an even great slap on my ass, as was so often threatened throughout the shift.

Other than that there was a sad note at work. There is a fellow who comes in quite often with some obvious sort of affliction. He uses a cane for walking and only has semi-control of his right arm. He ordered a mug of coffee and a muffin on a plate, and refused our offers to help him carry it to his table. Everyone's got their pride I guess. Sadly he tripped somehow and fell in a horrifying crash of coffee and muffins and whatever else he was carrying. Everyone around just kinda stared and looked dumbfounded, as a few people slowly helped him up. It may well have been one of the saddest things I've ever seen, I felt so bad for him.

On a lighter note, I love when 13 or 14 year olds come in and try to act really, really cool. For instance this girl and her friend came in and as they're waiting for they're drinks, their conversation went something like this ;

Stupid girl #1: I don't really like to go to the bars in Mexico. They're just kinda stupid.
Stupid girl #2: Oh I know, they're so boring!!
Stupid girl #1: But it's so fun to drink in Mexico!! Everything is so cheap and so good. But I just hate going to the mexican bars when we're in Mexico!!

Those girls are lucky I didn't dumb their 24 ounces of lumpy, sticky, fatty ice crema all over their louis vitton bags. I can't wait until they realize that drinking one of those is the equivelent of about 3 big mac's.

Alright, so I figured that I should start writing in here to put down on paper (paper? cyber-paper?) all the crazy things that I experience as an employee at a local coffeeshop, if for no other reason than my own amusement whenever I look at this again in a few years.
So to set the scene for tonight's episode; the store closes at 11:00 on saturdays, so around 10:50 I go outside to give the ole 10 minute warning to the fellow sitting outside who is obviously hard at work on something. Usually the 10 minute warning does the trick, however, when I went outside to lock up the furniture at 11:10 he was still going at it on his laptop.
So I tell him that he can stay here as long as I'm able to lock up the furniture around him, and his response to this is, "I've been unemployed for a year and a half. I'll go home now, it's okay. I'm just so hard at work on this. I'm unemployed. And I'm working on this."
Now, working at a coffeeshop can be akin to being a bartender, in that sometimes you get to play 'be my free psychologist', so I take a seat next to him and start to engage him in a little dialogue. I don't remember it verbatim, but I'll try to remember the important things. So I ask him if he works in computers and he replies that he doesn't, if I have a minute he'll show me what he does, in fact, he'll show me "the coolest thing I've ever seen. Ever". This piques my interest so i get up and come a bit closer, standing to the side of him to see what he's going to show me on the ole computer. But no. He tells me that what he's going to show me isn't on the computer. First, he tells me, he needs to pack in another lump of chewing tobacco.
I should probably add a little character description here, if I'm to be even a decent storyteller. This man, Henry we'll call him, even though I have NO idea what his name is, he just kinda looks like a Henry, anyways, Henry is probably late 20's, early 30's, a fairly 'normal' looking individual. However, he seemed on edge, maybe a little drunk, maybe a little high, maybe a bit too much chewing tobacco. It was obvious that something was a tad off. He also mentioned that he was unemployed at least 10 times throughout the conversation.
So, back to "the coolest thing I'll ever see". Henry pulls out a battery from his backpack, and a little squre thing that looks like some sort of plastic computer chip. He holds the chip to the top of the battery and an intense blue light starts shining out of the tip. Okay, admittedly it was somewhat interesting, however it was FAR from the coolest thing I've ever seen. I feign interest anyways because, hey, Henry could use some positive encouragement. So Henry goes on to tell me that what I've just witnessed is the future of energy for the entire world. Apparently Henry designed this chip, this solar chip of sorts, and he is now working on writing a proposal to NASA, in order that they might use his techonogly to benefit all of mankind. See, current solar chips only harness about 25-30% of the energy that the sun puts off, however, Henry's chip can harness 70% percent!!! Henry assures me that the US will soon be running entirely off of his chip. That is of course if the Taiwanese and Chinese don't steal his invention first. Henry is very skeptical of them stealing his idea.
So Henry is really involved in telling me all of this now, stopping occasionally to spit tobacco juice into his coffee cup. He brings up graph after graph on his computer, showing me the different energy ranges that this chip captures, utilizing the 3 hidden energy zones of the sun of course. Also, the secret number is 77 apparently. What it's use is I guess we'll never know, for Henry forgot to tell me, but he did remember to tell me that 77 is THE number.
After 20 minutes of listening to Henry give me a crash course in solar energy and the physics behind capturing energy from the sun, I could only fake interest and comprehension for seconds more. Thankfully my co-worker saved the day by showing up and giving me an excuse to get the hell out of there.
I may never fully know just what Henry was telling me tonight, however, when he patents his chip and becomes a multi-millionaire, which he assured me would undoubtedly happen, at least I can tell everyone I knew Henry back in the day. And I also now know the secret number. I'm so lucky.