your neighborhood grocercoffeeshopchemist.

It all started with the woman who asked me exactly how much coffee to use for the 100 cup pot she is using for an event. I have never seen this pot. She has never seen this pot. Neither of us know how many ounces it makes, or uses. That's like walking into a bakery and asking the woman making muffins how many eggs to use for the muffin recipe you have at home. You don't know anything about the recipe, but since she's a baker, she must know how many eggs you will need. Right? I tried to be patient and kind. I ended up grinding a bag of coffee and counting out, in front of her, exactly how many tablespoons of ground coffee one of our bags makes. 60. That's how it started. The day, I mean.

Now I am breaking over oatmeal, because if I didn't take a break, I thought I may explode, spewing the contents of my intestines all over the lady that asked if our oatmeal is instant. Yes. It's instant. It wasn't the question that took me to the edge, but the bit of huff she gave, after I gave the answer she wasn't looking for. The huff was followed by the sentence "this is a difficult decision", which was accompanied by an annoyed stance, as she eyed all of our unhealthy options that didn't fit into her lifestyle.

GO TO THE GROCERY STORE.

HAVE AN APPLE BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE.

OR BETTER YET, MAKE YOURSELF A BOWL OF WHOLE GRAINED UNREFINED ROLLED OATS, AND THEN EAT AN APPLE.

WE ARE NOT A HEALTH FOOD STORE.

I apologize that many of my posts lately have been the utterly annoying people I am forced to help live their lives each day. It's just making me realize, along with expose on my personality - and the moods that accompany it - given to me by my boss' husband, that perhaps customer service is not where I belong.

plans.

When I arrived this morning, I had the feeling in the pit of me that I didn't want to be here. I get that way sometimes. I wanted to flee. Where could I go? I sat for a minute and thought. Then I realized that it likely wasn't the place I wanted to flee. I decided to concoct a - make Meredith want to stay put plan - and it began with reminding myself of the obvious, and reminding myself of the things that I, quite honestly, love.

1. I am sitting in the corner.

2. There is a massive, sunshine-filled window to my right.

3. There are massive trees outside, within my scope, turning all shades of autumn.

4. I have delicious coffee, something that's generally soothing to me, at my disposal.

5. I am not completely-moneyless.

5. I had planned on trying something different this morning before coming (getting a press pot), and since I like change, this plan made before leaving my house = a plus for my situation.

6. You can pour a press pot of coffee at your leisure, which means you can pour a little, and then drink all that's in your cup before it gets cold. I don't like drinking cold coffee and I get pretty disappointed when the coffee waiting to be finished in my white ceramic cup drops degrees before I finish it. This leisurely pour = a plus for my situation.

7. I have the time to sit and write about this unsettling lack of contentment.

Part two of my plan: choose music. Sometimes, walking into a place and feeling like you want to flee could come from the music playing on the speakers. It could be going against whatever subconscious feelings are going on inside of you. So choosing my own music, I thought, would likely help put me at ease. I chose Fionn Regan. He is soothing, without being too cliche. Some of his lyrics are unsettling. A good fit, I thought.

And lastly, damn it. There are some things I just can't change during the course of this morning, before I have to go into work at two. I can't get one of the friends that I am missing onto a plane, so that they can be sitting across from me, in the next few hours. It's unlikely that I will find companionship, or love, before the morning ends; romantic love and reciprocated interest will still be, to me, a social phenomenon by the time the sun sets. My debt will not disappear before work, either, and it's unlikely that today's tips will reach the double digits.

But.

It's a most beautiful day outside, and since I am about to leave this corner of discontentment, I will be able to ride my bicycle in it's midst for nearly two more hours. My coffee was delicious. Fionn helped. I am not in hunger, or poverty, or without love in my life. Even in the midst of discontentment, it's possible to feel full.

golden and delicious.

I got a bag of apples for free last week. They went, presumably, from a tree to the man that picked them to a friend, and then, to me. I got em at the farmer's market near my house. That sounds so trendy. I wasn't going to go. Perhaps that makes "the farmer's market near my house" sound less trendy. I didn't feel like walking over there, and at that, walking over there alone. There's something about farmer's markets that unnerve me. I know it's me supporting local, but I hate walking past a booth of veggies that this person put time and sweat and labor into, and not purchasing any. If I was a farmer, my produce would be personal. I would be proud of it. I would want others to be proud of it, too. So I am reacting to the kind of farmer I would be. That's the unnerving part. But then my friends came, which meant I wouldn't not be buying anything alone, and the "farmer's market near my house" sounded much more appealing.

What does a girl do with a bag of free farmer's market apples? Make an apple plum pie, of course!

The apple is on the right, and the plum on the left. I bought the plums at the grocery store. They probably came from Mexico. So it's not really a trendy, environmentally conscious pie, either.

solo-vino.

There is a place here I like to go. It's close to my house, within walking distance, and it houses many bottles of wine. Relaxing is its atmosphere, deep and vibrant burgundy are its walls, and at ease am I when sitting on one of the full of character antique couches, or outside, under the sun or stars, sipping a glass of wine.

Last Sunday evening, this delightful place is where I wanted to be. I was not in the mood to be at home alone. Some evenings that's fine, and lovely. This past Sunday, it wouldn't have been. Wanting to be at the delightful establishment was somewhat of an issue, because I had no one to go along. I have felt this feeling before. This desire to go there, with no friends available, and I have always just given up on the idea, and settled for Pei Wei take-out or a rented flick.

I started to wonder why I had an aversion to going alone. I go all kinds of places alone; Movies, out to eat, to coffee shops, thrift stores, department stores, farmers' markets, grocery stores. Some of these places, I am in and out, but others, I linger and stay. I started to imagine myself within those bright burgundy walls, with a book, sipping wine, and I liked the image enough to wade through the abnormal anxiety and just do it.

I hopped on my bicycle, with my wallet and my book, and began my journey. On the short trip there, I began to think about how similar I was probably looking to the stereotypical lonely old man. You know, the one who goes places, by himself, and sips whiskey or beer, and stares.

At that point, my journey became as much an experiment as a journey, and we all know how much I love experiments. I was going to see, as much as I could, what it would feel like to fill the weathered boots of this world's lonesome character. I arrived and ordered my glass, and thought of the phantom following me, and imagined him staring at the wall, regretful of all of the women that have left him, his children he never knew, the friends that have grown tired of him, and for all of the decisions, selfish decisions, that paved the way for his solitary misery, amplified with each sip. Perhaps he had never loved himself enough to let others love him too.

The funny difference about the old lonely man and myself is that I have been under the impression that my life's decisions haven't been inherently selfish, and as I sat there and stared at the candle flicker, and sipped sipped sipped on my Ben Marco Malbec, I was, quite honestly, puzzled at why I was watching it flicker alone.

And that made me wonder if the old man, the one that stared instead at walls, was puzzled by the same thing.

take your dairy and shove it.

The is a man that lives or works at the Mayo. He came in last week and ordered breakfast, after asking many questions. He was well dressed. Charcoal slacks. A nice sweater. He asked what is in the oatmeal. I answered. Milk was not in the answer. I began to make the oatmeal he ordered. He stared at me, with vulcher-esque eyes, and waited for me to misstep one of the oatmeal making steps. In the middle of the process, the stare was accompanied by a request.

"Could you put some milk in there?" he said.

"What kind of milk?" I responded.

"What kind do you have?" he asked.

Attempting to conceal the annoyed tone of voice that is trying to make its way out, I answer, "soy. whole milk. non-fat. half and half." And then I just stared at him, and waited for him to make his decision.

"Non-fat."

He came in again, just a minute or two ago. I am on my break, so I wasn't forced to offer him service, which is a good thing, because today, my customer-service-ometer is broken.

— example: When the lady that ordered her husbands drink let me know that...

"at starbucks, he gets a small black and white mocha in a medium cup and they top it off with coffee and whip cream..."

I just looked at her befuzzled, and said, "so you want me to put coffee in a latte?"

"No. A black and white mocha", she says. "And they top it off with coffee."

I decided she just like saying the phrase "top it off", gave up, and made the desperate concoction, minus the whip cream, because we are out. —

Back to breakfast man:

Derek was helping him. He asked what comes on the breakfast sandwich. Derek answered, "egg, ham and cheese, and it comes on a croissant." This is the same answer I gave the man last week, when he asked me, and both Derek and I spoke in English when answering him.

He ordered it.

Derek began to make his breakfast sandwich. He stared, hovering over the counter, with the same vulcher-esque eyes he used with me. He shifted when Derek retrieved something from the refrigerator. He moved positions when Derek walked to the grill. He stared. As Derek began to add the cheese to the breakfast sandwich that Derek had, just a few moments before, explained comes with cheese, the control-freak-well-dressed-indecisive-insanely-annoying-customer-of-a-man, says, "I don't want cheese". "Okay", Derek says kindly, "but we have brie and swiss if you'd rather have that..."

"I will have swiss".

visuals.

I wrote a few paragraphs about my inability to commit.

Then, I posted the paragraphs on my blog by hitting the orange "publish post" button.

An hour and a half later, I deleted it. When it asked me if I was sure I wanted to delete it, I answered yes.

shrimp/mate-less.

I just ordered food to go. I called ahead, I will ride my bike to pick it up, and then I will eat it.

I talked to a kind lady on the phone. She seemed busy, but not rude. I told her my order, and then she repeated it back to me..."Pad Thai, No Shrimp...anything else?" When she asked me the "anything else", in my head I heard her say, "Pad Thai, No Shrimp...do you live life alone, eat alone, order take-out alone?"

A take-out conversation with a complete stranger sets the table for a heavy meal.

less white space.

Thank you all, each of you faithful readers out there, for not pointing out the big gray elephant hanging around my blog. And that’s all there is to say about dumbo. If you are confused, job well done on my part. If you get it, you can likely see inside of my head, and that’s quite a fearful thought.

I am not in the mood to be writing this. I am not in the mood to be writing anything. But that’s the point of why I set the near impossible feat of blogging every day, because sometimes I don’t feel like doing the things that bring me the most joy and satisfaction. This moment is the moment when goal mentality kicks in, and pushes mood mentality into the street to get ran over, in the early morning hours, by a “waste management” truck.

I can’t understand why, on exquisitely beautiful days like today, when I have worked and finished by three and the sun is shining shyly outside, that dragging the positive out of any situation seems like a practically impossible feat.

I think I am going to quarantine myself inside my 600 square feet of space and maybe drink some water, until I am forced to step into the limitless unknown for food.

oops.

No regrets? A lie.

regrets of the week:

Taking the ponytail holder out of my hair while riding, causing me to lose control of my bike and crash into Melinda. I had named my bicycle "Bruiser" earlier that day. I meant it for me, but Bruiser does not discriminate.

Ordering the chocolate Martini instead of wine. Mistake.

Wearing a tank-top to work today. I mistakingly assumed it would be warm. It's really fall, and sitting outside was unnecessarily uncomfortable.

Eating too much Indian food and feeling so uncomfortably full that I am not sure I will be able to fall asleep.

I've still got two days to add to the list.

space.

Jobs are funny. That's what they usually are to me. I haven't been inspired yet by the alternative of a career, and change is a joy to me, so I flutter between various non-committal means of making a little extra money. Its not wasted fluttering. There is always learning involved, and that learning is the constant that hangs out with the barista side of me, the other constant.

There have been some disasters. The days of Starbucks and Apple simultaneously were horrendous. Had I not had the thrill of new friendship with the thrilling Houston and Odwalla superfood drinks, I may not have made it out of those sixty hour work weeks, sane.

I tried Big Al's, a deli sort of health food establishment frequented by business patrons on their lunch break. I lasted a day.

I forgot my disdain and hatred for retail holiday madness, probably while resting on the other side of the ocean, and so dove back in, in the form of William Sonoma during the Christmas of 2008. I have a distaste for materialistic excess and the tendency to purchase things one doesn't need and will never, ever use just because it's "cute". I do not hate others for loving it, or doing it. I just don't like taking part. I had to drag my heels across the threshold of the oversized gold trimmed glass doors gating the overpriced and overestimated sanctuary of todays' kitchen divas and culinary artists. I am responsible, but my responsibility has its limits, and I didn't think I could continue with life if forced to finish out my seasonal commitment. I didn't work there in January, like planned, but instead made a case for baking: I was going to make the muffins and cupcakes, rather then selling the tins.

This second job took place at Great Harvest, the home of fresh milled flour, rising breads, and grain filled sweets. I was the sweets girl. The title was much more romantic than the position. I loved the baking part...the mixing, stirring and adding of eggs, but the setup was failed. I arrived around five-thirty some mornings, baked quickly, only to rush to the barista job by seven A.M. The scones somehow attained a soul, and had to be given more care and attention than most humans I am acquainted with. I was arriving at 5:30 every morning, so that they could be out of the oven by seven, and friends, this just wouldn't do.

I was living at my late great grandmother's house during the Great Harvest season. It was full and empty at the same time. It's walls were filled with years and years of history, a lifetime's accumulation, and also, me. I occupied a corner, and going home, to sleep in my corner, was quite lonely. The early mornings meant early nights of rest, void of people, which made me feel more like what a bear may feel like during hibernation. I knew I couldn't continue this simply for the sake of the scones; I didn't care enough to give them more attention than I gave to myself. I put in my notice, during the month of my birthday, and celebrated the decision to try my absolute darndest to not take a second job that takes life and, um, freshness out of me.

I write this today, after passing beneath a flock of fluttering birds on Bruiser, my bicycle, which carried me to perch here at Dwelling Spaces, my current second job, which also happens to be the freshest of them all. Throughout the course of today's afternoon I have been looking around to see signs of life outside the open door, to make sure what's happening is really actually happening. Tonia always reminded me of the father in Sabrina, who mentioned his motivation for employment...a job that allows him time to read. That's what I thought about at eleven, the time of day I arrived, when I sat my book down on the counter that is placed conveniently in front of my perch. I have watched people through the massive windows in front of me, read, sold a few gems made by local artists, chatted with friends and customers, felt the breeze coming through the open door, and marveled at the random bout of rain that came down on this otherwise sunny day. Mostly, though, I have just sat in thankfulness for where I currently find myself. I am also thankful for the duds, the positions of frustration and stress I previously held, because they led me to lessons that led me to the anti-dud stress free space I am currently dwelling.