Dream Forecast

Okay, this is the best horoscope EVER! I rarely look at it, but when I do, it usually says something like: stop being such a control freak, you butthole! (which explains why I rarely look at it). Anyhow, here's what it said tonight. Key words in bold,

Your karma's off the hook -- all that good stuff you've been handing out is coming right back to you, but now it's even shinier. Smile -- you look terrific.

Seriously? My karma is *shiny*? I can die happy.

P.S. Umm, when does the awesome stuff start happening? Any time is convenient for me. Thx.

Why I Love Coffee: A Retrospective

I love coffee.

Those of you who don't know me very well or who have stumbled onto this site by chance (which is a lot of you, based on my site meter--but seriously, the googling for "funny looking retards," is just getting mean) probably think that because of the name of the site and the fact that there are little coffee cups everywhere probably mean I'm obsessed with coffee.

I'm actually not.

I don't even drink a cup every day. (French-Roast was born from a mild francophilia and a desire to roast anyone and everyone...and I do *love* coffee.) I don't feel like I'm missing something if I don't have it--except at a proper breakfast, at which time--well, it should be there. I don't drink all coffee no matter what, just because it's coffee.

In fact, until I was 20, I didn't even *like* coffee. Well, sort of.

Anyhow, as Nat King Cole would say, coffee--"I love you, for sentimental reasons." And now I will tell you why.

My adult enjoyment of coffee began at age 20, but my coffee memories began very early. They reflect times when I felt cared for, safe, and protected.

As a baby, my grandma used to put mostly milk and a little bit of coffee in a baby bottle for me. The bottle was a blue plastic bear and I used to drink it on the way to Montessori school or on the couch while I watched cartoons. How do I remember this? I drank this until I was about 6. Yes, some of you are laughing about the baby bottle, but I don't mind. It is what it is. But it was mine. My grandma made it just for me, and she loved me so much. It was warm and comforting and something I could count on, like I could count on my grandmother to pick me up from school, to let me sit on her lap, to show me how to plant vegetables, to love me.

When I was older, in elementary school, my dad, of whom I've never spoken on this site, used to make me coffee milk. This is not my stepdad, who adopted me and who I usually refer to as my dad (and will continue to do, hereafter). This is my honest to God father who's been out of my life since I was 11. But there was a time when I adored him. I feared him, but I loved him with a ferocity greater than that fear. He was from Massachusetts and he used to have a case of coffee syrup that he got there. I had never been to Massachusetts and I always felt it was very exotic. He used to mix it for me in milk and it was so sweet and refreshing, like melted coffee ice cream. And maybe the syrup was meant for making ice cream, but this is how he made it for me. I'd watch him measure it out very scientifically and stir it until all the syrup was dissolved. And despite everything else, I know he loved me very much. Sometimes I smell that smell in an ice cream or a coffee shop and in an instant, I am in my dad's kitchen on a summery Saturday afternoon.

And that was the end of my coffee drinking days, if you could call them that, until I was 20.

I didn't really like the taste of coffee in my adolescence. It was bitter and acidic and not to my liking at all.

When I was 20, as some of you know, I was in flux. I was in a cocoon of sorts, in which the funny, silly, child I had been, donned the wings of a more serious, sadder, but ultimately I believe more beautiful and compassionate adult.

I was living with my sister, who makes the most wonderful breakfasts. No matter the season or the reason, my sister makes breakfast feel like a holiday. Pumpkin pancakes and herbed brunch eggs and always coffee in her small blue cups with the perfect blend of cream and sugar that made it hard for me to resist. Weekend mornings, my sister and I sat together on the patio with our coffee talking and laughing and it was during that time, when I was so scared, and the world was so bleak to me, that I took comfort in knowing that my sister would never let anything happen to me. And there in my hands was the warm, sweet evidence of how she cared for me when I needed a gentle shepherd. This coffee was love liquified.

Around this same time, Erin would come to visit me in Dallas and she too, picked up drinking coffee at breakfast and when we would sit on the couch and talk. Most of our friends didn't like coffee, but we shared this. Erin, my beloved friend, who always shows tenderness and compassion to the face of my suffering and heartache, to each death and resurrection. With Erin, I shared everything--and coffee.

When I go out to eat with my parents, they always encourage me to order dessert. "It's good for you," my dad says. "We're not in a hurry when we eat," my mom says. "Order whatever you want." And their generosity and patience blooms in that final gesture after a satisfying meal. They tell me to have a coffee, but what they mean is--relax and enjoy yourself, because you are safe and loved with us.

And then my loves.

There was my Carnitaur, who adores coffee. Who feeds on it. He took me to Gloria Jean's one cool Pennsylvania morning, in a panic, frantically finding and grinding the beans he would take home, and marveling that I never measured the coffee out.

Then Jack, whom I adored. My friends never cared for his brusqueness, and ultimately, it pushed me away, too. But when he drank coffee, it didn't matter; he was so sophisticated, so adult, so smart and mysterious and complicated. I could listen to him talk about transistors or independent films for hours. Enamorata.

And Paul. I have made many mistakes in love, but I'm not a fool. One evening I sat on Paul's couch and I do believe I'd had a bit too much wine. And he put a hot mug of coffee in my hands and sat on my lap and nuzzled my neck and told me I looked beautiful. There was so much tenderness that night, but what I remember most was the taste of the coffee. I never told him how I liked it, but it was perfect. I didn't want that cup to have a bottom. I wanted to bathe in the warmth of the moment forever. That was not to be, but the memory, at least, is mine to keep.

And having had these experiences, who could doubt that at my lowest points, I hasten to my coffee pot, or starbucks or another coffee shop? Who could wonder that I take great care in preparing each cup and making it just so? I have, I must admit, acquired a taste for coffee and begun to develop a nose for the subtle nuances of flavor in different beans. And though my knowledge and intimacy with coffee grows, I firstly love coffee, for sentimental reasons.

Observations from the Road

As many of you know, I like to make lists of stuff that I need you, the general public, to hear my opinion on for no real reason at all.

This is such a list--of things I thought about while on the road today. It's either going to be brief or quite long, but nowhere in between. I can't tell yet.


NASCAR Number Stickers Seriously NASCAR fans---WHAT. is that. about. ( I am aware that number 3 commemorates Dale Earnhardt who, HEY SHOCKER!, died while racing a flammable death trap 80 gajillion miles an hour around a little track while other little death traps were doing the same. I mean, really, that just shocks the everloving hell out of me. Those stickers are some seriously required fucktard equipment.

Hey Speedracer You know, going fast is cool--sometimes--by which I mean, not at all if you're in a purple honda accord. And if it's pouring down rain. And if it's in frigging Alto,Texas. All of those individual things make it UNCOOL which means you have attained a status that can only be described as El Assholio Supremo del Mundo. That's like those MO-rons who haul ass through parking garages. Oh yeah-- you're rock stars all right. WHEEE!

Roads Slippery when Wet Please take this into account when considering going 80 on a highway you can't even see because the rain is so heavy. That's right invincible SUVholes (I am thinking of patenting this term, so if you steal it for your own sinister purpose, watch out); I am looking at you--the ones in the ditches awaiting tow trucks. And I do mean the multiple ones. And MY CHRIST, if you're driving in rain like that, TURN YOUR MOTHER FREAKING LIGHTS ON.

Mother freaking does not seem to adequately convey my message.
Alas.

That concludes my observations at this time.

P.S. Ooh. I forgot. Please note that the left lane is a passing lane. The left lane is a passing lane. THE LEFT LANE IS A MOTHER FREAKING PASSING LANE.

New Plan (Back Off, Jesus)

Yesterday evening I spent a good chunk of time on one of my favorite hobbies: wallowing in my own misery. So S. sat me down and gave me the talk her mother has named "Come to Jesus," wherein she basically reiterated how much my life (re: my job and important relationships) is kind of in the dumpster and that it really sucks to be me and how it was going to remain that way for the forseeable future. It's not really the kind of pep talk you expect from your best friend, but at least I know she wasn't lying to me because the things she said were illustrative of a reality you'd have to be a special kind of sadist to invent.

So, I asked her when she got to the good news and the "go team," part. She just shook her head.

After 3 glasses of sangria, however, my world outlook was a bit rosier. Seeing the flamenco dancers at Mi Luna gave me a great idea. I'll go to Spain and be a professional ex-pat. I'll write a novel or two, build a country cottage, and maybe find a mentor like Gertrude Stein. (I can't go to GB because I'd have to quarantine Molly and pits are banned in France, so Spain is my new option. Sucks that I don't speak Spanish. But I've got a can-do attitude for that, at least.) Maybe I'll farm and make my own cheese.

So Molly and I are sick of the huddled masses that are recent college grads in the U.S. We want to drink (more) coffee and wine and maybe take up smoking cigarettes (step 1: find a way to overcome repulsion of cigarettes) and write, and wax nostalgic about our boyhood in the woods of Mississippi and the days when we weren't required to wear shoes to school. And by we, I mean, I want to do this and Molly wants to look at horse meat in the butcher's window,

Mana!

This has got to be the new plan because man, the current plan--well, it sucks. And this one is good.

I hope E. will go with me. She is the best ex-pat I know. Plus, I'd probably get kind of lonely in my country cottage, even though I will have my own horse and I will ride my bike often through the nearby village. And also, I bet her plan once she gets to the U.S. won't be much more desireable than my current one. (Hear me, peers! This is our condition! Come to Jesus!)

Maybe I can work my way across on a merchant marine vessel. Molly can be the ship's mascot.

I am going to write the best book ever. This is such a good plan. Don't everyone go and do it though. And S., thanks for helping me see Jesus. Maybe Jesus can sub-let my apartment until I am ready to come back.

Well, I Am a Mammal, After All

I actually said this to the cashier at Walgreen's.

I ran into my downstairs neighbor at the checkout at Walgreen's and she said to me, (after I said I can't believe I just said 'I am a mammal' to that woman): it's funny, but not everyone gets your humor. Well, not really anyone actually, but you're funny.

So why did I say this to the cashier?

I have a birth mark. It's not huge, but it's noticeable when I wear shirts that are not cut, for example, up to my neck. It's just below my collar bone and it is a rosey area that looks not unlike a series of broken blood vessels, amazingly because it IS a series of broken blood vessels. I have always been rather self-conscious about it because --well, you would be, too. So it's somewhat rare that I feel bold enough to wear tanks tops or so out in public. In school, kids asked me if I was in a car wreck or teased that it was some kind of abnormally large hickey (it doesn't look a *bit* like a hickey, despite having broken blood vessels in common) But today I was bold.

So you'd think people that aren't elementary school kids could just mind their own damn business or you know, have some tact.

But this woman gawked and wanted to know if I had dyed a patch of chest hair.

Yes.

Think about that for a minute.

So I told her it was my birthmark and she acted so surprised and asked me if I was sure it wasn't my chest hair. Now, last I checked, I don't have chest hair. Not on my collar bone. Not at all. I am, after all, a woman. And second of all, my hair is dark brown. I mean, almost black here. I know the idea of fire crotch (and therefore fire chest?) fascinates many people, but why, WHY would I have blood red hair on my chest in an area the size of a small biscuit?

No.

So I gave her a look kind of like "Hmm, are those *carrots* sprouting from your ears?" And she asked again if I had chest hair there. I said no, and then thought a minute and said--well, I am a mammal, after all, so I suppose I do have very fine hair there, but no. That is not my chest hair you're slack-jawed about.

That was a way better story in my head.

Misery Loves: Itself (it's quite vain)

But first some business items:
I bet you're all one of the following:
1) anxiously awaiting Part 2 of the The Loved Old Things items
2) not expecting it to ever appear because you've known me longer than a few minutes
3) completely apathetic because a) you don't read my piece of crap site anyway or b) why would you care--seriously?

Well-HA! I've already written part 2. It's looking like there might be a part 3, too because frankly, I can't get to the damned point, if there is one. Oh well. Anyhow--look for Part 2 when I get my cut and paste on at some point this week.

P.S. Who comes home from spending a long weekend with their parents and thinks: hmm, I should write an essay about this? I am so THE SUCK. Seriously. But you love me. Now, onward. (P.P.S. Who gets a 3-day vacation and is like--I should chill with my parents doing nothing? Me! That's who. Shut up.)

So misery. I'm an expert on misery. This is not because I am some kind of tragic victim of circumstance or anything, but because--as I was recently reminded by the International Boss of Me™--I am what the Romans might have called a Queenus Dramatis Majorus. (Shout out: Dignitae et waffalus!) I mean, I have definitely had a share in the portion of crap that must pollute everyone's life that is immediately pointed to when anyone mentions a scarred childhood/adolescence that goes above and beyond the horror that is middle school (e.g. Gav being beaten with locks by classmates). But I don't feel the need to make a laundry list of boo hoo junk, or in the words of Martin Luther (the heretic, not MLK Jr.)--eine minuten bite (or something. The IBoM™ will surely help me correct this.)

So I have been kind of miserable lately. Part of this has to do with the kind of break-up, that according to the movie The Wedding Singer is like having your heart ripped out of your ass. So, that's pretty sucky, right? For sure. But I have been dramatizing this for my own amusement.

My neighbor B. made the comment that at least I would be happy that we've been having random summer thunderstorms lately (because excuse me, they're AWESOME!) because nothing makes me so happy as thinking other people are miserable and all. This is not true. While I enjoy the misery of others--PLENTY of other things top this on my list of the great pleasures in life. The crackling sound as your spoon hits a fresh crème brulée. The feeling of relief after FINALLY emptying a full bladder. Writing something you're really proud of and having others agree that you are the new captain of Team Awesome ®. Hearing a song you REALLY love come on the radio right when you're thinking of it. But I must say--B. is right. I sure like to see other people miserable--in theory. (I mean, they don't have to be truly miserable, but if they can fake a nice grimace or so when I am around and maybe a bad haircut, that'd make me feel pretty okay.)

My point is--misery doesn't love company. That's crap. Who wants to be around a bunch of peole determined to cheer you up? Fuck them. It's most awesome to be around a bunch of people who are like-- you're right. This sucks. Let's eat a bunch of junk food and make fun of other people, in order that we might sink to the depths of our misery.

Corinthians says (yes, I'm getting all Jesus on you--what of it?) says that Love is patient, kind, blah blah blah, a bunch of virtues. Well in the Gospel according to MaryT (heretic!) Misery is spiteful. Misery is indulgent. Misery never fails to seek itself out.

And that is something you can quote me on.