An Epistillary Post

Dear Man Who Flipped Me off On San Pablo Avenue Today,
Did you know you were jay walking? See, because you weren't inside of those huge white lines that stretch the length of the road ONE BLOCK OVER, I am, according to the law of the great state of California, allowed to speed right past you. You were the one who was in the wrong. If you had been within those lovely white lines, I would have loved to stop for you and to silently thank heavens above that I have a car and aren't a poor walking fool like yourself. Hell, I might have even managed a little wave, or a nod, or even a sly smile. But no, you had to saunter through the middle of the road, and then get pissed that I didn't bother to obey the laws of the invisible planet Asshat where you seem to have immigrated from.

Oh, and by the way, you might want to rethink that sweatpants/t-shirt combo. A gray t-shirt and elastic-ankled gray sweatpants, while monochromatic, is not a good combo, especially when paired with fluffy 1980's-Barbie hair. Hell, if you hadn't looked like a total beast, I might have stopped just to be nice, even though you were clearly in the wrong. So clean yourself up, and go read the California Drivers Manual.

Have a nice day, asspack,
Morgan

Dear Soup Loving Cafe Caller,
Please call me again. I have waited for three days, through cream of potato day, black bean and onion day, and now through butternut squash day for you to bless our cafe with your presence. I love your enthusiasm for over-priced soups, your flamboyantly wonderful voice asking about the soup of the day and then showing your excitement and/or derision over said soup. And it's not just me. We all love it--it brings our days such light, such wonder away from our turmoil of serving nicoise salads to overeducated loons discussing Beethoven and Bach and whatever else they talk about.

So give us a call tomorrow and ask about the soup. And then stop by and buy some. You won't regret it.

Have a good day, soup man,
Morgan

An Update on the Life of the Belle

So. Aside from exploding manhole covers and traffic jams and Stabler turning into a pedophile on SVU last night, things are really settling nicely around here. Work is stable and rather nice: it is easy, and over when it is over, so I have plenty of time to do stuff. I have plenty of time to read, and smile, and read my favorite blogs.

So why am I starting to get restless again? Why do I feel like starting something new?

I don't know. Sometimes I doubt that I'll ever be fully engaged in what I'm doing. I think I'm just one of those people who need to move all of the time, like some kind of unwieldy beverage that seperates if not stirred regularly. I just need to write. To settle down and write. And for some reason, I can't do that. I have no good ideas, I don't have that burning urge to go create. I'm dull and boring, a cappuccino foaming robot with (currently) no creative outlet.

Hmmm.

I started reading a huge 19th century French novel just to show that I can. It's actually very interesting with a lot of sexual intrigue. And that, my petite croquembouches, toasts my waffle.

And there's a new Law and Order Vanilla tonight. So there's that.

I don't know. If I could just get started writing again, I think I'd be fine. Yes. Just fine.

Or maybe I should marry an unemployed, rat-faced man, pop out a kid and lay back and dream about Starbucks.

It works for Britney.

I'm Not Sure if this is Accurate, but I am definitely dangerous to know...

You are George Gordon, Lord Byron! The
prototypical bad boy, you'll sleep with
anything that can give consent and maybe even a
few things that can't or won't. Your ethics
could use some work (nine year old girls?), but
outside of the sex question, you're a grand
partier and the bipolar, shady hero of your own
story. The wittiest of the Romantics, you're
mad, bad and dangerous to know. Scandalous!

Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?
brought to you by

Chaotic is Not Just the Name of a Bad Reality Show

If you read this blog, you know that I love Tolstoy and I love the whole view of this world as being nothing more than chaotic, crazy stuff happening for no apparent reason, and that there is really no sense in planning, because it's all going to go to hell anyway, so why bother? Today that was theory/philosophy was proven to me.

Today, across from my place of employment, a manhole cover blew off, up into a man's beautiful Mercedes and blew out all the power on our block. FOR NO APPARENT REASON!

That, my little Starburst candies, is chaos. Come to life.

Life=Chaos, Chaos=Life.

That is all.

Letter of Truth: Spederline Spawn Edition

Hello to All My Loyal Fans:
Hey yall! It's me, Britney. Remember me? Morgan was nice enough to let me update her blog for her, given as how I've got such TOTALLY AWESOME news. Yeppers, you guessed it...my sweet baby was born today! I think we're going to name him Michael Preston Spears Federline, which is a totally cool name (even better Justin, which is stupid, stupid name). I am SOOO not going to name him Vegas, no matter what SOME PEOPLE (who shall remain nameless, Fevin Kederline) say, because that is just stupid (but still not as stupid as Justin).

Yall, it hurt so much. Pregnancy was just not as cool as I thought it was going to be, because even though you get to eat a lot, you have to eat HEALTHY STUFF, which sucks. I mean, how was I supposed to know that Cheetos and Frappucinos aren't good for the baby? I mean, it's cheese, which I'm pretty sure is a member of the dairy family. So how can it not be good. And then, as if that's not enough, it seriously HURTS when the baby's ready to come. AND HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHERE THAT THING WAS GOING TO COME OUT? I SOOOO DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THAT! So that's why I got a C-section. I mean, God. That other way with the pushing and the sweating and stretching and tearing is just so not natural. Having a baby surgically removed from your limp body when you're knocked out cold and dreaming about dipping your hands in that orange powder that they roll Cheetos in is SOOOO much better.

Well, I'm tired now, so I'm going to end this up. The baby's crying again. He's just a few hours old, and I swear he's already like his father, in that he won't stop bitching and he won't get a job. But he's cute any way. And, yall, that's all that matters.

Love yall,
Britney (and Preston)

So Many Books, Such an Incredible Amount of Time

September is only 10 days young, but I am happy to report that I have already finished two books. Two lovely, innane books have been devoured and enjoyed, and I am 100 odd pages into the third. This, my cinnamon walnut swirls, is very good. During my college career, I don't think I ever really read this fast with the same amount of fervor and happiness, as most of my speed reading then was done out of sheer necessity (except of course, when I read Dubliners in one sitting, which was both necessary and absolutely, smashingly enjoyable). In fact, I am tempted to say that if I had read this quickly and happily during college, I would have graduated at least magna cum laude, and not just cum laude, a designation which looks so lonely and small on my big diploma (however, if I had graduated magna cum laude, I would probably have some high-paying, high stress job where I had to work on Saturday mornings or something equally as horrible, or even worse, I could be being forced to trudge my way through Finnegan's Wake for some sort of graduate-type learning, so overall, maybe my sometimes slow and less enthusiastic college reading was a positive thing).

But my raison de posting is this: Do marriages crumble over this sort of thing? My husband is reading Goethe, while I am reading my second Nick Hornby of the month. He reads Platonov in Russian, I am reading a bunch of books that were in the top ten in Entertainment Weekly's year end round-ups and sometimes they are in British English, which for now, is a challenging language for me (seriously, watching two seasons of The Office taught me that those across the pond are not as easy to understand as we probably think). I feel guilty for having so much fun with them, and stupid for not reading Platonov as well, even though not many of his things have been translated into any form of English, and I can't just pick up Russian overnight, you see.

Thus I have been forced to realize that life should be furnished with its own syllabi, so that you know what you are supposed to be reading and why, and what you are supposed to get from it. Just another way to make sense of the chaos.

I made $32 in tips last week, which should buy six books at Moe's as long as nothing I want is hardcover or signed or anything. Maybe I should buy something intelligent. I probably will. Or I could spend $16 at Moe's and $16 at Amoeba Records and get that Shout Out Louds cd I've been talking about for so long. Hmmm...

And, in closing, my petite madelaines, it is this sort of chaos that is the most wonderful and sublime (although, if you really think about it, nearly all chaos breeds a hope for the future, so, technically, it's all good in the hood.)

I'm a College Graduate too, Mr. Double Cappuccino!

Today has been a rather...trying day. Lunch was insanely busy at our humble cafe, with a line out the door and a myriad different kind of hungry people wanting a myriad different kind of things, none of which were on the menu. In the middle of it all, I shattered a latte glass, causing our dishwasher, Angel, to scream something in Spanish that I don't think is repeatable in polite company. Looking back, it was quite funny, but at the time I thought of running away to the parking garage across the street, brandishing a shard of glass to protect me from the evil onslaught of caffeine driven patrons. But I made it, and here I am, typing at my new computer, cursing myself for having just drank a Coke.

Working across from the University is going well, I guess, although it does make me feel a little nostalgic for those times of yore, when I could go to classes and spend my time saying pretentious things about Sartre to other pretentious people who cared about Sartre. So I am giving (perhaps too much) thoughts to attempting MFA school at some point, preferably soon. I am looking at SF State, or one of the other colleges in the city, as Berkeley doesn't have an MFA program, and even if it did, I doubt I could get into it. I don't really know what to do. I really don't think I am ready for a 9-5 job right now--I like to be up and moving around and doing things while I am at work, and then be done with it so that I still have my writing/reading time in the afternoons. However, part of me would like the security of having a salaried job. I just don't know. I just want to write. How hard is that? I mean, as long as I'm not bothering anyone, couldn't I just do it for a while and at the same time have cash for used books and the occasional pad thai? In a perfect world, yes. In Bush's America, no.

Growing up (and I mean really growing up, not turning 12 and shaving your legs for the first time) is wretchedly hard to do. I feel like I am in flux right now, like I am officially a grown up with rent to pay and electric bills and whatever, but with this kiddie job and kiddie desires. Oh well. The good news is, I'm happy. I'm having a good time. I like my kiddie job, and I like my free afternoons, and I like my husband, and I like cooking a big meal in the afternoons. And to tell you the truth, I wouldn't change it for anything. Seriously.

I just get nervous thinking about the future. So to recap: Present=Most Excellent, Future=Imperfect, Bad Puns Related to Grammar=Sadly lacking.

Have a good un, my little cranberry walnut loaves!

Random Un-Politically Motivated Stuff

So. Today I have been a bit less political, as I have been working and driving around Berkeley aimlessly, trying to learn the place (which, by the way, was an insanely stupid thing to do, given the price of gas, but that makes me political again, so let's just forget about it). I just have a few random observations that I want to make here, just to put my soul at ease, and to get rid of that nagging I-need-to-put-this-on-my-blog feeling.

First Observation: My husband is cheesy, crazy, and the man of my dreams. His favorite song now is Hollaback Girl, which is probably the most wretched song I can think of, other than that song about girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch (seriously, have you heard that? It features the line "Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets" FOR NO APPARENT REASON.) It was ok when he downloaded it, got a little stranger when he made it the first song on a cd he made, and reached its penultimate degree of strangeness when he made it his ringtone for when he gets text messages. Yes, this is my husband, the reader of Dostoevsky, the horn rimmed glasses Berkeley grad student. Moving on...

Second Observation: Old people are nicer in California than in Virginia. Of course menstruating Nazis who are both constipated and starving to death are nicer than old people in Virginia. Moving on...

Third Observation: Paying for parking=evil. That's like making me pay to breathe. I have had to pay more for parking in the last week or so than I have previously paid in my entire driving life. And I ask...who thought of making people pay for parking? Doesn't that hurt small businesses in the long run, as I don't want to have to drive to a place and have to pay $4 when I could just order it off the internet and get free shipping or some such? I'm sure it probably doesn't, that the money made from parking keeps cities moving and roads paved and whatever. I'm sure I'm just stupid. Sorry that I even bothered to comment...

Well, must go. I visited the wonderful love den that is Moe's Books today and spent one week's worth of tips on books, so I need to get through the book I'm reading now so I can start reading these new ones. Please send me book recommendations--I am going through a lot of books lately since I'm no longer in school and have discovered the beauty of "spare time."

Have a good un!

I've Got a New Computer While New Orleans Doesn't Have Shit...i.e. I am a bastard

To those of you who don't read titles of things (a category to which I fit soundly as I never read titles of anything), I have a new computer. It's great. Seriously. It is. It's a desktop. It has a fully functional i, k, 8, and comma. It has a flat monitor that makes me feel all space age, so every time I sit in front of it, I have to giggle and say loudly, "CAN YOU HEAR ME, MAJOR TOM?" I can read my favorite blogs in comfort and download obscure music from obscure bands and feel like the quintessential indie yuppie.

And I can read articles on the New York Times about the effects of the hurricane and feel like a total tool. So there's that. And it pretty much all but ruins the whole thing, if you know what I'm saying.

As far as the hurricane news goes, I tried to ignore it for as long as I could. For one thing, ever since 9/11, I have tried to avoid CNN and its ilk like the plague, as I know what that hideous station did to me then, and I sure as hell don't want it to do it again. So I ignored the hurricane until my mother pretty much made me turn on the TV and see what was going on. Now I am transfixed by it, and I read everything I can find on it, and I feel all these complex, strange, over-analytical feelings about the events and the people they are happening to that go beyond empathy and compassion and into something else entirely that is not a little bit scary. An hour passes, and I rush to cnn.com or some such, desperate for more information, for more analysis, for one more view of somebody getting mad and asking a tough question. Part of me has gone mad, and part of my mind is constantly thinking of things that I could do, little unskilled me stuck in my comfy house in Northern California. Hurricane Katrina and all its heartache and woe has taken me over in a myriad little ways, and I cannot help but give those people part of me and my worthless time.

So here's my question: Why isn't George Bush doing this? What the hell is wrong with that man? How is he, the leader of this country, one of the only people around who doesn't seem to give a shit about anything? Anyone who knows me knows that I have never really liked the man--in fact, I've pretty much despised him for the complete duration of his presidency--but this goes beyond the pale. He and his merry gang of spin doctors and con artists have fucked with America for too long: he has killed people with his negligence, his selfishness, and his neverending ineptitude. He has proved himself as a wink and smile president, a king of the photo op, a master of the too little and the too late.

I don't know if there is anyway to impeach him for this, but I swear to God, I want him out. We need to show him that America is not a land of it'll-be-all-right-in-the-end pussies, but rather a country full of compassionate, hard-working folks, who'll work their asses off to help those who need it. Right here, right now, I'm telling you, my big old American t-bones: I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK, DUBYA. SO GET YOUR GRIMY HANDS OFF OF IT.

And that's all I have to say about that.