Definitely faking the joy now.

Arrival. Suburbia. My childhood home.

I've been here barely an hour and I've already been told that I'm not eating enough, that my shirt is too tight on me and that I'm a fool for having the job I have.

Ah. I love my family.

Only partially faking the joy.

I don't travel well, particularly when it involves family. I get myself way more stressed out than I need to be.

I rented my car yesterday for the holiday weekend--it was rather less expensive than I expected it would be and it will be nice to be able not to worry about other people having to shuttle my sorry ass around all weekend.

I'm working today in an hour, until 4, which is not going to be pretty, methinks. Not only am I on the verge of getting sick, I expect it's going to be a madhouse since I'm working at our highest volume store. It should be relatively okay, though--I'm on as an extra person so that should help to take some of the pressure off everyone. I was on as an extra last Saturday, too, and it really wasn't too bad.

So, after work, I come home and pack (which mostly will be grabbing my toiletries and my dirty laundry plus what I plan to wear Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which is all already clean) and then hitting the road.

The game plan is as follows:

Drive to mum's tonight, stopping at aunt's to pick up her Kitchen Aid.
See high school friends tonight and/or tomorrow morning.
Commence panettone baking tomorrow morning early enough that it will be done by midafternoon-ish so that it has a chance to cool.
Have dinner with mum's family on Christmas Eve before heading into Boston for Midnight Mass. Because I'm a queen like that and need some high church excitement.
After that, drive two hours west to grandparents', which should get me there around 3 am.
Sleep, with the option to get up to go to church with the grandparents' at 10.30.
Be merry. Eat. Enjoy the family.
Drive four hours back to Portland Monday night so as to be home and ready to go to work at 7.30 on Tuesday (an hour later than usual. Yay!).

I'm stressed out about having a rental car. I'm stressed out about getting sick. I'm stressed out about the fact that I've never made panettone before and that I'll be making it in my mother's kitchen (because she'll be standing over my shoulder the whole time, criticising how messy I'm being--never mind the fact that she would never undertake such a recipe). I'm stressed out about the fact that I didn't get anything for anyone even though I generally don't and give a donation to charity every year instead because who really needs more stuff (particularly my father's side the family--we're all such pack rats)? I'm stressed out about work today because I really don't want to work today. I'd rather sleep until noon or so and then hit the road and have a four day weekend. That would have been sweet but, alas, it was not to be.

And what's with the high of 7c today and rain?! I want a white Chirstmas, dammit.

Season's greetings. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Joyous Kwanza. Happy Eid. Merry Festivus. Happy Solstice. (Did I miss anyone?)

And big, big, big hugs to you all and best wishes for a joy filled new year. (I'll probably post again before the new year, but in case I don't...)

Work, work, work...

...work, work, date, work, date, work, work, work.

Not sure yet. Nice enough guy and all, but, I dunno. Do I hesitate because of him or do I hesitate because of me?

...not that I have any issues or hang-ups or anything like that. Pfft. Of course not...

iTunes free single

You all need to download the iTunes Music Store's free single this week, James Taylor's new version of 'Jingle Bells'.

Just for the horror of it.

Yeah. That's just not quite right.

There's something sad and ironic when one is his own top match when searching a personals site.

Just saying. I mean, if that should ever happen, it would be sad and ironic. Not to say that this has happened to me. Yeah. That's why I used the third person above.

Blog updating

I need to rework this layout, methinks. Update my links. As Kit-Cat has noted, the Dancing Banana disappeared a long time ago. Alas. Blogger has recently updated itself and added some new tools and such. I need to update my template to be inline with their changes but they've warned me that I will lose many of the changes that I may have made to this template in the update process. I don't think I quite have the ambition to do that right now. Soon, though, perhaps.

I'm trying to decide what to do with my day off today (other than continue to get sucked in by the car-wreck of a novel that is The Corrections. It's a grey and cold day here by the sea. Looks like it could snow but it's not going to get quite that cold. It's 4c now and we have a high only of 6c today.

I'm listening to The Mavericks' 'Music for All Occasions', which I've not listened to in quite a while. I think they should have called it 'Music for when you're depressed about a breakup'. Not that I'm any more or less depressed about things right now than I've been. Actually, I'm in a vaguely better space than I was a few weeks ago round about the one year anniversary of my first date with the ex. I am, perhaps, way too nostalgic for my own good.

I think I'll shower soon and head out into the world with the new toy. Take it out on the town and go to Casco Bay Books and work on some stuff. I happily was able to retrieve all of my files from my old iBook since it was only the video card that had gone and not the whole thing. I had been working on and off on an essay about the importance of costumer education in coffee and now, especially with my new position, I think it's really important that I work on that. Make a sort of essay-length mission statement for myself. A raison d'être for the new position. As I keep saying to people as I've been explaining my new job, coffee is one of the ways in which globalisation can actually work—as long as it's done correctly. Coffee is second only to oil in terms of the amount of money traded around the world for it and it impacts so many lives around the globe. Coffee is one of the few things that cuts across global cultures in its consumption and we owe it to the people who produce it to care for it and respect it.

Okay. That's enough sentimentalism for the moment. I need to save that for the essay.

NY Times Editorial

As it is, I hate the holidays. Mostly for the stupid family stress (everyone has to get along, dammit) and, of course, the crass consumerism. Even before I started going to church again, the consumerism of the holiday and the complete divorce of the original meaning of Christmas from the non-stop sale that has become 'The Holiday Season' really bothered me. I grew up in a house that measured the success of Christmas by how much money had been spent not by how happy everyone was by the end of the day—or the end of the week, even, when all the new toys had essentially been forgotten. (I don't really have any problems with the more p.c. 'holiday' versus 'Christmas'. It's easier than assuming the celebration of Christmas or wishing everyone a Happy/Merry/Joyous Kwanzaa/Christmas/Hanukkah/Eid/Etc.)

Anyway, it's always nice for other people to take notice of these things. Other people like the New York Times. Here's the conclusion from an editorial this morning:

For all the Santas sprouting in store windows around Halloween, Thanksgiving has remained the national holiday marker, like the Great Wall of China holding back the hordes of the Christmas-shopping frenzied. Now it looks more like a pierced Maginot line. Soon it could all end in a hostile bid to merge Christmas and back-to-school sales.

Click the link to read the rest of it.

Arrival!

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi rirovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

Mentre ch'i' rovinava in basso loco,
dinanzi a li occhi mi si fu offerto
chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco.
Quando vidi costui nel gran diserto,
'Miesere di me,' gridai a lui,
'qual che tu sii, od ombra omo certo!'

I got my new MacBook today. As I mentioned in a previous posting, when Squirt died, he already had a name before he arrived: Virgil, after Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory. Not a guide so much as a companion as a get through this mid-twenties angst thing that seems to be defining my life right now.

That, and he'll come in rather handy for work. Now that I've been promoted and all. The inevitable has happened and they've made me a manager. I say inevitable like it's a bad thing but actually I'm rather excited about the new position. It's a new position for the youngest location. I have a lot ahead of me to get things on track and to help to grow that location but it's going to be oh so much fun too since it's very much meant to be a location focused more on education and engagement rather than just a place to pop in for a cup of coffee. Tastings, mini-classes, drop-in workshops. Stuff like that. I'm not really going to get into details because most of them have to be worked out but it'll all start to take shape in the new year. For now, we have to get through the holiday season. Which shouldn't be too bad. We're well organised and we made it through last year rather unscathed.

As for myself, Yanksgiving was pretty good last week. Aside from the almost 500 miles of driving in two days and the horrendous rain on the drive home Thursday night. I managed to fit in both Mum and Dad over two days. Dinner with Dad and Step-Mum and that side of the family on Thursday, which was lovely. I hadn't seen them since last Christmas and it was really great to hang out even if it was only for eight hours.

Other than that, nothing really new to report. My roommate was in Montréal over the holiday (so jealous!) and she brought me back bagels and chocolate. Yum. I'm so easy to please.

That's all for now, I think. Now that I have a computer of my own again, perhaps I'll be better at keeping this silly thing up-to-date. Or not. We'll see.

Oh, one final thing: I started reading Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections over the weekend. I'm only about 75 pages into it but it's fantastic. Kind of like a car wreck. Really uncomfortable but you just can't look away.

Damn you and your lies, Jacqueline Bigar

According to my horoscope, it was a five star day and I was supposed to gain a progressively better mood.

So much for that.

The two hour walk in the rain didn't really help things, either. Sometimes they do. But this time it didn't.

Last night...

...I made perhaps the best tomato sauce I've ever made. Garlic, some more garlic, and then a bit more garlic. Some purple onion. Some white mushrooms. Sauteed in butter. Throw in some dry red wine and some saffron and cook it down until its almost gone. Then toss in the tomatoes and let it simmer for a while.

It was amazing.

But then I realised that I had no pasta. None.

And that's pretty much a metaphor for how I feel like my life has been going recently.

Technology Sucks. RIP Squirt 2002-2006.

So, my computer died a week ago. I'm typing this on a borrowed laptop that my friend almost never uses. Bless her. We need to work out the details of this custody thing (alternate weekends or something) but she's perfectly fine with my using this for as long as I need to until I figure out how to get myself a new computer of my own.

At least I'm not under deadline for anything...like when my logicboard died in the middle of November the first year I had Squirt (the old iBook, in case you didn't catch that) and I had five papers to write over the next four weeks.

It was the video card that died. To get it fixed would probably work out to about half of just getting a new MacBook and given that the old one was four years old and had seen me through the rough and tumble of university life, it seems better to let it go. Still, not all is lost. Right now, it's essentially just a large iPod charger. It turns out, I can log in and it'll update my iPod. But I can't see anything that I'm doing. And it won't connect to an external monitor, which is how I know that it's the video card and not just the screen.

So, at least I know that all my information is on there and retrievable at some point. It also means that I can use it as an external hard drive to back things up on after I get the new one. Not exactly practical but, again, not all is lost.

I named it Squirt when I first got it because it was so much smaller than the clamshell iBook that it was replacing. This morning I woke up with a name for the as yet purchased new one: Virgil. It will be my companion (not exactly my guide, but certainly trusty sidekick) as I'm figuring things out over the next little while. I don't know that I'm quite traveling through Hell right now, but it's at least some kind of Purgatory where I need to get my shit together and figure out what is the proper path for me to be on.

Hopefully, I'll have the new compute sooner rather than later, but I have to figure out how to pay for it. But I have more important things to figure out how to pay for, like new glasses and a new winter coat and new boots and heating oil and.... Yeah. You get the picture.

I could really use a Virgil about now to help point me on the right path though I have to remember, too, that Dante didn't get help straight away when he was lost. Yes, it came fairly quickly but he had a literary schedule to keep. He couldn't wander lost for 8 cantos. He had to get down to business.

Part of me has been puzzling recently about the coffee thing and about where, really, I'd be best to do it. I have the advantage here of being a big fish in a little pond. Still, as I've said before many a time, this pond is rather small for my liking and I don't have a need really to be #1. There's also part of me that feels like the ideals of 'third wave' coffee needs to be represented out here on the East Coast. This isn't me getting cold feet about the possibility of moving, more just a puzzling through my reasons for wanting to move and perhaps my path in coffee, if that is indeed where I'm meant to be. Add to that mix an idea that was pitched to me in outline form last night that would take a lot of work to bring together but that would potentially offer me an amazing experience in helping to set up and run a non-profit coffee endeavour that could focus much more on education than simply producing amazing coffee. Before my computer died, I'd been working on an essay about the vital importance of consumer education and trying to puzzle through how to balance consumer education with the need to make sure that you can get through a line to the door in 5ish minutes.

That essay is trapped on my computer right now, though I may soon start it from scratch since it was a bit of a mess anyway.

So, lots on my mind as of late, as always. Still plugging along, though, which is the important thing.

Exciting Night

I made ravioli stuffed with squash, parsnip, potato, cheese and some spices. Now I'm doing laundry and watching 35 Up. And I have 42 Up if I'm feeling ambitious later.

Way. Too. Much. Excitement.

Joy of joys

'This American Life', one of my favourite NPR shows is now available as a podcast. It's on usually when I'm at work on Sundays. Now I can listen to it at my leisure. Give it a looksee. It's fabulous.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

I've just finished reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. When I started reading it a few weeks ago, I decided after only about 30 pages that it should be required reading for everyone in the country. Probably everyone who partakes of an industrialised food chain every day (which would include a lot of people).

The most basic, guiding question that Pollan takes for the book is 'What should we have for dinner?' It seems, as he points out, such a simple question. Indeed, eating food is perhaps the most basic thing that we humans have control over in order to continue to live. We don't have to worry about breathing but we do have to worry about what to put into our bodies in order to allow them to continue to function.

Pollan then tries to figure out what happened to make this such a difficult question to answer and he pins down the omnivore's dilemma, something that has plagued (or benefited, depending on how you look at it) our species since we became a species. When you can eat virtually anything, deciding what to eat can be a bit of a problem.

Yet, Pollan points out, for millennia, this never really was a problem. We relied on culture, on availability, on local climate to help dictate what we ought to eat and when. You want asparagus in January? Tough. Eat some beans. The modern industrialised food chain has warped availability and trumped locality so that we can, indeed, eat asparagus in January if we so choose. But at what cost? Are those dozen or so spears of asparagus really worth the jet fuel that flew them from South America to your grocery store?

Americans spend less on food than any other nation on the planet. Some might see this as the triumph of the American promise of equality and equal access. But remembering how basic food is to our existence, why, logically, should it be a good thing for food prices to fall continuously? 99¢ for a dozen eggs? What does that tell us about the quality of those eggs? Does the average person even have any idea where eggs come from or how they're produced anymore?

As I settled in at a bar one night with the book and a pint, I was chatting with the bartender who is always interested to find out what I'm reading (this is the same bar at which I did a lot of reading of the Divine Comedy this past Spring). She sort of recoiled when she saw what I was reading and said that I shouldn't read it, because it would turn me into a vegetarian. I told her that I was already essentially a vegetarian and she looked puzzled since I'd just ordered a steak quesidilla. Oddly enough, Pollan's section on vegetarianism and the ethics of eating animals has made me feel okay about when I do choose to eat meat and has given me some philosophical cud to chew (sticking with the food theme) about the topic.

If you click the link at the end of this post, it will take you to Pollan's website where you can read the introduction and the first chapter of the book. If that doesn't hook you then perhaps you're one of those people that Pollan suggests maybe shouldn't read the book. To quote the introduction,

'Eating is an agricultural act,' as Wendell Berry famously said. It is also an ecological act, and a political act, too. Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world—and what is to become of it. To eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice few things in life afford quite as much satisfaction. By comparison, the pleasures of eating industrially, which is to say eating in ignorance, are fleeting. Many people today seem perfectly content eating at the end of an industrial food chain, without a thought in the world: this book is probably not for them; there are things in it that will ruin their appetite. But in the end this is a book about the pleasures of eating, the kind of pleasures that are only deepened by knowing.

To know from whence our food came used to be such a benign question as not even to merit thinking about it. Do you know where your morning pop-tart came from? It started as some kind of organic substance somewhere along the line. Or, to take a subject closer to my heart and my everyday, do you know where your morning cup of coffee came from?

As I sit here typing this, my cat is hunting. The cold weather has brought a few mice indoors to join us. Every now and then, she'll catch sign of one and be occupied for hours. It's not as if we starve her, but it's fascinating to see her instincts kick in like this. What happened to our instincts about food? Shouldn't we want to know where our food came from? The supermarket, though convenient, is not a farm. The vast majority of our food does not come from farms as we conceive them. Neither I nor Pollan quite argue that this is necessarily a good or bad thing. Still, it is a thing. And a thing worth noting at that.

Ultimately, I think that a book like this should remind us all that we're still animals. Despite our civilisation, we are actively connected to the rest of life on earth and everything we do, everything we eat—even Twinkies—affect the rest of the planet somehow.

Run, don't walk, to your local library, bookstore, or favourite online book seller and read this book.

You'd be stupid to remain ignorant of where your food comes from.

And, after you've read it, if everything begins to taste suspiciously of corn, don't say I didn't warn you.

Dilemma

The Scissor Sisters are playing Sunday in Boston. Tickets are only $25.

This shouldn't even be a dilemma, right?

Slacking (as usual)...

...well, not really. Yes, I've not updated in over a week but I've been busy. I seriously thought about writing a post on the train back last weekend but was more content to allow my thoughts to free range through my mind rather than to commit them to either paper or screen.

And I'm not really going to say much about last weekend right now other than hanging out with my cousins was a lot of fun and seeing my mother could have been rather worse than it was. It could have been rather better, too, but I tried. And that has to count for something, right?

I've had a lot on my mind this past week about a lot of different things. I don't really have the time or the energy to delve into them right now but that's why I haven't posted: my thoughts are still free ranging. That and the fact that work has been fairly crazy...still. I actually got a day and a half in the office this past week (cut short by someone calling in sick and having to go cover a shift) and am scheduled for three days this week. Office work aside, though, the shop is still clipping along quite briskly. We haven't seen a slump in the increase in business that we've seen since the beginning of last month. Not that any of us are complaining, per se. All things considered, we're surviving quite well.

I don't think there's enough form to any of my thoughts to put them down here right now but we'll see how this coming week goes. If anything, I'll try to get a post together about last weekend. You know, to share the pain.

Dream

The scene: the house I grew up in.

The plot: I'm trying to leave, but there's a hit-man outside trying to kill me. My mother is there, very blasé about the whole thing. Somehow, it makes sense for me to make a run for the car (which is actually my father's truck) and try to get away. I woke up just as I was trying to make a run for the truck.

It had a very Godfather feel to it.

Anxiety about seeing my mother this weekend? Ya think?

Why does the classical music on MPBN in the mornings suck so much?

Often, as of late, when I'm walking home I think of great blog topics. Things I really ought to sit down and write on if not here at least in my personal journal.

And then I don't.

Because I get home and sit down and am just utterly exhausted. Work has been crazy busy lately. We've had a definite upswing in business since the beginning of September and it's not just that students are back in town. Thankfully, it hasn't been too frustrating, just really busy. It's keeping us on our toes to be sure.

So, that's mostly the reason that I've not been posting much recently: I've just been damned tired. I'll try to keep better on top of it, though.

I'll have something to blog about later this weekend anyway: I'm going to see my mother on Saturday for the first time in almost a year. I offered an olive branch and it was accepted. I'm going to be in Massachusetts to babysit my cousins (a long way to go, yes, but I'm happy to do it) on Friday and Saturday until my grandparents take over Saturday afternoon, which is when I'll see my mother. It will be a very defined period of time since my train back to Maine leaves at 7pm. From the beginning, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Sono uno zio! (sort of)

I'm an uncle! (sort of)

My roommates back in Montreal had their baby! Yay! She's happy and healthy and as yet without a first name. Her middle name will be Alessina, thus satisfying the Italian side of the family. There's still the Irish side to satisfy. So, if anyone can think of some really rockin' Irish girls names, post them in the comments and I'll send them along. They have to be rockin', though, because this girl is going to be one cool lass if she's anything like her parents.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

For the record, not only was the film fabulous and definitely worth seeing, it's perhaps the gayest thing I've ever seen. Gayer even than gay porn.

Whew

According to Google Earth, I biked 13 miles on Sunday. And I didn't die. And I didn't even hurt that much from doing it.

Go me!

Yeah, there's probably a bunch of other stuff I should update about right now, but I'm not going to. I'll just leave you all in suspense. I've got shit to do. Like go watch 'Les Parapluies de Cherbourg' which was due back yesterday. And drink coffee. And eat breakfast. And go to work, which has been rather blech this week. I have tomorrow off at least. Then working Saturday and off Sunday. Meh. I hate divided weekends. Saturday is a training day, at least, not a full shift. Though I do still have to go in to close the store that night.

Weekend Update

The yacht search on Friday was fun. Except for the whole getting up at 4 in the morning thing. My friend was a bit excited about getting up to where we were headed to find the yacht. I had suggested leaving at a more godly hour, like 8 or 9. Even 7 would have been okay. I managed the 5, but barely.

So, we left Portland at 5, me half asleep, he giddy with excitement (and only two hours of sleep) and drove up the coast for a little under two hours. We found the yacht fairly easily. It wasn't hard to spot in a rather small town with few sites to moor. Of course, we found it at about 7.30 and had no way to get out to it and, pretty clearly, no one was awake aboard (or, if they were, they certainly weren't on deck). We drove back into town and found some yummy breakfast and then headed back out to the yacht where we were greeted with signs of life on board (it was about 9.30 by now). We stood around on the dock and after a bit, someone happened by in a skiff who gave us a ride out.

There was the odd moment of introduction since they hadn't known we were coming and only vaguely knew that their friends had a friend who lived in Maine. But after it was sorted out how everyone knew everyone (me, I was just along for the adventure) we sat down and chatted and had coffee. The husband and wife who are sailing half way around the world (New Zealand to Europe via the Panama Canal) are quite lovely people, very interesting and full of stories to tell. They were gearing up to finish their provisioning and were scheduled to leave Sunday across the Atlantic, London-bound. We went back into town with them and all had lunch together before saying goodbye and good luck and heading back into Portland. I had the day off, but my friend had to work at 5.

Now, who is this crazy friend who has friends who have friends from New Zealand who are sailing half-way round the world? Ah, good question, by faithful blog-readers. He's a new friend. A new special friend, perhaps. It's all still very new and undetermined. But it's something with potential. I'll leave it at that for now, I think. I'm doing my best not to get too excited about it before it actually matures into something. We've only seen each other a couple of times but he asked me yesterday if I had plans yet for Hallowe'en. I told him I didn't think I did. So maybe now I do?

And here's the irony of it all: he also makes coffee for a living and has an interest in it approaching mine...he just happens to work for Starbucks.

What was I thinking?

I just agreed to leave in four and a half hours to drive up the coast to look for a yacht with some New Zealanders on board.

What was I thinking?

Never let me say my life is boring.

Hott

Gee, I wonder why...

No customers had complained or returned a doctored version, [a spokesman for HMV] said.

Self-described guerilla artist Banksy has replaced approximately 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut album in stores across the UK with an album of his own with remixes with titles such as 'Why Am I Famous?', 'What Have I Done?' and 'What Am I For?'

Sort of kind of almost moved in.

I've been in this apartment almost a year. The last apartment I was in long-term was for three years, and even there I still had stuff in boxes the day I moved out.

One of my major problems with all the stuff I have--and I do my best to cull my pack rat tendencies--is that I don't have drawers or shelves to put it on. I haven't had a proper desk since 2001 when I moved out of rez. Until now.

A friend of mine had a going-away party on Wednesday. Her going away makes me sad. However, I acquired her quite nice roll-top desk, which makes me happy. I think it's going finally to pull my room together and make it something more than a sleeping chamber filled with crap.

Forthwith, pictures...



This is facing the wall opposite the closet. The door leads out into the dining room and that little blue blob in the lower right corner is my bed. On the left, obviously, are my windows. Stylin' desk, eh? Already stacked with clutter. I haven't sorted anything into the drawers of the desk yet, so a lot of that clutter will disappear eventually. Hiding behind the open door is my dresser.



This is taken from the opposite corner. My bed. My closet. My poster of Caspar David Friedrich's 'Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog', something I bought before heading off to university. It seemed appropriate then and still seems to apply now. Also, between the window and closet, above the heater, a drawing of the corner of St-Laurent and Des Pins. A christmas gift last year. :-)



This is the boring side of the room. Just my Canadian flag, a plant, and a Russian icon of John the Baptist, which was a birthday gift (I had originally planned to have my birthday party on St-Jean because it was the Saturday before, which is why my friend bought me the icon, but then I never had the party so the original intent of the gift was kind of moot. It's still pretty nifty, though. I think it came with a certificate of authenticity about it being hand-painted. But I'm not sure. It was written in Russian.) Hopefully, I'll soon have a night stand so that my alarm clock doesn't have to live on the floor (those plugs in the outlet are for my alarm clock and my phone charger). Your coffee trivia for today: Jamaican coffee does not ship in burlap bags like coffee from everywhere else does. It ships in barrels. Full barrels and half barrels. Generally, we buy our Jamaican coffee by the half barrel. There's not reason to hang on to the barrels after we've emptied them of the beans so I'm hoping to score one soon. There's one at the roastery right now, actually, but our roaster wasn't sure if it had already been promised to one of our wholesale customers who has been wanting one for a while. If not, it's mine. Wee. It'll make a rocking night stand.

Hiding in the dining room in that picture is the bike that I've been test-riding for the past couple of days that I'm probably going to buy. The guy I'm buying it from is cool like that. It'll be so nice to have my own bike, I just have to get used to biking again. My legs haven't been to happy with me the past couple of days (have I ever mentioned that I live at the top of a not insignificant hill?) but I'll get used to it. I'm doing my best not to over-extend myself.

That's all for now. I'm going to go read a bit more of 'Heat' by Bill Buford, which I just got from the library yesterday and am quite enjoying. Almost a hundred pages in. An easy read but quite enjoyable. I think it's about time for a nap too, though, so I'm not sure how much reading I'll actually get done.

Oh, and have I mentioned how much I love farmers' markets? I bought THE BEST peaches Wednesday at the market. Honestly, probably the best peaches I've had in years. And they were grown in Maine of all places. Georgia ain't got nothing on these peaches.

Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

My McGill alumni email has a built-in spam filter and every couple of days I get an email of messages that it has quarantined as possible spam so I can make sure that nothing important has been flagged.

My mail program just flagged the quarantine message as potential spam.

'A blobby flame'

Ta-da!



I made a heart for a Japanese student yesterday and she giggled and said, 'Ooh! Pretty!'

'A blobby flame'

They're playing the most obnoxious music at the café that I'm at right now that may or may not be Bjork.

Just thought I'd share.

Thank god for headphones and iTunes. Otherwise I'd have slit my wrists open twenty minutes ago.

I had a pretty good day in the office today. I did my usual Monday paperwork and then rewrote half of the espresso training manual. Also got to have a brief though informative talk with our roaster about our espresso blend as well as our espresso machines (we use fully manual lever machines: I didn't realise that all of the pressure was created by the rather large, spring-loaded piston. I had thought that the water from the boiler was also under some kind of pressure. But, no, just that large, spring-loaded piston is what creates the 9 bars of pressure necessary to make yummy 'spro.)

On our blend, he clarified some of the beans in it and what they contributed to the flavour profile. I mentioned to him that although I enjoyed our blend, I found it quite heavy in nut flavours. Nut, yes, but almond in particular he pointed out. And he suggested I try to look past the nut, too, because there ought to be some citrus notes in there. I didn't get the chance to pull myself any shots when I was at the shop later on because I'd already over-caffeneited myself for the day (as I tend to do when at the office) and I was more content to sip on some Yemen Mocca Sanani than hit the espresso. There's always tomorrow, though...

The art school shindig yesterday wasn't all that exciting. However, I made a sort of latte art yesterday when I made myself a cap before heading down to the event. I took a picture of it on my phone but I haven't yet transferred it to my computer so I can't post it here yet.

For the record, this is what I'm going for (and this is done only with free-pouring the milk, mind you...): click me...

And, other than that, nothing too new or exciting.

I'll try to post my attempt at latte art tomorrow. It's not a full rosetta. More like a blobby flame. But it's something. And I'm proud of it! :-D

My Mind: An odd, odd place

I woke up this morning with Frank Sinatra's 'Almost Like Being In Love' stuck in my head. God only knows why. Trust me, I have no reason for it to be there.

I get to sit at a table this morning and hand out free travel mugs and coffee (as well as employment applications...hehe) to incoming art school students. I'm sure it'll be amusing if anything. I'm crossing my fingers for a hot grad student or two. You never know...

In other news, the weather has turned just to where I love it most: the late August cool down before September's Indian Summer. I really rather love fall. Winter I'm iffy on. I enjoy spring and, again, summer I'm iffy on. I don't do well with extreme heat--I don't think I could ever live in the South (I'm also not a big fan of conditioned air). Fall usually puts me in a good mood. It's always been back to school time, new beginnings, new things on the horizon. Last fall was a bit odd--my first fall that I wasn't going back to school--and I ended up doing a fair bit of soul searching. Not necessarily a bad thing.

This fall, though, comes after a summer of a lot of soul searching. I'm not sure I have many more depths to plumb right now so hopefully I can go into this fall with a fairly clearly head. We'll see.

I was at the bar last night enjoying a glass of wine and the ex showed up with some friends, only one of whom I knew. I ended up sitting down with them at a table for dessert. And it was okay. I was over-tired and not super social but it was still okay. I didn't freak out, I didn't want to run away, I didn't sit there and try to arrange in my head what it would be like if we were still together (okay, maybe I did a little, but that's okay, right? It was only a little...). Overall, it was quite a successful social interaction. I think I've finally gotten there. It only took six months. Incidentally, I've always noticed that it takes me about twice as long as I was in a relationship to get over the relationship, so this is about right. Anyone else have that same ratio or is it just me?

I'm off to caffeinate some art kids!

Update

Yes, I'm still alive.

Yes, I've been slacking on updating the blog recently.

I haven't had much to say.

Things aren't really new or exciting here in old, boring Portland.

Well, I guess that's not totally right. New, maybe not exciting.

I'm mixing up my schedule a bit starting next month: 3 days in the office, 2 days in the shop. I've recently had a love/hate thing going on with being in the shop, so probably it'll be good. I love just being there, being behind the bar but I've had little motivation to really keep on top of other things, to really do everything else that I'm expected to do. No one has called me on it, but if they did, I would fully own up to just barely doing what needs to get done when I'm there--according to my own standards for myself anyway.

The office thing will be good, I think. I'll be working on writing some training stuff and updating a lot of things. There's a bit of an on-going joke now: they don't want me to leave and I don't want to leave them, I just want them to move the company to another city.

As it stands, I've re-signed my lease through the end of May, so I'll be here at least that long. Maybe a touch longer. I have a wedding to go to in Colorado the end of next June and maybe I'll just combine a move out west--if that's what ends up happening--with a trek to the wedding. We'll see. It's an idea.

For the most part, things are just in a holding pattern here, I guess. It's about all I feel I can do right now. Professionally, I guess, I'm sort of moving forward, taking on more office responsibilities, but also still doing my best to learn all I can about coffee and espresso. As I'm writing this, I'm also half watching videos on YouTube about different ideas for various coffee drinks and the ever-ellusive latte art. I think I've not been able to master the latte art because we don't use whole milk at our shop--the fat content makes a big difference, I think. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, just do a YouTube or Flickr search on latte art. It's hott. That's right. Two t's.)

I just finished reading 'A Passage to India'. E. M. Forster's novels (among other authors', but his in particular) make me think that I was maybe born a hundred years too late. Maybe. Now I'm off to the library to return it and see if, in fact, Heat by Bill Buford is waiting for me. I just checked my record online and it didn't exactly say if it was or wasn't but I noticed that they have my street address wrong so I never would have gotten the hold notification. I hope it is waiting, because it looks like a lot of fun!

The forgotten part of the equation

I forgot the wildlife...

My Weekend

Maine!

+


Mini vans!

=


Too much for this blogger to handle!

Deep thoughts

I've come to the conclusion that your mid-twenties are a lot like your teenager years. Only worse.

There's a lot of the same trying to figure things out, who you are, where you're headed. Except that you don't have someone cooking your meals, doing your laundry or keeping a roof over your head.

Just a thought.

Long week, long weekend

It's been one of those weeks at work in general, not to mention the heat and our A/C dying a slow death as well as our ice machine. The A/C is fixed. The ice machine isn't.

I'm working tonight to make up for the fact that I'm not working Sunday since I'll be away for the wedding.

This shouldn't be too much of a problem except that it means that I have a million things to do, all this morning, before work. Pick up my tux, buy a card, pack, figure out what I'm going to wear tomorrow for the rehearsal dinner, probably hem a pair of pants. Those last two should probably be done before I pack.

I know I won't sleep well tonight given that I'm travelling tomorrow. I'm just like that. I have to be on the 8.50 train out of Portland tomorrow morning which isn't so bad, but I'll have to get up fairly early to get my self together and get out of the house. I don't travel well. I'm always worried I'm forgetting something--and usually I'm worried that I'm forgetting something little that shouldn't really matter. But still I worry. Because I'm like that.

This whole wedding thing still seems really surreal to me. I don't think I'm quite ready for friends from high school to start getting married. I think it's because, in my mind, we're all still in high school. Even though we've all moved on, high school is the last context in which I spent a significant amount of time with these people and that's where they'll always exist in my mind.

Oy.

I've woken up an hour before my alarm and should probably go put this time to good use by trying to figure out what I'm going to wear tomorrow.

I'm a big kid now?

I just made a hotel reservation for a friend from high school's wedding that I'm in next weekend.

Does this mean I'm a grown-up now?

Kind of scary, isn't it?

Anniversaries

I missed the official two year anniversary of this blog, which I first posted to on the 17th of July 2004. We'll just go for the month. Yay. mmm...gooey is two!

This past week was also my one year anniversary of working at the café. Woohoo!

Kitchen personality

Is anyone surprised by this? It somehow seems spot on...

The Whats In Your Kitchen Personality Test

You are a scoop of coffee with a crayon it in. You're naturally perky, and you tend to get distracted. You're entertained by simple things. You can't focus. You're rather carefree. You're annoying to some, and loved to death by others. You're a socialite. What can we say?
Take this quiz!








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The Talking Cure

After a fairly uncomfortable month, following the attempt at going to the movies and a series of long emails back and forth, the ex and I finally sat down yesterday to try to clear the air of some of the issues that are still preventing us from moving forward with being friends. They were mostly issues on my part although he did open up somewhat as well which was nice. It was quite a long talk and although nothing really ground breaking was said, it did help to clear the air. I felt really good after he left last night after our almost 3 hours of talking. I'm feeling a bit more ambivalent this morning, but I think--I hope--that this finally is going to let me move forward. I don't think I'm still quite ready to start seeing him all the time, hanging out completely as friends, but I do feel better about things this morning than I have for the past month or so.

It's a process, like everything else.

Official Status

I created a user name on Coffee Geek this morning so I can post to the forums.

Anyone want to donate the $45 so I can join the Barista Guild of America?

Yep. I'm a total dork.

I know it and embrace it and love it.

I'm trying to make peace with the fact that I'll likely be here for another good bit--at least into spring. I had a good day of it yesterday. Today I'm feeling a bit ambivalent.

And I'm considering reading Saint Augustine's Confessions.

Not only am I total coffee dork I continue to be in a very odd place emotionally/spiritually.

Fire Inside - Bob Seger

Then you walk to the window and stare at the moon
Riding high and lonesome through a starlit sky
And it comes to you how it all slips away
Youth and beauty are gone one day
No matter what you dream or feel or say
It ends in dust and disarray

Like wind on the plains, sand through the glass
Waves rolling in with the tide
Dreams die hard and we watch them erode
But we cannot be denied
The fire inside

WTF?

My horoscope today told me to make it okay to worry about myself.

Thanks, Jacqueline Bigar. I'm glad I now have your approval for something I've been doing on a daily basis for as long as I can remember.

Things here are okay. Trying to sort through emotional stuff, mostly with the ex but some with the City and State as well. I was about ready to get the point of just starting to hate the ex. Then he had to go and be himself and be all caring and helpful--at least, potentially helpful.

Not that I could ever really hate him. But I thought maybe he was ignoring me in order to avoid dealing with emotional stuff. Turns out he wasn't.

Now I have to sort through shit and figure out my own stuff.

Ouf.

Who knew?

I've been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks now and just finally remembered. I took this picture at TJ Maxx a couple of weekends ago. They have EVERYTHING there!

Another coffee dream

This one involving a terrible, terrible espresso. Chock full of grinds. Entirely the wrong colour. But served somewhere that serves OUR coffee (my company has a decently large wholesale distribution).

I argued with the guy who made it for me--I won't even call him a barista--and in the end just walked out without having paid for it.

The dream also involved an ex (not the most recent, but one from Montréal) and bread shaped like a rabbit's face.

This was during my 12 hours of sleep last night. I was a very tired boy.

For good reason.

My Sunday went something like this: get up at quarter to six to be at work by 6.30 to open so I could leave at 1.30 and make it down to a pub in time to watch the World Cup final at 2. Got there about 2.30 and started drinking. Didn't stop drinking until about 11 or so. After a bit of a pub crawl. Went home and watched a movie and went to bed about 1.30 to get up at 7 yesterday and work from about 8.30-6.

Then I came home and lay down for a nap. And woke up 12 hours later.

Sunday was a sort of last hurrah as I am now officially on my Escape from Maine budget. If I stick to it, I'll be able to save enough in about six months to move.

Fingers crossed.

Accomplishment of the Day

Canadian Taxes.

It only took me 3 or so hours.

For a while, I thought I was somehow getting over two grand back from the Québec government. Which would have been interesting, given that I only had just under $90 deducted from my paycheques in the five months I worked in Québec last year.

Now I'm taking a mental break and am going to try to work out a budget to see how much, realistically, I can attempt to save each month, with the goal of having enough saved within six or so months to move away from here. Last time I did this, I wasn't able to find many pennies to put into the jar. We'll see if I can make things work out differently this time.

Oh, and I'm still being a freak about the ex. Willing myself just to let go and accept the situation. Something I thought I'd done. I'm not completely in a deep, deep funk like I was when we first broke up but I guess I'm still not as over him as I thought I might be.

'I'm Glad You Came Over' by Robert Blake

I'm glad you came over even though I know you won't stay for the night
I'll make some tea and put on a record I think you'll like
Maybe it'll be nice and easy just to talk for a while
Maybe I won't get upset and maybe you'll smile
Oh and it's been such a long time since you smiled
The last time I remember was when we were in love
Back before you fell out of it and started doing anything but
Oh I'm glad you came over even though I was cold on the phone
You sounded so distant, lately I've been feeling so alone
Maybe it'll be nice and easy just to talk for a while
Maybe it'll be nice to see the lips that used to smile
And it's been such a long time since I've seen you
And so much longer since we've had any fun at all
I'm glad you came over, I'd be glad if you wanted back in
But that's just my imagination, look at the shape it's put me in
But maybe I can see you without wanting to hold you
Maybe I can see you without having to tell you how much I love you
Oh and I know I shouldn't be holding out for a smile
It just wouldn't be the same this time
No it wouldn't be the same unless you wanted to connect it with mine
Oh I'm glad you came over, maybe we'll do it again
I guess that's what you do when you're friends
Talk about your day and what you've been up to
Offer some advice then go make love to someone new
Oh but maybe it'd just be nice to talk with someone who knows me so well
And maybe my sweetness for you that's been driving me crazy will just be glad that you made the time to come over and see me.

Also, for the record, when you have mixed feelings about going to see a movie with an ex, make sure you have a clear escape route. Don't get trapped at the end of the row next to the wall.

Just saying. In case that should ever come up.

Free Will Astrology

CANCER (June 21 - July 22):This will be an excellent time—maybe one of the best weeks ever—to try herding cats, coaxing hermits to do karaoke, and getting anorexics to eat veggie burgers with all the fixings. In other words, Cancerian, the once inconceivable may become likely. The adventures you swore you would never have the courage to attempt are suddenly within your capacity. You can at least partially dissolve the one fear you've always believed would hobble you forever.

Why am I sceptical?

Small world. Too small.

I found out today that one of my regulars grew up one town over from the town I grew up in.

And his aunt was my high school geometry teacher.

I need to get out of New England.

In which our Hero must decide which path to take for the next eighteen months.

As promised, I've found the time to sit down this morning and work on another post about the thought processes that have been percolating in my mind recently.

The past couple of months at work have been, well, stressful, to say the least. We have two shops in town, one of which is going through a huge staffing turn-over. I started doing a couple of shifts a week there to help out with the transition and it was quite a challenge. A new environment for me (although, obviously, a familiar one), with new people, new customers and, to a certain extent, different expectations. One thing that's been nice is that they tend to sell more bulk coffee than my store does and it's given me a chance to talk more in depth with customers about our different coffees and to recommend different things and then—and this is one of the fun things—to have those customers then come in and say that they loved the Ethiopia Yirgacheffe. Or hated it. Or were unimpressed by the smoky almost tobacco quality of the Sumatra Mandheling that I love.

So, it's been a challenge to be often the only fairly experienced person on during a shift and often the only espresso-trained person on during at least part of a shift. But, it's made me focus a lot more too on what I was doing. What needs to get done. What makes things work. What doesn't. Etc. I've often applied this to relationships or other bad emotional experiences, but it makes sense to apply it here too: if you can learn something from it, it was worth it.

And I've been learning a lot.

As I may have mentioned, I've also started espresso-training the new hires as they get comfortable with everything else and are ready to throw the espresso machine into the mix. We use fully manual machines that are a lot of fun to work with once you get the hang of it. It doesn't really change the learning curve all that much, but it's one more thing to take into account in what is already a very high mountain to climb. Training tends to be an all-day thing, usually around five hours or so. And again, it's been as much a learning experience for me as it has been for the people I've been training.

It's one thing for me to go into work every day and pull shots that I'm satisfied with (and those of you who know me know that I set ridiculously high standards for myself oftentimes, especially when it's something I have a demonstrated passion about). It's quite another thing to trap someone in a little training room with me who's never pulled a shot of espresso in her life and have me try to communicate all of the different nuances of using the machine and grinding and tamping and evaluating the quality of the shots. Initially, it was quite difficult for me to look at the results that my students were getting and to try to figure out what they were doing wrong. My shots were excellent. Why shouldn't theirs be?

And so I've been doing a lot of self-educating about espresso technique and other things to help me troubleshoot what my students aren't doing quite right. I've probably learned more about the specifics of espresso preparation in the past two months than I have in the past six years since I was first shown how to use an espresso machine when I worked at the Barnes and Noble Café at the end of high school.

Of course, me being me, the more I learn, the more I want to know; the more I realise that I don't know; the more deeply my knowledge goes while at the same time I want to keep pushing out its breadth. Luckily, I'm working for a company that would very much like to encourage this curiosity and this passion that I'm developing by making available a small library of books and videos and dvds and trade magazines. I've made only a small dent so far, but I'm working on it. And, needless to say, the internet has been a fantastic resource as well. Message boards, blogs, websites, podcasts, Flickr, YouTube, etc.

Has anyone guessed where this is going yet?

I've always had a strong interest in good coffee and over the past year have gained a lot of knowledge in the area and have, for the most part, very much enjoyed my job. When I haven't, it hasn't been because of the job itself so much as the people I was working with. It can be very frustrating to work with people who simply don't care about what they are producing. They may not have the same level of passion, but if they don't even care about the quality of what they're serving to the customer, then there's a problem. It's been those situations that frustrate me the most. Put me behind that bar, though, and let me loose and I don't care if I've got a line to the door for an hour. I'm in espresso zen.

And so the dilemma.

Do I nurture this passion? The simple and somewhat obvious answer is yes. Why not go with this for now? I have no inclination to head back to school right now and, even if I did, I don't know that I'd want to go back for history. Law, perhaps, maybe, possibly, but, clearly, that's not a very firm answer. An academic career appeals to me less and less right now. Maybe later. The good thing is that I don't feel pressured in any way to jump back into education or to find a 'real' job. As I said to my step-mother when I was talking to her about all this the other night, the job I have right now is as real as any other. She agreed with me. One of the many reasons I love her.

So, the answer to the first question is the easiest. Go with this for now. Who knows where it might take me. Coffee is a huge and ever-growing and ever-changing field.

The subsequent questions become more difficult.

If I want to nurture this passion, I'd be a fool to leave the job that I'm in right now. It's a position that I stand to gain a lot more knowledge from. It's secure and I'm very proud to work with the people I work with and to be a part of this company.

On the other hand, Portland is continuing to suck my soul from me. I need to move on to a larger city. Recently, I've started to learn to appreciate the fact that I can go just about anywhere and run into people I know and have a good time. But that's a problem when I just want to go out somewhere and be alone and anonymous. I've been getting somewhat comfortable but at the same time quite anxious.

If I want to be serious about coffee, the East Coast isn't really the place to do it. True, there are some great places—my shop being one of them, I'd like to think—but the Northwest is still the undisputed coffee capital of North America. And without getting too complicated and thinking about trying to return to Canada on a work visa or a permanent residency (maybe later...), that brings my choices down to two cities: Seattle and the other Portland.

This is what I was talking about when I said I was thinking some crazy thoughts, crazy for me anyway. Actually, I think the word that I used was 'radical' but same difference.

Of course, I'm not one to pick up and move across the continent just like that. It was a big enough leap for me to pick up and move here a year ago without a job secured and a bare minimum of money in the bank. As it is, I've got $50 in my bank account right now. And it's $1400 to rent a uHaul from Portland to Portland. (Yes, of course I've looked.)

So, although I'm not the kind of person simply to pick up and move, it's something that's at the back of my mind. From what I know of the two cities, I think I'd prefer Portland over Seattle. The funny thing is, the more people I've talked to about this idea, the more random connections I seem to have via other people: a friend's sister recently moved there; a friend's ex lives there and is looking for a roommate; a former regular at my bar moved there six months ago and bought a house with an in-law apartment over the garage....

I'm at a point in my life where, even though I'm very much about having things planned out well in advance, there's still a part of me that says, Why not just do it? Break out of this whole New England thing and just go for it. Who knows where it's going to take you? You moved to Montréal knowing no one and had the best five years of your life. Oregon is nothing like Québec and Portland is probably nothing like Montréal but that's not really the point, is it?

Things are necessarily in limbo right now as my bosses are away for a month. They can, and I know they will, offer great advice on this current dilemma. I need to talk to them about my job and the various and sundry hats that I'm currently wearing (did I mention that I've been doing one day a week doing office work, too?) and figure out a way in which I can fairly learn all that I can from them with the full knowledge that I'm doing it in order to secure a better future for myself somewhere other than here. In other words, I don't want to use them for their knowledge and leave. They already know that I'm unhappy in the city but quite happy in my job so it won't exactly come as a surprise.

In the meantime, over the next month, I need to sit down and take a serious look at my finances, draw up a budget and stick to it. Strictly. I've not been saving any money recently which really freaks me out. I don't make a ton but I make enough that I should be able to save a decent bit of money each month. Even if, in this hypothetical future, I have to rent the uHaul on credit, I should be able to save enough over the next six months to a year in order to be able to live on for a bit before finding a job out west. If that's where I end up.

Like I wrote yesterday, I'm starting to make plans and goals. But not rigid ones that I'm going to stick to should things change.

You never know what life is going to throw at you.

My life, especially, rather enjoys throwing curve balls that smack me upside the head. It ends up getting me to first base once I wake up from blacking out but that's kind of not the point.

I may have to kill my neighbours

For the second time this morning, someone's alarm clock is going off. Thanks to it being summertime and everyone's windows open, I—and the rest of the neighbourhood—have been treated to the delightful sound. It being a holiday weekend, the owners of these two alarms are likely off somewhere exotic. Like Calais. (I'm thinking Maine. Look it up. I'm being facetious.)

It's not such a big deal, as I need to be in to work in about an hour anyway and my alarm had already gone off. Except that I have my alarm set to the radio (NPR, of course). I'd much rather hear NPR blaring through the neighbourhood than that annoying buzzing.

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently, as I alluded to in an earlier post. That thought process should be the subject of another post, though, when I have the chance to sit down and write it. Maybe tomorrow morning when I don't need to head off to work essentially a double. Woohoo. Or something. I volunteered for it, so I shouldn't complain. And it won't be too bad anyway. Office work this morning and then closing one of the shops tonight. And I suspect it'll be quiet because most people will be away at the beaches. That's probably where I'd be if I didn't have to work and had a car.

Oh, and though I rarely use the bus system here because it sucks in so many ways, have I ever mentioned how much I hate it? Just one example of its suckage is the fact that there are no buses tomorrow on the Fourth of July. None. Because obviously people don't need to get around tomorrow. Ridership is so low as it is. The routes are iffy at best. The schedules suck...a lot. It's not right that I can walk to work--a 20ish minute walk--along one of the main streets in town (it's essentially the equivalent of Sherbrooke or Ste-Catherine in Montreal. Of course, this isn't Montreal, so it's nothing like either of those streets, but it's that major of an artery for Portland) at the peak of the morning rush hour and not have a single bus pass me by in either direction.

But I digress.

Time to get ready for work.

As a tease for the upcoming post about my recent thoughts, this is what I bought myself for my birthday. The new Moleskine 18-month planner.

It's significant that it's 18 months. I'm setting goals for myself. 18-month type goals. They won't be rigid, mind you, but I need to start really constructively working to get out of this city and move on to somewhere else. And I've been entertaining fun and somewhat (for me, anyway) radical thoughts about what to do and where to go.

Okay. It's 9 now. really must go. Hope that keeps you intrigued until the morrow.

Happy Monday all!

Maybe...

...I just need to stop listening to so much of The Cure. And Robert Blake's 'A Crowd of Drunken Lovers' album. And Emilia Dahlin's song 'Home to Grey'.

Oh, and if I could stop pining for the ex, that would be fantastic too.

Blech

Why do I always get overly introspective and sometimes a touch too depressed around the end of June?

My new favourite french expression

'avoir autre chats à fouetter' - 'to have other cats to whip'

The french equivalent of 'to have other fish to fry'.

This is right up there with what used to be my favourite french expression--'On n'a jamais gardé des vaches ensembles' - 'We never kept cows together.' i.e., It's none of your business.

Just thought I'd share.

Perfect Cup of Coffee

I bought myself a stove-top espresso maker about a month ago and have been loving it. Still trying to get the hang of it, especially because it includes an insert so you can make only 3 cups instead of 6 cups--but there's not mark on the water reservoir to tell you quite where half is. And it's very subjective anyway.

Today, I made the perfect cup.

Generally, I mix it with some warm milk for a sort of faux latte. Usually it's soy milk and the brand that I buy has a very nice, very subtle nutty flavour to it. Added to the very subtle nutty flavour of the espresso today yielded the perfect cup.

I'm bad at describing flavours. Suffice it to say that I'm currently enjoying heaven in a mug. And needed to share.

Dreams

I'm not one who often remembers his dreams. Even when I do remember them, they don't always tend to be so exciting.

I woke up this morning and remember TWO of my dreams last night. I'm only going to write about one of them here, though, because it's the far more exciting one and it had a repeat element from a dream I had a month or two ago--I think it might have been around Easter when I had this other dream.

The repeat element was the place. A church. My church. Except not. You know that feeling in a dream where you know a place and you know that it's a certain place even though it looks nothing like that place in real life?

The church in my dream was huge. Probably bigger than any church I can think of that I've ever been in. Lots of different sections of pews and lots of side chapels and such. Clearly a cathedral or something. The first time I dreamed about this church, I was late for the service and I was again late for service this time. The first time, there was a very big, very theatrical celebration going on but I don't remember the reason. There were people in costume, puppets, bands... maybe if church were like that every Sunday, more people would go (although they'd probably lose sight of what church is actually all about...). Last night, there was also a special service going on, but it was a first communion service combined with confirmation.

And I was there to man the espresso bar.

Pretty cool church in my dream, huh? Especially since the espresso bar was right up front. Not on the altar, but in the front section of pews. So, I'm late again for the service and I get there and start getting the bar ready and set up, the machine turned on and all this.

It seemed to make perfect sense that I should be doing this. I was just frazzled a bit because I was late (as I always stress when I espresso-train new hires: turn the machine on FIRST THING when you walk in the door in the morning. It takes 15-20 minutes to heat up and get up to pressure. Then you have to season the groups, check your grind setting, adjust your grind setting...).

So, the service is going on as I'm getting things ready. No one really seemed to notice or be bothered by the fact that I was late and was still trying to get ready to serve espresso (after the service, maybe?). Except that I didn't really know where anything was exactly. It was a pretty nice set-up. Very sleek. Stainless steel fridges and cabinets. But set into really nice wooden counters. Some kind of light-coloured wood. Thinking back on it, it's actually a horrid combination (steel + wood) but it was very impressive in the dream.

Despite the set-up being very nice, nothing was where I would have expected it to be. I kept opening cabinets and fridges thinking, clearly, this is where this should be. I kept having to go to the next pew/espresso station back to get things. Yes, there was more than one machine. There were four, actually. Two pews, one machine on the front and one on the back. They weren't actual pews, though, but these steel and wood cabinet instillation things. And wider than regular pews.

Like I said, it all made sense in the dream.

So, we came to the point in the service where the kids were actually going to celebrate their first communions and there were cakes and sparklers involved in that. And then there was only one girl who was going to be confirmed. And she had to get up and lay down on the altar itself and then she started to sink into it, as if the top were a platform that led down somewhere.

And then I woke up.

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

My mind is a fucked up place, I know. For the record, I hadn't had any coffee since about 5 yesterday afternoon. I had a pint of Trois Pistoles (those of you in Montreal know Trois Pistoles--it's a Montreal beer that, happily, I can easily get here, along with some of the other Unibroue beers) with dinner. And dinner wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

In other words, I don't think the dream was food-related. Incidentally, though, the other dream also had a very specific espresso sub-plot to it. Hm. Maybe I'm working too much? Yesterday was kind of a shit day at work.

And in other news...

I'm totally broke. I just looked at my bills and whatnot for the rest of the month. Basically, I can't buy food. Which I might manage to squeak through, actually. I'll have to get creative, perhaps, but I'll figure it out.

Thank god for no-cover dancing nights.

I beg you…to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Do not search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I'm trying...

I love drunken ex's at pride. Or not. Sigh.

Saturday update.

The parade was, assuming it started exactly at noon, 22 minutes long. No wonder I missed it last year.

The festival was okay but I ended up not there with anyone and so didn't stay for very long after running into enough people that I wanted to see. So I came home with plans to fall asleep during the soccer match.

Except that the soccer match turned out to be really quite exciting. So I napped afterwards.

I've just finished dinner and my friends should be here shortly to head out for a drink or two or three before heading to the block party and thence to the pier dance.

Fun times ahead, one can only hope...

Southern Maine Pride 2006

Tomorrow's schedule:

Noon. Parade followed by the festival thingy.

2.30. Meet up with co-worker to watch the US get slaughtered by Italy in World Cup game.

Rest of the afternoon. Unplanned.

Early evening. Unplanned but will likely involve checking out the block party, popping into various and sundry providers of fine alcoholic beverages to say hello and happy pride to my favourite bartenders and probably getting dinner at some point.

Late evening. Dancing, dancing, dancing at the pier dance. Which, fingers crossed, will be on the pier this year and not in the Civic Center. The forecast is calling for isolate thunderstorms. Hopefully they will stay isolated to areas far beyond Portland.

In other news, the Christian Civic League (neither very Christian nor very Civic...discuss) is going to be protesting the parade. Because they're like that. If you're so inclined, here's their press release about it: http://www.cclmaine.org/movies/gayprideparade.htm.

It brings to mind a quote that I posted two years ago for Montreal pride from Harvey Milk.

We must destroy the myths once and for all, shatter them. We must continue to speak out. Most importantly, every single gay person must come out […]. [O]nce they realise that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, then every myth, every lie and innuendo will be destroyed once and for all.

Apparently, the Civic League are concerned to report the truth about what is going to happen tomorrow during the parade. In a public area. No doubt, whatever they do report will be sensationalised. The point being, I won't be surprised if some innocent Civic League member sees someone they know in whatever footage they might show and is shocked and appalled by seeing someone they know at such an ungodly event.

But that's kind of the point, isn't it? We are everywhere. We are their children. Once they realise that, it's not so scary anymore.

Perhaps the most brilliant Onion article. Ever.

Devastated By U.S. World Cup Team's First-Round Loss, Nation Grinds To Halt

Frolicking with fiber

No, I didn't mistype that title.

A friend left me a voice mail on Thursday morning asking what I was up to on Saturday, as she had a 'fun field trip' planned and thought I might like to tag along. Over the course of some phone tag, all I was able to learn was that the field trip would involved livestock.

Naturally, that got my attention.

We finally were able to get one another on the phone on Friday late morning when all was revealed to me.

The Sixth Annual Maine Fiber Frolic was this weekend. She, an avid weaver (and thus an avid user of fiber), wanted to go and thought I might appreciate the chance to get out of the city since, not having a car, I'm pretty well bound by the confines of the peninsula and it gets really small really quickly (something, I think I've mentioned once or twice before...).

We planned to leave town about 10 to head north to Augusta--our fair state's capital--and then slightly east, for a drive of a little over an hour. We hit a snag with that plan when I realised that England's first World Cup game was this morning and 9 and wouldn't finish until about 11. (I'm secretly a fairly big international soccer fan. Not so secret anymore...)

So, we left after the match. Decent match, by the way. England won 1-0 against Paraguay.

I introduced my friend to the joy of Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me during the drive up. And then we caught up and she told me a few tales of her recent drive cross-country. I'm sure that there are many, many more but I may need to get her and her partner in crime together in one place and supply alcohol to loosen their tongues in order to hear them all.

The weather today was rather blah. As it has been for the most part since the beginning of May. We're all very ready for it not to rain anymore.

At the turn onto the road to the fairgrounds, there was a general store. I took a picture of their sign. I'm not sure how well you can read it, but it says 'Guns. Wedding Gowns. Cold Beer.' Rural Maine at its finest.



And then there was this goat, who, well, you can figure out what he's doing probably. Remember, goats have horns.



There were also sheep, llamas, alpacas, boarder collie demonstrations, and, of course, yummy food (there was a place selling lamb!...) I had THE BEST strawberry rhubarb pie, definitely the highlight of the day, aside from buying some new massage oil--'Mountain Mint' mmm--which, granted, has nothing to do with fiber, although the woman was also selling goat milk soap along with her herbal salves and such, and had pictures of her goats.

Then I came home and took a nap and had some dinner and now I'm sitting at Casco Bay Books, which is going quickly to become my home away from home again because I think my neighbours have caught on to the fact that I was stealing their internet and have cut me off. Ah well. It'll maybe keep me out of trouble more without internet access? Doubt it but it'll at least keep me from sitting at home on my ass all the time!

Back to work tomorrow. Next weekend, Southern Maine Pride. I'm going to try not to be twenty minutes late for the parade this year and maybe I'll actually catch it.

One. Year. Ago.

I've been here a year.

Rather mixed feelings about this.

It's been a very long year that went by oh so quickly.

I both dated the most older and the most younger guys I've ever dated.

I fell more in love than I've ever fallen in my life.

I think I managed to drink, last summer alone, more than I ever drank in my five years of university. That's probably note quite true, but it certainly seemed it. There's a reason Portland is called a drinking village with a fishing problem.

I've started going to church again.

I've started ever so slowly to pay off my student loans.

I've learned how to make fabulous espresso.

I've met lots of amazing people and made some pretty good friends.

I still miss Montreal. A lot.

I don't exactly regret having left. Portland hasn't been bad to me. It's not been Montreal, either. But I knew it wouldn't be.

I think I mentioned in the previous post that someone who hasn't known me for very long made the observation that it's pretty clear that this isn't where I'm meant to be.

I'm not really sure where I'm headed right now, but that's okay. No jobs yet in Boston but I'm still looking.

I'm simultaneously getting comfortable and anxious here.

Summer in Maine is a good thing. At least, it was last year.

A year later and these lines continue to rattle through my head...

Peut-être qu'il faut s'enfuir loin de son passé.
Toujours partir afin de mieux se retrouver.

June

I'm not quite ready for it to be June. For a couple of reasons.

Monday, the 5th, will mark one year that I've been in Portland. It's been quite a year. I have rather mixed feelings about the fact that I've been here a year. I don't regret having moved here, but it's not exactly been amazingly wonderful. Not that I quite expected that it would be. I mostly knew what I was getting myself into. Someone who's only known me for a week told me last night that it was pretty clear that I needed not to be here, that this was clearly not the place for me right now.

At the other end of the month is my birthday. Not that I feel all oh-woe-is-me-I'm-getting-older. Age is just a number. Thing is, I find that everyone always makes a much bigger deal out of my birthday than I do, which always kind of bugs me, and when I do try to make a big deal out of my birthday, it seems to have a tendency to fall flat on its face.

So I'm not having a birthday party. I'm having a St-Jean-Baptiste Day party instead. Not that I ever did much for it when I was living in Montreal, but it's conveniently on a Saturday this year, between the first day of summer and my birthday (well, it's always between the first day of summer and my birthday...). And my roommate and I have been saying since we moved into the apartment in October that we should have a party. So, you're all invited, of course.

And now I must go shower and try not to be too hung over and go get my hair cut.

Then I'll come home and nap. Mmm...bed.

Oh, did I mention that I had to close both stores last night, one right after the other? It was great. (sarcasm!) And I get to do it again on Sunday.

Close, but...

Funny enough, Cat, you actually were close on why I'm predicting this to be a good summer.

Ahem...

Love, exciting and new
Come Aboard. We're expecting you.
Love, life's sweetest reward.
Let it flow, it floats back to you.

Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.

Love won't hurt anymore
It's an open smile on a friendly shore.
Yes LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It's LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE!

Summer love, anyway. A summer fling. 'Summer days, drifting away but, oh, those summer nights!'

It's Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial beginning of summer. Maine is a great place to be in the summer. And I've been planning to make this a great summer anyway. But now I'm fairly certain that it will be.

I wish I were going to be spending the summer in Montreal, as Cat suggested, but her first suggestion, about being a Love Boat guy, well.... Something like that. (What the hell is a 'Hands up, baby! Hands up!' resort? I'm kind of afraid to ask, actually.)

He's here only for the summer. Very well defined. Can't get any big ideas because it's far too short. But already someone I could see myself falling for in a different situation (i.e., neither of us leaving the city in a few months). This is a good thing. It confirms what I kept trying to tell myself after the break up: there are other guys out there that I could potentially feel as strongly for; it would be really stupid to continue to pine after the ex, waiting for him to change his mind--it might happen, but it might just not be meant to be.

In other news, the weather here has been GORGEOUS. Sun, some clouds, temps the past couple of days floating between 18C and 22C. Low humidity.

I wore shorts and sandals all day yesterday for the first time this year. It was wonderful. Except that my feet are sunburned now. Not too terribly, but enough.

Survey says...

...this will be a good summer. Oh, yes, I predict it shall be.

Ask me why later. :-)

Declaration of Summer Intent

As we edge closer to the beginning of summer--Memorial Day is this weekend after all--I would like to make a declaration.

I declare that this summer shall be...

The Summer of the Champagne Cocktail

That is all. Please return to your lives.

Ok, I take it back...

...we are out to convert the kids. At least, the folks at the company that makes super soakers seem to be...

Random thoughts upon waking up

'There's always some new bloke, some better bloke, just waiting round the corner. That's why you keep going out.'

For some reason, I woke up this morning with this line form the British version of Queer As Folk in my head. Not really sure why. Well, I am, I think, but what's more important is how much of a lie it is.

Especially in this town.

Carbon Dioxide: they call it pollution, we call it life

Click the link. Watch the videos. Heard about this on Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me this morning.

All I have to say: fucked up.

Week recap

Longest. Week. Ever.

My work week is Sunday through Thursday.

Sunday was fine. Nothing special.

Monday was hell. I had some office work to do in the morning and then had to be at our other location (i.e., not the one I'm usually at) at noon for the closing shift. I was supposed to close with the new girl who had never closed before ever. I knew it was going to take some extra time but I wasn't too worried since the new girl strikes me as fairly on top of things. I had only ever worked one shift there before so I only kind of knew where things were. But, we'd figure it out. Except that she didn't show up. No call. Nothing. Not answering her phone. So it was only the guy doing the mid-shift and me all afternoon until four when we should have been three people. And then one of my co-workers from my regular location came in to help me close. It was like the blind leading the blind but we persevered. As it turned out, the new girl's mum had to go to the ER, she she had a rather good excuse. Not that that made the day any more fun since the afternoon was super busy. Rather more busy than I had expected it to be. After work, my co-worker and I met up with my roommate and some of her friends for a much needed drink.

Tuesday was okay. At the other location again but a bit more manageable. And I had a couple of my regular customers from my location come in towards the end of the night, which was a pleasant surprise.

Wednesday I was at my usual location which was like being home.

Thursday I was once again at the other location. But then I got to go dancing Thursday night which was wonderful.

Yesterday, I watched the Godfather Part 3. Why does everyone think it sucks so much? It's not as good as the other two, no, but it certainly stands with them. And then I went dancing again last night.

But not before stopping in at my bar for a drink and finding my ex already there. And not having a drink in the end because I said that I wasn't going to stay (there were other people there that I knew, but I was supposed to meet a friend after work somewhere else anyway). So I stood there with my jacket on not staying for almost an hour talking to him. And it was mostly okay. It felt a bit awkward but it was okay. We reiterated our plan to get together at some point soon, maybe for a movie, which didn't happen last Saturday as we had planned since I was in a really off mood most of the day--anti-social but didn't want to be alone and at a rather low point--relatively as compared to recently--in my recovering from the breakup. Of course, he also woke up from his afternoon nap at 9.30pm, which was pretty much too late anyway. So possibly we'll get together this coming week at some point. Maybe. He was insistent that I should phone him when my schedule for the week sorted itself out.

We'll see. Whatever we do, it's essentially going to be a date. Except not. I think I'm about ready for that. We'll find out, I guess.

It's a good sign for the day when...

...you hear the word 'gangbanger' on NPR. And it's right before you get to church.

A Softer World

I read an online comic called 'A Softer World'. It's done by a friend of a friend and never fails to be deliciously odd.

There's always a little story or essay or missive in the email that the author sends out each week when he updates the comic. This is this week's:

Sometimes it feels good to fall off your skateboard. It hurts like a fucker, and your body aches and you can't stop smiling. Sometimes it feels good to go out and skate and climb and run until you're exhausted, miles away from home. You didn't plan on ending up somehwre so far. You just did what your body wanted. It's like that scene in Gattaca, where the two brothers are swimming out into the ocean. The perfect brother realizes that he's getting tired, that he won't be able to make it back if he goes any father, and the other brother says "I've never saved anything for the trip back."

That's very much how I feel right now. On a lot of different levels.

Happy Friday all!

Add It Up

No, not the Violent Femmes song, although that could also apply.

The ex came into work last night and ended up running into a friend of his and so stayed for a bit. Fine. No big deal. Except that it was the longest time I'd seen him in quite a while and did a bit of a number on me. Why aren't we together? I'm not really sure. I started to miss him a lot.

I already had plans for after work but they ended up including rather more alcohol than I probably really needed.

2 beers. 5 champagne cocktails. 1 shot of stoli.

I mostly blame the champagne.

Hung over, I definitely am, but this is attempt two at the day and I've already taken advil and drank two glasses of water when I woke up the first time a few hours ago.

I had fun last night and managed not to think too much about the ex. Which is a good sign, I'm sure. Still, we have tentative plans to do something Saturday. The whole staying friends thing and all. We'll see how it goes, I guess.

Also, I hate when you're sitting at a bar, clearly alone, clearly reading a book, clearly not interested in conversation and someone keeps talking to you.

A lazy social butterfly

That's me. That's why I haven't posted in quite a while.

I'm all better from the flu and I've been making the most of it. Going out a lot with friends. Not sitting at home and reading Dickens all by myself (not that there's anything wrong with that).

I even had a date on Friday!

That's because I went out dancing on Thursday and met a boy.

A nice boy. Someone to hang out with and do fun things with. Not someone to spend the rest of my life with. But that's quite all right.

Summer's coming. Yay!

Oh, and changes at work, too. I'm now the new espresso trainer. And I'm doing one day a week in the office. And might start working a shift or two at the other store. So I'm mixing things up a bit, which is a good thing.

Hm. There are probably other things to write about but I can't think of any at the moment and I have to finish getting ready to go to work.

Riiiiiiiicola

I'm so sick of Ricola throat drops. Can't I just be better now?

Maybe if I had these guys ministering to me, I wouldn't mind the Ricola so much....

(Be sure to watch the commercial on the linked page.)

Update

Yes, I haven't posted in over a week. I'm still alive. Kind of. Flu. Maybe I'll sit down tomorrow at some point and get together a summary of the past week. There's certainly enough to write about.... Nothing overly dramatic, mind you, just a usual week's worth of stuff.

'Jesus Shaves'

This is the title of one of my favourite David Sedaris stories, in which he writes about his French class attempting to explain—in French—the concept of Easter to a Moroccan student. In it, David also learns that they don't have the Easter Bunny in France, but a bell that flies in from Rome to distribute chocolates to children. He's rather unimpressed with a bell and thinks it highly improbably: 'I called for a time-out. "But how do the bell know where you live?"

"Well," she said, "how does a rabbit?"

It was a decent point, but at least a rabbit has eyes. That's a start...'

Here's the conclusion to the story, which seemed appropriate to post as we head into Easter weekend.

Nothing we said was of any help to the Moroccan student. A dead man with long hair supposedly living with her father, a leg of lamb served with palm fronds and chocolate; equally confused and disgusted, she shrugged her massive shoulders and turned her attention back to the comic book she kept hidden beneath her binder.

I wondered then if, without the language barrier, my classmates and I could have done a better job making sense of Christianity, an idea that sounds pretty far-fetched to begin with.

In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is faith, a concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom. Why bother struggling with the grammar lessons of a six-year-old if each of us didn't believe that, against all reason, we might eventually improve? If I could hope to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to believing that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night, leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of menthol cigarettes. So why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? I told myself that despite her past behaviour, my teacher was a kind and loving person who only had my best interests at heart. I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in his own image and that he watched over me and guided me from one place to the next. The Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the countless miracles—my heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.

A bell, though—that's fucked up.

Such horrible business/formal language...

...why can't people write?

But....

...I am in receipt of your resume for the Program Assistant position at the Boston Foundation.

We are currently reviewing your background to determine if there is a match. If your background fits our needs, we will contact you.

Thank you for your interest in working at the Boston Foundation.

Sincerely,...

This is the first nibble I've gotten back from the resumes I've sent out thus far. I realise it's just a form-letter response. But it's something! :-D

Allergies and Emotion

They have returned. My allergies, that is. It's a good sign since it means that Spring is here. And before any of you back in Montreal post any comments--I don't care if you all got sick after I did, I still say that those were allergies and not a cold!

For the past two weeks or so, I've had these really low-level and annoying symptoms. Scratchy throat. Itchy nose. To top it all off, my wisdom teeth have been acting up again. Correction. One wisdom tooth. The lower left one. So I've not been sleeping great either.

The wisdom tooth seems to be calming down though, at least. It's kind of odd, actually. They've been trying to come in for seven or eight years now. The dentist always tells me that I have plenty of room and that they're not impacted. They're just taking their sweet ass time. The two top ones are in. It's the two bottom ones now. The really odd part about it, though, is that they always act up in the Spring. Except that for the past five years--when I was living in Montreal--they started acting up around May or so. They're a month early. Which leads me to assume that my body is in tune with the actual temperature and weather in some weird way and that it's not just connected to a 12-month cycle of my wisdom teeth giving it a go and then resting.

As for emotion. It's something that I'm lacking. Not as regards the break-up but as regards church. It's been about two months now that I've been going every Sunday. Well, I missed one week because I had to work Sunday morning. I don't dislike it. I decided that I would go at least through Easter, which is this coming Sunday. I think I'll keep going. I was thinking about it Sunday night at work and I realised that although I've very easily opened up to this intellectually, to listening attentively to the readings, to the sermons, thinking about what the prayers and call-and-responses actually mean and not just letting them be rote recitations, I've not yet, it seems, been able to open up to it emotionally.

When I was growing up, I always got excited about going to church. We never went on any regular basis though I wanted to. I was an altar boy by my own decision (not that I was discouraged) but my parents would always drive me to church when I had to serve a mass and then go home. They never actually went to the mass itself. During the summer--especially if I had an 8.15 mass to serve--it wasn't out of the question for them to have me walk to church. It was only a 10-15 minute walk after all. And it was something I was happy to do, feeling kind of cool and kind of completely idiotic walking down the street carrying my altar boy robes. I think once I actually walked to church wearing them.

Before I became utterly disenchanted with the Catholic church, though, going to mass stirred so much in me. The music. The candles. The singing. The prayers. I connected with it on a fairly deep level. Part of me wonders if maybe it was because I was so young and that there was just so much mystery to all of it. I suspect that we're much more open to mystery and wonder when we're young. By the time we become adults, we've become too disenchanted with the lies of the world to readily open up to mystery again.

What made me really realise that I hadn't yet really connected or opened up to the emotional aspect of going to church was during the procession of the palms this past Sunday, Palm Sunday. At the opening of the service, the entire congregation is supposed to process around the church, singing hymns, holding and/or waving palm fronds, as a re-enactment of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. Of course, not the entire congregation did process. Most people just stayed in their pews, but there was a fair number of people. I was sitting alone, as usual, towards the end of a pew in the second to last row. As the procession passed me, one of the assistant ministers reached out to me and motioned for me to join the procession. I would have felt like an ass had I not joined.

So I did. And I kept singing. And holding my palm frond. And processing.

But it was all just motions.

There's one part of the service, though, that stirs something. And it always has. From the time I was a kid, through the few times that I went to mass after I'd been confirmed, and every time that I've gone to church these past few months. At the very beginning of the celebration of the eucharist, the minister says, 'The Lord be with you,' to which the congregation responds, 'And also with you.' 'Lift up your hearts.' 'We lift them up to the Lord.' 'Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.' 'It is right to give him thanks and praise.'

There's something in those brief lines that stirs something in my heart. So, I have some kernel of emotion to work with, perhaps. Part of me wonders if I've just been so emotionally pre-occupied that I have little to spare for this new venture. But I suspect that much more likely is that I really will need to work at opening myself up again to this kind of experience, something that I had closed myself to for so long.