In Memory of KeDavi

There used to be a great - and I mean great - little coffee shop in Plano, at Spring Creek and Alma, called KeDavi (pronounced kuh-dahh'-vee.) My roommate Liz was their number-one recruiter. How she found it first, I don't know, but she took everyone there. And once you tried one of their frappucinos, you were hooked. End of story.

They had one called the Funky Frapp, that had an entire banana blended into it. Liz also loved the Hazelnut one, with an extra shot; I always liked the Mandarin Orange. The frappucinos were thick and rich, hand-blended to the perfect slushy consistency, and they came with these giant straws as big around as my thumb. The cafe itself was a cozy little space, with groups of overstuffed chairs and occasional tables with chess sets and decks of cards. There were internet stations along the walls, for those who preferred a dose of Java with their java, and two or three wrought-iron tables outside for those who favored coffee and cigarettes. It was a great place to chill, to talk, to try something slightly new and get comfortable with it quickly, a great place to come back to. And that's what Liz did - almost every day, in fact. We, the not-so-regular regulars, used to tease her about her habit...but deep down, we understood.

Another friend of mine mentioned today that she'd like to go to KeDavi and try a frappucino. She'd never been there, but she too has heard the legend. I told her it would be better if she went with Liz, that she needed to get the personal introduction from the unofficial spokeswoman herself. (Besides which, I was there earlier this week, a little too soon after eating dinner, and I got a large Mandarin Orange with an extra shot - when I should've been content with a small, regular. I spent the rest of the evening with my stomach ready to overflow, and my brain bouncing off its cranial walls! So I felt I needed a few more days before I'd be ready for another KeDavi encounter.)

Now that I've heard the news, I'm regretting - unreasonably - that I passed on KeDavi this afternoon. Somehow I believe that if I would've said yes, it might still be there. Instead, I got a call from Liz this evening saying that she'd driven up for her daily fix, only to find the windows covered in brown paper, the smokers' tables gone, and the storefront space empty! Everyone is in a bit of shock. Nobody saw this coming - how could we? We thought Liz's business alone would keep our favorite coffee shop running well in the black for years to come!

Sadly, the suddenness of it all makes me wonder what might really have been going on. Could KeDavi have been run by some kind of alternate League of Red-Haired Men? What exactly was in those frappucinos that made them so addictive - and do we all need to be drug-tested now?

Gotta Move

I need to get out of the city.

I've known that for a while now - not least because my boyfriend doesn't and won't live here - but the point was driven home this morning. I got off the bus at the train station, where I change buses every morning on my way to work, and there on the concrete was a purplish-brown splotch, about the size of two hands, that could only be a bloodstain.

I suppose there are any number of explanations for how the ground at Forest Lane Station came to be splashed with blood...but honestly, only one or two seemed very probable - and that's really more to the point than the reality of what happened anyway, isn't it? It's also interesting to me that, though the incident surprised me, it didn't surprise me very much. Not enough.

The chances that the blood on the sidewalk will ever be my blood are, I think, pretty slim. But that cold, queasy feeling - recognizing the splatters on the pavement, and what had almost certainly happened to cause them to be there - it's not something I want to get used to.

In defense of lyrics

'All art constantly aspires toward the condition of music,' Walter Pater said, in one of the only lines of criticism that has ever meant anything to me (if I could write music, I'd never have bothered with books); music is such a pure form of self-expression, and lyrics, because they consist of words, are so impure, and songwriters, even great ones like [Aimee] Mann, find that, even though they can produce both, words will always let you down. One half of her art is aspiring towards the condition of the other half, and that must be weird, to feel so divinely inspired and so fallibly human, all at the same time. Maybe it's only songwriters who have ever had any inkling of what Jesus felt on a bad day.
- Excerpt from 31 Songs, by Nick Hornby

Me, I like the words - though it's invariably the music that catches me at first - the song 'Kathleen' by Josh Ritter was one that I heard at work, and I fell in love with it, even though I couldn't distinguish the lyrics until I got home and tracked down the song and listened to it in the quiet of my living room. Now I love the imagery of the words; there's an innocence there that doesn't seem to belong to this day and age, or to any day and age that I've ever been a part of, but that maybe my mother would remember.

I think it's interesting that the songs I love tend to have tunes that are simple, repetitive, or even monotonic - 'Kathleen', Blue October's 'Eighteenth Floor Balcony', and 'These R The Thoughts' by Alanis Morissette come readily to mind. The music catches me, the words hold me...but it's the combination that really does it for me. In 'Eighteenth Floor Balcony', Justin Furstenfeld gives words to a mood...an atmosphere...an emotion that I've felt, but that I could never have put into words so easily. And the words aren't fancy, or especially poetic - seen in black-and-white type, in an entry in a weblog, they may not make much sense; and the tune, without the words, is so simple that it's almost obvious - it's hardly even worth humming. But there's a rawness in Justin's voice, and you just know that what he's singing means something personal to him (even if it's imperfectly expressed), and there's a violin, and it's beautiful. Everything comes together to make the music and the lyrics into a song - and the effect, in my humble opinion, is quite divine.

(Where the words are inadequate and flawed is here, in my attempt to explain the loveliness of a song that takes my breath away. Just listen to the song, if you can find it, and then maybe you'll understand...)

Eighteenth-Floor Balcony

I close my eyes
And I smile
Knowing that everything is all right
To the core
Close the door
Is this happening?

My breath is on your hair
I’m unaware
That you opened the blinds and let the city in
God, you hold my hand
As we stand
Taking in everything

And I knew it from the start
So my arms are open wide
Your head is on my stomach
And we’re trying so hard not to fall asleep
But here we are
On this eighteenth-floor balcony
We’re both flying away

We talk about moms and dads
About family pasts
Getting to know where we came from
Our hearts are on display
For all to see
I can’t believe this is happening to me

I raised my hand as if to show you that I was yours
That I was so yours for the taking
I’m still so yours for the taking
That’s when I felt the wind pick up
I grabbed the rail while choking up
These words to say -
And then you kissed me

Yeah I knew it from the start
So my arms are open wide
Your head is on my stomach
And we’re trying so hard not to fall asleep
But here we are
On this eighteenth-floor balcony
We’re both flying away

And I’ll try to sleep
To keep you in my dreams
So I can bring you home with me
And I’ll try to sleep
I'm keeping you in my dreams…

I knew it from the start
My arms are open wide
Your head is on my stomach
We’re not going to sleep
But here we are
On this eighteenth-floor balcony
We’re both
Trying to make it snow

Idiot Tolerance

People are getting on my nerves today...

I didn't eat breakfast, and I haven't had any caffeine today, and I'm getting a headache, and I'm starting to lose it.

It's a Saturday, three weeks before Christmas, and I work in retail - what did I expect?

I keep thinking of that first scene in the movie Serendipity - five days before Christmas, at Bloomingdale's New York, and the shop assistant finds a single pair of gloves in the wrong place, and she stops what she's doing, and calmly puts the gloves in a basket, and takes them downstairs to where they belong. I just want everybody to know, that's not what happens!

...and now this lady wants me to wrap her satin napkins in tissue before I put them in the bag. THEY'RE NAPKINS!!!

God, grant me the serenity...

I really don't like writing about my job, and I try not to do it too often. There are plenty of people who spend most of their waking day bitching about their jobs - and there's a great website called iWorkWithFools, designed specifically for people like that. This is not that website. And anyway, I don't work with fools. Most of my coworkers are fun people and I enjoy working with them. My usual state of mind is much more Clerks than Office Space. ("This job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers.")

The Magician

When I first met the Magician, I didn't know who he was.

He didn't look like what I expected the Magician to look like, based on everything I'd heard, or read, or been told. I never saw any magic, so I didn't recognize him; I just knew he was different. And that bothered me a little, but I never knew why.

And I always wondered why I'd never met the Magician, and never seen any magic.

One day, I heard a voice say, You can't always see the magic. Sometimes you just feel it.

Then I realized I had felt it.

Then I realized I could still feel it.

And then I went looking for the Magician again. Only this time I knew who he was...so I found him.

----------------------------------------

Magic isn't always what you expect it to be, and the Magician wears a thousand different faces.

Cacophony & Motion

It's late fall, and the air is rich  with the variegated chatter of a million birds. They swarm so thickly in the pewter twilight that some of the trees don't even seem to have dropped their leaves - the dark shapes of the birds form clever silhouetted stand-ins - until a car horn blares and the fluttering shapes are suddenly airborne, leaving the trees bare again.

I am intrigued by the shapes of these sudden flights. All together in a great sweeping circle, then break in a hundred different directions. It's a grand ballet for anyone who cares to watch, each set of wings making its contribution to the graceful whole, then swooping away to its predetermined place of rest, waiting its turn to join the dance again.

I wonder what the birds do when they're not dancing in the public sky. Is there an avian equivalent to lounging in front of the TV, or splurging on a cheeseburger, fries, and a diet soda?

The story of the rhino

"The rhino sleeps in the apricot tree, but Tuesday the typewriter will choose the yogurt."

That's my philosophy of life, in fifteen words. Interpret it if you can; make of it what you will; continue at your own risk...

Here's how it began, twelve years ago:

There was a boy who went to school with me, who supposedly had the same birthday as mine. And I just happened to have an insane crush on this boy, who was the smartest person I'd ever met, and had one of those weird and twisted minds. Nothing he said ever made sense, and that in itself made perfect sense.

So when the birthday came around, I was on a mission to find the perfect card for this fascinating enigma. And I finally found it: on the front of the card was a long-legged, funny-looking bird, and it said "I'm going to take the plunge by saying something that a birthday card has never said before"...and on the inside, "The rhino sleeps in the apricot tree, but Tuesday the typewriter will choose the yogurt."

It seemed to me at the time that there were only two people in the world who would ever get that, and he was the other one. (Now, of course, I realize there must have been more - because somebody wrote it, and somebody bought it, and there it was on the shelf in a major department store - so obviously somebody else was getting it.)

At any rate, he did get it, and we spent an afternoon laughing, not only at the card but also at the looks of bewilderment we got from other people who read the card, trying to figure out what we were laughing at. We tried out various interpretations of the line about the rhino...I think we finally decided that the rhino was nuclear power, the apricot tree represented the world's superpowers, and the yogurt stood for world destruction. Something like that.

In later years, the phrase still stuck in my mind. Eventually it became my own personal Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious - something to say when I wanted to throw people off their stride. And I still think it works pretty well as a metaphor for life.

Interpret it if you can; make of it what you will.

Continue at your own risk...

Three Little Words

You know the routine. Someone special comes along - maybe not so special right at first, or maybe the two of you bond right away, like we did - and sooner or later, you find yourself dancing around those three words. You want to say them, but you don't, for the usual variety of reasons: you've only known each other a few months, you don't know if they feel the same way...and of course, once you say them - that's it. It's out, they know how you feel, there's no taking it back. If you're like so many of us, you've said the words before, to other people, in other times and places, and you've gotten burned, and you've come to fear what those three words can do.

Maybe you choose to ease into it - you say the words to other people, when the person isn't around - see how it feels. Let yourself get comfortable with the idea of saying them out loud. Then eventually you're ready to take the plunge and say the words, and let that special someone know how you feel.

Me, I did it by accident. I've used the words a few times when talking to other people - then I used them here, in a post that I wrote a few days ago, about somebody totally else - I was angry and disappointed with one of my other friends, and I wasn't paying attention when those three words slipped in: my best friend. It wasn't until later, when I asked her to read the post, that I realized what I'd done. That she would see what I'd written about her.

My best friend. Oh god, I said it - not out loud, but in print. And now the questions begin: Is that okay? Am I being presumptuous? Am I going to end up looking stupid? Will she feel sorry for me because I may not be her best friend?

WHY DO I FEEL LIKE I'M STILL IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL???

There's been quite a procession of "best friends" through my life. There was Erin, in eigth grade, who moved to another city and said she'd write me with her new address; that was the last I ever heard of her. Then there was Elissa, in high school, who started dating a guy who'd started out as a friend of mine, too...that was the end of both of those friendships. In college there was Sarah - she was great, we even had a house together when we moved off-campus. But then she got married and everything changed. Later on there was Amy, who ended up getting lost in the haze of a party scene that got to be too brutal for me. There were several other minor players in between those, but those are the highlights.

And now, it seems, there is Jessica...

Authors Note (six months later): Turns out Jessica wasn't even much of a highlight. That friendship was intense and all-consuming, but it didn't take much for it to fall apart. And once it was in pieces, I found it wasn't really worth trying to put back together. Other relationships have proven to be much stronger in the long run, and they haven't left me much time to regret the ones that couldn't hold up. All the same, I don't find myself using those three little words much anymore. They've come and gone too many times for me to really trust them again. Maybe some day...

Reality Check

The Miss Universe Pageant is on TV. Hard to believe that somewhere in the world there are women parading around in beautiful evening gowns. Hard to believe that their biggest concern is whether, at the end of the night, they'll get a bunch of roses and a tiara. Hard to believe that I used to sit in front of the TV, fascinated by the spectacle of the living Barbie-dolls.

That little girl that used to be me would've been furious with the Severe Weather Alerts that keep interrupting the pageant to tell us that there are tornadoes on the ground in downtown Fort Worth. She would have screamed with frustration when the TV went blank, as it did just now because the satellite's signal has been hopelessly lost.

The me that is sitting here now actually finds the weather alerts more interesting than the pageant...but is slightly concerned that the power may not stay on much longer. So, I'm going to wrap this up and go join my roomies outside to watch the lightning!