Tag Archives: coffee

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You Know, I’m Okay With Being Uncool

Many years ago, Tina was a barista (under paid coffee slave at an overpriced coffee shop) for a time. Back in those days I still lived under some delusion that I might do something awesome that required me to be social and know cool cat things like wine and coffee. I thought that I would some day be out with important people and get to the Starbucks and have to order a drink and either have to string some words together and try to cover my ignorance or just say “I want you to take some coffee and put a lot of crap in it so I can get a sugar buzz along with my coffee high.”

I admitted my coffee anxiety to Tina and she taught me how to order a coffee drink. The conversation literally went like this:

Tina: Okay, when you get to the barista say these words to her, you ready for it?

Selina: I am ready, teach me your coffee ways Jedi Coffee master. (Okay I didn’t say anything this cool. I probably said “Yeah,” but this is my motherflipping blog so I can change the past to make me seem cooler than I am if I want to damnit.)

Tina: Venti

Selina: Venti

Tina: Triple Shot

Selina: (sigh) Triple Shot. I know that has nothing to do with booze.

Tina: Caramel Macchiato (I repeat) Breve (I repeat) Upside down (I repeat) That should get you a coffee you like.

Selina: I have no idea what those words mean.

Tina: (Explains it in her super smart Tina way)

Selina: *blank look* Kay, Kay magic got it.

I can proudly say that it only took me like seven months to learn what all those words mean. Now I can order a coffee in a Starbucks like a goddamn boss, but only if it is that one drink.

I never did learn much about wine, except that I have extremely cheap white trash taste in wine. It works out because there is no way I am going to ever be around important or impressive people, so I can drink my Wild Vines wine with glee.

This kind of kills my will to live.

I feel like I should be able to get the herp from just looking at this picture.

The only thing that makes me okay with this picture is the internet is making fun of it. If this is hot, I am okay with being me. I think they skipped the implants and just put in those bouncy balls you can get from those huge wire bins at Wal-Mart. I bet if you smack them really hard, they still make that oddly satisfying ‘boing’ sound and bounce off her rib cage back into her face.

I am a terrible, awful person. I know this.

I bet they both have fantastic personalities. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go get some antibiotics for my eye syphilis.

 
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Squirrels would make Great Pirates

^ That is inspired from an episode of Dora the Explorer. You can tell I have been at Tina’s house because of the uproariously funny video that I posted very late Thursday/ very early Friday for my Thursday blog but I think only Tina and I thought was uproariously funny. I am going to keep making videos because they make me happy, and when you are a full time eccentric writer and part time garden gnome, making yourself happy is very important.

I have realized a couple of things recently. (I feel like write that sentence a lot. Either I know far less than I should or I think about things I didn’t know too much.)

Kids shows assume small children are entertained by the same things that people on drugs are. Okay, there are some obvious examples of this like Yo Gabba Gabba and The Wiggles, but seriously, all Baby Mozart shows is random objects to music. I worry for this next generation. Also, I still hate the Canadians for exporting their kids shows.

Tina’s three year old wanders through life and is easily distracted by shiny things. Tina was well trained to handle this by a decade of friendship with me.

I am addicted to coffee and I am shockingly okay with this.

I am very busy doing nothing in particular. I am calling it research for writing.

Sometimes you just have to believe. I mean go forth and truly believe without hesitation or qualification. I have spent my entire life with people telling me I was smart and funny and special and I was going to be spectacular when I grew up. I also have had people telling me that I was too weird, not realistic, too big, too awkward, and maybe I should just grow up. I listened to the second set of people even though they were the minority and kind of jerks. Somehow what they said was more plausible than what everyone else told me.

I think I figured people just told me that they were going to be able to say “they knew me when” because they were being nice. It was easier for me to believe that I needed something reasonable to do other than want to write. I always just felt like an ordinary person amongst all of these extraordinary people. (Turns out I am an extraordinary person among extraordinary people.) My life was odd and my view on life was odd. (I mean that in a good way. I have always loved my odd life.) It was just me trying to find my path to something more reasonable. I told someone once that I knew I was going to be famous later in life. He told me that everyone feels that way because no one wants to believe that they will be mediocre.  Screw that.

I have decided to believe, whole heartedly and without hesitation or qualification, that I am something spectacular now that I have grown up. I am going to march into my thirties knowing that I am going to be one of those few people who make it as a writer. I AM going to do amazing things. I am going to listen to those extraordinary people in my life that tell me I am extraordinary.

I am new to this willful belief in something about me. I have only believed this willfully in one other thing, my last relationship, and it imploded in a most spectacular fashion. Which, logically, should mean I learned believing can fail miserably and never do it again. Instead, I have decided to learn that it sucks when things you believe in blow up and it could hurt a lot for a long while, but in the end you live through it and learn lots, and there is something else on the other end.

So.

I am brilliant.

I am funny.

I am going to change the world.

Lets do this shit.

 

 
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Lessons in Awesome

As anyone who has read more than a few of my blogs knows, I have a slightly different take on the world. If you don’t know what I am talking about go read my post on kids shows. I forget this on occasion until days like yesterday remind me.

I am playing a new game called Rift. It is a pretty cool game, I just don’t have the friends in the game that I did in World of Warcraft, so I spend most of my time in game playing by myself and not talking to anyone. In the game you run around talking to these computer run characters and they give you little missions or quests. This questing is part of the way you get to the maximum level so you can start doing torturous things like gearing up and raiding.

Yesterday I was all hopped up on caffeine after not having any on Sunday and questing like a mad woman. I was questing in a place called Iron Pine Peak which is this pretty mountainous area with snow and plenty of bad creatures wanting to eat your face. I began to think about how the conversation between myself and the computer run characters (Non-Playable Characters, or NPCs) would really be if I was somehow a hot little humanoid with purple hair and cool tattoos that could use my hand like a flame thrower. This is how it went:

NPC: So I need you to get on that road right there and turn left. Be careful because there are wolfman beasts that want to kill you on the side of the road. Anyway, just a little up the road is a place that has caves/secret creepy laboratories on both sides. You will know you are there because the wolfman beasts are directly on the road. Anyway, I want you to go into the left creepy cave/secret laboratory and break some of their shit and kill this one guy. Then I need you to go to the right cave/secret laboratory and  steal some stuff, let some folks out of cages that apparently do not have locks but the prisoners just do not know to reach through the bars and free themselves. While you are there I also need you to kill this one chick. Oh, one more thing, the caves are full of the wolfman beasts and crazed angry people in far too little clothing and stupid hats. Can you do that for me?

Me: What do I get for doing all of this?

NPC: A tiny bit of money, some experience, and a piece of crap that you do not need and will take up space in those bags you are somehow carrying but that dude over there might buy it off of you because he like to buy useless stuff.

Me: Sweet action! Count me in!

(Later at a different groups of NPCs in front of a different set of creepy caves filled with crazed people wearing far too little clothing and stupid hats but no wolfman beasts.)

NPC: Hey, I need you to go to that cave, spend ten minutes killing everything in it, and grab this thing off the ground, and bring it back to me.

Me: Will do!

(Twenty minutes later after killing everything in that cave and two more exactly like it, the first NPC has another quest for me.)

NPC: You know that cave I sent you to and made you kill everything so you can pick up that thing for me? Well I need another thing from the back of that cave. Can you get it for me? Oh yeah, everything you killed before is alive again so you are going to have to kill everything all over again.

Me: You are such an ass.

Yep, this is the stuff I sometimes think about while left to my own devices. I shared this with my guild (a merry band of fellow online gamers) and I think I scared them a bit.

Okay, so I ran out of coffee on Sunday. I was also almost out of Splenda so I could not make tea unless I used sugar. Sunday I refused to do that so I went the day without caffeine. Yesterday I gave in and made some tea. I got pretty hyped up on the caffeine and sugar. Anyway, I needed a wal-mart run but it is only slightly cooler than the surface of the sun outside during the day so I decided to wait until last night. I got there at about 10:30 pm and had one of the most pleasant wal-mart experiences in awhile.

I was looking at the coffee and decided to browse a bit since I was practically alone in the store. I like wimpy flavored coffee and the stuff I normally buy is fairly expensive. I decided to look for a different brand in order to be a bit more fiscally responsible. I found a new brand that was three dollars cheaper for the same size bag. I bought it and was proud of myself for trying to be a better person. This morning when I looked at it I realized it was cheaper because it was whole beans. Since I do not have a coffee grinder, I spent some time this morning grinding a bag of coffee with a hand blender. Some of it is a fine powder, some of it is almost whole beans. The coffee tastes fine, I just happened to learn a lesson about smug self satisfaction about trying to be more grown up.

I love being me. (That is not actually sarcasm. I do actually love being me.)

 
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A Good Sandwich

I made the decision before I posted Tuesday that I honestly felt there are somethings that need to be written no matter how private the topic feels. I believe it for so many reasons ranging from it is therapeutic for both the writer and the reader going through the similar thing to some pretentious high handed ideals I won’t go into. I didn’t get much feedback on the post but I know one person liked it and that is enough for me.

There are many other deep gritty emotional blogs I need to write. My soul is brimming with bubbling emotional topics that I need to lay bare in front of the world. Okay, I can’t even pretend to be that over dramatic but there are other things that I think would be good for me to write about. I have one topic for sure. Not today though. Today I am going to write about a damn good sandwich.

This morning I was puttering around thinking of things to write. I had my coffee and Doctor Who was on BBC America (Matt Smith makes a pretty good doctor in my opinion.) I got up up and made a sandwich for breakfast. I know it is an unconventional choice but we all know I am a rebel. Anyway, it was really good roast beef with feta cheese crumbles between thin slices of asiago  cheese bread. So let me reset the scene, Me with coffee and God’s own sandwich watching Doctor Who. One of the things I am very blessed to have is the ability to see awesome moments in my life while I am in them. Coffee, sandwich, and Doctor Who was one of those small, simple moments.

I started a white trash container garden. I am growing two kinds of summer squash, cucumbers, and watermelon in pots in my yard. I have discovered I have a talent for growing seedlings. I have also discovered that I am way too attached to my seedlings and container garden. There is something satisfying about growing something and watching change from day to day. I have a freakish attachment to these plants though. I talked to the seedlings when they were growing on my table and now I go look at them every day just to check up on them. I have spare seedlings that I don’t have room to plant. (I had no idea that it would that my seeds would grow so well.) I cannot bring myself to throw them away. I know it is ridiculous. I texted my sister that some people drink after a bad break-up, I apparently plant strange vegetables and get unnaturally attached to them. I am not sure which method is healthier mentally but I know mine is cheaper. Anyone need some seedlings? I don’t know what is what anymore but just think of it as a garden surprise.

I know this seems like one of those “joy is in the simple things” posts. Honestly it probably is. Truth is, though, I have to believe that to survive right now. I know some people that thrive on competition or acquisition or stability. I thrive on hope. I learned that I am happiest when I have people to love and take care of and I have hope. I still have many people to love. I am not strong enough to have hope about love. I know all the platitudes; there is someone for everyone, many fish in the sea, blah blah blah. I see real love around me. I know it exists. It just hurts too bad right now to believe it will happen for me. So I bolster myself with the joys of great simple moments and the hope that a white trash container garden presents. I know I am a massive dork. I accepted this long, long ago.

Don’t judge me!

 

 
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