the coastergirl diaries volume one

i suppose this entry has been a long time coming. at least as long as i can remember. it may have been part of the original reason for this page, but it would have had to be subconcious, so i couldn't tell you for sure. i have a tendency, even when i know that i have something to say to wait until it forces its ugly head right out of me. and here is where i find myself now.

supplies: two pots of coffee. one bottle whisky, cheap. three packs camel straights, soft. three wooden pencils for chewing. one bottle advil in case of headache.

musical requirements: we shall start with alan. new line, followed by the how involved ep. am must be the first song i hear, of that i am certain.

stalling tactics: fresh out

i met coastergirl working at a coffee shop just off of grapevine highway. i had seen her years before in denton and always remembered, but this was when i first met her. i had started working htere on account of being fired from my job at the record store mostly for being a decent human being but the excuse was a nine month old write up for an unauthorized discount. that is another story for another time. i was two months shy of being the youngest ASM in the history of the company. and it is a very large company. at any rate, i did not fit the plans of the upper management and i wasn't willing to fuck my way to the top (yes, this happens to men, too.) so i was left go on a weak excuse.

it should be made clear that i had doled my heart out for this company working many niney and hundred hour weeks some with pay, some without. it was not uncommon for me to work twenty hours a wekk off the clock when the budget didn't allow for overtime. my original manager was kind enough and rebelliouss ( i mena this in the sense that he had observed that i would just work the time off the clock anyway and that would be me winning. such things are nuance, but he was punk-rock anough to not want me to beat him so easy)enough to figure a way to allow it as much as possible. i should also make clear that my original manager is one of the people i respect most in this world. that said, i had toiled and left pints of blood on the floor, worked many triple shifts followed by an overnight just to accomplish big projects. then, nothing. i finished with the deposit and they sent me out the back door, but not before searching my bag for stolen goods. this was humorous. so i left along with ten or twelve others under the turn or burn hate-your-employees policy they were trying to instate. we all left before the great coorporate firing line that has stolen the souls of the finest men and women to be raised between the two ocean border of ours.

i went a week or so without working at all just to catch my breath. during this time i spent a great deal of time in meditation, reading, thinking, enjoying the silence after a long deep storm. this was one of the most serene periods of my life. a friend of mine who had recently left the record store had started working at this little coffeehouse, and he said he could get me a job. not at what i had been making of course, but a job. it was easy, he said. no bullshit.

me: i don't want anymore bullshit hassles.

him: there won't be any. this is a family run company, they love their employees. they don't even have cameras up, that's how much they trust us.

me: you're sure.

him: have i ever been wrong.

me: do you want me to answer that?

so i went over amidst the millions of dollars worth of contracts that weren't being thrown my way, and sat down with the manager.

him: how's it going. i'm tim.

me: robert

him: so robert, did you hear what the dead heads said when the drugs wore off?

me: no.

him: this music sucks. (at this point he laughed hysterically. i was midly amused. i had heard it before.)

with that i was hired. eight dollars an hour. so for my first few days i stocked sweet and low and made lattes without lustre. none of them knew how to make real latte anyway and i was too tired to show them.

coastergirl was on vacation.

i mopped and sweated and slaved and learned the job. it seldom takes me more than a few days or maybe a wekk to know the job better than the manager. by the end of the week i was doing update totals and the deposit.

we had a bullitin board on the wall in the hallway with random memos. (employees are allowed free drinks and any food that is set to go out that day, but not cakes or pastries that have just come in, things of this nature.) on it was a picture of her. tongue out facing a customer who was taking the picture and a mad grin on her face. she wore a bandana in her hair and jeans that i still don't know how she kept them on they were so torn. i knew her at once from the girl from my denton dreams, the one i'd seen stalking about, trampling back and forth to class, who'd asked me the time once, but probably didn't remember me. women don't remember these things like men do, it has always seemed to me. besides, i was different person then. it seemed nice enough to finally meet her.

her grandfather had died and they were close. that's why she was gone the other people there told me. she had been back in chicago for the funeral.

these things happen, i thought. it is never fun when it happens to you though.

then i wen tin to work, pulled around the back and entered the rear door where my friend was smoking a cigarette. i went inside and sat down to clock in and check the daily totals when a face apeared from behind the blank of th dishwasher and above the hustle and bustle of life that was coffee drinkers tea drinkers cake eaters pie fanatics regulars of every sort type and nature metal head to cop, musician to computer programmer.

her: who are you?

me: robert. (i kept typing)

her: when did you start?

me: while you were gone?

what kind of music do you like? (then i loved her in a little way only a true music nerd can apreciate)

me: be more specific.

her: name a few bands.

me: don cab, modest mouse, radiohead, looper, belle and sebastion, simon and garfunkel, billy joel, the sea and cake, tool, deftones, cap'n jazz, coltrane, sun ra, mozart, mahler, is that enough? [it's funny to me that i remember it all this well, but it just keeps spilling out, like i only just left the room where this all took place.]

her: you like don cab?

me: yeah.

her: wanna get married?

me: no.

her: just checking.

we worked and said little to each other though she was techniacally my boss at this point. at the end of the day, we pulled tips and we had made a few bucks each but loaded the tip envelope and went home. this was the first night since the place had opened that no one had chained the porch chairs.

2002-09-21 | 11:26 p.m.
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