First Acceptance In: Temple University

By email, no less.

They want me to go to Philly next week for the accepted students' weekend. Can't go. Painting faces. Two year anniversary of the opening of my cafe. Fun times, guys. I hate children.

Working on the front lines of the coffee (culture) wars

I'm your pusher man.

Or I'm not. Depending on how you like your coffee.

Actually, not.

Let's drop the pretense, why not? Bitches? Beuller? Let's not pretend that the coffee war is more than tangentially about coffee. It's about class. It's about money. It's about identity. And let's not just pretend that there are just two players. How about about the third group of combatents, the morally unassailable independant cafe? "Mom and pop" shops aren't the innocent bystanders, the non-coms, the civilians, the casualties that they'd so to be believed.

What do people get from a cup of coffee?
A slight, almost imperceptible buzz. Eyes a little wider open. Mind a little clearer. But as a heavy user, myself, I can assure you that most of it is psychological. It takes about four shots of espresso for me to feel any effects. And caffeine is not subject to tolerance effects, so I can assure you, it's not just because I've been soaking my neurons with the stuff. So why do people buy it? Why is it such a big fucking deal? Why does my working at one of the three types (corporate upscale, corporate downscale, independent) make such a difference to who I am and what I do and who I serve?

People get identity. Reassurance. People get a luxury item. Coffee is, and always has been, a luxury item. Before it became gourmet, it was a luxury and a vice. Coffee shops began proliferating on the streets of London hundreds of years ago. They were an exotic alternative to brain-numbing pubs and quasi-legal gin shops. Nobody needed to drink it then, nobody does now. But coffee is something you can always afford somewhere, and justify, and customize. It's something you do for yourself. And because it's a manifestation of personal whim and custom, it's become a tool of self-definition. So it says who you are. And what you think about yourself.

Who drinks corporate downscale coffee? Self-identified blue collar types. No-frills. Of the people. Hates pretense. Hates extras. Regulah, black, cream and two, dark with one, lahge, small, just so it's hot. But don't take this burnt orange and magenta identity at face value. It's as much a costume as any other.

Who drinks corporate upscale coffee? The earnestly upwardly mobile, the unapologetic social climber, the middle class pretender. It's for people who don't care what other people think they think they are, as long as they don't think they're poor, classless, or ignorant. Quasi-informed, quasi-progressive, quasi-gourmet. They're perhaps the most honest of any type, because they buy the coffee they can afford, in a comfortable, predictable setting from pleasant, consistently attired employees.

Who drinks independent upscale coffee? The self-consciously upscale, the psuedo-socialist intelligentsia, the anti-corporate crusader, the whole-foods shopper and former salvation-army dresser. The navel gazing hipster, the anti-corporate funkster, the unconsummated bisexual and the macrobiotic mom. They care very much what you think about them. They are the type of people who call ahead to see whether you're brewing fair trade coffee. They want to bring their own rice milk and stevia.

And yet the myth is that people are choosing their coffee shop based on the flavor of the coffee. I hate some of the coffee I brew. Our french roast tastes like cabbage, caraway seeds, and sorrow. Some of our espresso drinks are sweeter than candy, with any espresso flavor smothered in syrup and milk. Some of the coffee is especially tasty. And some of the drinks are balanced and perfect. I'm not ignorant enough to believe that either of these selections, the nasty or the tasty bring anyone to or keep anyone out of my coffee shop.

They come or go based on who they think they are and what they think I have for them.

Rage

A good friend of mine got his first law school rejection yesterday.

This system is fucked up. The LSATs matter more than everything else combined; except that they don't. Grades, reccommendations, essay- if you don't have the LSAT's, fuck you. Of course, because the whole world wants to go to law school now, LSATS only get you into the door. And if I don't have the grades and the reccommendations, fuck me.

168. 97th percentile. What the fuck does it mean? Am I smarter than him. Fuck no. I refer you to my shoes, untied. I refer you to my apartment, neglected. I refer you to ancient greek, which I do not speak, and he does.

Work and effort. Four years, seven, five. What the fuck does it all matter, compared to three hours in december? I'm in a rage about this shit.

I don't want to be an adult for a while.

I really don't.

Spring break has been too much for me. I've slept late. I've had dinner at my parent's house. I've gone out, and stayed out late. Before I got to stop and breathe for a while, I was just pushing through everything so hard (and driving myself and other people crazy) that I didn't even notice what I'm putting myself through.

I want someone else to do the cooking and the bill paying and the grocery shopping and the cleaning and the dishes and put the trash out. I want to sleep late and I want to do irresponsible things. I want to watch television and read books and not have to think about what I should do.

I am so tired of doing things for myself, deciding every stupid little bullshit detail- what to eat for dinner, what to buy for lunch. I don't know. I don't know. It's all a guess, a theory. I don't want to open tomorrow. I'm too tired. I don't want to figure out what I'm good at or what I should do or what's going to happen with my life or what I want.

I want to crawl under the blankets and sleep until 8am. But at 8am tomorrow, I'll already be 4 hours into my workday.

"Dumb, useless, fugly skank"

How would you describe someone you didn't like?

Weeks ago, a coworker said that the way it's done in her part of the world (American Samoa) is to say "I don't know (that person) very well."

My sainted grandmother would say "She does the best she can." If someone was really blindingly stupid on top of it all, she would say "She means well".

If my grandmother wanted to indicate that the person in question was near-vomit inducing ugly, she'd say "Frightfully plain, but cheerful"

I think we need more obfuscation. Because I've got a whole lot of well-meaning, plain but cheerful, customers that I don't know very well, but I'm sure are doing the best they can.

And if I can't get a better attitude about it, I'm going to start licking and fraying, licking and fraying, anything electrical and job related, cross my fingers, and hope for short-term disability.

Strange little compulsion...

A few weeks ago, I found out that I make 40 cents an hour less than my most analogous coworker. Ever since, instead of going to the cafe where I work for a cup of coffee (more likely a triple espresso), I've been going to Dunkin' Donuts.

I've been getting a Dunkin' Donuts, medium french vanilla. It's not good coffee. It's not even consistent. But it's comfort food. And, it's turned into my way of damning the man. I get a bagel with it, as an excuse...the bagels taste like soft flabby bandaids, bleached and pillowy and utterly sanitized. The cream cheese is more of an emulsified. dairy derived, fortified, edible ointment. It's shelf-stable, you know. Terrifying thing in a soft cheese.

My excuse for going to Dunkin' Donuts is because my cafe doesn't have sesame bagels, and wouldn't toast them, even if they did. My secondary excuse is that I don't know how to make coffee "regulah", since I don't put milk and sugar into our drip coffee. These are thin, sad excuses, based on equivocation, and only vaguely credible if you buy that I enjoy how the coffee
and bagel taste. And I don't.

Nerve.com has published a peppy little dialogue on rape. It's quite bold, seven years ago. Right now, it's moderately sassy, like a forty year old woman in a mini skirt with no bra, drunk on lo-carb margaritas, and looking for action. Some may object, some may see controversy, others might just see an interesting conversation-starter. (hey, patsy h.!)

The nerve dialogue does make some interesting points, the primary one being that 'no means no' is not necessarily the best test for lawful vs. unlawful sex. The current legal hoodangy is that while no always means no, sometimes yes means no, too; an overexpansion that has perhaps lead to the soft goo that current dialogues on rape seem to be mired in. In order to protect women (and men, too, and teenagers) from coerced consent, 'yes' in circumstances of power imbalance has begun to be treated as 'no'. Which is reasonable only if the coercer is aware of their coercive power over the submitter, and is able to determine what the submitter's actual wishes are.

Which brings us to date rape, and then back to my bagel. Stick with me, it'll be fun.

Do circumstances exist that one partner has power over the other, and is able to use that to obtain sexual consent, with knowledge that it would otherwise not be granted?

The person (person A) who wants sex would have to know-

• Whether Person B wants to have sex.
  
• That they, Person A, have a way to force/coerce Person B
• And, before having sex, that Person B still does not want to have sex.

In that situation, with that knowledge, person A can be held responsible, to whatever society decides are the consequences for violating person B's free consent to sex.

However, the asumption that these points are always knowable by both or either party before any sexual act occurs, especially between people who are acquainted with each other, is unfounded. (A lovely point hinted at by the Nerve folks). Human interaction is so variable, communication so fallible, that the majority of sex acts probably occur in some optimistic fog.

I don't know why I do anything. I just spent three dollars. (my last three dollars) on a bagel and coffee that I barely consider food and bev. And I'll do it again when I have three dollars again. I don't like this coffee. I didn't like that bagel. I am openly disdainful of people who order french vanilla anything. Did I buy this coffee because I am mad at my coffee shop? Because I can't get in and out of my cafe in under twenty minutes? Because I want my coworkers to think that I have a life? Did I buy the coffee because of advertising? Did I buy it because of class discomfort, as I'm considering going to law school, a significant divergence from my working-class roots? Did I even want this coffee, that bagel?

It is reasonable to consider that my sexual decisions would be less clear, less reasonably thought out, and less easily communicated then my breakfast choices. If you think I know why I do what I do, in any aspect of my life, even law school, you're giving me far too much credit.

There is considerable ambiguity to human desire and motivation. The only solution is clear communication. So what about rape, then? If you can't know what someone wants, what are you to do when they don't tell you? Clear cut cases of rape- violent rape, incest, real coercion- the disparity between the rapist's aim and the victim's objection is known to both. So when "yes" means "no", what has really happened?

It depends. Who knows? I don't.