starbs post: on ice.

Last time I came to Starbucks, I started a post that I didn’t publish. I’ll post it now, since I can follow up with a happier note.

“I paid straight from the coin purse today. I like to do that periodically. If I’m not using my card or dollar bills, it seems like I’m not paying. I don’t keep track of my change, and therefore don’t keep track of when I’m losing it—a genius budgeting trick, I know. Like an extra special treat, a forgotten five crumpled in your raincoat pocket.

I was ready to count out $1.73, but apparently iced coffee costs $2.11. Yes, your math is correct: ice is worth $0.38. Inconceivable! I also didn’t realize that what I really wanted was an iced latte, not an iced coffee, which is a flat Diet Coke look-alike. And, the velvety burnt-orange comfy chairs were all taken. This is not a good day for Starbucks. I’ll try again next week...if I can hoard enough pennies.”

Bitter Betty, right there.

It’s next week now and I’m a happy camper. The main upside to the day is that a friend was working (the only Starbucks barista who knows my name, though he doesn’t count, as he’s known me for four years already—the name dilemma is a story for another day). My iced latte was on the house and I tried the toffee almond bar, or something by a similar name, which was discounted from another barista. Glorious!

I’m becoming a fan of the iced drinks here. I can’t justify ordering a hot drink when it’s hot outside, which would be like wearing a swimsuit while ice fishing—doable, but uncomfortable. Iced drinks are where it’s at. Starbucks makes bank in the summertime—as I learned last week, ice is an expensive add-on. Now that I’ve come to terms with that, I can look forward to chomping on coffee-flavored ice all summer. Good times await.

phlegmbot.

I can’t exactly tell you what “sinuses” are, but I can confidently say that I have them, and I hate them. My favorite way of describing this problem is: “My sinuses are acting up again,” a phrase that I always thought was normal until a friend recently kept repeating it back to me, like I had said something along the lines of “my hosiery is bunching.” I suppose my dad use to say that (about sinuses, not hosiery). If I tell you that my sinuses are “acting up,” I am just trying to convey that it feels like a hippopotamus decided to stifle my stuffy, runny nose by sitting on my face. The pressure, the inability to breathe—delightful, really. Three cheers for sinuses! Hoorah!

There are no pretty words to describe sinuses. For example: drainage. Snot. Phlegm. Mucus. Sick, sick, sick. There are also nice phrases you can use during your suffering, like “sorry, I don’t mean to suck back my snot,” or “I keep coughing up drainage.” Dinner table commentary. Like the melodious sounds of nose-blowing, everyone loves hearing it.

I’m happy to report that the hippopotamus is slowly easing off my face, though. Soon I’ll be back to tip-top shape, and I promise to stop throwing around words like “phlegm.” In the meantime, I wish you health and happiness.

a call to the bookish.

“Join my book club!” I whisper in the ear of an unsuspecting Barnes and Noble shopper. She jumps and drops the book she was re-shelving. I plead, “Oh, do join, won’t you?” while rocking on the balls of my feet, clutching a paperback to my chest. She politely shakes her head and backs into the Summer Reading display. Side-steps to the aisle, still shaking her head and avoiding eye contact. I persist. “What if I bake cookies?” She murmurs something about needing to meet a friend and sprints toward the check-out counter. “CHOCOLATE CHIP!” I shout, waving Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake above my head like a billboard-sized bribery check. “EXTRA CHIPS! CHOCOLATE!”

Luckily, this scene is entirely hypothetical—I just don’t see it going over well. Something about the Betty Crocker Turned B&N Stalker approach seems, oh, I don’t know...daunting? Desperate? Therapy-worthy?

But I really do want to join or start a book club. Already finished my first summer read (see: bribery check reference above). Essays by a NYC twentysomething with a stash of plastic ponies and mad cynicism skills? Yes, please! And tonight I watched The Jane Austen Book Club with my dog and leftover Chinese, which naturally reminded me that a) I am really cool, and that b) I absolutely must circle-up with fellow literature lovers this summer. Fiction or non-fiction, classic or contemporary—I’ll read it with you.

If it helps, I really will bake you cookies.

cowabunga, dudes.

We fidgeted on the ledge of our first photo shoot backdrop of the day: the infamous Frog Fountain. Two nights before, we’d splashed around with a co-ed cheer camp fervor until the campus cops came—naturally, we then hightailed-it to somewhere we could drip-dry inconspicuously. Sopping wet clothes now seemed glorious compared to the sweat trickling beneath our purple graduation robes. But, we needed to document this monumental week. We weren’t going to be college kids forever. We had one more day. One. More. Day.

So we jumped.

A friend’s proud mom Kodaked the moment: Lily pads of Frog Fountain curtain water behind us. Robes flutter around our midair forms. Arms high in various Power Ranger poses—mine whipped up into an unplanned ballerina “O.” Eyes squinting against the sunlight. Expressions of fear and glee. Everyone’s mouths open, presumably squealing “ahEEEE!” like little girls on a Slip ‘n Slide.

I saw this picture for the first time the day after graduation. Two photos before it, our group of eight crouched around the school’s emblem and then we held up our horned-frog hands at the school’s metal frog statue. My eyes started blurring. I flipped back and forth, tearing up at our smiles and how clearly they sang of the deep friendships we’d formed over the past four years. I looked up to avoid crying—it’d be my first time to break, to realize that we really did graduate. Life wasn’t going to look the same anymore, which is an obvious reality and a loaded question mark. My mind raced through the past four years. Lounging and laughing in each others’ dorms until unthinkable hours, practically every night freshman year. Coffee shop dates and late night heart-to-hearts. Interpretive dancing on the shores of various lakes. Typical downtown adventures. A recent camping trip when a raccoon stole my shoe. And, of course, our always-comical photo shoots. I clicked for the next picture, The Jump. I burst into a peal of laughter and the tears I’d been holding back spilled down—eyes to cheek to shirt. This is college, I realized. It ends, but it doesn’t. We rocked those college years, and we’ll rock our futures. We’re moving forward—some are moving out of city, out of state—but, in a way, we’ll still be the kids jumping off Frog Fountain.

color me jealous.

Last Saturday, I discovered a complex in my neighborhood that I’d sell my neighbor’s cat to live in (I’m not at the love-level of wanting to sell my own pet yet). Of course, I love my duplex—it’s quaint, ancient, and adorable, like a porcelain doll tea party. But I’m talking about a complex—more rooms equal more awesome. The red brick, two-story building didn’t exactly scream, “Safe! Clean! Bring your mom over for Thanksgiving dinner!” The lower-level windows were wide open, showcasing treasures like colored glass jars, a faded Talking Heads poster, and a papier-mâchéd mannequin. There was also a poster of a suited wise guy, pointing his finger at me, asking the bold-print question, “Do YOU work for yourself?” The artsy Austinesqueness of this place has a lot more appeal than I would’ve previously guessed. I’ve since walked by three times, which I’ll admit is a bit excessive. Today, I strolled by so slowly that two pugs felt it necessary to “run me off” by sticking their punched faces into the holes of the brick porch design and yapping...I think they’re on to me.

I’m not ready to leave my digs (note the casual usage of an out-dated word, like “rad.” Can someone please bring that back? Thanks). But, a move is inevitable when August hits. For now, I’ll just continue to casually stalk this complex. It’s full right now, but maybe one of the tenants will get creeped-out when he or she spots me swooning on the street corner like Charlie outside the Chocolate Factory. It's bound to happen. Afterall, I have two and a half months.

the final step.

This Saturday afternoon, I’ll don a billowy purple robe. A tasseled hat. A smile—maybe a tear or two. I’ll sit in a chair, center-stadium. Walk across a stage when a stranger reads my name loudly, clearly. Then, finally: “Congratulations, Class of 2009!”

So surreal.