I stepped into the coffee shop today around two o'clock, stashed my things, and made some coffee (it's sort of what I do while I'm there). Before I had a chance to settle in to a routine, I made a large four shot carmel latte with a little bit of whipped cream for a gentleman in his thirties. I smiled, in a pretty good mood, took his money and handed him his change. We didn't trade small talk while I made his drink, he didn't appear out of the ordinary at all.
"Can I tip you?" he asked, and mildly surprised I nodded. I know you can't tip baristas in airport Starbucks. Maybe he thought it was like that, weirder assumptions about the island have been made.
He gave me a twenty, his drink cost $6.25, and he got a raisin cream scone at $2.40, for a grand total of $8.65. So, on the tile counter lay a dime, a quarter, a one and two fives, because I ran out of tens (like always).
"I don't usually do this, but you are a very beautiful woman" instead of picking up the change and the fives, leaving the one (as I expected) he left a five, and took the rest. I was equally surprised by his actions and his words. I stammered a "Thank you" and he left.
The sad part about this is that my first reaction was suspicion. My mind raced, trying to figure out how this could benefit him, what he wanted from me, but as his blonde hair disappeared out of the courtyard, I realized I just needed to accept the compliment. More people need to hear things like that, I think. I don't care if it is true, that's not the point. I felt good, because no matter what I thought, he thought I was beautiful. Or maybe he didn't, but he said he did.
Here's the thing. My basic beliefs about the world are pretty few, but among them is the belief that most people are ugly. I'm not not being pessimistic, I feel like I'm being realistic. Not everyone can be amazingly beautiful. Biology is gross, get over it. All people are mostly ugly, but we all have some beauty in us. We all do, and life is better when we take the time to stop and look for that small part of ourselves and others and that makes them beautiful. i have a hard time sometimes seeing the beautiful in people.
Showing posts with label avalon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label avalon. Show all posts
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Night Skating
So yesterday I worked. While I was standing behind the tiled counter, not making espresso beverages or facilitating the general public's love of croissants filled with deliciousness, my phone rang. I answered it, because I'm a questionable employee. Shhh.
Here is where the interesting part of living in such a small town comes in. The voice on the other end belonged to a woman. She is the mother of a girl I went to elementary school with. She used to live on the island, didn't, and then did, and I'm pretty sure she lives in long beach now. She worked with my mother for a while doing massages, and most importantly, she joined the Long Beach Roller Derby people sometime last year (Also, her arms are covered in tattoos of bugs, just fyi).
Anaya: Hello
K: Do you want to go skating?
Anaya: Sure.
~Now, what I was thinking was, "Yeah, but where? All the streets are either steep or heavily trafficked, and smoth flat surfaces are surprisingly hard to find in this town."~
K: Okay. I get off work at seven.
So, I finished my shift, went home, played sims and then threw on a dress (without a bra! I'm not sure why I felt I needed to share that with you) and dashed down the hill to meet my mom at the Villa (AWESOME) Portifino at 5:30. If course, she wanders in at 5:50, and I kicked myself for rushing. I could have played ten more minutes of sims!
Whatever, that isn't the point. We had a very nice dinner, then went home to wait for K to call. I texted her a few times, and was messing around with this blog thing, and at 8:30 she finally calls.
I am skeptical of this plan. This "skate around avalon at night" business but I'm willing to try it, because I've been a slacker recently and was sick and had bad headaches, and anyway, I haven't skated in "I'm not telling you how long." I met her by this weird fountain/planter in the middle of the road, suited up, and started skating.
(When I'm going to go skating, but not practice, I never know how many of the numerous and rather expensive pieces of protective gear I own I should wear. I worry about it much more than I do getting dressed for nice dinners. The only commonality appears to be, wear your knee pads but not your helmet. So, if i'm going to wear my knee pads, I might as well wear knee gaskets. Might as well. Wrist guards are a must, but what about elbow pads? It is a dilemma. Then there are the ankle braces. I should probably wear them, but they take forever to get on, and looks like I'm expecting to get hurt, at which point I should just wear my helmet. The one thing that is never a question for me is the mouth guard. Breaking out two teeth makes the mild embarrassment of a mouth full of green plastic negligible.)
We skated to the casino (on the pedestrian walkway), scaring the crap out of the pedestrians, who though that the little walkway was just for them, suckers! then back down the road (not much better on my ankles, actually) past the skate shop, up metropole, through the alley (nice concrete, for future reference), through the other alley, on front street (yes, I know, I know. The doesn't actually say no rollerskates, but it is implied) and out to the mole- where we skated around benches and the roundish ticket window building (this entertained us for a surprisingly long time). Then back into town, stopped at the plaza (there was a very smooth roundish area where the busses park) made half-assed plans to meet again (didn't happen, but at 6:45 this morning, man was I glad). Here comes the fun part.
So I called Mom, who had dropped me off, and asked for a ride up the hill. She said yes. I skated to where she dropped me off, and got tired of waiting. So I started up whittley. I didn't get very far before each push just didn't get me anywhere, and I walked the rest of the way on my toe stops to avoid sliding all the way down the hill. When I got the the east whittley juncture, I thought about waiting, but got bored again, and kept walking. Up east whittley. I was 3/4 of the way home before my mother ever left.
Here is where the interesting part of living in such a small town comes in. The voice on the other end belonged to a woman. She is the mother of a girl I went to elementary school with. She used to live on the island, didn't, and then did, and I'm pretty sure she lives in long beach now. She worked with my mother for a while doing massages, and most importantly, she joined the Long Beach Roller Derby people sometime last year (Also, her arms are covered in tattoos of bugs, just fyi).
Anaya: Hello
K: Do you want to go skating?
Anaya: Sure.
~Now, what I was thinking was, "Yeah, but where? All the streets are either steep or heavily trafficked, and smoth flat surfaces are surprisingly hard to find in this town."~
K: Okay. I get off work at seven.
So, I finished my shift, went home, played sims and then threw on a dress (without a bra! I'm not sure why I felt I needed to share that with you) and dashed down the hill to meet my mom at the Villa (AWESOME) Portifino at 5:30. If course, she wanders in at 5:50, and I kicked myself for rushing. I could have played ten more minutes of sims!
Whatever, that isn't the point. We had a very nice dinner, then went home to wait for K to call. I texted her a few times, and was messing around with this blog thing, and at 8:30 she finally calls.
I am skeptical of this plan. This "skate around avalon at night" business but I'm willing to try it, because I've been a slacker recently and was sick and had bad headaches, and anyway, I haven't skated in "I'm not telling you how long." I met her by this weird fountain/planter in the middle of the road, suited up, and started skating.
(When I'm going to go skating, but not practice, I never know how many of the numerous and rather expensive pieces of protective gear I own I should wear. I worry about it much more than I do getting dressed for nice dinners. The only commonality appears to be, wear your knee pads but not your helmet. So, if i'm going to wear my knee pads, I might as well wear knee gaskets. Might as well. Wrist guards are a must, but what about elbow pads? It is a dilemma. Then there are the ankle braces. I should probably wear them, but they take forever to get on, and looks like I'm expecting to get hurt, at which point I should just wear my helmet. The one thing that is never a question for me is the mouth guard. Breaking out two teeth makes the mild embarrassment of a mouth full of green plastic negligible.)
We skated to the casino (on the pedestrian walkway), scaring the crap out of the pedestrians, who though that the little walkway was just for them, suckers! then back down the road (not much better on my ankles, actually) past the skate shop, up metropole, through the alley (nice concrete, for future reference), through the other alley, on front street (yes, I know, I know. The doesn't actually say no rollerskates, but it is implied) and out to the mole- where we skated around benches and the roundish ticket window building (this entertained us for a surprisingly long time). Then back into town, stopped at the plaza (there was a very smooth roundish area where the busses park) made half-assed plans to meet again (didn't happen, but at 6:45 this morning, man was I glad). Here comes the fun part.
So I called Mom, who had dropped me off, and asked for a ride up the hill. She said yes. I skated to where she dropped me off, and got tired of waiting. So I started up whittley. I didn't get very far before each push just didn't get me anywhere, and I walked the rest of the way on my toe stops to avoid sliding all the way down the hill. When I got the the east whittley juncture, I thought about waiting, but got bored again, and kept walking. Up east whittley. I was 3/4 of the way home before my mother ever left.
I must have lost my touch
I realized recently that I lost one of my most important skill sets: effectively swimming through hoards of apparently mindless tourists. Most people have little need for such a skill set. They are lucky.
My least favorite place to be in all the world is front street, in Avalon, around noon, in August (It's a little weird that I'm writing this as if it is for people who don't know what I'm talking about, when I know exactly who is going to read it, but whatever). Families of six and seven dig trenches into the beach, and there are just so many people going in every direction without any sense of destination.
As summer winds up, I do my best to avoid this situation. Leisurely walks downtown cease, I find myself taking side streets to avoid the congested areas, and most importantly, I just stay inside. A few years ago, when I eventually found myself faced with the crowded crescent avenue, I would dive in, expertly dart and dodge around strollers, wandering children, and stalled girls in tube tops and obscenely large sunglasses staring into store fronts with blank stares on their faces. I would bump shoulders just hard enough to not loose my place on the sidewalk, and most importantly, keep up a good pace and maintain my status as a moving target.
In contrast, it is July of a slow summer, and if I find myself rusty, moving slowly through the river of visitors. I have this acute fear that I'm going to wake up one morning (or return from Rollercon in Vegas) and realize it is August, it is busy, oh god there are so many people, and my mind is just going to melt. Everything will cease to matter, my priorities will fade away, and I will be an utter failure at transporting myself anywhere.
Hello Summer
My least favorite place to be in all the world is front street, in Avalon, around noon, in August (It's a little weird that I'm writing this as if it is for people who don't know what I'm talking about, when I know exactly who is going to read it, but whatever). Families of six and seven dig trenches into the beach, and there are just so many people going in every direction without any sense of destination.
As summer winds up, I do my best to avoid this situation. Leisurely walks downtown cease, I find myself taking side streets to avoid the congested areas, and most importantly, I just stay inside. A few years ago, when I eventually found myself faced with the crowded crescent avenue, I would dive in, expertly dart and dodge around strollers, wandering children, and stalled girls in tube tops and obscenely large sunglasses staring into store fronts with blank stares on their faces. I would bump shoulders just hard enough to not loose my place on the sidewalk, and most importantly, keep up a good pace and maintain my status as a moving target.
In contrast, it is July of a slow summer, and if I find myself rusty, moving slowly through the river of visitors. I have this acute fear that I'm going to wake up one morning (or return from Rollercon in Vegas) and realize it is August, it is busy, oh god there are so many people, and my mind is just going to melt. Everything will cease to matter, my priorities will fade away, and I will be an utter failure at transporting myself anywhere.
Hello Summer
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