things that suck

1.  packing up all your shit and moving away from the place you’ve lived for six years (regardless of how crappy that place is).

2.  moving in with a new roommate, even if said roommate is your little sister whom you dearly love.

3.  moving away from your best friend and no longer having someone to hang out with all the time.

4.  running into old teachers and coaches and trying to explain that you are only working at Sbux until you find a “real” job.

5.  finding a “real” job.

6.  dealing with parents who have changed dramatically since the last time you lived near them.

 

I know that all of these things will get resolved eventually, but today it really sucks being in Denver.  Today I miss Eryn so much it hurts.

the mile-high city has a few mile-high assholes

More urgent than my need to actually write the post about my move to Denver last week (which is in the works) is the need to process an encounter I had with a customer tonight at my new (old) store*.  A white guy in his late 30s came in, ordered a tea latte, and asked a question about Fair Trade coffee.  Being the coffee dork that I am (and not wanting to miss an opportunity to be a smartypants), I told him why Starbucks buys Fair Trade coffees.  For the uninitiated, drinks from Starbucks cost more than others because we pay higher prices for coffee.  This ensures that the coffee is grown by environmentally sustainable and largely organic means, and that coffee farmers are able to increase their standard of living instead of being taken advantage of  (I chose not to mention the inherent imperialism of an American company swooping down to pull Spanish-speaking brown people out of poverty, since I was trying to make the Bux look good).

After this thirty-second explanation, the customer says something like, “So I pay four bucks for a latte so some Mexican can drive a Hummer?  Fuck this.  I’m never coming to Starbucks again”.  I tried to tell him he was overstating his case ever so slightly, but he interrupted me with a tirade about the stimulus package and how tired he is of having to give others his hard-earned money.  I believe he invoked his rights as a “God-fearing American citizen” to spend his money how he likes, and not have to give it to “some lazy fucker who won’t get a job”, which is not even related to coffee – I’m not sure how he made the leap into The Great Economic Recession of Doom. Regardless, he was pissed that his money, which he would literally be flushing down the toilet in an hour, was helping someone out.

I wish now that I would have said something like, “Sir, you’re absolutely right.  You don’t have to pay four bucks for a latte.  Maybe you should be saving your money so you can buy a heart”.  Instead, I just turned around and walked away.  I am the new kid at the store, after all.  Getting into it with a customer on my second day wouldn’t be the smartest move.

I don’t think, on a concrete level, that this customer is wrong.  I understand that people want freedom to spend their money the way they choose, which may include lower taxes and therefore fewer social services.  I get that they think that people who want to help support the needy should choose to, and that the government shouldn’t mandate social services.  On the other hand, times are tough for a lot of people right now, and people are often selfish.  Maybe the government should step in and tax those who can afford it to help people.  Moreover, if people have enough disposable income to spend four bucks on coffee, perhaps they should spend that money at a place that ensures healthcare for part-time employees and treats coffee farmers equitably.  It’s an easy way for people to do a tiny bit of good with no effort.  I really just think that this customer and I have different value systems, and I also think that he and I fall pretty classically into the conservative/progressive labels.  In fact, I wonder how often these types of conflicts happen, since it seems like everyone falls neatly into the dichotomy**.

I’m not saying that Starbucks is this amazing, perfect company.  It’s a business run for profit, but they do a pretty decent job of trying to maintain a balance between the human side of things and the business side.  And I feel sorry for the customer who has no better way to vent his frustration than to yell at a barista.  I just don’t know how to bridge the divide between these two factions and have productive discourse, about coffe or about the economy.  With such different worldviews, how are we as a culture going to figure out the complex social issues at hand?

*I just transferred to this store, but it is the store at which I began my Starbucks journey over six years ago.  Six years of education, one B.S., one M.A., same job, same store.  Instead of feeling weird about this situation, I am considering it proof that I am a true academic, one who attends school for the learning and not for the job possibilities 🙂

**See James Davison Hunter’s Culture Wars – I just wrote a paper based on this premise, and it’s enlightening times depressing.

thoughts at 3 am

1.  a little sister who shall remain nameless did not warn me severely enough about the insomnia that accompanies Aderall, especially if not taken early enough in the day.

2. after taking an Aderall, one can write 23 pages of social theory really quickly.

3.  however, when one writes a paper at 2 am one may forget to go back and include all the parenthetical citations before submitting the paper.

4.  it is very likely that social theory professors do not actually read social theory papers, so i am rather unconcerned about the lack of citations.  i may send an apologetic email and offer to edit in the citations – we’ll see how i feel about it in the morning.

5.  when a puppy is not played with for 9 hours while a paper is being written, he may retaliate by PEEING ALL OVER YOUR BED.

6.  in the previous sentence, the capital letters signify the enormous lake of urine my little dog is capable of producing.

7.  it should be noted that said puppy was taken outside every two or three hours to pee, and therefore should not have actually needed to urinate everywhere.  i am fairly certain said puppy was just being a little bastard.

8.  i have to get up and go to work in 3 hours.  it’s my last day at my okc store – my boss will almost certainly weep.  also:  there are rumors of the existence of a cake at work to commemorate eryn and me leaving the store. (eryn and i?  why is this stupid rule so hard for me to grasp?!?!)

9.  i move to denver in three days and i have yet to pack anything.

10.  in the next few days, between the packing and the taping and the box-labeling, i fully intend to type up a nifty little post processing the end of living in oklahoma.  when someone writes a biography about my life, i would like for the chapter about oklahoma to be called something like “i got a good education, but this state is fucking lame”.  feel free to use poetic license.

11.  did i mention that i can’t sleep?  or that my dog peed all over my bed and so eryn and i are both sleeping in the living room?  well, eryn is sleeping.  i am jittery and wide awake.

12.  does anyone know how to get dog pee out of a pillow or a mattress pad, both of which are not to be washed OR dry-cleaned?

yet another post that illustrates that i think in bullet points, not paragraphs

Max Weber

This is Max, my dog.  He’s named after Max Weber.  I met Max (the dog, not the social theorist) the day I defended my thesis, which is why he’s named after a sociologist.  Since he’s half German Shepherd, it seemed appropriate to name him after a German.  Fritz was an option, but it doesn’t sound like a word after you say it five times, so I decided on Max.

The other half of him is Corgi, btw.  He’s a Franken-dog – the middle section of him is pure Corgi, but the head and the tail are German Shepherd.  He is oddly out of proportion, but he’s sweet and loving and pretty smart.  Except when he chews on my hand with his giant teeth.  That part kinda sucks.

I wasn’t planning on getting a dog until later this summer, but he needed a home and his previous owner was pretty retarded**.  I was afraid that if I didn’t take him, she would just let him out on the side of the road or something equally cruel.  So he lives with me now, and he seems pretty happy.

As I alluded to earlier:   the thesis is defended.  I have to finish some work on it today (or tomorrow, or Friday. . .), but I’m only a few hours of editing away from actually submitting it and being done with it.  That feels pretty nice.  Also, my advisor wants me to submit it for publication in Feminist Criminology, which would be pretty rad.

I move to Denver in 16 days.  I feel really great about that.  My sister and me (or is it I?  fuck, I can never remember this rule) are going to have a truly excellent summer.  It will be even more excellent when I find a job that doesn’t involve caramel frappuccinos.  Maybe one that involves social science?  That would be nice.

I’m already thinking about going back to school for my Ph.D., even though I have complained and procrastinated my way through my Master’s.  I am an academic masochist.

Kurt Vonnegut said, “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”   I should really read some of his work.

I think that’s it for now.  See ya.

**I have officially decided that I am no longer going to feel bad for using the word “retarded”.  I’m pretty damn PC about most other things, so I’m reclaiming “retarded”.  Kinda like how feminists reclaimed “bitch” and “cunt”.  I like using the word, so I’m going to.

H.O.L.Y. S.H.I.T.

I just emailed a completed thesis to my advisor.  Short of whatever editing she wants and defending with my committee, I am pretty much done with it.

I feel really great right now.  Really, really great.

six weeks and counting. . .

My last two customers at work each used two of  these phrases tonight:  “thank God Almighty you’re still open”, “praise the Lord Jesus”, “have a blessed night”, and “you’re doing the Lord’s work”.

I am constantly amazed by the people in Oklahoma.  I don’t care that they use rather religious language in everyday conversation.  I do care that they fully believe that the creator of the universe cares about their caffiene fix.  How presumptuous.  Sometimes I think Christianity is so popular because it gives people an inflated sense of self-esteem (and you should believe anything I say about self-esteem, since I’m writing a Master’s Thesis on the topic).  The idea that God cares about the car you drive and if your favorite pastry is sold out is so crazy to me – like God, if she cares about us at all, would care about these inconsequential things.  It seems like God would be much more concerned with the kind of tip you leave for a smiling, polite barista who’s putting herself through grad school.  If people buy into the idea that Jesus would have died on the cross even if it was only for your sins, no wonder they have a sense of entitlement.

Also:  I’m doing the Lord’s work by giving someone a discount they are entitled to, and just didn’t know about?  Gimme a break.

inevitability

I’ll be damned. The inevitable complete-emotional-breakdown-during-a-trip-to-Denver has finally occurred.   I was at my dad and Stacy’s house, which is incredibly chaotic already, and i was trying to simultaneously finish both Ashley’s and my taxes (yes.  I know this was an insane endeavor.  We both had questions, though, and we thought we needed to finish tonight).  Anyway, I ended up owing a bunch of money to the state of OK (which is a ridiculous abbreviation for such a terrible place), and asked Dad to help me figure out a way to owe less.

He had already sent me packin’ on a guilt trip about my weight, and had given me crap for worrying about my car (which is going back to the shop tomorrow), so when he told me I was financially irresponsible, I lost it.  He’s been hounding me all week about how if I’m going to buy a house as soon as I move to Denver, I have to have paid off a bunch of my debt and have some cash saved.  I don’t know how to accomplish this.  Feeling like an utter failure, I start bawling and left the house.   Ash drove us home and got me a slurpee to cheer me up a little.

And I know, I know.  My father is well-intentioned.  He’s terrible at following through and completing a given thought and making me feel like I actually have his attention.  I’ve lived with that for 23 years now.  Even if I am incredibly aware of his flaws, though, I still take his criticism SO HARD.  Even though I have plenty of people in my life who encourage me, somehow when my dad tells me I suck at something, it erases all the things that I know are positive and true about me.  I don’t know how to deal with that.

Which makes me feel like even more of a failure sometimes.

Aunt Deb, can you make Easter come any sooner?

update from denver

I’m having a great week in Denver.  At the moment, Ash and I are painting our nails, eating popcorn, and watching Ellen’s stand-up DVD and giggling.  She is one funny lady (I meant Ellen, but it really applies to Ash, too.  Interpret as you wish).

I learned a good lesson tonight – don’t try to groom a dog yourself.  At least, not a slightly anxious dog with a serious case of mats in their fur.  It will end in tears. . .both human and canine.  To boot, after all the tears and frustration you will have a dog who a little grouchy and still needs half his body groomed.

It’s strange – I feel more like Emily Beer than I have in a very long time.  I’m not sure what to do with that.  Maybe it’s because I’m near a support network, which I don’t experience all that often.  Maybe it’s because the constant view of the Rockies is one of the constants of the first 18 years of my life.  Maybe it’s just an extraordinary sense of peace about the next phase of my life.  Or maybe I’m just glad to not have to think about my thesis for a few days 🙂

gah.

I was at SNU today to attend a lecture, and heard a student use the phrase “colored people”.  The professor corrected him, and he responded with, “Yeah, whatever”.

Please, SNU.  Take back my bachelor’s degree.  If someone is graduating from your school and still using phrases like that, you have failed, both in helping students exemplify Christ-like love and in more formal education.  I don’t want to share an alma mater with someone this ignorant.

it’s the little things

Hello, there.  It’s been a while.

Today, my goal is to focus on the moment.  On what I need to do today.  To not worry about the future.  To be present.

Lunch.  Clean the kitchen.  Fold laundry.  Social Theory homework.  Edit my thesis proposal.

That’s it – just today.  No worry, no planning for the next few months.  Today.