20 October 2000 ~ Scrawlings...

(random scrawlings in my notebook... Will try to translate the garbled handwriting into something semi-legible...)

Was walking down North Street listening to my discman - a woman singing about sleeping with a married guy - everybody knows you're a dyke anyway, babe.

A van pulls up. Yells something. I turn my music off. He's leering. "Need a ride?"

"Nope," and I wave him on. I don't know him. Young, frat-boy-looking kid. Maybe a little skeevier than that.

He begins to drive off, turns the corner in front of me, grins at me, stops again, waves a dollar bill out his window, and yells something like, "sure you don't need a ride?" Can't really understand his words. Understand him perfectly.

FUCK YOU.

I don't need your ride.

I don't need your money.

Sure as hell don't need your dick.

I don't need a damned thing from anyone.

FUCK YOU.

* * * * * * * * * * *

calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down... calm down. go to work. calm down.

* * * * * * * * * * *

It's been a crazy night. We've had a zillion customers and I've had a zillion shots of espresso.

I'm cleaning out the airpots; Tommy's sweeping. We're going crazy trying to get the place closed up now. But he stops sweeping and advises me, "be really careful with thos airpots. I've broken two of them just by banging them a little too hard."

"Two of them?"

"Yeah, the insides are made of glass. Glass and water; that's what keeps them insulated."

I smile, "I didn't know that. What kind of a shitty barrista does that make me!?" He laughs a little.

"Well I didn't know either until I broke two of them."

"I guess that makes YOU the shitty barrista then!" I tease. He giggles, a laugh that sounds a lot like a giggle from a mechanized teddy bear. There's a sort of solidarity in that giggle. For all the times I've been insecure about my job, and my relations with my co-workers, that giggle erases a lot of hurt and a lot of unhappiness. For the first time in a lot of weeks, I feel a little bit at home here again.

~Helena*