The month of July has gone by in a flash with the ending of a visit with family in Oregon, work, an opportune job interview, my birthday, a weekend trip to Solvang, studying my French, and a Cottrell family get together just yesterday (they tend to be as draining as they are fun), I have had a lot to do. Je suis tres occupe. The old cliche 'time flies when you're having fun' comes to mind, and right now that feels bittersweet.
     I am 24, which feels pretty much the same as 23 (it just sounds older). I still get carded when I order a drink, I still wonder what I am going to do when I grow up, and I am still battling with acne (what the eff?!?!) It's the year of the Dragon, which happens to be my birth year (woot woot), and so far there's been no real turbulence... I was invited by United Airlines to fly to Houston, TX (the flight was paid for) to interview for a flight attendant position, and, though I did not get the job, the experience was enriching. Matt and I have been together for a really long time, and I realize that I have had very few independent adult experiences. That is what the interview really was for me. I really enjoyed my day of travel, people watching, and the chance to meet and speak with interesting strangers. Not getting the job is a little bit of a bummer, but I think that it was important for me to go for it.
     I really appreciate my current job right now actually. The summer has been slower than the usual, and I have been trying to absorb every peaceful moment knowing that the Fall semester is approaching. I have been working on my coffee art and getting to know some of our summer regulars. I see a lot of my old college professors, and it makes me want to go back to school (though I know it wouldn't be a walk in the park). It has been almost a month since I last blogged, but I have been writing a lot and picking up my French studies again. I have no idea where I am going, but I don't feel like that is such a bad thing. I hope everyday older is a day wiser.. and stronger. Ultimately, life is good even though it is one confusing and challenging adventure.

The Gamine Girl

     When I was at Pierce College, which now feels like it was part of a completely different world, I took a cinema class. It was in this class that I watched the film Bonjour Tristesse and first knowingly laid eyes on a gamine girl- Jean Seberg.
     


     To some, gamine is synonymous with a skinny chick sporting a pixie cut (typing gamine into a search engine will bring up many images of that sort)  However, the term 'gamine' has come to mean a lot more than short hair to me. 

The two reactions that I got when I went pixie were LOVE and HATE. 
The funny thing is that to me it was just hair,
hair grows back, and oh yeah, it's mine not yours anyway :) 

     Growing up, I was never a girly-girl. I actually considered myself a tomboy, but looking back I don't think I would use that term to describe myself as a child. After all, I liked playing with Barbies, dressing up with my friends, and playing house (all that good old stereotypical girl stuff). I also liked climbing trees, playing sports, and getting dirty which may be the reason I improperly classified myself as a tomboy. Also I wasn't as girly as my sister. 

Just a cool picture from the last camping
trip I was on that I felt like sharing. 

   When I would get dressed on the weekends (or any day that I was not in my Catholic school uniform), it wasn't so much about looks as it was about comfort to me. My girly-girl sister would comment on my inability to dress myself, and I would go back and try again. I never seemed to put on anything she would deem worthy of a public outing. My outfit choices probably weren't that great (maybe they were God awful. I can't remember. I've put a veil over those moments- probably because I felt deeply embarrassed and horribly un-girly) I have always envied my sister in her effortless ability to dress, act, and look feminine without showing any signs of discomfort. She's been able to wear high heels with ease since her eighth grade graduation, keeps up with her manis and pedis, stays away from all things dirty, and her hair is always done.
     Hair... maybe that's ultimately where my difficulty has always been. My hair used to be long.. and annoying. When I had it down it didn't make me feel pretty. I never knew what the heck to do with it. One irritating swish too many and it was back up in a ponytail (and guys never seem to realize that a ponytail over the course of a couple hours = headache. Take it down to relieve your headache = ugly bump). In high school, I decided to try bangs. I thought maybe that was the solution since so many of my female classmates with bangs looked effortlessly adorable... Well that was a mistake, and for some reason growing out a pixie cut seems a lot less painful than growing out those bangs.
     Before I went for it, I told my ______ (insert female family member) my plan and she voiced a few of her concerns that, not going to lie, were pretty irritating:
1.) There's a possibility it will look dykey 
2.) You won't be able to hide your acne
3.) It could make you look fat 
4.) You won't know how to style it. 
     I still don't know how I went through with it after hearing that stuff. I actually called my hair dresser and told her I did not want to be talked out of it. When I came in with pictures of Jean Seberg and Natalie Portman, she seemed slightly concerned, but after years of resenting my hair for continually failing me (or me failing it), I was not going to be talked out of the chop. To my relief she did not try to dissuade me from my decision, and I left the salon with a bad ass pixie cut and a smile that lasted all day. I have had absolutely No Regrets for that decision.

   After I cut my hair off, I felt more girly then I ever had with long bleach blonde hair. It was easier to style, and it didn't get in the way. But even though I felt like it was the best decision I could ever make hairwise, everyone and their mother let me know how they felt about it and a lot of that was negative (a lot of the comments I received weren't exactly nice-even though some were nicely stated insults and then some were genuine compliments which I really appreciated). I felt like people with long hair were in this weird long-hair-lovers cult and that chopping my hair off was breaking their most sacred hair law. Everyone wanted to know why I did it. My answers never seemed to be satisfactory. The truth is I have been in the process of growing out my hair for over half a year now, and I have come to realize that the longer it gets the less I seem to like it (I mean I want to like it, because I kind of thought it would be cool to donate it to Locks of Love). 
     This hair experience has really helped me come to realize what gamine means to me. It has become one of my favorite words, and what do you know, it's French. Pixie cut only scratches the surface. It's simple elegance, it's about feeling comfortable in my skin, it's about the essence of femininity rather than the image of it, and it is my choice (one that I felt drawn to despite the contrary opinions of others). My self-confidence is at it's peak when my hair is at its shortest, when I am the Gamine Girl.

Doodler in Distress

     There is always more going on under the surface than meets the eye. It has been a particularly emotional, stressful, irritating week or two. Things that are bothersome have become a blur, and the points that were particularly happy and good really stand out like: my bedtime duets with Matt, Charley cracking up as I did head stands for her on the front lawn, doodling on the dry erase board, unwinding on my walks, volleyball, bowling, lunch at Pho 999, dinner at Stonefire, watching a French film with Matt, and oh yeah, the Kings winning the Stanley Cup. Things to change for the next week- because it's bound to have its up and downs too: less drinking (or removing alcohol from the picture altogether), drinking more water, less phone, more Matt time, and less strong language.
     Fortunately, if next week goes horribly wrong I will have more than a week of camping and good times to look forward to (at Hunington Lake, Sequoia, and hopefully Ashland, Oregon) and to undo the stress. Ultimately, my bad week is not all healed... I am holding on to the things that made me angry, and I don't think my Healing with the Fairies cards or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are going to help me resolve them (... or will they? I dash to find the cards and turn on my music player, and it is in fact helping).

     Maybe sometimes the key to releasing yourself from whatever has tied your heart up into an emotional knot is to do what you love and truly be in the moment when you are doing it... you may have noticed via facebook how much attention the dry erase board has received from me recently.

    Maybe a camping trip is just what the doctor ordered, and that in the wilderness among all of the beautiful trees, in the quiet fresh air that can only be found when away from the city, in the realm of the fairies :), I will be able to let go of all of the little things... if that doesn't work I don't know what will. 

Thanks a latte

     Sometimes I start writing and after a few dedicated minutes I read over what I've got and.. hate it. I begin to tear it apart (the inner critic's a *itch) The one thing I hate the most in my writing is my whining. My life is not nearly as bad as I make it sound or genuinely think it is at times. For one thing, I have no debt. Another, I am happily married. Another, my family is awesome. Another, I am not allergic to anything-that I know of. I could go on... I think.. wait let me think of one more for good measure. I whine a lot about my job, but as miserable as my job makes me at times, I feel hella important there. Alright, so don't feel sorry for me when I go on and on about what I want to do when I grow up, and how I'm not on the right path, or how lost I am in my labyrinth.

     My work is to serve a huge variety of people a not so huge variety of drinks. I can pour coffee with ease, steam foam with the best, and if you have a question about what to order (this surprises me sometimes) I can actually aid you in choosing- often, with very little to go off of beyond the typical "I want something that has caffeine but doesn't taste like dirt", and I can do all this with a smile. This is the part of the job that is seen by the customers, and according to our comment box- customer's like me. That feels good.
     To my co-workers, I am someone they can depend on when there is a line out the door, when they need help getting their shift covered, and when a strange coffee situation arises they can count on me to, at very least, masterfully improvise. Oh yeah and behind the scenes, I can do really good (or bad but still funny) impressions of our customers like: the guy that just realized he has an hour to finish a paper and truly believes that I can serve him a solution in a 12, 16, or 20 oz. cup, or the guy who has literally asked out every girl that works at my store.. in writing... usually on a napkin.. sometimes a pastry bag, or, the more common customer, that cannot get off of their phone to order, doesn't know the difference between a cappuccino and frappucino (btw BIG difference), just ordered the most UNhealthy thing on the menu to then ask how many calories are in it, or the low talkers that look really annoyed when you ask them to repeat their order yet still will not adjust their volume in any amount when they reiterate. Sorry for bashing. Honestly, for every crappy customer there are usually 2 awesome customers that "see" me (like they way the blue people in Avatar see each other), and about 10 that have no impact on my mood because all they want is their coffee and to get to class on time. (These statistics are complete b.s. but you get it.)
     To my big boss/es, I am a happy, little, blonde girl with excellent customer service skills who does the coffee, pastry, and milk orders well (or well enough), creates schedules and gets shifts covered, who doesn't call to complain about little things, and smiles all damn day long (despite above mentioned customer types).
That's three roles: barista, co-worker, and manager. I am three people every day at this job, and in each position I am in good standing. So what the heck do I really have to complain about.


Awkward story #1  Light or Dark?
My best friend got me a job at Starbucks. She had already been a barista for over a year  (by then you know the coffee world like the back of your hand), and I was working register. Someone asked "which has more caffeine? Light or dark roast coffee?" and I answered "dark." So the customer then chose the dark roast. My friend comes over from the bar to correct me,"Uh, actually the light roast has more caffeine." I think the customer and I said "Oh" in unison. I had already poured the darn cup, and now the customer wants light. Oy vey!- I just want to clear this up. Technically, if you are comparing bean to bean, yes, the light has more caffeine, but the difference in the amount of caffeine is so tiny that I would be surprised if you could even tell (There is more to it than that, but it's something you can google search when you are bored). I re-poured them the light with a smile.

Awkward story #2   Oh, Madison!
My first day at a new coffee shop, despite my past coffee shop work experience, I was nervous-like crazy-shaky-hands-even-though-I-haven't-had-any-coffee-yet nervous- and rusty. It had been almost a year between my Sbux job and this one. So when you are nervous and rusty, they cannot put you on bar or register without worrying about you, so they make you clean. I was asked to clean the counters, and I wanted to do a really good job because I couldn't do a good job on anything else yet.
After I have cleaned the coffee counters to their pristine glory, I decide to clean under the machines. I lift our espresso grinder and before I know what has happened, the floor is covered in espresso beans. Apparently you cannot lift our espresso grinder when their is espresso in it. I was so embarrassed, and at Sbux when you messed up, especially as a newbie, they made you feel awful about it. I waited for someone to sigh in anger or bark at me  to clean it up. Instead I got a laugh- this persons laugh is awesome btw- while my co-worker/ trainer grabbed the broom and started cleaning up. She even went as far as to relate that she had done this before. I must have looked scared and pathetic, because she kept telling me it was okay, not a big deal, that it happens, and cooing me back to reality.


Awkward story # 3  Gaston le Chat

This is not the original, but its
a very close recreation done
by the marvelous Claire Moles.

We have this white board at work, and it's supposed to be for important work related notes but it's a coffee shop so... not too many super important work related notes are left on it. It has become a doodle board more or less. (Or crazy list board-celebrity crushes, annoying customer comments/questions, and what not). Often one person will start drawing, another will add something, and then another, and another. One of our drawings started with a really fat cat, and as the night went on he became a really fat French cat named Gaston who had enough of these annoying customers. He had funny word bubbles, a few expletives were thrown in, and he was even smoking a cig and waving the bird... anyway, when you close it is your job to erase the board. After all we don't want our manager to see the sort of thing that goes on our important work related note board unless it's an important work related note.
It didn't get erased.. Thank goodness the boss found it funny. She didn't even erase him.
She did erase the expletives and the middle finger though.


     I love being a barista- for the most part.
     I love the people I work with. We are allies. We can get through the day together. We can share a laugh. We can double bar. We can make polo shirts and aprons look cool (no? oh well).
     I love the people I serve. They need coffee as badly as I do. They smile. They joke when I blotch the coffee script (ex. asking if someone wants room for cream in their frappuccino). They say they missed me when I was in Oregon and that they're happy I am back.
     I like (love's a strong word) my bosses. After a truly hard day or week, they assure me I have done well. They congratulate me when I exceed expectations. They have freed me from wearing the polo shirt of lameness (free dress = yay yay yay!- dorky dance included). They appear more and more human. They even curse and swear when their day is rough or they've blotched something (that's right, they blotch things too)

     I still do not want this to be my career, but I am definitely fine with it for now. After all, I still want to learn how to do a rosetta on a latte.

Marilyn and Me

     I do not remember with perfect clarity when my obsession with Marilyn Monroe came about. I was probably 7 or 8 and had decided that I wanted to be like her, because she was so pretty and likable. I hadn't even seen her in a movie when I had decided that. I remember my mom telling me that the mole on my chin was a beauty mark and someone saying that Marilyn Monroe had a beauty mark too, which made me feel special- actually more than special. It made me feel beautiful. 

My Marilyn themed
dress and hair... and yes,
that's Matt. We have been
together that long.

     I have to take a moment to reflect on that. Yes, I remember feeling beautiful, before puberty struck. Then came acne, and hips, and boobs, and a bunch of crap magazines with pictures of celebrities with waists as big my wrist, and... well I kind of didn't feel so beautiful anymore. That lasted a while (most of high school actually, which of course felt like forever), and the sugary caffeine-loaded frappucinos from Starbucks paired with lots of fast food was a big step in the wrong direction.
     During that period of my life that I sometimes think of as my dark ages (especially when my dad loads the most awful pictures from those years onto our digital picture frame for friends and family to see), I had a growing collection of Marilyn memorabilia that included posters, two shirts, and a clock. I kind of started to idolize her. Or at least the image of her. In my senior year, I even bought a dress and styled my hair to look as Marilyn as possible for prom. 

     I may have had a collection and all, but I didn't really know much about the woman. I mean I knew that her real name was Norma Jeane, she was an actress and a sex symbol, sang happy birthday to JFK in a sultry voice, that diamonds were her best friend, and that she died young from some sort of drug over dose. I could say that I know more about her now because I've read Wikipedia entries about her, did my fair share of Googling, read magazine articles, and watched a number of her movies- as well as My Week with Marilyn.Yet I still feel like I don't know who she was. There's a lot about her laid out clean and clear, but beyond her stardom, her image as a sex symbol, her way with the camera (clothed or not), she remains a mystery. Marilyn Monroe was really a pseudo identity. Norma Jeane was sort of... lost to Hollywood. So I wonder what it would have been like to be that girl.
     Almost fifty years after her death as I was placing my groceries on the check stand, her face on the cover of Vanity Fair held my attention with a force as could not be ignored. I made the purchase (with zero buyer's remorse- can't say that when I buy In Touch, Star, or People ) and instantly flipped to the pictures... I mean article.
After I finished reading, I realized she was human and vulnerable yet still beautiful. Always beautiful. The obsession I had in childhood has sort of evolved. There's something about her looks, her smile, her energy that is captivating. But it's that realness that I like so much about her now. (That and she makes femininity seem like a super power.) It's probably not right to idolize anyone, but I definitely think that both Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jeane are worth remembering.

"I didn't pay much attention to the whistles and whoops, in fact, I didn't quite hear them. I was full of a strange feeling, as if I were two people. One of them was Norma Jeane from the orphanage who belonged to nobody; the other was someone whose name I didn't know. But I knew where she belonged; she belonged to the ocean and the sky and the whole world."-Marilyn Monroe

I spent Saturday night with Matt at the Getty. We Missed the Kings game for some romance, and hey, they still won. We have been married just over six months now, which Brings our total relationship time close to 8 years (no small feat for a 23 and 25 year old). And somehow, marriage has made a world of difference. First, it feels like something has been accomplished (there's a big sigh of relief), then it feels like I am looking back on a dream when I think about my wedding and honeymoon, and then the start up, which was perhaps not so dream like (We moved to Oregon for 3 months but our job search had no avail. Then we came back to California searching for work, back in with my parents -don't worry we still love each other.. and my parents, back to work, and now looking for apartments-some great and some not so great- on the weekends.)

It is strange, though, to go from seeing each other all day every day to seeing each other a couple of hours with only the weekends to fully spend together. Maybe that's what being grown up is all about. That seems unfair though. It would be more accurate to say that is what working full time is all about.

Anyway getting back to the Getty (which is no longer free after 5 pm on Saturdays), Matt and I succeeded in having some peaceful, romantic, wonderful alone time at one of my favorite places in Los Angeles. I did the unthinkable by asking if we could leave the tv screen during NHL playoffs, especially when our team was playing, and Matt did the most beautiful thing a husband could do. He turned it off and took me out.

Don't settle. Seek!

 It has been almost a month since my last post.. and it has been crazy. I recently was hired back to my old work place as a supervisor. It's a step up (but kind of to the side if you know what I mean). Since my goal in life is not to be a coffee shop store manager or to completely ignore my degree, I have been wondering if going back to this job is a good idea.

     I find my new position to be a big time stress factor in my life. I know that I am fully capable of managing a coffee shop but this is not really moving me forward in any way. I absolutely hate being the person to cut people's hours, and ordering coffee and keeping track of inventory is not exactly a fulfilling task. It is what it is. It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that it is the type of job that you should not have to take home with you (... wish there was an off switch so that when I have to be in at work at 6am on Friday, I am not tossing and turning on Thursday night about getting my pastry order in by one the next day) and ever more obvious that I cannot help but bring it home. Matt has told me repeatedly that I need to stop letting everything get to me and that I am bothered too easily by my work life. I wonder when it will click and I will feel free after I clock out. In the meantime, I enjoy the weekends off although they pass too quickly for my long reading list. 

     Which brings me to what I am currently reading. The Hunger Games (forgive me for picking it up so late). The night before the Hunger Games start Peeta says "I don't want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not...... I keep wishing I could think of a way to.. to show the Capitol they don't own me."  Suddenly I am trying not to laugh aloud while I am reading this. This is all that I want out of a job, out of life. I want to be me. Not some phony who tells people "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean" or sends people home early when I can see in their eyes they really need the hours right now. My fear is the same as Peeta's only I am not a contestant in a death match.  I know that is possible to be good at something even if you are not passionate about it, but if your heart is not in it (even though your performance reads as excellent) then you are still settling for mediocrity. 

     I think ultimately that my coming back has really lit a fire under my bum to start seeking rather than just accepting whatever opportunities fall into my lap.  I think it is high time that I follow through with my passions. The quote "You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take" keeps flashing in my mind (and flashes all the brighter while I am watching the LA Kings in the playoffs). I will always love coffee, but I know that I prefer to be on the customer side of the counter. Once you have a realization or dream of what you want to be or how you want to live your life, you will be miserable if you settle for something rather than work to pursue that goal.