Happy Hour

The coffee queue

2005-11-01T16:12:00.000-08:00

Everyday, around the exact same time, I get a coffee from Second Cup.
I go to Second Cup because of its proximity to my office.
My office is in a hospital. Many people in the hospital go for coffee at the same time as I get mine.
Around 9:30.
We line up. We queue.
My sister likes word origins. Here is the origin for queue:

When the British stand in queues (as they have been doing at least since 1837, when this meaning of the word is first recorded in English), they may not realize they form a tail. The French word queue from which the English word is borrowed is a descendant of Latin c da, meaning “tail.”

This is interesting. But we all know what it means. It means to line up.

For as long as I can remember, I have lined up for things. Let me list some:
1) in elementary school, the bell would ring and we would line up to enter the building
2) in swimming lessons, we would line up to jump off the diving board
3) in high school, I would line up to get my food from the ‘caf’
4) in university, I lined up for food, coffee, and to argue each and every tuition statement at the Student Accounts office.

If we didn’t line up, life would be chaotic.
I can think of a particular chaotic non-lining up time that occurred in my life. I shall recount this disaster:
I attempted to go drinking at the posh posh snotty club Buena Notte in Montreal last year. There is no lining up, bouncers just pick the girls who wear the least amount of clothing and agree to take off their shirts for them to get in. They also pick the fat, greasy, bald men who flash their wallets and hit on the girls who wear the least amount of clothing and take off their shirts for them for free booze.
I am not allowed to ‘line up’ here anymore. This is because I threatened to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against this bouncer (who, I should mention, wore braces).
So, you see? Chaos.

Now for the point.

Lining up has been engrained in us. It brings order to our lives. It brings order to my morning coffee routine. But yesterday, someone tried to defy this order. Someone created chaos at Second Cup. Someone refused to queue. It was a messy, messy, 9:30 in the morning coffee run.

A women, a horrible, Prada-wearing, collagen-lipped, over-banged woman budded in line.
I believe that 'budding', like 'murder' should be illegal. It should be called fraud. No, better yet, identity theft. For this woman pretended to be the person who belongs in the front of the line, while standing right in front of that women who was entitled to be in the front of the line, in order to pretend she was her.

Follow?

The fact of the matter is that many people work in a hospital. Most of them work to make sick people better. Often, these people need coffee to stay awake so that they can continue to work to make people better.

In this particular line up, on this particular day, I recognized some of the 9:30 coffee regulars: a nurse, a surgeon, a pediatrician, a woman in a wheelchair and hospital gown, and a physician of some sort who stood behind me (not, actually, a regular, but looked very important in her salmon scrubs).

And yet, this woman, with the audacity to bud this line of life-savers, walked straight ahead and ordered her non-fat, decaf, half-shot, no-foam, latte. Well… not exactly, but from my 1.5 months working as a barrista, I can smell the hot-yoga lifer type from a mile away.

In the shock of it all, no one said a word to this wretched woman. We all looked at each other in communal astonishment, and continued to wait in line.

Only minutes after, when I began to down my first cup of coffee for the day, did I realize the exact right thing that I should have said to her, and if I could do things all over again, I would have belted. My brillant, coffee-induced epiphany come-back goes something like this:

“Lady: Fuqueue!”

Writer's Blog

2005-10-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

I have 23 minutes to write this entry.

Why you ask?

Well, there are really two reasons for this countdown.
1. I wasted the last 20 trying to think of what to write about; and
2. Sex and the City is on at 11.
21 minutes left.

I am a slave to the television. Having successfully lived the past 4 years of my life without cable television, I am disgusted with my transition from coffee-goer, emotional shopper, and serious student to couch potato.

19 minutes...

Television is preventing me from living my life. OK, dramatic, sure, but true. I started reading a book entitled "what should I do with my life" by Po Bronson in August. I am still reading this book. Why? Because everytime I try to read I find myself channel surfing. So obviously I still havn't decided what to do with my life... and unless I find some time (please, I have plently of time) I will never finish this book. And should I never finish the book, I will never reach the last page of the book, where a scratch and sniff sticker will reveal a hidden message unveiling my true calling in life. Damnit television.

15 minutes...

Thank heavens for sports.

For the past three Thursday nights, I have regained my dignity. I found the inside of the gym. I have written a blog entry. I have finished all three Saturday papers.

The explanation?

The OC.

I have finally got Ryan and Marissa's being-kicked-out-of-school saga out of my head. For at 8pm every Thursday for the past 3 weeks, some sport that I can't remember has taken the air time away from the OC. And once the initial shock of learning of the OC three week lag passed, I found my freedom.
I am free.

Shit.

I have to go.

5 minutes until Sex and the City.

No time to proof read...
No time.

Diaries of a Ballerina Butch

2005-10-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

Today is the forth ballet class of my entire adult life.

Having always watched ballerinas in envy, I decided to use my newly acquired spare time wisely, and prance around in spandex for about an hour in each week.
Although it seemed like a great idea at the time, this became a painful, frustrating and utterly embarrassing ordeal.

I found an advertisement for a dance studio in my old neighborhood that offered beginner lessons to adults. Perfect. So I attended a class.

At first, I was feeling a bit out of my comfort zone, but as the old man with the beer belly and black slippers sashayed into class, I realized everything would be OK.

It wasn't.

Here, I discovered that a sick breed of repulsive ex-dancers subsist among us, on the prowl for beginner dance classes to crash in order to feed their sad, washed-out dancer ego. I call this phenomenon the ‘washed-out ballerina snob phenomenon’.
Note: this came as no surprise given my multiple snob experiences with various extracurricular endeavors. I have witnessed the wrath of the theatre snob, the International Development Studies hippie snob, and the most despicable of all, the choir snob, with her exaggerated open mouth and bug-eyed expression on every note she holds. So obnoxious.

Needless to say, my perfect beginner ballet class vision was shattered. There was no first-to-fifth position review, nor a communal, round circle point and flex stretch routine. Rather, we turned to the grande jetee, grande pliee routine.

In the movie Center Stage (I am ashamed to admit I know that movie by heart), a movie about ballerina students at the ABA in New York City, the students partake in a final recital performance prior to their graduation. In one performance, a ballet class scene is presented on stage, and a bad-ass ballet dancer dressed in a red leotard (the rest are in black) enters the class late and attempts to join the bar exercises. Because she is late and preoccupied by the cute male ballet instructor, she is constantly turning in the wrong direction to face her class. When she tries to adjust, she finds herself in this predicament yet again.

I endured the same misfortune and left my ballet class disheartened, and fully clothed -- one small deviation from the movie events that transpire.

One week later, I got back on the ballet bandwagon.

I discovered a beginner course at a nearby university gym, taught by a unique-looking (tattooed, pierced, and delightfully graceful) male dancer. With the typical washed-out ballerina snobs congregated on the first row of bars, I allied myself with the majority of dancers who resembled true beginner material. Together, we made fun of the washed-out ballerina snobs and I felt I had found my safe place to explore my new ballet fixation.

Filled with excitement, I raced (I mean, walked gracefully) home to tell my boyfriend, and a few of my friends the news.

I did not get the reaction that I had anticipated.

Typically, news of my new extracurricular obsession elicits two responses.
1) hysterical laughter, followed by an “are you serious?”; OR
2) YOU take ballet?
Both responses make me feel like a ballet butch.

Now, I do not have a tall, wafer-thin physique. I like my food as much as the next fatso, and would never strive for such skinny nonsense. But, my question remains: what is it about ballet that makes it so inconceivable that a 20-something, 5-foot-3-inches female may join a beginner ballet class? Or more importantly, what is it about ME that renders my ballet pursuit so ludicrous?

Just because I fell off the step backwards at my Bally’s step class…

I digress.

Professional Procrastinator, PP

2005-10-06T12:49:00.000-07:00

I am a Professional Procrastinator and allstar slacker.

I once watched potatoes cook in the oven from start to finish -- with no pre-cooking in the microwave involved, whatsoever -- in preference to studying for midterms.

I consider the office supply cupboard to be a safehaven from the hustle and bustle of the office. I will search the room for the special Liquid Paper Dryline whiteout for as long as I can. I have never been forced to settle for the wet liquid paper crap.

I have two volunteers helping me out at the office.

I learned recently that by standing close to the running photocopy machine for a long period of time, I can get really deep in my thoughts.

I can watch the same episode of Sex and the City over and over, until it's too late to work, read, study, or cook.

I have Buffalo Bills on speedial. They ask me if I wish for my 'usual' order.

Now, I have blogging. I still don't quite understand what it is, or how it works. I don't expect I will have a following, or even the occasional reader (with my enthusiastic and anachronistic funny sister as an exception).

My day will now consist of:
9-9:30: check email, read online paper
9:30-10:15: coffee time
10:15-11:30: volunteer 1 comes in
11:30-12:30: think about lunch menu
12:30-1:30: Lunch
1:3o-3:00: give work to volunteer 2
3:00-4:00: Think about blog topic and coffee time
4:00-5:00: compose blog

That being said... time to help out volunteer 2.