2004-11-20
Strange Things
Strange Things Been Happening To Me, or, Of Talking Dogs, Bilingual Bums, Midgets, and My Missing Twin
This week has been hella interesting. First of all, when I came into work on Wednesday, I saw that a new girl had been hired. We'll call her Z. Z. is gorgeous and from a country in south Africa. She's 24, has a bachelor's in art (she's an artist, wants to become an art teacher), and is engaged to a fellow pastor's kid. I was initially very intimidated by her, but then I realized there was no reason to be. She was pretty nice, and I had nothing to worry about. Honestly (and stupidly), I was a little afraid my managers would like her more than they like me, but that seems to be a natural fear for me. I worked with her on Wednesday, and everything went well. We got along pretty well, which is always nice. At that point, I was pretty much burned out from work anyway, and had resigned my fate to the fact that I would probably be fired from Javaology for whatever reason, and Z would be put in my place. I even reasoned that that was probably already the plan, and I should just go along with it. The next morning I went in to work, running a little late but not caring, and she wasn't there. Apparently she was fired for coming in an hour late that morning. Obviously, my indifference to my job status was immediately diminished. For starters, my fears about being replaced were for naught, and secondly, I needed to change my attitude. Interestingly, W. seemed in a much better mood than he had been in the day before when Z. had been there, and proceeded to tell my Italian coworker, Alex, and I all the reasons he had fired her and had not liked her. Since he fired Z., he has been nothing but nice to me. I feel like my view of work has been completely refreshed, although I am looking forward to my break this coming week . . . I'm going home for Thanksgiving.
Tuesday night I drove Lee to the bus station to get his ticket to leave the city. I parked and waited in the car while he ran in to get his ticket. Apparently I had parked in the wrong lot, and was told to move my car. A guy I assumed was a bum told me to just park it in a different direction, but was then yelled at by the guy who'd told me I couldn't park there, so I assumed he knew nothing, and moved to the Greyhound lot. A few minutes later, the same guy (whom I'm still assuming is a bum), comes to my window, and tells me I have to put money in the red box to pay to park there. I knew what he meant, but I shook my head, since I was only going to be there for a few minutes. I didn't say anything, I just shook my head. The guy stood there, thought for a minute, and repeated everything he'd just said in what sounded like perfect, unfaltering Spanish. I was amazed. I really do think the guy was a bum, but the fact that he was a black guy and spoke perfect Spanish goes to show that you can't judge a book by it's cover. Ever. Another good example of this is The Marriage of the Sticks by Jonathon Carroll. That's a crazy good book, and I would have never guessed that by looking at its cover.
Thursday morning I woke up to Liger crawling on top of me. He placed his mouth around my hand, looked at me, and swear to God, he said 'Mama'. James and I looked at each other and were like, 'What the fuck?!' Liger did that about three more times, then stopped. Each time it sounded exactly like the word mama. Later at work, a small black man (read: midget) in a suit came in and ordered coffee. When I got off work, I dropped Lee off at the bus station. It was kind of surreal. I wasn't really sad at the time that he was leaving,and he didn't seem fazed, either. He seemed neither sad nor excited about leaving Atlanta. I was more bummed about getting lost on the way home than his actual leaving. However, now I'm noticing him not being here anymore. For instance, I used to always take him with me to run errands, because I like the company and he likes to get out, but I can no longer do that. Also, I no longer have a friend in the building I can just go and hang out with at a moment's notice. Sigh. I'm fucked if I ever have an emergency and suddenly need a cigarette, or a friendly shoulder to cry on.
Yesterday I had a renewed enthusiasm for work, and life in general. My alarm went off, and James was incredibly sweet to me. We watched Rocky Horror Picture Show for a few minutes (we'd watched part of it the evening before, and turned if off when I started to doze), and then I got ready. He made me salmon bagels, and wrapped them up for me to take to work, as well as some Pimp Juices. I was in an even better mood because I woke up looking super cute, so I didn't have to spend much time getting ready. When I got to work, Alex called out, "Good morning, beautiful!" I thought she was just being sweet, until she added, "So, you've been keeping a secret from all of us? We've seen the picture, now we know!" Confused, I walked behind the counter. Taped to the register was a picture cut from a magazine of a girl who looked exactly like me, but with darker hair. It had been mounted on register tape, under which M. had written ' Who knew LAUREN has been moonlighting as a model?!?' I was stunned. The girl looks exactly like me, except she has slightly better eyebrows than me. If you look closely, you can even see that she has the same skin as I do. Her hair is darker than mine, but it's also wet in the picture. It's longer than mine, but in a style I've had mine cut in before. Truly the creepiest picture I have ever seen. M.'s wife, J., found it in Jezebel Magazine, an Atlanta magazine. I will scan and link to the picture later, but I'll definitely do it.
At noon, a good looking, slightly odd smelling man came in the shop and stared at me intensely. He came in with a woman, so I tried to ignore his staring and just talked to the woman as they were ordering. Finally, the man blurted out that I looked exactly like a woman from his country-Spain. He asked me if my hair color was natural (yes), and told me that the other woman had hair the exact color as mine (impressive, as it's pretty unique), and is an architect. I was even more weirded out at that point. I mean, I've heard that everyone has a twin somewhere, but triplets?! C'mon, that's just ridiculous. The Spanish guy watched me very intensely the entire time he was in the shop. I felt like Lizzie Maguire in appropriately named The Lizzie Maguire Movie, when she's mistaken for the Italian pop star. However, my alter-ego is a model. Instead of The Princ(ess) and the Pauper, it's The Model and the Barista. What the fuck.
Later that afternoon, as I was about to leave, a guy came in and asked me if I'd worked at the Carroll Street Cafe (right behind where I live). I told him no, and he said that I looked really familiar. I've never even patronized the Carroll Street Cafe, so it couldn't have been from there, but he insisted that I looked really familiar. I showed him the picture that had been taped on the register, and he was amazed by the similarities of the picture and myself, but it didn't help him any.
Also, apparently yesterday I made coffee for Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon, the redhead. A woman came in with a twenty drink order for Alex and I to fill, and then came in later that afternoon with a slightly shorter drink list. As I helped the lady carry the drinks to her car, I asked her who they were for. I had expected her to say she worked at the hospital or something. Instead, she told me that she was with a movie HBO was filming in the area (!!), and that Cynthia Nixon was in it. She'd ordered an iced tea that afternoon, but there were only coffees and chais that morning, so one of them had to be for her. I was really excited, and told the lady to tell Cynthia Nixon she had a fan at Javaology (LAME! I know, but true). I really do love my job sometimes.
I've been wanting to see Bridget Jones' Diary : The Edge of Reason for some time now, but James won't see it before he sees the first one. I went to Blockbuster last night, but they were all out of the originals to rent, and not wanting to trek to another Blockbuster in the rain, I caved and bought the collector's edition of the DVD. James giggled like a girlfriend, and said 'awww' in all the right places, and was all around the perfect boyfriend throughout the movie (and after). I'm happy to report that he liked the movie, and we can now see the sequel.
Despite the fact that Willis and I had our signals crossed and our times for me to be at work confused (I was scheduled for 8 am, and then he called me and I thought he'd told me to come in at 2pm, but he'd said 10, meaning 10 am), it was a great day at work. I got to work with Alex, my undisputed favorite coworker, and everything was marvelous. M., my mostly favorite manager (we're so much alike, we would have made most compatible on those silly computer tests in high school), named a drink I designed (frozen vanilla latte with a frosted mint shot) the Ice Queen for me (Ice because of the mint, Queen referring to me, w00t!). I designed a new drink at work today (frozen vanilla latte with ChaiNog and nutmeg), which is amazing. I love designing drinks. I'm excellent at it, and if I could make money doing that, I would do it for a living. I'd brought Lost in Translation to work for W.'s wife to borrow, and seeing it, M. said that when he and his wife saw that movie, they both said Scarlett Johannson's character in that movie reminded them of me. I thought that was interesting, as she reminds me of me, too, but I just thought that might be me being vain. I appreciate and enjoythe fact that we understand each other so well.
I am now going to enjoy my relatively free time. I don't have to work until 6 tomorrow evening, and enjoy it, I will.
Love,
Lauren
aigre-douce at 7:52 p.m.