I don't have school tomorrow, the realization is sweet. I may stay up and try to become the genius I'd love to be. Or I could stay up and....watch television, read Walden, do core work-outs, create cookies, and memorize Johnny Cash songs. All of which are better if you have a person to share it with, a cup of coffee and you could find that one viral video of Allen Ginsberg dancing in his documentary.
"Doth grow the greater still, the further downe;
Till that abounding both in power and fame,
She long doth give the sea her name."
-Thoreau
I've done some late thinking on the past year since we are officially seventeen days in, eighteen in an hour. I probably should have done the thinking over the Summer or possibly while the events of last year were occuring, but my thought process has always been to sit back and watch how things play out, and that putting a hand in only caused the events to occur more erratically. It also happened with this last year that I just didn't understand enough to care.
Getting feedback on what I've been doing, just how it affects...everything, should probably lead me onto further self reflection, even though that doesn't sound remotely interesting.
I'm promising myself now, on well, electronic paper, that this semester will be different than my mediocre performance in the last one. I could bring myself to say a million excuses for my performance, for the grades I've pulled out, but I can't do that. I've done that too long....for everything that has happened in the last half of last year, too.
But, the whole slate is wiped clean with this oncoming week. With this burgeoning year, a new semester, with the calm that comes from having someone that will always be on my side. Thank you for that.
I've realized a great deal
A. I do not understand pre-cal, and I probably should. I should also learn more than what I have learned...up 'til now. It's barely getting me by.
B. That I like writing, but I don't like sharing what's closest to me, and I'm sorry if you expect that.
C.That constantly talking to people leads to less self reflection, leads to less creativity and less revelations, even though I don't have much need for them. Let's face it, if I haven't wrapped my mind around the subjects now, I'm not going to. Not unless I become bedmates with my textbook and cut myself completely off. Both of which sound very cold and unhappy places to be, especially comapared to lately.
D. I should probably get my priorities straight about exactly what I want. With everything. Everything. Even if this IS an unobtainable goal.
E. That besides everything else, January has been a very lucky month.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Sing it, if you feel the need
I always sing the praises for
alcoves
and for the misty, blanketed nights
that reflect city lights so easy
and call to them moths
I will always sing the praises for
trees
and lilies that only bloom in July
and the soft moss that only grows in the shade
I will always sing the praise for
purposely sitting in the dark
and then turning the lights on
in front of a mirror
just to watch your pupils dilate
I will always sing the praises for
the music that gives you goosebumps
when you push the right pedal on a piano
and the note stretches
long into eternity
and a howling guitar
and attempting to sing a harmony and a melody
all at the same time
I will always sing for
the whistling birds
scraping the skin off your knees
the smooth acceleration of running downhill
the pervasive feeling of chalk dust
Praise, I will
how in a crowd of people all milling
and talking muderously to the ears
you can always find the voice you want
I will always praise
a mountain sun
a warm shower
slowing your heartbeat
and taking long breaths
and sinking back into the water
holding yourself there
and counting out
how long you can hold your breath there
your lungs burning
alcoves
and for the misty, blanketed nights
that reflect city lights so easy
and call to them moths
I will always sing the praises for
trees
and lilies that only bloom in July
and the soft moss that only grows in the shade
I will always sing the praise for
purposely sitting in the dark
and then turning the lights on
in front of a mirror
just to watch your pupils dilate
I will always sing the praises for
the music that gives you goosebumps
when you push the right pedal on a piano
and the note stretches
long into eternity
and a howling guitar
and attempting to sing a harmony and a melody
all at the same time
I will always sing for
the whistling birds
scraping the skin off your knees
the smooth acceleration of running downhill
the pervasive feeling of chalk dust
Praise, I will
how in a crowd of people all milling
and talking muderously to the ears
you can always find the voice you want
I will always praise
a mountain sun
a warm shower
slowing your heartbeat
and taking long breaths
and sinking back into the water
holding yourself there
and counting out
how long you can hold your breath there
your lungs burning
Friday, January 15, 2010
Zydeco continuation
Zydeco
"One must maintain a little bittle of summer, even in the middle of winter."
— Henry David Thoreau
It's been hard to put thoughts down this last school week, because I was pulling out too much material for writing, and when that happens the door shuts on anything I actually feel confident writing. And when it's shut, there really isn't any prying it
unless I want shitty writing
But, I've been under the influence of music....sort of
and summer
and Thoreau
and Sophia Coppola
and the laziness of running, and then sitting back and realizing
that there weren't any due dates this week
so I didn't push myself
very hard
at all
to write decently, even about things I'm passionate about
failing my exams put a damper on that
and I'm going to wait attentively for the repercussions
but for right now I'm going to be incredibly lazy
so there
I would like to share with ya'll...yeah ya'll a little tasty music
that I may or may not have been listening to
not that you like my music, but personally, I've learned not to take offense
let's see
eins) Ella Guru- Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
zwei) I Think Ur A Contra- Vampire Weekend
drei) Slow Poison- The Bravery
vier) Governor Slugwell- Lord Buckley
funf) (the most fun number before sechs)GNG BNG- Flying Lotus
jeepers, that's it
— Henry David Thoreau
It's been hard to put thoughts down this last school week, because I was pulling out too much material for writing, and when that happens the door shuts on anything I actually feel confident writing. And when it's shut, there really isn't any prying it
unless I want shitty writing
But, I've been under the influence of music....sort of
and summer
and Thoreau
and Sophia Coppola
and the laziness of running, and then sitting back and realizing
that there weren't any due dates this week
so I didn't push myself
very hard
at all
to write decently, even about things I'm passionate about
failing my exams put a damper on that
and I'm going to wait attentively for the repercussions
but for right now I'm going to be incredibly lazy
so there
I would like to share with ya'll...yeah ya'll a little tasty music
that I may or may not have been listening to
not that you like my music, but personally, I've learned not to take offense
let's see
eins) Ella Guru- Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
zwei) I Think Ur A Contra- Vampire Weekend
drei) Slow Poison- The Bravery
vier) Governor Slugwell- Lord Buckley
funf) (the most fun number before sechs)GNG BNG- Flying Lotus
jeepers, that's it
Thursday, January 14, 2010
western
the sky is one rippling
cable knit sweater
a sweet faded old lavender pastel
the twisted knits blurred as
the farbic is washed and rewashed
and cleared into a chlorine clear
hard blue topaz set in prongs
and ruffled only by
the lightest whisps
of spare cotton blown about
that catches the light this afternoon
a cashmere sheared a millenia ago
and much longer still
longer than I could possibly imagine
but would like to, even with the fragile limitations
of this human mind
how far beyond
the lilac dye spilled and diluted across
that far stretched space does splay
behind me the western sun
makes mauve inside the boundaries
above and beyond where I stand
in front, along
the wall of untouchable clouds
that when it sinks to Earth
is only a white mist
so it has more beauty far above
me and the rolling hills
though it looks soft and warm
as the sienna tints back toward the west
spread in arcs and visible bands
across the fabric of the sky
weilding a loom
that ties in bands
of heavenly brass
wrapped in the muted fabric
along the east
cable knit sweater
a sweet faded old lavender pastel
the twisted knits blurred as
the farbic is washed and rewashed
and cleared into a chlorine clear
hard blue topaz set in prongs
and ruffled only by
the lightest whisps
of spare cotton blown about
that catches the light this afternoon
a cashmere sheared a millenia ago
and much longer still
longer than I could possibly imagine
but would like to, even with the fragile limitations
of this human mind
how far beyond
the lilac dye spilled and diluted across
that far stretched space does splay
behind me the western sun
makes mauve inside the boundaries
above and beyond where I stand
in front, along
the wall of untouchable clouds
that when it sinks to Earth
is only a white mist
so it has more beauty far above
me and the rolling hills
though it looks soft and warm
as the sienna tints back toward the west
spread in arcs and visible bands
across the fabric of the sky
weilding a loom
that ties in bands
of heavenly brass
wrapped in the muted fabric
along the east
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Head Splits
Sitting, sitting, sitting. The whole house is empty. Not a person, not a piece of furniture fills it. Except for me. I sit in the backroom, sit on the floor there.
Here I can hear everything, but see nothing except the white walls in front of me. I can see the marks that scuff up the wall, put there by a family that isn't mine. I can see the ill fitting door with the broken handle. I know there is a window behind me and when the blinds are not pulled down against the gray of the day it views a field and beyond the road, unoccupied during the afternoon. There I sit. I sit and sit. The floor's cold chill travels up through my back giving me that feverish chill from the oppressive heated air, unmoving in the stillness of the room. The heat radiates out from the radiator in the back corner of the room behind me but the heat isn't enough to warm me as it fills the upward expanses of the room. It cannot slide through the floor to the center of the room as the cold pulls the heat down into the ground, down into the first floor, out through the outer walls, the crawl space, the closet at the side of the room, the hallway that the ill fitting door leads off to, down through the first floor to the basement and then into the red clay and rock sitting under the cement. Behind my eyelids the room looks red where the light has traveled in through the blinds and blinds me by jumping off the milky bright white walls. The light cuts a bright square hole out of the floor, makes the wood glow orange as the rest of the floor is a stale brown. The light shimmers upon the dust of the room that has not yet settled upon the floor, settled around where I sit indian style. My back is curved uncomfortably as I sit, I sit...I am sitting, with elbows perched on my knees, the palms of the hands cradling the chin that I am too lazy to hold up high. Each breath makes my back ache, makes me want to shift my legs and lay there in the warmer patch of sunlight, but I am too lazy and unmotivated and the sunlight is bright on the eyes and my head is spliiting from the gathering blanketed heat. So I sit, sit there retracting my thoughts back from beyond the room into myself and into the room, replaying past eras through my mind. As I do the dust gathers on the jersey of my dress, in the folds that collapse between my knees and around where my elbows touch my knees. My thoughts then are let free and return back to my fingers and I heave a sigh. I think of the bright painted ceilings that look like the sky, a sky that is untouchable and full of airplanes and men laying upon different clouds trying to touch hands. I think of how the room would smell like paint if I painted this sky that is only past my eyes upon the ceiling of the bare room. But it is too hot, and I am sitting, sitting where the room is cold and clammy, the paint would drip and form a sky around me on the floor, the drips stretching from ceiling to floor would make bands of blue sky and airplanes that I could walk through, the bands elastic and stretching as you climbed your way through to open the window and the bands holding you back as they catch like glue upon my arms as I break away from the fresh paint smell.
Here I can hear everything, but see nothing except the white walls in front of me. I can see the marks that scuff up the wall, put there by a family that isn't mine. I can see the ill fitting door with the broken handle. I know there is a window behind me and when the blinds are not pulled down against the gray of the day it views a field and beyond the road, unoccupied during the afternoon. There I sit. I sit and sit. The floor's cold chill travels up through my back giving me that feverish chill from the oppressive heated air, unmoving in the stillness of the room. The heat radiates out from the radiator in the back corner of the room behind me but the heat isn't enough to warm me as it fills the upward expanses of the room. It cannot slide through the floor to the center of the room as the cold pulls the heat down into the ground, down into the first floor, out through the outer walls, the crawl space, the closet at the side of the room, the hallway that the ill fitting door leads off to, down through the first floor to the basement and then into the red clay and rock sitting under the cement. Behind my eyelids the room looks red where the light has traveled in through the blinds and blinds me by jumping off the milky bright white walls. The light cuts a bright square hole out of the floor, makes the wood glow orange as the rest of the floor is a stale brown. The light shimmers upon the dust of the room that has not yet settled upon the floor, settled around where I sit indian style. My back is curved uncomfortably as I sit, I sit...I am sitting, with elbows perched on my knees, the palms of the hands cradling the chin that I am too lazy to hold up high. Each breath makes my back ache, makes me want to shift my legs and lay there in the warmer patch of sunlight, but I am too lazy and unmotivated and the sunlight is bright on the eyes and my head is spliiting from the gathering blanketed heat. So I sit, sit there retracting my thoughts back from beyond the room into myself and into the room, replaying past eras through my mind. As I do the dust gathers on the jersey of my dress, in the folds that collapse between my knees and around where my elbows touch my knees. My thoughts then are let free and return back to my fingers and I heave a sigh. I think of the bright painted ceilings that look like the sky, a sky that is untouchable and full of airplanes and men laying upon different clouds trying to touch hands. I think of how the room would smell like paint if I painted this sky that is only past my eyes upon the ceiling of the bare room. But it is too hot, and I am sitting, sitting where the room is cold and clammy, the paint would drip and form a sky around me on the floor, the drips stretching from ceiling to floor would make bands of blue sky and airplanes that I could walk through, the bands elastic and stretching as you climbed your way through to open the window and the bands holding you back as they catch like glue upon my arms as I break away from the fresh paint smell.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
A car named Desire.
That tan bronco, that tan bronco that sat all through the end of the summer and into the early parts of fall outside the tire store on the main stretch cutting through town. That tan bronco was one of the loveliest cars I had ever laid eyes, sexier than a T-birds wings or cute little german import. There was so many things I wanted to do in a car like that. Smaller than a regular bronco and unpretentious with a matte sandy paint and grey leather seats. I didn't know what year it was, how many miles per gallons it got or how many miles it had on it. It was used, it was me, and all those things didn't matter. I would take it at its face value if I could have it, and oh how I did want it. I asked my dad everyday before I got my real liscence if we could take a look at it, just to look, so that I could put my hands on the door handles. He claimed that broncos were risky, they flipped and that I didn't have the money to pay it off. That was true, I was saving with pennies for a college education, but I wanted that to be my car. I was heartbroken. The whole idea of it, so many stories I would have with it.
Driving down 460 East with both windows down, my left arm a bit darker than the right as I set it on the windows ledge all summer, baking it in the hot summer heat. My hair splaying out against the head rest and my white t-shirt light and yellow in the evening sun. Sunglasses tan cutting across my freckled cheeks as the streaks of sun pour through my spotted windshield like light through bubbly, cold beer. In that car I would drive through Waverly and hunt up a large tin of peanuts, homemade peanut butter, a bag of blueberry bagels, a couple of oranges and a jug of water. I'd set these in the back seat filled with plastic buckets for collecting shells, a bag of t-shirts and shorts and my mom's old sweaters, a shortie wet suit, a skim board and a big yellow dog named Lily. Conor Oberst would cry to me through my speakers as I'd head furthur East down to the port cities I haven't visited extensively since I was a child. Picking out salt water taffy in the corner stores I'd roll past the hotels and tourists. There I'd meet with old old friends and learn to surf in the Atlantic's small pull and push and visit the state park where I'd once gone as a child and seen horse tracks cutting through the white deep sand. There I would park and climb the dunes with my dog and read about the secret of Virginia Dare until the daylight ran out and I'd pitch my tent upon the sand or lay the back seat down and curl up with a dog as my partner and a towel as my pillow. After a deep dark night with a sea breeze chill along the leather seats I'd wake and run down the beach. Playing in the still cold water at dawn and watching the dolphin fins on the small rollers that hit the beach minutes later I'd fill up a whole day. Playing in the water before the start of fall takes all its warm heat away with the curving currents.
A car that smells like grapefruit and irish spring soap and has room enough for a disco ball in the back seat. Thats what that bronco would be. I still dream about it, about tracking sand onto it's floorboards and singing with Linda Ronstandt to the cold open sky along the deserted pine lined back roads, illuminating glowing eyes in the headlights as I rush by.
I want that car.
Driving down 460 East with both windows down, my left arm a bit darker than the right as I set it on the windows ledge all summer, baking it in the hot summer heat. My hair splaying out against the head rest and my white t-shirt light and yellow in the evening sun. Sunglasses tan cutting across my freckled cheeks as the streaks of sun pour through my spotted windshield like light through bubbly, cold beer. In that car I would drive through Waverly and hunt up a large tin of peanuts, homemade peanut butter, a bag of blueberry bagels, a couple of oranges and a jug of water. I'd set these in the back seat filled with plastic buckets for collecting shells, a bag of t-shirts and shorts and my mom's old sweaters, a shortie wet suit, a skim board and a big yellow dog named Lily. Conor Oberst would cry to me through my speakers as I'd head furthur East down to the port cities I haven't visited extensively since I was a child. Picking out salt water taffy in the corner stores I'd roll past the hotels and tourists. There I'd meet with old old friends and learn to surf in the Atlantic's small pull and push and visit the state park where I'd once gone as a child and seen horse tracks cutting through the white deep sand. There I would park and climb the dunes with my dog and read about the secret of Virginia Dare until the daylight ran out and I'd pitch my tent upon the sand or lay the back seat down and curl up with a dog as my partner and a towel as my pillow. After a deep dark night with a sea breeze chill along the leather seats I'd wake and run down the beach. Playing in the still cold water at dawn and watching the dolphin fins on the small rollers that hit the beach minutes later I'd fill up a whole day. Playing in the water before the start of fall takes all its warm heat away with the curving currents.
A car that smells like grapefruit and irish spring soap and has room enough for a disco ball in the back seat. Thats what that bronco would be. I still dream about it, about tracking sand onto it's floorboards and singing with Linda Ronstandt to the cold open sky along the deserted pine lined back roads, illuminating glowing eyes in the headlights as I rush by.
I want that car.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Candy
A couple weeks ago I finally saw the movie Candy. A harrowing tale about two heroin addicts. The movie was...sad to say the least and I didn't get into it as deep as I thought I would just so that I could stay sane. But in the preview (which I watched several times before seeing the movie, sort of like looking over the cover art of a book to see if that book 'looks' good, I love aesthetic appeal...yadda yad) it has Heath Ledger speaking one of the most beautiful pieces of prose I may have ever heard other than All The Difference (Nature Camp thing), by e.e. cummings. Here it is, enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrudC0STJ0U
the lines are from
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
-usually I'm not much for sappy love poems, but this is different in a way I can't explain like,
the roses growing on the brick walls of my house
or the pine trees that lay past the creek where the bobcat tracks are
timeless in a sense that it could all rush away happily without you.
the complete poem
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
e.e. cummings
watch the movie if you dare try to understand the power that drugs hold over people, but nature is a much more serious drug. It's what we are all born into. It can be sweet and sour and gorgeous breathtaking and life shattering.
Maybe that's why I love it so much. Eternally. I don't mind talking about it this way, where I live I can always touch it. Maybe not the mountains, which are so very enticing, but I've got the hills.
"When I first saw Candy, birds flew in the sky"
sweet paper rainshowers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrudC0STJ0U
the lines are from
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
-usually I'm not much for sappy love poems, but this is different in a way I can't explain like,
the roses growing on the brick walls of my house
or the pine trees that lay past the creek where the bobcat tracks are
timeless in a sense that it could all rush away happily without you.
the complete poem
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
e.e. cummings
watch the movie if you dare try to understand the power that drugs hold over people, but nature is a much more serious drug. It's what we are all born into. It can be sweet and sour and gorgeous breathtaking and life shattering.
Maybe that's why I love it so much. Eternally. I don't mind talking about it this way, where I live I can always touch it. Maybe not the mountains, which are so very enticing, but I've got the hills.
"When I first saw Candy, birds flew in the sky"
sweet paper rainshowers
Sunset Kin
I worship the kids that are alright
with eyes like light-brights
cutting holes into your walls at first dawn
like stars cut through the dark with their brawn
muscled bright with rays of pumped iron
lifting the sleepless from their bed like a house fire
running down the streets with boots on
throwing rocks at you from your front lawn
the rocks land on the floor of your bedroom
wide eyed you stare stiff as the shadows loom
but you worship the kids that are alright
showing up like restless candlelight
flicking through the town like old magazines
dialing up the pace of a running frenzy
escapades through tunnels of a living train
running fire through it as it starts to rain
never shaving or bathing or caring at all
just lighting a match through your brain as they call
the spark starts to burn down the leg to your feet
and you catch them moving down the sun warmed streets
you can't catch them, you know, their so damned fast
with their pants legs sawed off and calves of burnished brass
they race towards the fields where the grass is long
and gracefully weave with a flag and a song
a path towards the trees where the fires lick
at the boughs of trees made of needles and sticks
these kids that I worship make signs in the air
and breathe smoke out their nostrils in a sinking trail
their bodies are fierce and made of smooth stone
and the voices boom freely through our shaking bones
my legs are aching and my body is cold
the faces in the firelight look shadowed and old
drawn out in grisly expressions of love and hate
this scene would be diminished if I tried to recreate
the way they stared into the evening dim
over the smoke in their eyes making a transparent film
and did squint and suck in their mouths with distaste
at foreigners like us from a civilized place
then one stepped forward with a mellow aura
walking around the fire we could see she was wrapped in flora
flowers flowed out of her dirty locks
and her garments were an assortment of leaves and rocks
she breathed into our ear the life that we could now have
behind our eyes her words did calve
an iceburg from the glacier of our civilized world
a future life, unhasseled, unworried dripped into our souls
pumping in the heat, the vision she made worked like a fire bellow
at the spark from the match that had originally caught our brains
and made them run after these wild spirits through the pain
these alright kids are my kin now
worshipping them would be close to sin now
we are all gods upon the rocky ground
and through the yards and fields we do bound
now I throw the rocks that land upon your floor
and with heavy feet you roll out the door
to follow us down the darkened streets
to dance with flushed faces around the fire to pounding beats
and join a world you had no part of
until we wrenched your bitter soul from a civilized world.
with eyes like light-brights
cutting holes into your walls at first dawn
like stars cut through the dark with their brawn
muscled bright with rays of pumped iron
lifting the sleepless from their bed like a house fire
running down the streets with boots on
throwing rocks at you from your front lawn
the rocks land on the floor of your bedroom
wide eyed you stare stiff as the shadows loom
but you worship the kids that are alright
showing up like restless candlelight
flicking through the town like old magazines
dialing up the pace of a running frenzy
escapades through tunnels of a living train
running fire through it as it starts to rain
never shaving or bathing or caring at all
just lighting a match through your brain as they call
the spark starts to burn down the leg to your feet
and you catch them moving down the sun warmed streets
you can't catch them, you know, their so damned fast
with their pants legs sawed off and calves of burnished brass
they race towards the fields where the grass is long
and gracefully weave with a flag and a song
a path towards the trees where the fires lick
at the boughs of trees made of needles and sticks
these kids that I worship make signs in the air
and breathe smoke out their nostrils in a sinking trail
their bodies are fierce and made of smooth stone
and the voices boom freely through our shaking bones
my legs are aching and my body is cold
the faces in the firelight look shadowed and old
drawn out in grisly expressions of love and hate
this scene would be diminished if I tried to recreate
the way they stared into the evening dim
over the smoke in their eyes making a transparent film
and did squint and suck in their mouths with distaste
at foreigners like us from a civilized place
then one stepped forward with a mellow aura
walking around the fire we could see she was wrapped in flora
flowers flowed out of her dirty locks
and her garments were an assortment of leaves and rocks
she breathed into our ear the life that we could now have
behind our eyes her words did calve
an iceburg from the glacier of our civilized world
a future life, unhasseled, unworried dripped into our souls
pumping in the heat, the vision she made worked like a fire bellow
at the spark from the match that had originally caught our brains
and made them run after these wild spirits through the pain
these alright kids are my kin now
worshipping them would be close to sin now
we are all gods upon the rocky ground
and through the yards and fields we do bound
now I throw the rocks that land upon your floor
and with heavy feet you roll out the door
to follow us down the darkened streets
to dance with flushed faces around the fire to pounding beats
and join a world you had no part of
until we wrenched your bitter soul from a civilized world.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Personally Impersonal
This will be my first personal post,
just for the record, the Anthony Todd post was, I must say, pretty personal, but since it was obviously all about how awesome Anthony Todd is and about the whole cute, deep, inside parts of our relationship, it only halfway counts. And the one about music, is too abstract to be personal since I really hate that I wrote it.
But, this post shall be all about Baine's, the small, or somewhat large, depending on what you are comparing it to, coffee shop/bookstore/music/CD/guitar supply/pottery selling/ good food making/live music/ latte art creating store we have here on main street Appomattox. Now, Appomattox, is to say the least a very...slow paced town, with somewhat like minded people that are saddled in their ways of 'down to Earth', 'homegrown'...thinking. So, one might think, a cool but not hip, definitely not hip, but more urbane place might not catch on here. But, thankfully it has and celebrated its 5th birthday last year. The building itself was dilapidated and went under a restoration well before that, as well as most of mainstreet and first evolved into an antique's shop, or this being my first memory of any store that is in the original Baine's building. The shop was very large if I can recall and seemed to be busy when it first opened, but, I guess you could say, fortunately closed. Bryan Baines, the owner, then bought it along with his wife Debbie and developed a coffeeshop from it. The shop was very sparse at first and the furniture and books was bare bones at my first memory of it, being that I was only 11 at its inception. The hardwood floors were dark, but, overall the store was light, helped out by a sky blue ancient sort of tiled lifted ceiling and large front windows that look directly out onto the street, to the railroad tracks and farther on to Liberty. Not until last year was the upstairs open as well, which is pretty spacious and very quiet, usually, for studying or reading or just hanging out. I really did sort of fall in love with it when I was younger, just the feeling of being there, usually when it was cold during the winter, on Fridays or Saturdays when live bands come and play covers, their own songs, or music in general, and I would sit with my friends or my sister, squeezing into the kids section and playing scrabble since the leather couch space was always occupied and I didn't want to hover near my parents. The delectable drinks were also a draw, and I should probably credit the store for a coffee addiction that has only grown over time. Treated to cheescake and warm drinks and lively bluegrass music I spent good times developing memories there. As I got older, though, my time became split and I didn't have the ride, nor the free time to spend there as much through early high school. I always wanted to work there though, but Jude beat me sophmore year since he was older than I was. I then pestered Bryan the rest of the year about him possibly hiring me, until, I think, inevitably he caved and I was promised a job in late August, a couple months after my sixteenth birthday when the summer was coming to an end. The job cut lengthened an already collosal schedule and unfortunately I stopped running because I couldn't manage everything. But, I still loved working there and as my schedule shortened and the days became shorter as well, I took running back up. Now, my Friday nights are more eventful with me working, the crowds usually come in waves as church groups come to visit or friends meet up and it varies on the celebrations or performances of the night. The store caters to many different types of customers, old to young, talented, artistic, talkative or sociable people who like to come in, smell coffee, listen to music and chat. I don't mind the late nights, even when I have to study because there really is no other place I would rather work here. I am also developing my latte art skills, even though I'm not allowed to mess with the expresso machine. I'm not a hipster because I work there, I just love my coffee, my music, and that store. What better way to spend time working than to enjoy your work?
just for the record, the Anthony Todd post was, I must say, pretty personal, but since it was obviously all about how awesome Anthony Todd is and about the whole cute, deep, inside parts of our relationship, it only halfway counts. And the one about music, is too abstract to be personal since I really hate that I wrote it.
But, this post shall be all about Baine's, the small, or somewhat large, depending on what you are comparing it to, coffee shop/bookstore/music/CD/guitar supply/pottery selling/ good food making/live music/ latte art creating store we have here on main street Appomattox. Now, Appomattox, is to say the least a very...slow paced town, with somewhat like minded people that are saddled in their ways of 'down to Earth', 'homegrown'...thinking. So, one might think, a cool but not hip, definitely not hip, but more urbane place might not catch on here. But, thankfully it has and celebrated its 5th birthday last year. The building itself was dilapidated and went under a restoration well before that, as well as most of mainstreet and first evolved into an antique's shop, or this being my first memory of any store that is in the original Baine's building. The shop was very large if I can recall and seemed to be busy when it first opened, but, I guess you could say, fortunately closed. Bryan Baines, the owner, then bought it along with his wife Debbie and developed a coffeeshop from it. The shop was very sparse at first and the furniture and books was bare bones at my first memory of it, being that I was only 11 at its inception. The hardwood floors were dark, but, overall the store was light, helped out by a sky blue ancient sort of tiled lifted ceiling and large front windows that look directly out onto the street, to the railroad tracks and farther on to Liberty. Not until last year was the upstairs open as well, which is pretty spacious and very quiet, usually, for studying or reading or just hanging out. I really did sort of fall in love with it when I was younger, just the feeling of being there, usually when it was cold during the winter, on Fridays or Saturdays when live bands come and play covers, their own songs, or music in general, and I would sit with my friends or my sister, squeezing into the kids section and playing scrabble since the leather couch space was always occupied and I didn't want to hover near my parents. The delectable drinks were also a draw, and I should probably credit the store for a coffee addiction that has only grown over time. Treated to cheescake and warm drinks and lively bluegrass music I spent good times developing memories there. As I got older, though, my time became split and I didn't have the ride, nor the free time to spend there as much through early high school. I always wanted to work there though, but Jude beat me sophmore year since he was older than I was. I then pestered Bryan the rest of the year about him possibly hiring me, until, I think, inevitably he caved and I was promised a job in late August, a couple months after my sixteenth birthday when the summer was coming to an end. The job cut lengthened an already collosal schedule and unfortunately I stopped running because I couldn't manage everything. But, I still loved working there and as my schedule shortened and the days became shorter as well, I took running back up. Now, my Friday nights are more eventful with me working, the crowds usually come in waves as church groups come to visit or friends meet up and it varies on the celebrations or performances of the night. The store caters to many different types of customers, old to young, talented, artistic, talkative or sociable people who like to come in, smell coffee, listen to music and chat. I don't mind the late nights, even when I have to study because there really is no other place I would rather work here. I am also developing my latte art skills, even though I'm not allowed to mess with the expresso machine. I'm not a hipster because I work there, I just love my coffee, my music, and that store. What better way to spend time working than to enjoy your work?
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