My First Day at UW Coffee Shop Becomes Family Reflection

So today I started at University Bookstore Cafe. Nice day overall. I took the bus there and I took the bus back. Bus rides are a pain and it makes the commute longer. As my parents and others probably know, a commute turn a 9-6 job into a 8-7 job. Oh well.

But I'd like to start off this reflection with my experience getting off the bus. It was raining but the sun was still shining as it set. I had my headphones on and I was listening to Lil B's "The Age of Information." The rain was very visible because of the direct and low lying sunlight. I was walking down a hill back to the house and had a strange feeling and some strange thoughts. I felt like I was somewhere that I hadn't been before, or that I was someone different than I had been before. I felt like I lived in Seattle and like I had a job in a coffee shop. I was walking down a hill in the rain with big headphones on just feeling different. Feeling like the moment was singular and that it was encasing me. It was defining everything that is happening to me right now. The rain. The first day in a coffee shop. The bus. The walk. The feeling is hard to really explain. Because it was so total. It was so singular and so all encompassing. I felt like something that I hadn't been before.

Then as I got to the bottom of the hill that song changed. Perhaps this caused a shift in my thought or perhaps the shift was coincidental, but my thoughts turned to my family. I'm further from them than I have ever been before. And for some reason in that moment it was more of a noticeable sensation than it had been in the past month. Perhaps my settling down in this area feels more concrete now that I have a job here. I was at that moment listening to How To Dress Well's song called 'Can't See My Own Face'. The song is clearly romantic and about love. But for some reason a certain line made me think of my family. The line went: "Whatever it takes just to make it through. I want you to know that I will always love you babe." Like I said, clearly romantic. But the point is that I love my family and i miss them. Shouts out to mom and dad in Farmville. Shouts out to my sister in Baltimore. Who knows what the hell I was doing moving out here.

And interestingly this is a question that I am asked often these days. People ask where I come from and I say oh I moved from Maryland to Seattle about four weeks ago. It hasn't even been four weeks. But what the hell am I doing? What the hell is happening? Not that I have some overwhelming sense of regret or some sense of panic about doing this. It is something I'm doing. Hard to say more than that. I took a shot moving out here. But a shot at what? A shot at a new life, a new social world, a new personal world. But what all of that will be like, how it will come about, what it will look like, what it will feel like, is all to be determined? I think that once I find an apartment I'll be a bit more grounded. Maybe. Tough to say what really is going on. What I'm really thinking or feeling. I just love my family. I've been far from them physically for the last four or five weeks. But today I felt far from them mentally. Working a whole day at a new job made it all feel realer. It made the space feel realer for some reason.

Dear family, I miss you, and I'm doing fine in Seattle. I suspect that the progress out here will be slow and steady. I'll work one day after another. Hopefully I'll make friends and become a better person. But I do regret being so far from you. With my ambition to move I hadn't quite realize what I was doing. How could I know what I was doing? It was a shot in the dark and I knew it. But now things are becoming a bit more illuminated out here. Life is starting to feel a little bit less surreal. The distance and the difficulty of seeing each other regularly is starting to feel more real. A regret, maybe, probably not. I suppose I have to keep going forward with my life. With what I'm doing, what I want to do, or at least what I think I want to do. Who knows where I'll end up.

But we'll keep talking.

This didn't really end up being about my time at work. I used a cash register. I rang people up. I learned how to heat up sandwiches, mini quiches, bagels, etc.. What a life? What a weird job and a weird feeling. I'll be getting barista trained by Caffe Vita, the location in Capitol Hill. That will come in the next week or so. Good stuff. A fascinating skill set to have.

Perhaps the only thing I know right now is that in five years I'll be able to tell people that after college I moved to Seattle and got trained as a barista. But for now I'll just have to keep living this life without being able to say exactly what it is that I'm doing.

As soon as I said that thing about what 'I know right now' I felt weird. I felt strange because it made it seem like I didn't know what to say. Or I didn't have anything to say. And my immediate thought was 'well I'm working on an essay right now where I'm certainly saying something'. So the question becomes this: What are these things that I know how to say and these things that I don't know how to say?

Because clearly the things that I'm writing about are about me. This essay I'm working on is called "The Science and Art of Minds: Theory and Practice in the Social World." I'm chasing down the problems/questions that I tried to tackle/raise in my essay "The Genealogy of the Modern Mind." And let me declare, quite emphatically, very seriously, that these essays are about me. I struggle with myself and my own mind, and these essays are me trying to sort all of this business out. These essays are me tackling myself. Trying to create myself.

So why do I find it so easy to think that these abstractions are somehow about me? Perhaps they make it easier to deal with life, with the physical distance between me and my family, the emotional distance between me and all these strangers. Perhaps the abstraction makes it easier to stomach all this. These real connections that are so far from me, and these new and nonexistent connections are all around me.

I'm loosing track. In short, I miss my family. I long for new social connections in this new place. And all of this feels very uncertain. Oh well, at least I have a job to fill much of my time now. Hopefully it doesn't get in the way with me finding an apartment.

Notes From Seattle (a la My Dad) #2

Whooooo boy. Today was a day day day day day day. A good one too.

I got up around 830 and got ready to go out into the city. Yesterday I nailed my knee on a fire hydrant and it was allll hurting last night. But it was okay today. So I went out to a neighborhood called Capitol Hill. It was nice.

I had to transfer buses at the U-district. At first when I get to the U-district I started walking for a while looking for my transfer bus, but then I never saw it. So I started walking down all sorts of random streets. Then I asked a few people where the 49 bus came, but no one seemed to know. So I was in the wrong place. Then some girl end up telling me, but it turns out I was right next to it anyways.

So I got on the 49 after about 30 or 40 minutes of being lost in the U-district. I asked the bus driver if his bus would take me to Capitol Hill, and he said yes. So I rode the bus, sitting near the front, no reading, no head phones. Just looking around. Trying to acquaint myself with this new business. Watching the streets, listening to the driver announce the streets. People watching as much as possible without being a weirdo. I think I wasn't exuding my sort of out of place feeling that I felt the other day.

As soon as the bus reached Capitol Hill I just decided to get off the bus and start walking. I walked up Broadway, one of the main streets. Then I saw QFC, Quality Food Company? Asked them if they were hiring, they said go online. So I did that tonight. But then I kept wandering all over the place. I stopped in a coffee shop and gave them my resume. Did it with another coffee shop. Drank a latte at one of them. It was good.

I stopped in a pet store, I'd like to work there so I'm gonna take my application tomorrow. I also stopped in a half priced bookstore. I have a lot of experience with college bookstores, so I'm gonna take an application to the U-district and the Capitol Hill half priced books tomorrow. I also have an application that I need to take to Starbucks, and another related store.

The thing I'm most interested in, excited about, and nervous about is the Elliott Bay Book Company. I went into that store and applied for a job after buying two books from them. It is such a tight store I would love to work there. I don't even know if they are actively hiring. But I am gonna go back and talk to them.

I'm too tired to narrate more. But I'll be heading back to Capitol Hill and the U-district tomorrow to turn in some apps. Booya. Hope something works.

Notes From Seattle (a la My Dad)

Today was my first day in Seattle. Seeing as how I arrived at 2:30 am last night (i.e. today), I am actually on hour number 20. I slept in today to regain a little bit of the energy that was expended during the drive. Driving long distances is really hard. Driving late at night is also really hard. But hey, we made it.

So after I woke up today I talked to a friend on the phone and he mentioned he was applying to a certain grocery store. So I applied there and will see what they do. Then I decided to catch a bus and head down to the University District, just to see what the deal was.

I walked down the hill and started to wait for the bus. Chatted with another friend on the phone while I waited, and tried to make some plans to meet up with him later. The bus ride was interesting because being in a new city gives me a certain self-conscious aura.

I knew I wasn't doing anything weird or strange. I knew I wasn't standing out or anything. But in my own mind I just felt out of place. I had a book and I had my headphones, but I turned them both down. Instead I just watched the streets go by, got a sense for where I was and where I was going.

We drove through the University of Washington's campus and it was very nice. Nice campus.

Then the bus stopped and everyone got off. I asked the driver if this was the end of the line or something and he said 'yup, end of the line'. I sorta giggled to myself and said oh thank you and got off. Just felt silly cause I just didn't know where I was.

So then I was on University Way, the main street for the U-district. The ave, as people were saying. I walked a bit and looked at all the stores, having my eyes open for anywhere that I might want to work. Then I saw the University Book Store for UW. I walked in and asked a friendly woman if they were hiring. She searched something on a computer quickly and said ah yes, we still have some positions open, go upstairs and do this and this and this. So I walked upstairs, checked out the binder with the job descriptions, and got to filling out the application.

I applied for a job as a full time barista at their cafe. How nice that would be, right? I have 2 years experience from UMD's college book store, and I love coffee and books. So, I mean, hello? Hotness?

Well. I doubt I'll get the job

But allow me to indulge my hopes in writing for a moment.

I just felt like I did a good job filling out the application. Especially when they asked 1. why do you want this job and 2. what experience do you have that could contribute to it.

The first question is pretty obvious, I love books and I love coffee.

Second question, though, a bit more nuanced answer.

Basically I felt like I wrote a brief essay about how I am qualified, complete with persuasive words like 'moreover', 'further', and 'therefore'. I just told them that everything I have done has been customer service related, that I had a wide variety of customer service jobs, that one of them involved work in a university book store, and that my most recent one involved selecting and brewing a lot of coffee.

So, I am trying to sell myself. Two applications on my first day, whatever. Good enough start.

Being a barista would be a lot of fun though.

Then I walked across the UW campus to meet up with a friend of mine. He gave me walking directions that sounded like a 'quest' as he put it. Walk to the fountain, from there you will see a tall mountain peak. Walk towards that mountain until you come to a bridge. Cross that bridge. We had a glass of wine and chatted for a while about various things. Then we met up with two other friends of ours and ate at a restaurant called Shultzy's. I had something called a porktastic sandwich: pulled pork with two pieces of bacon. So good. Great fries too. Some beers. Had a good time. Hung there for a few hours. Then headed back to my aunts place. Had a nice chat with her for a while. Then that was it. That was my day. That was my first 12 hour excursion into this strange new life. Don't stop till I am allowed to stop. Until my mind allows me to stop.

Not sure when I'll get a chance to tackle some more of my abstract or philosophical writing. I have two essays left to write in my Society's Implicit War series. I really look forward to writing them. I gained a lot of intellectual momentum in the first 4 essays, and I think I am now set up to say some interesting things in these last 2. Great stuff.