If I ever go missing....

I work in a very diverse neighborhood. We get all kinds: hipsters, businessmen, soccer moms, schizophrenic and homeless, schizophrenic and loaded thanks to a trust fund, gay/straight/lesbian/bi/trans, different nationalities, religions, you name it. Normally, I really enjoy this fact. I love livng and working in such an open minded and accepting community.
One of our customers is a little old man that comes in smiling and always mutters something in Polish. We assume he means "small coffee" so that's what we always give him. He makes sure to slide me a quarter as a tip every time. When we had a guy working here, the lil Polish man would track one of the girls down and try to secretly give us a quarter. I liked that about him.
There's another regular that owns two beautiful dogs; a blind, albino boxer named Boo and a deaf great dane named Harlow. She treats her dogs like her children, dressing them in pink hoodies in the winter and costumes on Halloween. They sleep in her bed and rule her world and she's the best doggie mama in the neighborhood. She's never without a smile and is addicted to vanilla lattes, "extra vanilla so I don't taste the espresso!"
We have our favorite customers, and we have the customers that we wish we could kick in the groin, scald with freshly brewed coffee, and shove through the window, scalded, burning, face first. Which brings me to my point.

If I ever go missing, especially if the last place I was seen was at work, there are three people I want questioned first. Knife Man, Kilt Man, and Balls. In this entry, let's take a look at Suspect #1, Knife Man.

Knife man is out of his gourd. I'm positive that he's literally crazy. Rumor has it that his parents were rich and he has a trust fund and a baller condo. I don't know how he maintains it, being the wack job that he is, and I'm willing to bet there's at least one body in the closet. He comes in about 13 times a day. Sometimes he orders a coffee and puts 8 packs of sugar in it, sometimes he just does a lap around the store and leaves again. He talks about how he called the White House with a brilliant idea to stop the BP oil rig from leaking, and three days later helicopters flew over his house, and he is certain that was Obama's way of saying to him personally: "thanks for the help!" He also likes to talk about his sister's ovaries and government conspiracies. The dolt that used to work here would engage in coversation with Knife Man, after I told him that he was not to do so under any circumstances because that will just encourage Crazy Train to 1. Keep talking his nonsense and 2. Stay in here longer, creeping me out and just generally pissing me off. Slow-Ass McGee took this to mean "encourage him to keep talking!" This made me want to scald my coworker and throw him through a window. (I guess I get that impulse semi-frequntly) There are many mornings when I arrive to open the store and Knife Man is already sitting on our stacked, chained patio furniture. Just sitting. Smiling. A few weeks ago, he came in four days straight wearing the same clothes each day and was scruffier, dirtier, and made less sense than the day before.
Earlier today he came in and got a mocha, Less than ten minutes later he came back with his cup and asked for coffee.
Knife Man: "I can get a refill on the coffee, right?"
Me: "Yep."
Knife Man: "First I'm going to go play a song on the jukebox! The day of song! I keep the sun shining and it's exhausting!" Then he sang a few lines of a song only he knows and took off. Did I mention we don't have a jukebox? And when he left to find one, he only made it as far as the bench four feet from our door. 

He's my primary suspect, in the event that I go missing.

Baristas Don't Need Sleep Anyway

Last night I went to bed around 1am. For no reason at all, I woke up
at about 4:30am and could not, for the life of me, fall back asleep. I
tossed and turned and got up and laid back down and took off the
covers and put them back on and rolled onto my stomach and flipped
onto my back.

When I used to have trouble sleeping I'd burrow into my
then-boyfriend's armpit face first and would pass right out. So I made
a nook with my own arm and tried to burrow into the crook of my elbow.
Apparently, his armpit had sedating powers that my elbow does not.
Then I tried a trick I learned from my neice, Addison. When she was a
wee little baby, she'd slowly stroke the top of her own head until she
fell asleep. It was adorable and seemed effective. Stroking my own
head made me feel like a sad loser who has no one to stroke her head
so she has to do it herself; and it brought me no closer to sleep.

By 5:15, I was angry. By 5:30, I was considering just getting up and
making breakfast. Sauteed potatoes and a fried egg. Oooh and
cheese. Maybe some ranch. Too bad I left my hot sauce at work. Did I
leave my new jeans at work??? No. I brought them to the bar with me
and then brought them home. I can't believe I spent 45 bucks on
jeans... AND SO ON! My mind would not shut up and when my alarm went
off at 6 my lip started to tremble and my eyes filled with tears. If
an exhausted single girl groans when her alarm goes off and there's no
one else in her bed to hear it, does it make a sound?

...It does actually.

The Gay Boyfriend

It's October 1st!! October is my favorite month of the year- pumpkins, apple cider, camping, Halloween costumes, hay rides, scary movies, leaves changing and fallng and crunching under your feet...the colors! The smells! The sounds! What a glorious month.

At this time last year I had just been broken up with and I was a depressed, hollowed out shell of a woman. I was crying myself to sleep every night and so enveloped in a wretched, suffocating misery that my appetite for anything except vodka vanished completely. Sounds awful, but I lost 20 pounds so it wasn't all bad.

As for this time around, I can't imagine a better start to Autumn...beautiful weather, Bears are 3-0, and I'm back to my happy-go-lucky self. Minus a lil bit of my heart/empathy/emotions/ability to give a shit, but honestly, I'm better for it. I'm the New and Improved Susan, complete with a backbone, a voice, and (most days) great hair.

And I'm not entirely single- I have a wonderful gay boyfriend. While we don't enjoy lusts of the flesh with each other, he's a great date. Just yesterday we had delicious sushi at Ra and enjoyed comedy night at Sidetrack. That's one thing "Sex and the City" got right-- the Gay Boyfriend. Sometimes while watching SATC I'm baffled by these four women-- and I know it's the fantasy world of TV Land...but how do they move on from one relationship to anther so quickly?? How do they keep finding these men to date? Are straight, single men in New York that much easier to find than the straight single men of Chicago? I know I definately don't make it easy...I was a theatre major at an art school then moved to Boystown, where I continue to work. So when I pull out my hair screaming, "All the cute ones are gaaaaayyyyyy!" I suppose, to be fair, I have a skewed sample.

At least I have some absolutely delicious eye candy to nibble on while I continue the search for the next great (straight) man.