Tag: holiday season

Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 273

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Americano, Caribou Coffee

Everyone was out even though it was raining. The temperature had warmed up and wet roads looked like the beginning of something, the first lap of a race. I got my coffee from Caribou like I always do then went grocery shopping. The lady in check out was flustered, but said she’d had a nice Thanksgiving.

The weekend’s been Christmas shopping. Picking around in crowded stores, not finding what I wanted, searching more online. I like the dynamism of the holidays, the ‘I’ve-got-to-get-out-in-the-world’ sort of feel. I like the kind of celebration that shows we’re all dead-broke and dead-tired but obligating ourselves to do good for our loved ones anyway. It doesn’t matter if your gift’s a hit as long as you’re the one giving it. It doesn’t matter if next year is going to drain a bit more spirit out of you because you’ll get it all back giving something special away.

At a different store, a man with a big dog walked in and the cashier told me he’s the owner. She seemed bothered by him, on edge, and the dog noticed because it sniffed her and wagged its tongue and tail. That was his christmas present, a big wet nose, a bit of kindness when someone needed it.

Currently Reading: Another Country, James Baldwin

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border  – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

Baffled and disgruntled, I fill my Woolworths trolley with dead turkey and lamb, and wonder when Love was lost, among the Christmas crowd.

Judy Croome, A Lamp at Midday

Coffee Log, Day 284

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Bolivian Medium-Dark, Trader Joe’s Brand; I couldn’t remember if I’d ever had it and now that I’ve tried it I know that I had; it’s sweet on the first gulp, sour on the second, and by the end of the pot your insides are grumbling like two old men arguing about Nationalism.

I spent half an hour in a Target yesterday trying to find some face cream. We’re getting to winter, the dry cold breaks me out.

The Target was already packed for the holidays. One of the clerks told me they were having a 10% off giftcard sale, so maybe that’s why. It’s a big store, one of those they like to slap ‘super’ on the side of, but even so the aisles were jammed and frustrated families were snagging their carts together. In other words, nothing special for the season.

I’ll tell you a secret: I like those sorts of crowds. I like the sounds of it: all those voices stacked together like a layer cake. I like the nervous energy, the coy competition, the fervor around a bright yellow sticker with a price on it. I’m sure there’s a bucketfull of issues about consumerism and wage inequality stuck in there (some of which I’ve probably brought up on this very blog), but despite that, the holiday department store is the closest thing you get to a communal event in modern America and I’ll take what community I can get.

I found the face cream on an aisle I thought I’d already been down. It was hiding beside a few bottles of shampoo.

Novel Count: 14,846 words

Currently Reading: Autumn, Ali Smith; Cherry, Nico Walker

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

When I shop, the world gets better, and the world is better, but then it’s not, and I need to do it again.

Sophie Kinsella


Coffee Log, Day 274

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee Tea: Earl Grey, Bigelow; still having filter issues. Working on it!

The night got so cold there’s condensation on my window. Never been able to resist drawing finger-faces in it.

I guess we’re headed for another winter. There’s that come-down after Thanksgiving, the year-end doldrums, where everyone’s out and frantic for the holidays but also frantic because they know another year’s about to end. It’s an even mix of optimistic and rattled. I like the energy.

One thing I didn’t mention about my trip home yesterday was how dilapidated East Burlington looks to me know. It’s always been run down, but the modern economy has further stripped its stores. There were plans to turn the old rail junction into a supermarket. Those plans were scrapped so now the lot is not only big and empty but full of dirt mounds and deep holes, all of it grown over with nosehairs of green grass.

It’s been going this way for a while: suck all the money out of your physical footprint, keep a presence in the affluent areas, throw the rest of your resources online. Retail’s not what it used to be. Yes, the economy might be doing great in aggregate, but it’s leaving more and more holes in its pockets. What’s a community when it’s stripped of communal spaces?

They closed the Wendy’s I’d been going to since 5 years old. In its place is a local burger joint. I didn’t visit, but I imagine the burners going, the smell of dead beef flicking up in gas fire. There’s an old man by the window. There’s a family of three, two kids and a single father. There’s a woman on her lunchbreak from the Wal-Mart. Real and local. Still thriving. I can only hope it lasts.

Novel Count: 11,888 words

Currently Reading: Autumn, Ali Smith; Cherry, Nico Walker

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

Kurt Vonnegut, ‘Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage’