Belonging

Nearby my new office, amid the office buildings and shopping centres, there is a tiny corner. See? Here it is on Google Maps.

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Yeah, it’s there, but you can’t see it. That’s because this place was willed into existence.

That little laneway corner thing? Someone nailed a roof on it, stacked some kitchen counters and cabinets and a few camp stove burners, then started piling things up, stacking things around, and making coffee.

This is Circa.

As anyone who follows me on “the Instagrams” knows, I have been sneaking many a photo of this place. That’s because there is so much to see in this small space. There are old timey bicycles nailed to the walls, there is a hatrack with a top hat, a flat cap, and whatever the hell the owners and baristas wore to work that day. There are wine crates full of books about anything from graffiti (I had a leaf through Banksy’s Wall & Peace) to ballet & photography. There is an inlaid mother-of-pearl backgammon set. There is a record player and a stack of 45s. The cakes they made in-house that day sit in a kitchen cupboard on the wall. The menu is written on butcher’s paper & stuck on the wall.

The three guys who run the place are hard at work, but are constantly talking with customers both regular & drop-in. Though the walls are concrete, they’ve built windows and painted them with seaside vistas. The music playing is a far cry from Cafe Del Mar or any Chillout mix. It’s James Brown, Ray Charles, soul and funk from the 70s, and even some US. It comes either from some of their records, or it’s one of the guys’ iPhones plugged into a dock by the door. The music is usually good enough that I take off my headphones when I enter, which is unprecedented.

Today, I sat at the back of the place and had my coffee & listened to the owner chat with a woman who had come in. She mentioned that she had brought them more books (including some comics from the 90s), and that she was happy to print them up some cards to give to people. This woman was not affiliated with the cafe, she was just a regular. She then started talking about which pork roast was best, then segues into how, “Yes, Lisa, it’s a wonderful, MAGICAL animal.”

Hearing it, it made me want to be a regular too. More so than at any other cafe I’ve been to.

Brain food

Our whole neighbourhood smells of charcoal due to a neighbour having a barbecue. Tanja's always a bit sickened by the smell due to too many charcoal chicken shops nearby to where she lived when she was younger. It raised a question in my mind, though. Why is the smell of charcoal/roasting things so arresting, even if we're not hungry?

Is it

a) the smell of charcoal and roasting brings to mind happy memories of eating, family, satisfaction, etc, so our brain jumps the queue and goes "charcoal=happy"?

or

b) the smell of cooked-down wood on fire breaks right through all the rational memory and hits our reptilian/Australopithecus centre of the brain and goes "Smell of smoke=fire=potentially dead=BE CAREFUL DUMBASS".

I lean towards the latter. In either case, the reaction is the same: nostrils flare, heads up, looking around. Evolved, ain't we?

Also, apropos of nothing, I want to post this bit from Warren Ellis & Ben Templesmith's Fell (all ownership theirs, fair use, etc etc, this is educational):

Ted, you need to make this at Mars Hill.

Waiting in the cafe.

This blog entry was composed in the Moleskine™ App. However, this app is a bit flawed, in that it lets you export to email, Twitter, or Facebook, but not to Blog or Notepad. Also, none of the pictures or in-app markings export out, just the text, which is irritating. So it’s a beautiful app, just needs some tweaking. So I screenshotted it. See?

Writing My Blog (click for larger images)

Eventual bad morning.

I had a crappy evening/morning combination. See, I got home at 10 or o, and decided to work on the logo for Tanja's intramural office thing. So I did that for a while, and Tanja went to bed, reminding me to set up "breakfast stuff". You see, when one of us needs to get up early, the other usually set up the coffee-maker and the dishes for cereal and juice and stuff so the morning person can just switch it on and avoid thought and responsibility. After a while of struggling with the PC and its inability to handle having more than two things open without shutting one down, I gave up and shut down for the night. I also noticed that the light was on in the bedroom and I heard the unmistakable turn of a page. Tanja was still up reading, of course, looking guilty. Next morning, wake up around 7, and Tanja's informing me that I forgot to sort out the breakfast things. I shamble, unrequested, out of bed and attempt to help, but she tells me to go back to bed. I try, but never really get back to sleep. Got up later, and finished work on the logo. After that, I realized that I'd better hightail it to the gym if I was going to get back in time to get ready. So I decided not to go to them gym. And then did nothing with the extra time. I tried to watch the Blu-Ray of Batman: Gotham Knight, but I couldn't get into it. I kept focusing on the bad people animations in the first story. So I turned it off. Tried watching Looney Tunes: Stranger than fiction, but again, the animation quality was terrible, and the jokes weren't funny. Turned it off. I got distracted, watered the plants, and then boom, hour to go. Showered, tried to fight with hair, which was big and frizzy. Hated it. Went to get dressed. Felt like none of my clothes were fitting. I get myself halfway sorted and head out the door, almost immediately sweating thanks to the blasted humidity. I start walking, knowing that I need to stop at the post office to send off something for eBay. On the way to the post office, I start to listen to my new Cat Empire live album. For some reason it seems really all over the place, badly mixed or just uninspired (although I blame my state of mind). And let's not forget the BIG HUGE TRUCKS and busses that drive by revving their engines and deafening those of us on the sidewalk with roaring sonic mud, completely drowning out any music, headphones notwithstanding. Then huge line at the post office. Takes forever to send off my parcel. Grab a bus afterwards, and get a pile of noisy high school kids sitting around me. Tanja calls to say she got the logos, and asks if I hung out the washing the way I had said I would. Crap. Of course I forgot. I offer to hop off the bus and go into work late, but she says no, it's okay. Throughout the whole thing I could barely hear her.

So there you go. A crappy morning. Not that I had construction outside the window to wake me up, or that I lost $20 or anything like that, but lots of little annoyances. Also, later, at work, the pasta I brought wouldn’t reheat all the way, so I ate it mostly cold, and my throat rejecting it about three-quarters of the way through.

You know, sometimes, I daydream about breaking my leg or something that would sideline me from the day-to-day for a little while (is that strange?). Not that I hate work or anything, but I think that the last couple of weeks of constantly having something due has left me in a slightly frenzied state where I feel like I’m constantly slacking off, even when I have nothing I need to do right then. Weird.

And my feet are aching for some reason.

It's been a funny sort of day.

And it's only 11:37.

Woke up, was ready and prepared nice and early, then got a call from my dad, who was trying to burn a CD on his laptop. After ten minutes of me going through it with him, we realised his CDs were defective. We then spent a further 20 minutes gonig through how to remove and add files to his flashdrive. So I went from way early to leaving just barely on time.

The reason I wanted to leave early was that a parcel had arrived at the post office. I had ordered this from eBay:

Dad paid for it. I bought it on the 14th, and they had shipped it from Japan by yesterday. Those Japanese are industrious. At least their postal workers are. So I picked it up. Then I stopped by Better Read Than Dead to look for the third His Dark materials book. See, I bought the first one isn a cool format, then had to buy the second one in a different format. But this time they had the second and third in the good format. So I got those, then took a bus into work.

I was expecting to be on the phones today, so got there nice and early. Turns out I'm on back-of-house instead. Woo hoo! For those out of the loop, that means data entry and order fixing, without having to be on the phone. It's much better.

So then I set up my Prime. It's glorious. It's awesome. It's attracting the attention of every nerd in the room. And it's got a different plug.

FUCK.

It's ok, though, I have an AC/DC adapter at home.

So then I go to buy coffee for me and Adrian from the stand by Central. I order, I wait. Two strong flat whites, two sugars and a caramel shot each. Comes to $7.20. I give him a ten, say "Just make it eight." He look startled. "Are you sure?" I say "Well, yeah." He then goes. "Oh, here. have this too, for the wait." and gives me a piece of raspberry bread. Huh. Goes to show. Always tip your barista.

Even Steven's back, baby.

Personal Growth

So this morning on the way in, I stopped by the Campos coffee stand by Central station. I was going to get myself one, and I had messaged Adrian, as he usually has one too. He hadn’t replied, but I know his network plays up sometimes, so I ordered him a coffee anyway. Mine: Strong Flat White with Two Sugars and Vanilla shot. His, same but with Caramel shot.

Then I got to work and realised that Adrian was off sick.

Now, once upon a time, I would have drunk both coffees which (combined with my one at-home coffee) would have had me jittering around the office for the rest of the day. However, I did not do that.

I gave Adrian’s coffee away.

I think this shows I’ve grown as a person.

Ok, It's official.

The office espresso machine hates me today. First, it drastically over-fills my cup with watery brownish liquid which I have to spill to get out from under the machine. Then it refuses to drip for like five minutes. Then I add milk and go to use the frother/texturiser/blower-air-thingie, and it blasts a quarter of my coffee out of the cup and all over the wall.

Bah. But I won that drum set, so I guess this is the world setting itself right again.