The Coffee Shop Quandary

It all comes down to the ageless debate, really. Is man inherently good or inherently evil? But that question must be qualified for the sake of my situation: is the average Starbucks customer inherently evil or good?

I face this dilemma every time I find myself at the coffee shop in Barnes and Noble. I settle down for a nice afternoon of pointless internet browsing and skimming intellectual-looking books, sipping my venti White Mocha. And then, about two hours in, suddenly I start to feel uneasy. Too much coffee has been consumed and I am in need of a quick trip to the ladies’ room. But now I face a dilemma: what to do with my computer.

Option number one: I trust mankind in general. So I leave my computer on the table, exposed to the passersby, trusting that no one will steal my computer, or rather trusting that the other customers and coffee-lovers around me will have the decency to stop someone from taking it unlawfully. After all, that’s what I’d do if I saw someone trying to steal that nice Macbook on the next table over. But what if I’m sitting next to a more apathetic individual who perhaps doesn’t believe in the same school of ethics I do? What if he or she doesn’t believe in the right to intervene, or even worse, he or she actually is a practiced thief? I would have a hard time believing that crooks hang out in Starbucks and read Tolstoy and Shakespeare, but who knows? Most of the super-villains in movies listen to classical music, so anything’s possible.

Option number two: I distrust mankind and pack my computer up and take it with me, leaving some small non-valuable object to reserve my table. This seems the smarter option, but it’s really bothersome to pack up my laptop every time I have to leave the table. It’s a lot of work, putting my laptop on standby, disconnecting everything, putting it in my bag, deciding what to leave and what to take, etc. And then, when that guy across the table gets up for a break and leaves his $2000 Mac laptop on the table for twenty minutes, I feel like a dumbass. And I feel like he’s thinking I’m one too, for taking my laptop with me. Maybe he would’ve watched mine for me. Maybe he would’ve warded off a thief with his secret skill of kick-boxing or kung fu.

Such is the quandary I fall into every time I visit a coffee shop. However, I’ve recently discovered a third, middle-road option, and here it is: Take a friend to Starbucks. How convenient! Not only can he or she sit with your laptop and belongings when you must leave the table, but you can also reciprocate for him or her. Besides, coffee and books are always better when combined with good company.

Maybe one of these days I will actually address the issue of the goodness or evilness of man’s nature. That might be fun. All I can think of though is that awesome episode of Community where Jeff and Annie join the debate team and take on that weird kid in the wheelchair...

This is the one about books. And being radical.

When I was a child, my father and mother used to read aloud to me. Mom doesn’t remember exactly when I learned to read; she said only that one day I snatched the book out of her hands and began to form the words myself.

Devout Christians, my parents didn’t believe in novels. True life tales, good. Nature books and historical accounts, better. Bible stories, best of all. When we ventured into Barnes and Noble one autumn afternoon and I pulled a Boxcar Children book off the shelf, begging my mother to buy it for me, she was devastated. After that, keeping me away from novels was a constant struggle.

My friends were allowed to have novels. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and The Wizard of Oz and The Lord of the Rings were discussed and dissected while I sat by, miserably wishing I could partake in these literary adventures too. Then one day my friend Heather suggested that I borrow a book of hers, sneaking it to my house under my jacket. I tried it, and it worked. From then on, I smuggled books as often as I could. A Series of Unfortunate Events; Dear God, It’s Me, Margaret; The Sweet Valley Twins; Dear America; Jacob Have I Loved; Midnight Magic—they all found their ways in and out of my house. But when Heather lent me her worn copy of Ella Enchanted—well, that’s when I first fell in love. In love with a book filled with fairies and curses and magic shoes—all things I wasn’t allowed to read about. I absolutely had to own the book. So I plotted and planned and saved my allowance. But the opportunity never presented itself. Every time I visited Barnes and Noble, my mom was there, looking over the books I bought to make sure they were up to her standards. When I went to town with my dad, the scrutiny was even worse. My grandmother rarely even let me visit the library for fear that I would read something “bad.” One day, however, I was at the library, and my mom forgot to approve my books before I checked them out. Ella Enchanted was mine for an entire month.

I started with my ridiculous plan as soon as I arrived home. The top half of a metal music stand worked nicely to prop my book open. I started on page one, the very first sentence, and began to painstakingly copy the book onto my computer. I didn’t even know how to type, but I could do nearly 40 wpm by the hunt and peck method. Day after day, I labored through chapter after chapter, experiencing the story of Ella Enchanted in a way perhaps no other reader ever has. I was copying the book, word by word, page by page, chapter by chapter. The worst was the languages. There was Ayorthian and Gnomic and Elfian and Ogrese and Abdegi to figure out. I had to painstakingly type out phrases like “,fwthchor evtoogh brzzay eerth ymmad boech evtoogh brzzaY” just to communicate the Gnomish way to say “Digging is good for the wealth and good for the health.” I mean, no one is contesting that Gail Carson Levine is a genius. But did she have to make it that difficult for me to illegally copy her book? Of course, I wasn’t thinking of it that way when I was 13. I was just thinking of the joy I’d experience when at last, that wondrous story was mine to read whenever I wanted.

It took me a month to copy 288 pages. I’m sure my mom wondered why I was spending so much time plunking away at the gritty keyboard of my massive desktop computer. I’m sure she and my father wondered why I wanted a computer that badly anyway. The old Dell only ran Windows 95 and the moniter, which probably weighed more than my massive full-grown lab, barely fit on the top of my oak desk (which was so large itself it probably could’ve withstood a whole year of airraids without suffering a scratch). My computer didn’t have internet. It didn’t run any computer games and even though it had Windows Media Player, I had no CDs to listen to anyway. But it had Microsoft Word, and that was all I cared about.

When I finished my project, I felt a sense of accomplishment that rivaled that I felt when I bought my first bicycle, or the time I climbed my first real mountain at the age of eleven. It didn’t really matter if I ever read Ella Enchanted again. My actions were grounded in a devotion to the written word that would form and shape my life from then on. I had a passion for books which drove me to do something radical. I can’t really say I’ve done anything so radical since—I don’t even count the 200,000+ words of fanfiction I’ve written, or the lies I’ve told in order to borrow my parents’ car and drive to Walmart to pick up a midnight release, or the year I read 500 books and did little else, or the time I didn’t sleep for five days to read the first four Harry Potter books.

Why are novels so engaging? I have a healthy respect for nonfiction. I like blogging myself and have on many occasions enjoyed a good self-help book or a well-written history. But there is nothing as powerful as an engaging story. If you don’t believe that, well, see above. Anyway. Now that I’m all grown up I can own as many novels as I want. I can even freely display them in my living room, organized on neat white bookcases by author and genre.

Life is good.

But I still think I’ve lost that radical side of me.

Snow

Snow, snow, go away. Actually, don't ever come back. You were pretty and glittery and shimmery once upon a time, but now you're just plain annoying as heck. You made my life miserable last Monday as I slipped and slid home from work, and now, coupled with the freezing temperature, you're making my house unbearably...well, unbearable. I've never been so glad to see 40-degree weather forecasted for the weekend in my life.

This is the blog on . . . virginity.

No one ever writes about it, and for good reason. Get an average crowd of college students and ask them to raise their hands if they are sexually active. No one will, but probably 99% are. Maybe at Southern that statistic would drop to...perhaps 60%. If we're lucky.

It's one of those topics that's avoided and skirted around and skimmed over and glossed over and . . . well, you get my drift. Maybe--maybe some brave youth pastor will preach a convicting and challenging series on Sexual Purity and Making Boundaries and that terrifying concept of Saving Yourself for Marriage, but what is a pastor to say to an average group of college kids, most of whom have been sexually active since ninth grade? "Um, kids, I know you're all Doing It, but you need to STOP. Now. Before God sends lightning out of heaven to smite you where you stand."

Whatever. I don't mean to approach the subject from God's point of view, or a pastor's point of view, or even from the general public's point of view. It's MY point of view that matters right now.

I've found myself in the middle of the "Virginity Wars" ever since my freshman year of college when one of my friends confided in me her dilemma as to whether or not she should sleep with her "totally hot extremely awesome incredibly sweet" boyfriend. I'm pleased to say that I talked her out of it, especially as that relationship only lasted a matter of weeks, anyway. A year later, I was reunited with my old roommate from boarding school (who had since become, to put it frankly, a slut) and my sex education began.

And one by one, I watched my closest friends fall off the proverbial wagon. Or rather, they were swept off, into the arms of tall, handsome guys. Well, not all--some girls literally jumped off themselves, not for "Prince Charming," but instead for indifferent, brooding bad boys--the kind who don't remember your name in the morning.

The question of losing one's virginity in college has, for some reason, always been a "when" rather than an "if." It's almost taken for granted that you'll end college having lost the V-card. And, for a long time, it was a matter of "when" in my mind as well. I felt as if I needed to "catch up" with my friends--the ones who had somehow reached a higher plane of womanhood than I ever could without committing that one final act. The pressure didn't help either. I got the "What's wrong with you?" speech more than once, and the "Oh, my god. STILL?" exclamation more times than I'd care to recount. I don't know how our society has become this way, but honestly, it's downright embarrassing to be one virgin among many who are not.

But something happened last week that literally changed my perspective. A very close friend, who until that point had been in the same position as me, had sex for the first time. It wasn't special. It wasn't even good. It was a one-night stand with the very spawn of Satan himself, a guy well known around town for being a player. And as she told me about it, she said the same thing I've heard countless other friends say: "It's not that big of a deal. It's just sex."

Maybe to them. But as I listened, I was struck by a sudden revelation. It still IS a big deal to me! I don't want to give something like that away to a random one-night stand, or even to the cute guy I may date for a couple of weeks. Is it so wrong to want to be in love when I have sex for the first time? Is it so wrong to want the first time to be special, just like the romantic films and books we girls adore? Maybe in today's society, sure. But in the fairy tales, the prince never hangs around strip clubs before rescuing the princess. And the fair maiden never puts out for every random bloke who buys her dinner before she ever meets Prince Charming. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but that's just the way I see it.

So next time I'm tempted to moan and groan about being the odd one out in my friend group, maybe I'll remember that a V-card should be a badge of honor, not a mark of shame. Maybe next time I'm ridiculed I'll remember to lift my chin a little higher and be proud of my stand.

And whenever the guy I'm waiting for comes along, I'll have something to give him most other girls wouldn't. I don't care what they all say, it'll sure as hell be special.

My life is average, part 1

Today when I drove up to the cabin after a long night at work, my roommates’ cats were lounging on the front steps. Tuna, Chewy, and even Styx straightened up when I stepped out of the car, loaded with my Wal-mart bags full of fresh fruit and veggies (my newest diet and potential acne cure). Then they all simultaneously tilted their heads and gazed up imploringly at me.

How was I supposed to react? Of course, I have a heart, much like the other seven billion human beings that inhabit planet Earth. And today, my cold heart softened just a tiny bit when they all rushed to the door and meowed up at me, begging to be fed.

But alas, my softening was only a temporary lapse of judgment and resolution. The minute my hand touched the doorknob, my foot flew into action, violently shoving the cats out of the way so they couldn’t take advantage of their small stature and slip through the opening. “Not today,” I said triumphantly, closing the door behind me and feeling a deep sense of satisfaction as the three cats glared at me from the front step.

After stowing my groceries away in the fridge, I couldn’t resist one last taunt. I stepped close to the front window, looked out at the devious creatures whose plans I’d once again thwarted, and laughed.

A very evil laugh indeed.

One post every day for three months...

...is not a half bad idea. Except that I'm busy. Very busy. Too busy to waste time blogging my life away.

But I will try it.