I smiled.

The other morning in the cafe, while I was wiping a table clean, I overheard a customer saying the word shenanigans to his son. 

‘He’s been up to his usual shenanigans...’

Shenanigans is a good enough word in itself (in fact, I’d forgotten all about it till I heard him using it. I want to try and slip it into a sentence soon). What made the word even better was the customer’s accent. 

He’s got a voice that sounds a little like Sean Connery (in that he prnounshesh hish wordsh like thish – by way of an exshplanashion). So the word actually came out like: she-nani-ginsshhh.

I smiled.

♥

[These pictures are from my birthday earlier this month. While I wasn’t completely excited about turning 23 (I don’t feel tall enough to merit the age), I was glad about saying goodbye to being 22 (my least favourite year so far). And it was such a lovely day. 

Going to a Play, a Pie and a Pint at the Oran Mor, wandering round the Botanic Gardens, hearing the rain hissing on the glass roof (for just a few minutes), eating a delicious picnic that my Mum had wrapped in brown paper and string (Salad Niçoise tiger-bread baguettes; goats’ cheese, pecan and roast pepper sandwiches; hummus, tomato and avocado thins; Italian lemonade; Kettle crisps; strawberries...) 

...catching sight of a black butterfly with whispering wings, sitting on a picnic rug in the park watching wedding photographers, enjoying a big fried breakfast-for-dinner back at home (why not?). A day full of eating: my favourite sort.]

(Listening to Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps by Doris Day while writing this today.)

I get words all day through...

Most days when I’m at work, I have some song or other playing on a loop in the back of my head. Maybe it’s the last song I heard on the radio before I left the car, or maybe it’s a lyric triggered by some phrase I’ve heard during the day. (Example: me asking a customer ‘How would you like your eggs?’ will invariably lead to the song ‘How do ya like your eggs in the morning?’ wedging itself into my brain for the next eight hours or so.)

I’m guessing this is fairly typical of most people, right? This is a ‘thing’. It’s not too uncommon.

Well, recently when I’ve been in work (and I’ve been in work a lot recently) I’ve noticed that, as well as having songs stuck in my head, I’ve also started getting words stuck in there too.

‘Scrupulous. Exodus. Arabesque.’ (For example).

These words, unbidden, will just randomly appear – ‘hello!’ – in the middle of my wiping tables, or serving customers, and I’ll find myself turning them over, almost unconsciously, as I go about the motions of laying cutlery and scraping plates.

‘Vehement, vehemently, vehemence.’ ‘Scrupulous. Dwindle. Umpire.’

It’s like they’ve escaped from the dictionary – like penguins from a zoo – and have waddled into my head just, y’know, for something to do. I quite enjoy to find them – these stray words, with their crispy, satisfying little syllables, milling about in the back of my head. But it’s also quite strange. Because more often than not they’re pretty obscure. And words I wasn’t even aware I knew. Like: ‘incursion, machinations, and rambunctious.’ Odd.

I get the feeling this is slightly less common than the song thing, right? Probably the tired mind of a writerly English graduate trying to amuse itself during very long, very repetitive days of cafe work... I think I probably need a holiday quite soon.

♥

Pictures by: Daniela Strijleva

Title of this post taken from 'Show Me' from My Fair Lady (... which is, of course, now stuck in my head.)

chalky fingers

Here are some rather nice quotes and typographical beauties I found on Molly Jacques website. I'm involved in a design project as part of university this semester (we're creating a 'literary journal'), which means I've been spending a jolly lot of my time looking at fonts, photographs, logos and illustrations (...possibly too much of my time. Something I've Noticed About Procrastination Fact #343: it is wily and mustachioed and disguises itself as work). 

...on that note, I'm away to work on my essay on Lolita (I'm taking a class on Nabokov this semester. What an amazing writer! And also, what a disturbing book. But still... what an amazing writer. And yet... this could go on for a while. See you later).

the sun has got his hat on.

I had my last class of third year today. Somewhat surreal. I'm not finished quite yet, there are still essays, stories, columns, exams. But no more classes. It's been a pretty exhausting week though. So, for now, here are just three things:

[one.] The past few days have been bursting with sun. A little taste of summer. It's been so warm that I've even been able to walk about without a cardigan on (a rarity indeed). I've spent a few hours each day in the sun, having tea and conversations (about writing, and the beauty of ordinary things, and poetry, and academic sobbery, and post-modernism, and Carol Shields, and bees) with the interesting lady who is my mother.

[two.] The internet in the house has been down for a few days... which has been both a pest and a bit of a relief. When the first thing you do every morning is check Facebook, you know something is wrong. I don't want to spend my life staring at screens. (And yes, I recognise the irony...)

[three.] Exciting, exciting, exciting news! One of my short stories is going to be published in the debut issue of Octavius Magazine (a new literary magazine). I got the news after a busy, sticky, warm day at work. Quite a treat to come home and find in my inbox.

(Pictures are from a trip to Bath last summer.)

doodles and deafness.

I thought I'd post my latest column for the Strathclyde Telegraph on here. The columns are all around the theme of 'something I've noticed' as well... so it ties in quite nicely with this blog!

I've mixed up the writing with pictures of tea from various cafes ...partly because the article is about a cafe (my work), but mainly because when I see huge blocks of text on a blog, it kind of puts me off. (Probably a shocking confession for someone who is studying literature - i.e. the study of very, very long texts - to make, but hey!). So don't be off-put, friend. Enjoy the pictures and happy reading to you!)

♥

Something I've Noticed: Brian was Here
(from the Strathclyde Telegraph. Issue 6. March 2012)

As I walked to their table, the old man was pulling a pen out of his shirt pocket.

‘Hi there,’ I said. They looked up from their menus. ‘Are you ready to order?’

It seemed like some sort of family event. One by one, they called out their orders – cheese toasties, minestrone soup, ginger beer. The old man at the end didn’t say a word. He had taken out a tiny black notebook and was now scribbling something in it.

I always feel an affinity with fellow notebook-keepers, and couldn’t help wishing I was closer so I could see what he was writing.

‘And a bowl of chips to share,’ said the lady in blue, ‘and I think that’s it.’

I collected together their menus but just before turning to leave, I noticed the old man had stopped scribbling. He was adjusting his glasses, and then he ripped the page from his notebook and slipped it under the sugar bowl.

My curiosity began to hum.

About two hours later, the family paid their bill and bustled out the door. As usual the table was strewn with napkins and dirty dishes but – yes! – there it was! That mysterious piece of paper! It was a little drawing: a long-nosed man peeking over a wall. Underneath were the words: Brian was here.

Customers often leave things behind: seashells, reading glasses, broaches, keys. Someone left a walking stick once; we kept it for weeks, but I don’t think anyone ever came back to claim it. All these forgotten objects – they whisper at stories.

What is the story behind this drawing?

I imagine that it starts with something quite banal, like the old man was just trying to pass the time. I don’t remember seeing him talking much. Maybe his hearing aid was playing up – it was picking up too much background noise and his ears were full of rattling cutlery, and the rumble of hundreds of voices speaking at once, and tinkling piano music, and teaspoons clinking against china. Maybe he had just switched it off, and sat quiet.

Maybe this doodling has become something of a regular occurrence for Brian, if that is his name; maybe it’s a way of coping with this new age of silence. He’s aware that he has become something of a nuisance at family gatherings. No one knows what to do with him. He can’t hear what they’re saying so they avoid sitting beside him because ‘it’s awkward’ – yes, he heard his granddaughter say that at Christmas. He pretended not to, but he heard it. Maybe this doodling is an attempt to reconnect with them again, to try and make them laugh.

Because he slipped it under the sugar bowl, and because he left it there, I almost think he put it there for us, the waitresses. I think he wanted us to find it.

Sometimes, on rainy, wistful days, I’ve wondered what it would be like for a customer to look back and see me clearing their table. They might glance through the window and catch me crumpling their empty sugar packets, catch me stacking their teacups, sweeping away their scone crumbs, wiping away their spilt coffee and sticky fingerprints, catch me wiping and wiping until every last trace of them is gone. I wonder if they would feel a slight tug of – not quite sadness, not as concrete as that – but a creeping impression that they had just witnessed themselves being rubbed out.

I wonder if Brian has felt like this. Maybe that is why he left the picture. He was leaving behind a piece of himself, a remnant. Of course there was the risk that it might get thrown away with the rest of the rubbish. But then, there was also the possibility, the hope, that someone might find it. Someone might find it, and then someone would know, he wanted someone to know: Brian was here.

♥

a rainbow on the walk to work.

So faint you can hardly see it. But it's there.

orders.

Lady with the happy wrinkles: "I’ll have a plain scone, honey. And an earl grey tea."

Man with the red tie: "I’ll have nearly the same. I’ll have a fruit scone. And -- I’ll just take some of your house tea."

~ In work the other week 

♥

'House tea.' I thought that was quite a cute thing to say.

(Picture from: Emma Block.)

I think I'll be six now forever and ever.

(Blowing bubbles on my 20^th birthday.)

Hello gentle ladies and men. Please accept my apologies for my lack of updating. I have been working a lot, holidaying, volunteering with 3 year-olds, and trying to shift a never-ending cold (excuse me while I go blow my nose). I have a lot to write. In the meantime though, I’ll leave you with a short conversation that happened while I was serving a bald man and his friend coffee yesterday.

♥

Bald man: "Sorry for asking, hen, but are you old enough to work here."

Me: "Yes. I’m actually twenty."

Bald man’s (cheeky) friend: "Twenty? What... inches?"

Oh how very hilarious.

♥

I can just about guarantee you that every day I go into work, a customer will tell me how young I look or ask if I’m still in high school. I like to shock them with the truth: ‘No no, I’m in university. Going into third year. I'm twenty actually.' (Bam!)

(...if I'm honest
though,
I can't
quite
believe it myself.)

four small things.

♥

Bonjour! The past few weeks I have been: working more hours in the cafe (which has been quite interesting – lots of funny customers, a saxophonist, and delicious mistake ‘hot chocolate brownie’ ice-cream sundaes), going to two conferences, finding out that I passed 2^nd year university (with ‘distinction’ – hooray!) and spending rather too much time pottering about the house doing nothing (which I must stop doing). I will write a proper post later. For now though, here are a few things that I’ve noticed...

(one). A car with eye-lashes...

(two). The fact that it’s June and it already looks like autumn. Brown, shrivelled, dead leaves. Something's wrong with the trees...

(three). Even though I’m not an ‘animal person’ ...when asked to look after pets, I inevitably end up falling a little bit in love with them and proceed to embarrass myself when they leave by bursting into tears. This has now happened twice: once when looking after Shadow the Dog for 3 months and just there when looking after Tasha the Cat for 10 days while my Grandparents were on holiday. (Incidentally... as I seem to be writing an awful lot about moustaches on this blog, I might as well continue and tell you that Tasha was so named because she has a white moustache. They’ve had her for 16 years, and I only just found this out.)

♥

(four). And my sister found this music last night which is lovely.

I haven't been eaten by an aligator.

♥

I’m just about to go and read more about “free indirect discourse” in Sense and Sensibility (WONDERFUL! I hate exams with a passion, but I like studying for them – learning and remembering interesting ideas). I thought I’d pop on here first though just to say I’m still alive and I’ve not abandoned this blog. I’ve just been busy with studying and whatnot. ‘Whatnot’ includes: 

♥ sitting outside for lunch as much as possible, while the sun lasts

♥ watching the royal wedding (what a beautiful dress. Yes, a lot of hype and 'pomp' - what a funny word - but it's nice to see a celebration on the news for a change, and to have an opportunity to laugh at ridiculous hats)

♥ getting my hair cut (it was getting quite long – so long, in fact, that everyone very kindly took it upon themselves to remind me how much I suit short hair. My sister actually dialled the number of the hair dresser for me, so I decided to take the hint, ha ha. It does look less messy.)

♥ going to see the Alice in Wonderland ballet (by the Scottish ballet – it was quite dark and wonderfully bizarre.)

♥ working in the cafe at the weekends (busy, very busy)

♥ making up songs about vegetables with my brother while making the dinner (‘Carrots on the Floor’ and ‘Fruit Salad (Ba-na-na-na-na)’. Expect updates on the release date of our EP soon).

♥ listening to: this song (I love, love, love Mumford and Sons)

Back to studying now! I will write more soon. Promise.

Pictures from: here.

Happy New Year!

I spent the first few hours of 2011 at work, serving drinks, cleaning wine glasses, sweeping up confetti. Just before the stroke of midnight though, everyone who was working was given a small glass of champagne. All the customers gathered by the stage in bow ties and sparkly purple dresses, and all the workers huddled together a little way off.

'Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!!'

And for a few minutes we were allowed to drop our roles – waitress, bar staff, chef, dish washer – and just be people, toasting in the New Year. A few moments of excitement, hugging people you wouldn't normally, asking about ambitions...and then back to work.

...that is the thing about being a waitress, it is a role. Once I put the uniform on, once I button up the shirt and tie a bow at the back of the apron, I become: The Waitress. Which is fine, but sometimes (during the summer especially, when I’m working for months at a time) it feel quite anonymous, like my 'self' gets lost inside crumpled napkins and dirty dishes... 

There was one day, two summers ago, when the cafe was mobbed – clinking tea cups, piano music, talking, talking, a small child whining, laughing, cutlery rattling – and I had been running about all day bringing ice-cream sundaes and coffees to customers, when I came to a table I’d served earlier. Table 39: a lady, and a man with blue eyes, and their little boy, and his granny who was wearing a bright pink t-shirt. And the man said,

‘I hope they pay you well, because you work very hard.’

And then the granny asked,

‘What’s your name, love?’

‘Melissa.’

And soon I was back to whizzing about with more trays of drinks, but that was lovely. Kindness is beautiful, even if it comes in the form of a few words and a naming.

‘Melissa. My name is Melissa.’

Yes! I am not a uniform. I am a literature student. I had tuggy hair when I was a little girl. I am in love with the idea of love, but frightened of the reality of it. I am an aspiring ‘doer of good’. I am a person.

I try hard to see the customers as people, and not just table numbers. They are living stories, characters with quirks and ambitions. I like it when they remember, and remind me, that I am story too. Just now is only a chapter.

(pictures from Matte Stephens. The last one isn't related, I just thought it was funny...)