This morning, the little slab of concrete outside my front door was the most beautiful it has ever been. Something about the angle at which the sun hits the city of San Diego in mid January is even more attractive than usual. I pulled my little table outside, I brewed coffee and I sat, ate breakfast and let my face swell in the sunlight. Guiltless. resting. Sunday.

I have been spinning like a top for the month of January. 

I started working as a barista in a very European cafe where the lights are always romantically-dim and the chairs are way too crowded and there are about 100 jars of loose tea artfully arranged around the perimeter where customers can put their noses right into the teas: rosehip-cardamom, gunpowder green, blackberry Assam, and then fish out a tea-bag. My boss, the owner is almost completely deaf, and English is not his first language. One afternoon, a few weeks ago, when I was a customer, I approached the owner and asked:
 “Do you ever hold concerts here?” Referring to the mahogany baby-grand piano that sits in the corner. He turned his head, cupped his hand to his ear and responded, “Are you looking for a job?”
“Oh, no, I am asking about the piano. Do you ever hold concerts here? Or, like, allow musicians to use the piano?”
“Are you a musician?”
“Well, I am a singer.” 
“Ah, yes. There is no money in this.”
“What?”
“Do you need a job?”
“No, I am asking about the piano.”
“Have you ever worked in cafe?”
“–well, yes.”
“Come back tomorrow with your resume. You can work here.”

So I did. And now I do. Work in this cafe. 

The owner is like a character from a Wes Anderson movie. He wears a flannel jacket and a fedora all day,. He spends long hours sitting at the bar with friends and giving away baklava and coffee drinks to pretty girls, or older men who look like they are in the mob. And he sleeps behind a folding screen, beneath a set of stairs in the back of the cafe. It’s totally hidden, no one would know it, and because he can’t really hear anything he is able to disappear and nap even in the busiest hours of service.

He refers to his cafe as “we” and “us” and can turn any conversation into a conversation about how much everyone loves “us”.

“Everyone knows this cafe, because we hire only the prettiest girls. For 30 years we have had only the prettiest girls work here.”
I am simultaneously repulsed and compelled by this thought. I am a human, I am an American human, I have a fragile sense of self-image, and any implication that I am a “pretty girl” is flattering. But yes every misogynist comment makes we question: “is this worth it? Is paying my rent worth this?” Indeed, my co workers are all beautiful. I am the only one who doesn’t have a name that ends with an open “-a” sound, I am the only worker who doesn’t have a rich, mesmerizing european accent.

…

Cover band seeks female lead singer.

This was one of the Craigslist ads that I responded to. I sent a video of myself singing “Fuck you” by Ceelo Greene at the Broadway Comedy Club to the email providedin the posting. And said something about being a classically trained singer. And sure enough, I heard back: “We want you to sing a live audition at our show this Friday.” She sent me a medley of 3 songs to learn” I’m Just a Girl, Livin La Vida Loca and Last Dance. 

So at 9:00, that Friday night, I drove out to a bar in East county. I got up on stage and I sang. And I totally…sucked. I had a earpiece in my ear, a drum set wailing behind me, while I was singing Dona Summer with precise, operatic, vibrato. It was like trying to fit a fish into a prom dress. The manager met me outside after my set. She looked at me with a sort of quizzical dissapointment. 
“Um…you can’t use that much vibrato on the mics.”
“Yeah. I think I get that now.”
“So… I need to talk to the rest of the band. But if we do hire you. You and I need to meet, A LOT before your first gig.”
“That makes sense.”

So I drove back home. Listening to a meditation CD the whole way. And telling myself: Good riddance. This isn’t the kind of singing that you do anyways! You are a much more refined singer than that! 
Completely expecting to never hear another word about the whole thing, the next morning I got a call, and an offer to join the band, contingent on many rehearsals before my first gig on February 1st to get the style and learn the choreography. 

“I have to think about it.” I told her. “Can you give me a few hours.” 

I thought, and I called my mom, and my then my best friend and we all determined: Hey, this is music, this is singing, this is making people happy, this is making money!

“Alright. I am totally in!” I texted her. “Please send me the practice tracks and I’ll start learning the music!”

So the time not spent being a barista for the last week and a half, have been spent standing at my kitchen counter, dancing and learning the words to “UpTown Funk” and “Billie Jean.” And about 30 other pop songs that I thought I knew, but turned out I never knew a single word to. And may I tell you, it is surprisingly fun. GIve yourself a treat sometime: when you are all alone, look up some karaoke tracks on YouTube and just jam out!

…

Yesterday evening I biked to work. Right up through Balboa park, as the sun was setting. I had a bit of extra time so I sat on a park bench. and just thought “thank you” over and over and over again. For the setting sun; for the use of both of my legs; for the ability to pay my rent; for the privilege of being paid to sing; for the feeling of windless, perfect warmth. 

When I walked into the cafe, every table was filled. Saturday night. The front door open and letting a honeyed wind into the cafe. The owner sat at the bar eating spaghetti and drinking wine with a friend. 

When I am at work, I work. I am not sure whether to attribute this to my Midwestern, Germanic upbringing, or my time spent hustling in New York. I spent the whole six hour shift cleaning, bussing tables, making drinks, taking orders, restocking bottles of beer in the display, washing dishes, mopping the floor. Spinning like a top. 11:00pm, the owner told me I could go home, and then pointed to one of the decorative jars of tea, rose petal black tea.
 “Why didn’t you dust this jar?” 
“I did, I dusted all of the jars.”
“This one still has dust on it.”
“Do you want me to dust it again?”
“I want to know why you don’t do your job when you are here?”
“Are you serious? I feel like I have been working very hard all night.”
“You don’t understand how this cafe works. You want to make coffee drinks and take orders, but what you should be doing is keeping this place clean.”
“Do you think I haven’t been working hard all night?”
“What have you been doing?

I was suddenly blank for responses, I shouldn’t have to explain all of the work I had been doing all night. Certainly he had seen me doing all of it as he sat at the bar all night.

He continued: “I am not saying you are lazy, I am saying you don’t know how we work.”

I started to feel my throat close and my eyes begin to water. I hate how easily I cry. 

“This is a good job! Here the money is stable, and you can pay all of your bills. You are trying to be an actress or singer or whatever. You will never make money like this. I know! You think you are the first girl to come in here, who is trying to be an actress. I know how these things work! In this city you will never make a living like this.”

Again. I didn’t respond. But in my head I was screaming, defiantly: YOU ARE WRONG! YOU ARE SO WRONG!!

“Do you like this job?” He asked
“I do.” 

Believe it or not, this was an honest answer. I do like the job. I like my coworkers, I like the pace of the shifts, I like being around people, hearing jazz music play, smelling espresso. And, even in this moment, I liked my boss. HIs oversized fedora, his tattered flannel. HIs thick accent, his world-view grown in a soil so different from my own. Looking up at me with his eyes as tired as mine.

I grabbed my backpack. And the stack of cash he had set down on the table as payment for my shift. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow” I said.
“It’s a good job. I treat you all very well!”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”