Alberty's Blah Blah Blog

Okay. So one of the things I like to do when I stay with my parents is to head out to a local coffee shop in the morning and do some writing.

Still in bed, I whir up the old Urbanspoon and start cranking through my options. Today I found a little place called La Barista, on the corner of Grand Ave, and EP True Parkway in West Des Moines. But don’t look for the name “La Barista.” It’s not on the awning. It just says, “Coffee Bar.”

And it’s tiny. It seats perhaps eighteen people.

I love places like this. I walked and the woman behind the bar — well along into pregnancy — said, “Grandma, can you bring in the new plates?” And in came Grandma with the new plates.

I’m not exactly sure what Grandma said. She spoke with a thick accent, perhaps Eastern European.

I ordered my customary cappuccino, dry, and a cinnamon scone. It was one of the best cappuccinos I have tasted. Just a little bracing, just a little bitter, and strong, healthy foam. And the scone, made in-house, also very good.

I was shocked to hear they have been open for 17 years. Seventeen years. My parents have lived here since 1979. I have never been to this place. It actually struck me a little dumb.

There is Starbucks across the street. It opened about two years ago. But the young barista said that it hasn’t really done anything to their business.

A man came into the café and café and she said, “Hey, Dave. Same thing?”

“You betcha.”

Just then another car pulled to the drive-up window, which is right behind the counter. Dave said, “Hey, John,” to the man in the car. I am not making this up. The three of them — Dave, standing at the counter, John, in his car at the window, and the young barista — carried on a conversation about a third customer who had recently had a heart attack.

Now, I don’t really have anything against Starbucks. I know that to Seattleites they are a local company. But there is something about size that almost necessitates a simmering hierarchical anonymity. The further away a leader is from led the less connection they have, thus the less empathy and understanding they can have. It’s the same with customers. Decisions become matters of cost analysis, branding, and public relations. They really aren’t about the customer any more.

La Barista is about the customer. For them, small is powerful. I mean, 17 years? There is pluck in a family coffee house that survives for 17 years.

I may be done browsing for my café away from café. Now, if I can just find a good Thai place again.

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Okay, this post is going to a potentially icky place. If you are sensitive, have a hair-trigger gag reflex, or are even moderately socially conservative, this post may not be for you. You have been fairly warned!

Somewhere I read a little snippet about the falsity or “great lie” of movie sex, and it got me thinking.

First, it really is a lie, but it’s a movie, so get over it. But, if you know me, I didn’t leave it at that thought.

Here is where we go TMI, okay. So either stop reading or brace yourself.

I am no lothario. I do not have notches on bedposts or a box of panties hidden in a drawer. I mean, Jesus! I have almost always been a short, fat, balding geek —most of the time with glasses. But I have had the luck or honor to be with several women of wide proclivities, styles, fetishes and morphologies. And by the phrase “be with,” I mean make love, have sex, or fuck, as the situations may have played out.

Most of the time, at least the first few times, there is always some awkwardness. At the “event beginning,” certainly — teeth knocking together, accidental hair pulling, hair caught in zippers, too vigorous, not vigorous enough, a catch in the leg or the back, and the usually embarrassing misaiming.

Sometimes right in the “event middle” — tongue/no tongue, misplaced elbow or knee, what do I do with the arm between my body and bed (if you are lucky enough to be using a bed), if she sweats in my eye do I rub it or just deal with it, am I working one area for too long, oops that’s clearly not an erogenous zone for her.

And nearly always at the “event end” — is she satisfied, is she okay laying here for a while, is she satisfied, my arm is asleep, is she really satisfied, is she okay laying in the wet spot?

Which brings me to the “great lie” of sex scenes in movies. No one in a movie lays in the wet spot. No one!

And no one tells you this either: and trust me, I listened with wrapped focus during sex education classes. They never— NEVER — mentioned the wet spot. Never! Nor did they mention how quickly it seems to get cold. The wet spot. And just…blech!

Which brought me to this realization: It’s actually after sex, when the clean-up happens, that the real relationship work goes on.

During long relationships, healthy relationships, sex is like an improvisation on a theme. If you always dance the Merengue, boredom will most likely set in. But improvise within, say Latin ballroom, and you’ll be okay. I mean, I know what you like, you know what I like, but a rut’s a rut. Touch on the likes but throw in a little Cha Cha, you know?

But, also in long relationships, the post-coitus, the afterglow, if I may, becomes a dance of oftentimes logistical precision. Each person may have one or a couple of specific jobs. Perhaps the cleaning occurs nearly instantaneously, ending in a post-coital cuddle. Or perhaps there is a bit of laying around, finger drawing, idle chit chat, before the cleaning occurs.

But either way, there are niceties and tender gestures. And these things are where the love is. It’s like vacuuming when the wife is out of town. Like not putting cilantro in the chili. Like letting her warm her ice-cold foot on your snuggly warm calf.

And where did all this take me? Eventually to where all things have taken me of late: a note. A note of reminder.

Some day I must tell my sons, “Always lay in the wet spot.”

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