Coffee Exchange

Literary Journalism piece written on 2/25/10 for Creative Nonfiction course

 

Walk into Coffee Exchange at any time of day and you will notice an eclectic bunch of people mingling about in the shop and behind the counter.  The Providence crowd has a certain aesthetic; a mix of native Rhode Islanders, Brown and RISD students, and artsy-looking people who probably didn’t grow up in Providence but are drawn to the community for one reason or another.

One reason is that Providence is home to places like Coffee Exchange, a 26-year-old East Side coffee shop on Wickenden Street, just blocks away from India Point Park, the Jewelry District, and the Brown and RISD campuses.

As you scoot around circular tables in search of a place to sit, it’s likely that you will pass the bean counter, with its display of 32 types of coffee beans, roasted on the premises, ready to be ground and bagged and brought home.  And if you pass the bean counter, it’s likely that you will notice a short man in a funky button-up shirt and an appropriately coffee-colored brown suede vest.

That man is Charlie Fishbein, owner of Coffee Exchange.  Charlie’s family opened up the shop in 1984, but Charlie didn’t take over until his brother Bill moved to Santa Fe about 20 years ago.  In 1988, Bill founded Coffee Kids, a nonprofit that works to help children and families in coffee-growing communities. This work took Bill away from Coffee Exchange, leaving Charlie in charge.

An LA baby who grew up in Providence, Charlie has seen the ebb and flow of businesses on the East Side.  He says that Coffee Exchange was the accidental byproduct of his family’s cookware business, which ran out of a few locations, one of them being Wickenden Street.  When the business folded due to tough interest rates, the Fishbein family decided to stay on Wickenden and open up a new shop, one that would focus on coffee-related cookware.

“We didn’t serve any espresso or any brewed coffee, it was strictly coffee by the pound, and grinders and filters and stuff, and we were giving out samples, we were brewing it in these ten-cup Chemex automatics,” Charlie recalls.  “We had people lined up for samples, said oh, well, okay, why don’t we sell this stuff, you know, hello, and so we started selling it and the lines kept coming.”

Having met so much success selling brewed coffee, the Fishbein family invested in an espresso machine, and began to sell Armenian pastries made by a friend.  Next they added indoor and outdoor seating, which was also a success, until they were using three times as many square feet outside of the restaurant as they were inside.  In four years, it was clear to the Fishbeins that they needed a bigger place.

Charlie and his family moved the business across the street, and with the added space, they were able to roast beans on the premises.  Ten years ago, Charlie joined a roasters’ co-op called Cooperative Coffees, and as a result of their local reputation and respected name in the coffee industry, business continued to go well.

“I roast as much coffee as probably the bottom third of the 25 roasters that we have, even though a lot of them have several stores or several accounts for wholesale, we still roast more coffee then they do because we do so much business here.”

It is remarkable how much business Charlie actually does—stop by Coffee Exchange almost any time from 6:30 A.M. to 11:00 P.M. and you will be hard pressed to find a seat, even though the shop, situated on the ground floor of a mustard-colored Providence house, seats a few dozen.

Unexpected as it may be, Charlie credits much of his success to big coffee chains such as Starbucks.  “Every night when I say my prayers, I thank God for Starbucks.  If it wasn’t for Starbucks, then I wouldn’t be selling four-dollar cups of coffee… I’d be selling good coffee, I’d be selling it for a decent price… but the truth of the matter, Starbucks… they do nothing except improve our business… If they were to go across the street, you know we’d have a little war; it wouldn’t bother me that much.  I’m pretty much insulated from the type of damage that could happen with Starbucks.”

In fact, Starbucks did try to move in across the street about ten years ago when Dudley’s hardware put their building up for sale.  With its glass front and ample parking, the building was an ideal location for Starbucks to set up a store, as they tend to do, directly across the street from “the number one spot in coffee in Providence,” Charlie says.

Hours after Dudley’s put their store up for sale, Charlie jumped in and bought the space.  As quick as he acted, it still took him over six months to decide what would be the best next step.  “We debated, we kept getting good tenants to go in there… one company that wanted to go in there was Starbucks… and I wanted to rent it to them.  Yeah, this would be great.  What we can do, we can charge them rent up the kazoo, that’s gonna make up for any losses we’re gonna have in business, charge them a billion dollars a year, they can afford anything… and have a war and be known for the only store that can beat Starbucks, this would be great.”

Charlie’s family did not agree with his tactics. They decided not to rent the building to Starbucks, or any coffee chain for that matter.  Today the first floor is occupied by Utrecht, a nationwide art supply store.

Charlie’s reaction to this situation is typical of him as a businessperson.  According to Susan Wood, CEO of Coffee Kids, Charlie is “an extraordinarily creative person…he’s not content at all to let anything be the status quo… his ability to really focus on always making this a better work environment and a better customer experience is really terrific.”

Charlie’s high standards for Coffee Exchange are probably the basis behind the confident assertion that he could win a “war” with Starbucks.  “The challenge has always been to maintain this discipline on putting out fresh coffee,” he explains.  “It just is really simple, but it’s the key element of the entire business is that the coffee is best because it’s freshest, that’s it.”

Not only is the coffee the best, but the environment seems to be the best as well.  Charlie is concerned about the increase in laptops and cell phone use in the shop, and yet, he refuses to post a sign prohibiting their use.  “The whole idea of coming in here and sitting down is like a community center where people can come in, and the idea of applying rules to it makes it so it’s a one way street, it emphasizes the commercialism of it, but not the social haven that this is supposed to be.”

All things considered, maybe it’s not so outrageous that Charlie Fishbein feels so unthreatened by a substantial chain like Starbucks.  His intense focus on the wellbeing of the customers and the quality of the coffee set Coffee Exchange apart from other coffee shops, both large chains and small independent stores.

“His ability to really focus on always making this a better work environment and a better customer experience is really terrific,” Susan explains.  “He has an unbelievable appreciation for his customers.  His other thing is that ‘the customer may not always be right, but the customer’s always the customer.’  And he wants to make the experience for someone coming in and sharing their time, as well as buying our products, a really good one.”

Indeed, Charlie can be heard repeating this mantra to anyone who engages him in a conversation about what he does.  But even if the customers are right, they won’t stay customers for long if they find better coffee at another shop.  Charlie encourages his customers to go buy coffee at Starbucks and compare the quality.  “Anybody that wants to come in and say they bought coffee at Starbucks, and they want to know whether this is any better, just try it.  I love that comparison.”

With fresh batches of coffee brewed a few times each hour, there is no question that Coffee Exchange has a fresh brew.  Since they are so closely tied to Coffee Kids, all of the coffees they serve are also certified organic and certified fair trade.

“Life’s a coffee break,” Charlie says, his gap-toothed smile leaning to the right.  “You can’t have an argument over good coffee… I always come out on top with coffee, and I really feel blessed that I wound up with coffee. Also the people are just wonderful… The big three are right there: owners, employees, and customers.  When they’re all clicking on all cylinders, you cannot but be satisfied with your business.”

story people.

Before Dawn: maybe my first favorite story

Stories.  Short ones.  Crafted by Brian Andreas onto pieces of recycled barn wood, creating tea trays and sculptures and treasure chests and mirrors and coat racks.  There are also books and prints and greeting cards, but mostly, if you don’t have lots of money to buy all those things, they are stories.  Here are three stories that meant something to me (recently…I have a “favorites” list that scrolls down and down and down).

–

connected by a silver cord that hums with sadness the further it is stretched

–

–

If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can.  & there is nothing more to it than that.

–

–

This is a giant block of whatever is most difficult for you to carry & trust me on this, you’ll carry it more times than you can count until you decide that’s exactly what you want to do most & then it won’t weigh a thing anymore.

–

They have a story of the day email too.  Get it.  Best daily email I recieve.  Story People is like the best song or your favorite line in a book you love.  The stories say things that we all feel, in a way we can understand it.  There’s nothing like reading the perfect story for your day.

other people getting published

Once when I told my grandma’s friend that I want to write, she told me it was impractical, but if I must, I could do something functional like transcribing medical textbooks into online versions.  Boy, does that sound fun.

I’ve been reading Joey Comeau’s Overqualified website, which is a collection of real cover letters that he sent out with job applications to dozens of corporations over the past few years.  When I first discovered this website at least three years ago (though now I no longer remember how I first came across it) I mostly read the comic, but soon discovered the Overqualified section and was highly amused.  Now it turns out Joey has turned the letter into a book, which is getting published.  Rock on!

And what struck me was that from this small idea he had, or some way he entertained himself, or some fluke, he’s now getting a book published.  Think about Julie and Julia, that movie about cooking and Julia Childs that was based on a blog written by somebody named Julia in New York.  These things are crazy to me, call them what you will, mini success stories, entrepreneurship, miracles.  What I wonder is if Julie and Joey have forever had burning desires to be published, or if this was just something great that happened in their lives and all of a sudden they were Real Writers.

I’ve noticed by way of this blog that all I want to write about here is writing.  Lots of things happen to me every day.  I’m in England and I’ve seen cute towns and snow and sheep and family and friends, and there’s a lot to write about that might be interesting to read, if only for my mom.  But.  I can’t seem to force myself to write every day, though that was my goal…to write every day for a month.  I thought it would be a good New Year’s Resolution but then realised that I had no computer access on the first because I was in London, then was staying at Benny’s house on the second and third, and I feel weird blogging on other people’s computers.  So maybe I’ll start small and see if I can blog every day for a week.  Except starting Thursday I’ll be travelling again, so who knows what will happen.

I used to have this goal to write in my journal every night before bed.  I think that may have been a resolution once as well.  But now I look at my journal and the dates are separated by three to five weeks, usually.  Even though I always have one with me (there are many; I’ve started at least three or four at the moment and can only think of two in my whole life I’ve finished).

Bottom line:  if I want to get published (ever) I’m pretty sure I need consistency, a routine, standards, discipline.  It ain’t gonna happen from me just thinking about it.  I actually have to write.  Consistently.

I also think my blog needs more links and pictures to be more interesting.  Working on that too. But that’s another issue.

a writer I’ve never read

Jane Austen.  Her books are classics.  There are only six, I think, but they are internationally known and make the English very proud.  Today Barbara and I went to Chawton to visit the house where she did the bulk of her writing (and revising), and I learned that her first books were published under the name “A Lady” and then “by the same author as Sense and Sensibility.”  Those Brits sure are proud of someone they initially tried to supress.  I suppose it was the early 1800s, after all.

They have a writer in residence at her house, and you can do workshops there (unfortunately none this month or the next, which I was bummed about).  She has a blog, too.

The thing that most surprised me about the house was the tiny table that she supposedly wrote at– smaler than an end table, a little low circular table you’d probably put a small lamp on, or a vase of flowers.

Jane Austen's writing table

When I write, I like to be spread out.  It’s hard to imagine being productive at such a small table.  Or without having access to a computer where you can store word documents with pages and pages of notes, or thoughts, and internet where you can look up pretty much anything about anything, any time you need to.  That might be an interesting exercise to do, having to write a complete work just sitting at one table.  I guess that’s how she acheieved her supposedly incredible imagery and attention to detail– she wrote about what she knew, and she knew it very well.

10/14/09

Wrote this in my journal on 10/14/09.  Thought it was worth sharing.

What if I woke up each morning knowing all the things that would happen that day?  I could properly prepare for the whole day, knowing who I’d meet, what connections I’d make, and how the day would unfold.

Sometimes I try to live my days this way, mostly when I’m at Brown.  I look at my planner and see a full schedule of events—meetings, classes, lectures, lunch dates, coffee, rehearsal, frisbee practice, phone calls.  Days like this go by so fast and yet so slow.  I’m constantly thinking of the next thing on my agenda, how much time I have to get there, when I’ll eat, or pee, or drink some water.  And then something goes wrong.  I meet a friend, he tells me he heard that lecture was going to be terrible, or sold out, or there was a better once starting in half an hour across campus.  So I change plans.  And the schedule has to be shifted, I’m late to class, I consider skipping practice at the end of the day because I’m so wiped from hopping from spot to spot all day.

Are these days better than those for which the calendar is blank?  I’m not so sure.  If I had known in the morning that I’d meet that friend and see such a bomb lecture, I suppose I could have been excited in the morning when I woke up, and all day long after that.  But with the way the day unfolded, it was a surprise.

I’ve decided that it’s the surprises that make my days.  For a while now, my friend Scott has been telling me to be happy each day.  I finally realized that I didn’t quite understand, so I asked him what he meant.  Did he mean that I had to be happy all day, every day?  Or just have at least one happy moment each day?  He told me that what he really meant was for me to wake up happy, or at least content with where I was and what I’d be doing.  So then I thought, what happens on days when I wake up having nothing to look forward to?  That’s where the surprises come in  Knowing each day that something unexpected will happen is reassuring to me; like change, it is the only constant.

I think this all ties back to present time, a concept I was first exposed to when I did improv with HIT my senior year of high school.  Andy stressed present time as a crucial tool not only for improv, but for life too.  Acknowledging the percentage of our lives that are accounted for by surprises only reaffirms my interest in present time.  Living in the moment is the only thing that makes sense when I think about how much of what is to come simply cannot be known or planned for.  That’s not to say that I’m ignoring my future at large, but on a day to day, or really a moment to moment basis, if I want to be happy, there is no way to do so other than by focusing on and engaging in right here and now.

How often am I excited for the next five months?  Almost always. (ex. right now the next five months include Christmas, New Years, more time in England, Scotland, going back to Brown and living in a real house with Mark Katie and Ben, maybe BOLT leading, hopefully dance, definitely frisbee, writing, spring break ’10, hopefully Bonnie visiting, etc…) But how often am I excited for the next five minutes?  Rarely. And how often do I know what these minutes will hold?  Also rarely. The numbers don’t match up.  Surprises are exciting.  I’m trying not to forget that the contents of so many minutes in my day are actually unknown, and it’s refreshing to know that.

average price: 62.5¢

Went to the Miami Public Library Book Sale.  Amazing.  Here’s a list of the books I got, with their original prices (if known):

PLAYS

• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee $6.99

CLASSICS

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
• Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne $3.99

NOVELS

• Native Son by Richard Wright (I feel like I remember Ms. Maniego, my HS junior year English teacher, mentioning this book.  We might have read Black Boy in her class) $12.95
• White Oleander by Janet Fitch (seen the movie… now I can read it) $7.99
• Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood (she came to Miami during the book fair but I forgot she was speaking and missed it!) $13.95
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (Lori’s favorite book, she’s been telling me to read it) $12.00
• The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (Lori also recommended this to me when we first met in the kitchen at HSC! I was so happy to find it) $14.00
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood $7.99
• The River by Gary Paulsen (going to give this to Nina, because she loved Hatchet and is looking for more books to read) $1.99
• The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (one of my favorite books, also read in Ms. Maniego’s class.  We also read parts of it as a study of writing in Lawrence Stanley’s class, and probably Meredith Steinbach’s too.  I already have it but now I can give it to somebody else) $14.95

OTHER

• The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton (he also wrote How Proust Can Change Your Life, the Brown class of 2011 freshman summer reading book) $13.00
• Miami by Joan Didion (had borrowed this from Cal for basically the entire time I was in Miami, read about 40 pages, and then returned it to him.  The next day I found this book at the book sale and am so excited that I now have it and can read later, esp since I never got around to reading the chapter about Overtown, which is the whole reason he lent me the book in the first place) $17.95
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (it’s about writing… pretty sure I saw and maybe bought this book in Half Moon Bay a few years ago, but the cover called out to me again so I bought it.  Maybe I’ll pass it on if it turns out I already have it) $12.95
• Maggie: Girl of the Streets and other short fiction by Stephen Crane (last semester I shopped a class called Reading New York, and the class had already read this story and was discussing it when I sat in on the class.  I ended up taking “The Arrangement of Words”: Liberating Fiction(s) instead, but was intrigued by the story) $4.95

Total should have been: upwards of $145.65

Total was: $10

It’s kind of like I just got two books for each night of Chanukah.  Happy holidays!

guilt

I’m really just writing because I feel guilty that I haven’t in a while.  I feel as if I should set some sort of goal for myself– write once a week, once a day, more each month, something?  Writing every day would be great.  Not that I think people would really read it every day, but as a discipline thing to me.  I do have thoughts every day that would be interesting to document, if only for my own benefit of being able to go back and see my thinking/ideas evolve.  But then I also feel this pressure (pressure from who/where?) that each post needs to be a certain minimum length, which also is ridic because

1. Says who?

2. I am not a concise writer to begin with, so if I did just write something, then soon enough I would be writing more… my thoughts lead me places.  And some days maybe they wouldn’t, and that would be okay.

What if I stopped this post right here.  So what?  There is no problem with that.  But instead I’m about to fill it with thoughts that have been popping into my head recently.  I guess I really like lists.

• Being at my Grandma’s house for the past week, I keep seeing old pictures of myself in which I am wearing the same clothes I have now.  Time to get some new clothes.  This is also a guilt thing.  I don’t like a lot of my clothes (because they are old and don’t fit right any more or I’m bored of them) but I hate throwing things away and spending money so I don’t buy new ones.  But it would be okay if I did.
• People (like my Grandma) can fill their time up with things that other people might not spend as much time on.  Little details, like cleaning things and organizing and paying attention to things (which I guess is not always little) can take up a lot of time if you let them, or if you have the time.  Which I don’t always.  But sometimes I let them.  It’s like how when you get an assignment at school (or work) and there’s a quick way and a slow way to do it, and the slow way might be more thorough but it might not.  And I still usually do the slow way.
• Now I have nothing else to write, or at least nothing comes to mind at the moment, but I feel compelled to write at least one other bullet because things go well in threes.

I guess I need discipline with this blog. Self-imposed discipline.  Last night I skyped with Pat and told him I haven’t been writing as much as I want to (not in the blog– actual writing. like stories plays poems etc). So he gave me a deadline and I have to write something for him by Saturday morning.  This is good for me.  Even self-imposed deadlines can help.  Or peer-imposed ones.  Lots of times I have heard writers speak, they have talked about how they have a writing buddy who they sit with and monitor each other and almost force each other to write for a few hours or something.  And they can take breaks.  But having that sense of accountability is important, which I guess is why people need jobs and school and can’t just educate themselves and get things done in the world that need to be done.  Unless they are passionate enough, like some of the nonprofit people I work with who do their own nonprofits after work, unpaid, because they feel they have to.  Or like Abraham Lincoln, who educated himself by reading a lot.  But I barely have the discipline for that, except I just read The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin in five days because I had to return it to my cousin Nina.  And now I’m trying to finish The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami before I see Josh on December 14.  So here I go to read.

borrower of words

Sometimes when I speak I feel like I should be making citations.  I’ll be mid-sentence and realize that I am not speaking my own words.  Not that I’m quoting somebody famous, or speaking in a cliché, but that I’m using a friend’s words that have become so familiar to me that I’ve adopted them into my vocabulary like I would take in a friend’s old sweatshirt or too-small shoes.  For example– I keep finding myself saying I’m trying to figure out… which basically means that I’ve been thinking about something, or pondering, you might say.  This phrase comes from Cara.  I also say I’m not trying to which really means “I’m trying not to” or “I don’t want to,” ex. “I’m not trying to work extra hours.”  This also comes from Cara and maybe Jordan too.  Or at the end of lists I’ll say ...and such which is definitely a Ceci expression.  It’s so interesting to me the way manners of speech travel and are shared so unconsciously.  In my group of friends at school, the intonations Cara uses and phrases she says are spread through us and we all end up talking like her.  At OA, this was Hannah Friedman.  We all started using the phrase shmakalinkatinka, saying really? with an accent on the Ls, and speaking with her Zoolanderesque way of talking.  And still, when I’m with Bonnie, sometimes I talk like this.  But Bonnie and I also have our own way of talking.  We say oh, you a lot. My mom says she can always tell when it’s Bonnie that I’m talking to on the phone.

I’m trying to figure out (here it goes again!) what it is that makes these words and ways of speech so infectious, and why certain people’s speech is infectious and others’ isn’t.  Does it have anything to do with how important a person is to you; is it proportional in that the closer you are or the more meaningful your relationship with a person is, the more you talk like each other?  Or are certain people infectious?  I think both must be true.

There are aesthetics to speech just as there are physical aesthetics to everything tangible.  As Monica told me, since I am a Libra, I am more aware of (or affected by) aesthetics than other people may be, which might be why I tend to notice and think about these things.  And I think that if a person speaks in a way that is aesthetically pleasing, they are more likely to be imitated by those who hear them often, like friends and coworkers and family.  Other people just pass on their speech habits because they are together a lot, even if these patterns of speech are not aesthetically pleasing.  Sometimes, I hear myself saying words that I used to hate hearing my mom say (infuriating is the main one).  When I talk to my grandma, I hear myself using my mom’s speech patterns, as if I’m listening to her talk to my grandma (her mom) on the phone.  And sometimes when I am explaining something to people, or in work environments, I hear myself talking like my dad.

It even happens from reading or watching movies.  Recently I’ve been reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami, one of Josh’s favorite books that he lent to me in high school and I’m finally reading.  The main character, Toru Okada, addresses nearly every situation he comes across with the most calm attitude, and speaks to people with extreme politeness.  Since I’ve been reading this book for the past week, I have noticed myself speaking in this simple, calm, polite, accepting style.  It’s kind of nice.

When I find myself genuinely speaking with an excited/in love with the world/wide-eyed feeling, I feel like Aryn.  And when I find myself excitedly, sporadically explaining something, I feel like Monica.  When I say awesome, I get self-conscious and feel like a stupid American, because Benny pointed it out as an American phrase.

Other small examples of pieces of speech I have lent to & borrowed from others:

terrible (Jordan uses this word a lot)

oh gaaaawd (I apparently say this and unconsciously got Chelsea to start saying it too)

what the heeeeeeryl (Cara’s way of saying “what the hell??”)

seriously? (another thing I say a lot, and got Fabian saying it too)

crazy person, as in “She was acting like a crazy person!” (Jordan)

yee, as in “yeah” (Catherine)

more to come… I know there are more.  Let me think. Or comment and add your own!

rabbitt rabbitt rabbitt!

It’s october!  Which I love.  Maybe only because it’s my birthday month, or maybe because it’s the best month of fall, who knows.

To welcome in October I would like to share two poems.  The first is one that Pat sent to me recently in our poem exchange.

 

Not to Be Dwelled On
by Heather McHugh

Self-interest cropped up even there,
the day I hoisted three instead of the
two called-for
spades of loam onto
the coffin of my friend.

Why shovel more than anybody else?
What did I think I’d prove? More love
(mud in her eye)? More will to work
(her father what, a shirker?) Christ,
I’d give an arm or leg
to get that spoonful back.

She cannot die again;
and I do nothing but relive.

 

and this one was sent to me by Ceci when I asked her if she’d read anything good lately:

 

Translations

You show me the poems of some woman
my age, or younger
translated from your language

Certain words occur: enemy, oven, sorrow
enough to let me know
she’s a woman of my time

obsessed

with Love, our subject:
we’ve trained it like ivy to our walls
baked it like bread in our ovens
worn it like lead on our ankles
watched it through binoculars as if
it were a helicopter
bringing food to our famine
or the satellite
of a hostile power

I begin to see that woman
doing things: stirring rice
ironing a skirt
typing a manuscript till dawn

trying to make a call
from a phonebooth

The phone rings unanswered
in a man’s bedroom
she hears him telling someone else
Never mind. She’ll get tired.
hears him telling her story to her sister
who becomes her enemy
and will in her own time
light her own way to sorrow

ignorant of the fact this way of grief
is shared, unnecessary
and political

Adrienne Rich, 1972
From DIVING INTO THE WRECK (Norton, 1973)

 

One last thought: the title of this post, someone told me, is the first thing you’re supposed to say on the first day of a new month.  But rabbit always looks wrong to me; I prefer it with two t’s.

books & books

1. is a great bookstore here in Miami

2. today at lunch i chatted with Lori who is a Public Ally (Americorps program run through HSC).  We ended up talking about books and writing, because Lori writes (but she says she only does it for herself unless shes writing speeches which she likes to do. i’ve never considered writing a speech before.  really the only speech i’ve written was my graduation speech which i remember having a lot of trouble with because i just wanted it to be perfect, and I think I got a lot of help/editing/inspiration from my parents and Andy).  Turns out Lori recently saw Sue Monk Kidd do a reading at a church, which is funny because I just saw Anita Diamant read at a temple.  It sounds like she’s read almost all of Kidd’s books, including  The Secret Life of Bees which is the only one that I have read.  She recommended The Mermaid Chair. But this reading apparently was Kidd and her daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor, who co-wrote the new book Traveling With Pomegranates.  Lori got a signed copy, just as I did for Diamant’s Day After Night.

3. Lori recommended that I read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

4. Last night I finished Day After Night. It was good, not as good as I remember The Red Tent being, but still good.  And the first book of my choosing I’ve finished since The History of Love by Nicole Krauss in February. Now I’m going to start The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, which I’ve read parts of and been meaning to read in its entirety probably since I went to OA in 2005.