I think this was the first thing I wrote- just for the sake of writing.

Every Summer, I come back to LA where I lived until I was 13. Now I live in Boulder, Colorado with my mom and step dad. And, until two days ago, my brother too. He's 19 and just got his first apartment alone. Ive just seen cell phone pictures so far. He moved out to Boulder with us initially but went back to LA to finish high school, which wasnt very successful. I was in the dean's office with him and my dad when, upon being suspended- or was it expelled- again, he looked at my dad and said "Im done" and no one doubted him or really put in that much effort to change his mind. I forget what he did after that but he eventually got his first job at the Coffee Bean in Beverly Hills, no maybe it was Petes Coffee. Either way. He worked in both places at different times. He didnt get his GED though so in order for him to get a job and a workers permit, he and my dad faked a high school diploma. They actually registered our apartment as a private school- The Roxbury Academy of Arts and Sciences, from which my brother declaredly graduated. Then the building got torn down. After Pete's and the Coffee Bean, my brother moved to Boulder and got a job at a local bakery called Breadworks and took classes at a community college. He would come home and tell us about discussions he had in comparative religion and philosophy classes.
With my brother, we've always been hopeful of him getting into a groove with school or work and saving money and expressing some future plans. Im really into plans. I like to make lists and like to cross stuff off and then make shorter, newly adjusted lists, in better handwriting and on a cleaner piece of paper. But I always have multiple little notebooks going at once so I end up forgetting about one or the other and not doing the things on the lists and then I find them months later. At which point theyre no longer relevant, which I love because I can then tear out the pages and recycle them.
Well my brother is not like this. He's a man of broad sweeping overstatements with little ground and even less follow through. So he apparently was a little too fresh with a customer and got fired. It had to happen. He's very outwardly friendly and social and flirtatious, which works much better in LA than in Boulder. In LA, late middle aged ladies getting their afternoon latte are charmed by an 18 year old boy's edgily witty and flirtatious comments. In Boulder, you have to juice people up a little more before dropping one on them. Otherwise, they dont get the joke and think youre being inappropriate and disrespectful. In LA, youve got to be quick and mix in sarcasm with regular conversation and not smile or let on that you made a joke. In Boulder, you have to emphasize and enunciate- something Im terrible at- and laugh at yourself, hoping theyll catch on. In Boulder, most people dont get my jokes.
The coffee orders themselves are very different as well. In LA, its all about low calorie substitutions while still achieving the excessive indulgence aspect. For instance, instead of decaf, its half caf. And instead of just getting a small, its venti but with low fat milk, sometimes even half soy. But my favorite is that in LA, women who order like this always get whipped cream- sometimes even asking for extra. And then they go to the condiment station and pick through the array of sugar substitutes, often using every splenda packet offered to juice up their lowfat halfcaf soy latte.
In Boulder, women often entirely skip the coffee and just go for a chai tea- often soy- but not to avoid the fat but to reap the benefits of the natural estrogen in soy products and to protest the unnatural growth hormones in milk and because it makes their body feel good. And much more commonly in Boulder vs LA is the drink accompanied by a pastry- usually at least three dollars and make of gluten free bulgar. Its really an art- the best baristas are not from out of state.
Which is why my brother gave up his profession as a barista and moved back to LA and began working as a host at a jewish deli- where being a pro chummer is half of the job. This time though, he lived with roomates, not parents and rode a motorcycle- which got totalled shockingly quickly. A few weeks into his job, the family- me, mom, dad, and step dad, sometimes even gramma, concluded he was "in a good space" and took pleasure in reporting he was "doing really well and is happy". Im not sure how long he worked there but at some point he was laid off- but this time with good referals- at which point he decided cheffing was really the thing for him. So he moved to Keystone Colorado- a limited ski town at 12000 feet, where he started a working interview for a culinaty school. He loved the work and kitchen environment but, by the time the school part rolled along, he remembered that school is not his forte and moved in with me and parents in Boulder- "just for a week or two, I swear!"- and began to pursue jobs at local restaurants. And it worked- he got a great job as a line chef at an upscale restaurant called Aji, where he still works. His lease at his new apartment is for one year, meaning he's guaranteed to stay put in Boulder for awhile. But now he's talking about opening an art gallery. Now that he's a few thousand miles from my dad, he thinks that he's very cool and, after inquiring about how art galleries make money and hearing they are incredibly unscrupulous, Baxter thinks its the business for him. That's his name- Baxter Ross. But I know Bax and that wont happen for a while at least. He might quit his job in preparation though, who knows.