This is another big chunk of my notes from working at the coffee shop, taking us from September of 2023 to the closing of the store in Nov 24. (This doesn’t take up where Community Spread leaves off by the way: there is at least one more book of notes between this and that.)
Even more than is the case with Community Spread, these shapeless Seeds could use the eye of an editor, but since this project is quasi-historical, as well as quasi-literary, there may be an advantage to having a “complete” version. Still, a general readership would probably be very grateful if I reduced this by at least a third.
For me, reading this is a bit like going through a scrapbook or photo album, and I must say I find the end of it, in which the store closes, somewhat affecting. Too: one of my ideas about this project has been that it is the “memoir of an other-directed person” — me as reflected through customers — and you do actually learn some things about me in this.
My default method of titling a work is just to take the most interesting phrase it contains and have that be the title, whether it’s representative or not; however, in this case I’m not too satisfied with that result. Another possible title is “Missing Middle”: which, bland as that is, was the name of the biggest, most divisive issue facing our community at that time. (It involved the banning of single family home zoning in an effort to increase the housing stock.) I’d love to incorporate that notion in the title somehow, but for now please enjoy what we shall provisionally know as —AMORPHOUS SEEDS.
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 
March 9, 2025 at 7:51 am
The meaning of ‘missing middle’ here is interesting. In South Africa the ‘missing middle’ refers to tertiary students whose families fall within an income bracket that is too high to qualify for state support, but is too low to afford the costs associated with attending university.