Briar Exercises Her Free Will

Why hello there, my dear friends,

As several of you acknowledged yesterday, I have, in fact, gotten my hands on the first volume of EML:

I have since consumed the book, and I have an order placed for the next several in the series.

In keeping with the theme, we can call this article an unselected journal of sorts by your very own Briar P. Albaugh.

Free will.

We do not put it into practice enough, so much so that when one does, it becomes an anomaly out of the monotony of life.

I have two delightful accounts to share from the past two days about such freeing conquests, and I wish to amuse your imaginations with them this lovely Saturday morning.

Shall we start by recounting the events of yesterday?

We shall.

It was an average afternoon. I was lying about in my bedroom doing adultish things like calling a potential employer and relaying the issues I was having with their online application.

A couple of bouts throughout the day were devoted to messaging with my friend Addie, who works at a certain coffee establishment(which shall remain unnamed, however futile that may be).

She generally works at a location that is a good 45 minutes from my current residence. However, she was asked to drive to the city where I live to help out an understaffed location here.

It must be strange to go to work at your job with complete strangers and not know where anything is located.

I was doing nothing of substance in my bedroom and made a resolution to visit her.

She had mentioned three defining features of where she was located.

I knew the city.

I knew she was near a McDonald’s.

And I knew that she was by a roundabout.

You would think that it would be a simple task to find the correct location on the first try. I searched it in my GPS and happily noted it was by both a McDonald’s and a roundabout.

Bingo.

I drove there and listened to Peach Sand which is the latest song by Strings and Heart:

Not my favorite of their songs, but I did enjoy it. (Evergreen Love will forever have my heart)

I arrived at the establishment and ordered my usual. Hot chai. 16 oz. Classic basic Briar.

I immediately took note that there were three employees. Addie had claimed that the reason she was called was that there were only two other employees. Something wasn’t adding up.

I sat there alone in the little lobby and waited for her to make an appearance from the back somewhere… but to no avail. She never materialized.

After several minutes of this anticipation, I resolved that I must talk to the girl who had taken my order and ask about Addie’s whereabouts. I built up the courage and went for it:

“Hi, is there an Addie working here today?”

She looked quite perplexed.

“Um, no, we don’t have any Addies that work here.”

“Oh, I see. She was only supposed to work here for a few hours and mentioned it was located near a roundabout and McDonald’s.”

I gestured to the visible McDonald’s and roundabout outside the window.

“Maybe she is at one of the other locations in town? There’s another one by a roundabout and McDonald’s.”

Just my luck. Two places with nearly identical descriptions. I thanked the lady for her time and went on my way to the next location, which I noted was right off a roundabout. In my haste, I did not look for the McDonald’s on the map. I assumed it was nearby.

I arrived at the second location and clocked that her distinctive van was not in the parking lot.

I laughed to myself. What are the chances that she’s not here either?

Turns out pretty high.

I walked inside confidently and cut to the chase:

“Is there an Addie working here today?”

“No, there is not.”

“She was supposed to be working in this town, by a roundabout, and a McDonald’s. She’s normally at a different location but they needed her help at a different store.”

“I wish we had gotten an Addie today! Unfortunately, she is not here.”

I smiled with amusement at this girl’s disappointment at not being able to provide a stranger she did not know. I thanked her and went back out to my car.

I looked at my GPS. I had one more chance left. It was the last location in the town, and it was indeed by a roundabout and a McDonald’s. I took another sip of chai and continued on my quest.

I arrived and let out a happy gasp of relief! Her van! She was here!

I walked inside and she was quite surprised XD.

I handed her the race bib she had gotten at the Sleighbell Run we did over 6 months ago because, for some reason, it had ended up in my bedroom. I figured this was as good a time as any to return it.

There was a decent number of customers, and so after a couple of minutes, I decided to go on my way.

It was a successful mission accomplished.

Later that evening, she called me and asked if I wanted to go on a walk. I am always down for a stroll, and I happened to be leaning up against a tree trunk, reading the very first few pages of EML on my favorite trail. How convenient.

She arrived and blessed me with a 20 oz iced chai.

I drank 36 oz of chai in total, and I must say it was more than enough🤣

We ended up going on a delightful 3 mile walk.

That evening, I wildly decided to do my favorite weekend thing—setting my alarm for 4:30 AM and hitting the trails before the sun.

I went to sleep and woke up at the aforementioned time.

I have decided that any time before 4:00 AM is very much night. Anything afterward is an acceptable time for a young lady to traverse the outdoors alone.

No evil person has ever said:

“Because so many people are awake and traipsing around at 4 AM, I am going to sit in the bushes and wait for them to walk past.”

No. The only people out there that early are runners and bikers, who are all a very joyous and friendly bunch.

With my new book in hand, I managed to get out the door by 4:36 AM and started the day’s adventures.

It is a wonderful thing to go on adventures with oneself.

I have done a myriad of bizarre things in my life where the only person who bore witness was the same person doing the said bizarre thing!

One of my favorite examples was detailed in this old blog post here. I still laugh with myself about that day.

There is a quaint little gazebo off the main trail, and it is a little less than a mile walk from my house. It was my mission to finish reading at that spot.

The hazy mist dusted the pond, and the great blue heron was perched on its usual abode.

He likes to sit on a birdhouse that was made for a much smaller species. I wonder if he ever gets sad, wishing he could live in the house, as opposed to just on top of it?

I arrived at my destination and without a soul in sight I took my place underneath the little manmade structure.

It was nearly 5:00 AM by the time I started reading, and it was 6:30 AM by the time I finished. Not a single person came past me while I was out there, and I was able to fully enjoy the pages of our dear Emma M. Lion entirely uninterrupted.

Once I finished, I started to head back to make it home before 7:00 AM. I noticed these spiderwebs glimmering in the sun, and I was able to achieve this picturesque masterpiece:

Can you feel the kind of magical morning it was?

I walked the rest of the way home, laughing to myself at my good fortune in having a new favorite book series. This was a great financial investment indeed.

I have recently also succumbed to a disease that I like to call the Subhacked-Inner-Dialogue.

In simpler terms, my prognosis is dim as my entire inner monologue is just one giant Substack post.

“Oh! That’s great! You can go home and write down all the things you thought while walking!”

It is not that easy, my friend.

This blog post was infinitely more robust and entertaining in my head mere hours ago than it will ever be now. It is a perpetual misfortune.

My internal voice always sounds so much better than my blog posts end up being(you can only imagine how fascinating my internal monologue is).

I arrived at my front door several minutes before 7:00, and I couldn’t be more pleased. What a darling way to spend an early Saturday morning. I finished reading a book and managed to walk 2 miles!

With that, my free will has been taken full advantage of.

-Briar Albaugh