so far, the “next adventure” has been lying in bed for two days sick and too exhausted to write a paper that is due on Saturday, and then hearing through the grapevine that my place of previous employment has gone bankrupt at the corporate level and will be closed until further notice after Sunday.
On to the next adventure!
filed under “friday through sunday kicked my butt but at least i only have to do this 8:30am to 11pm school and work marathon weekend thing one more time” and “THANK GOD FOR A DAY OFF”
sorta felt like hyperventilating when i was writing it out, but now i feel very relaxed and light and relieved. it hasn’t been a terrible job by any means (restaurant hostess/singer), and i am very grateful for the skills i’ve learned and the people i’ve met and befriended, but it is time to move on. i don’t have another job lined up yet, but i am incredibly privileged to have my family’s support and encouragement.
will i work in other restaurants? i hope so. but they will be locally-owned establishments with recipes made from scratch with local & organic ingredients and fabulous local wines, not big icky corporations that don’t give a hoot about their employees and don’t recycle.
bad day
very very bad day
I really enjoy some of my co-workers.
Every 4 months my workplace gets an inspection from corporate. This means the week before the scheduled inspection is spent in a ridiculously detailed and meticulous cleaning of every single surface, groove, and crack in the building. We have also recently gone through a change in lower management, so the task of organizing and delegating cleaning tasks fell to people who had never done this before, which means enough didn’t get done ahead of time and those of us working Tuesday night were kept there until 2am cleaning ALL THE THINGS.
ALL OF THEM.
I’m trying not to think about all of the stainless steel polish I inhaled that night. And I’m doing my best to ignore the healing burn blisters on most of my fingertips and knuckles from scrubbing the insides of ovens that were still hot. Yes, I’m a big baby when it comes to the tiny casualties of physical labor.
Anyway. Amid caustic chemicals and the hip-hop music blaring from the bartender’s CD player, I had a little chat with the pantry cook, which was cool because the cooks tend to keep to themselves and there isn’t much opportunity for the “front of the house” employees (me) to interact with them. His name is Javier: he is 29 and he likes electronic music and Bruce Lee films. He asked where I was from and when I looked confused and said “Uh, I was born in California?” he explained that I didn’t look American. Huh. (Not sure if meant the stereotypical blond hair, blue eyed, “beach girl” white American or actual Native American?) That’s as far as we got in a half hour because of the language barrier: he has taken 3 months of English as a second language class at a community college, and I don’t know a speck of Spanish. He was very soft-spoken and sweet. The End.
Dear Rita, You’re gorgeous. Long, straight hair is boring. You are not boring. Therefore, you should not have boring hair.
Dear hajna, You’re awesome and I’m glad you think I’m not boring. I’m also glad we are having nerdy poetry/short story/YouTube sharing tonight. :D
redheadbouquet replied to your post
but you’re SO pretty. and i LOVE your hair. i wish i had a cloud of romantic curly hair like you.
This is so sweet and it made me grin. “Cloud of romantic curly hair” - I love it! Much better than “Oh dear God it’s like my own personal weather barometer.”
I was just feeling a little down (and whiny) because I Googled “red hair” for highlight inspiration and all the images were of straight/slightly wavy long hair, which is still beautiful but not helpful to me whatsoever. And yesterday I wore my hair down (out, rather) at work instead of pulled back like I usually do, and the only co-worker who commented on it was like “Oh, my wife cuts hair, you should have her do it.” Me: “Um, I just cut my hair the other day, I don’t need a hair cut.” Co-worker: “How about next time? I think she would do a better job.” Dude, I’m not going to your sketchy apartment in the next town so you’re un-certified wife can cut my hair. Gee, thanks. And I just feel like I’m not taken seriously as an adult by my co-workers because I don’t wear a ton of makeup or swear like a sailor or go out partying every weekend or get a tan or wear my hair in a conventional way. It’s silly and shallow, but it bugs me. Whatever, I’m over it.
That awkward moment when you think the bartender is paging you so you answer the phone “City morgue!” and it’s actually your boss.
Weekends? What are these weekends you speak of?
Last night at work: “Well, it’s too cold for a naked bike ride.”
This morning, on Facebook: “Naked bike ride last night with ten thousand of my closest friends!”
