Entries from September 2004 ↓

Okay, so I don’t normally do this sort of thing, but I have volunteered as a walker in this year’s Nashville Cares AIDS Walk as a part of the Nashville Greys team. I’m as broke as Scott Stapp’s career right now, so I can only give $10.

But, enterprising ol’ me thought that maybe a few of you high rollin’, IT bitches might want to cough up some dough for a great cause. Even if you have just $1 to give, bring that shit on. I want to help us at least get to our $200 goal. That would be nice. DONATE HERE. Or if you are wary of giving your info to charities, DONATE HERE and I’ll give it to them.

And if you can’t contribute but live in Nashville and want to walk, then by all means sign on up. We’ll race.

Work yesterday was more than eventful. I was the “late server” yesterday, meaning that after everyone else leaves at 2, I stay until 4 or later taking all the mid-day tables. Usually on a Monday I’ll have 2 or 3 or 4 tables in those last two hours. But yesterday the people continued to pour in well after lunch rush. I was waiting on six tables, two of them 4-tops with multiple courses.

One lady had an allergy to onions and needed me to quiz everyone in the kitchen about her order. She ordered the chicken quesadilla with no scallions or salsa, but also needed to know if her chicken had been marinated in anything that had ever touched an onion. All the while my new 4-top beside her sat drinkless. I found out about the chicken–there was and never had been any onion–and watched as even more new tables accumulated in my section.

Waiting tables at this time of day can be very frustrating. All the waitresses have gone home, as has the bartender. So I have to pour my own wine, run all the food that comes up and reach for condiments and dressings that were long ago put away. Everything takes twice as long.

The kitchen that time of day is filled with both the lunch and night kitchen crew, PFG and Sysco representatives and the gentlemen who refill our coffee and tea and shout really loud about football. “Let me know if I’m in your way, sweetheart,” they say. If only I had more time on my hands I would say something, so instead you get my elbow in your ribs.
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I think I am going to start talking out loud to myself like people in soap operas do. In line at the post office I will say, “I hope I have not made a mistake putting all this tape on the box. I think I will have a salad for lunch. I wonder if Crescent will find out about me sleeping with Thorn on Christal’s couch where she murdered Fragile.”

The design is ready, the content is coming.

Things I Overheard While I Worked Today’s Lunch Shift

Table Number 24

Lady With The Horsey Laugh: “Yeah, girl, she is a Life Coach!:
Lady Who Got All Uptight About Her Straw: “Oh God, is she any good?”
LWTHL: “Oh yeah, girl, she is a great Life Coach, but her morals are out of whack. She is sleeping with her client’s teenaged son. And she has a teenaged son of her own, who, it turns out, she’s been having an incestuous affair with. Her son finally stopped the affair. She got so mad she gave all his clothes away to the homeless.”
LWGAUAHS: “And she’s a Life Coach?”
LWTHL: “Yeah, girl, Cathy swears by her.”

Table Number 28

Blonde And Newly Signed Country “Artist”: “I know this is going to sound weird, but can you ask the kitchen to measure out exactly three ounces of chicken? I’m on a very restrictive diet. That is all I want. Three ounces of grilled chicken. And don’t worry, I don’t mind paying the $10.50.”

(later, after asked about dessert)

BANSCA: “I have to get out of here. I have to go get famous.”

Table Number 5

Guy Without A Single Clue: “Can I get a caramel Frappacino?”
S, Guy’s Waitress: “We don’t actually have the stuff to make that drink, but I can make you an iced coffee.”
GWASC: “Will it come with caramel and mocha and all that? Blended?”
S, GW: “No, I’m sorry. It won’t.”

Table Number 22

Lady With The Bruised Mouth: “Liposuction? You had it?”
Lady Drinking The Kir Royale: “Yes, and it hurts like fucking hell, but not more than you will like how it looks. I definitely think you should get it done too.”

The clientele at the restaurant where I work is quite varied. No one brings their kids, except for Sunday Brunch, but we regularly serve just about every age group. There is but one consistent characteristic in each and every patron that walks through our doors: They are all lousy with money.

The people I wait on can otherwise be charcaterized and grouped as such:

Music Industry Shitheads - These cool cats are always wearing jeans and waving around marked-on CD-Rs that bear the names of tomorrow’s hottest country music sensations. They order bottled water instead of drinking from the tap and they answer my questions with things like, “Medium rare. Rock on.”

Totally Annoying Salespeople - They always, always need to borrow my pen.

Vandy Students - The Vanderbilt students who eat where I work are not representative of all Vanderbilt students. But the ones who eat where I work ALL LOOK THE SAME. It is some kind of freaky, I tell ya. The girls are thin. Endlessly, unbelievably thin with super, super shiny stick-straight hair. The all wear the same ponchos and flouncy skirts and kitten heels. Their tans are even the exact same, the kind of flawless tan that only truly rich people have time to acheive. The guys all have the same dopey, conservative haircut and Polo shirts and crisp khaki trousers. They are all so humorless-looking and stale.

Vandy Professors - Vanderbilt professors look like actors playing professors in some stupid movie. Bowties for the gentlemen and topknots for the ladies. They are usually very quiet in a cranky way, and often dine alone.

Doctor’s Office Ladies - Doctors love to take the nurses and assistants and administrative types out to eat for their birthdays and whatnot where I work. They come in dressed in their scrubs and order “tea punch” (which we don’t have) and ask for straws and baskets of bread. THEY MUST EACH HAVE A STRAW. Straws are apparently a pressing, urgent matter for doctor’s office ladies.

Anal Face Club - These are the women who’ve had so much plastic surgery that their faces have caved in to resemble the butt orifice known as an asshole. They did not have a face lift or little tummy tuck. These women have implanted their cheeks and crumbled their noses and stretched their eyelids all out. They often have the body of a 20-year-old woman with their fake tits and tiny, tiny frames. It is impossible to estimate the ages of any of the Anal Face Club, but I would guess the average age is somwhere around 65-108.

Lawyers - It has been my experience that lawyers are endlessly amused by how much money they make, bringing it up often in conversation. But obly to other lawyers.

Wears-sunglasses-indoors Artists - We have our fair share of print artists and designers and gallery owners and painters who come in high, wearing their sunglasses. They are often so fucked up they have to be escorted to the table at which time they order something off the menu of the restaurant they owner had five years ago.

The Mean Girls - They don’t frequent the place as some of these other groups but occasionally rich teenaged girls’ mothers talk them into going out to eat as a family. These girls are also thin, but you can see just how thin thanks to the tiny swathes of Gucci material they call clothing. These 13-year-old chicks are carrying $500 Coach purses around on 6″ designer heels! They look like sorry, pre-pubescent Paris Hilton clones until they order Shirley Temples. Then it is easy to remember they are just little girls.

Waldorf/Montessori Moms - No make-up for these moms! NO TIME! They are just too busy being the most nuturing parent they can be to their OBVIOUSLY brilliant 5-year-old who finally learn to shit in a toilet. Montessori moms often talk about what fabric is best the for bringing out the genius in their toddler and how they’ve taken away all the black crayons in the house because it’s best to give a child only cheery options. They always take their uneaten food to-go, even if it is just a few grilled vegetables lying limply on an empty plate. They drive Volvos. They tip for shit.

reading
baking sugar cookies
writing and reworking two pieces for entry into a local writing competition
blowing my nose
watching football
organizing the new blog, The Double R
thinking about quitting
meditating
mulling over the season finale of “Six Feet Under”
spending time with the sister
making my boyfriend sick
taking a break from the gym
sleeping
tripping unto the light fantastic
considering getting a puppy
starting a new project

I’ve got the crud. Not sure if it’s a common head cold or a sinus infection, but all the symptoms are there. Ear ache, sore-ass throat, both a runny and stuffy nose, weak and prone to headaches. I got it at work. The servers at the restaurant are dropping like flies. So many people are sick I went ahead and called in for tonight at 9:30 a.m. so I could be sure to be first. I pity those suckers who might have to work sick. It’s hard to give your server a fat tip, regardless of how good the service was, if she has snot running out her nose while she tells you about the pan-seared salmon in buerre blanc.

So, I’m playing hooky. Except I feel too shitty to do anything besides watch The Ellen Show and think about what food I might eat if my throat wasn’t such a raw, swollen mess. The boyfriend and finally found a DVD copy of “Annie”–the only version with Carol Burnett and Albert Finney–we’ve been looking for weeks. I’m trying to hold out and wait to watch it ’til he gets home from work, but that mop of orange curls are seriously calling my name. Or maybe that’s the pseudophendrine talking.

Anyway, I’m working on a new blog. Yes, again. This one I’m very excited about, so maybe it will last longer than 2 weeks. It’s called The Double R and it’s a blog devoted to Twin Peaks and David Lynch. Plans are to make it pretty comprehensive with lots of updated and well-organized information, links to theories and theses on all things Lynchian, as well as whatever else I might unearth. I’ll reveal the url as soon as the boyfriend gets to working on the site’s banner graphic. I suck at design.

I’m off to the couch to cuddle with a tall glass of orange juice.

The first time I visited New York City was in October, 2001, just one and a half months after the attacks on the World Trade Center. Someone got me tickets to see Bjork at Radio City Music Hall and, while I considered it, I decided NOTHING was keeping me from seeing that show. I flew into Long Island and took the train to Grand Central Station, watching the Manhattan skyline grow from an unimpressive, distant outline from far away, into this mostrous, unimaginable beast.

Emerging from the underground bustle and chaos that is Grand Central onto the loudest street I’d ever been on was indescribable. I could hear the hum of this big, intricate machine in the sounds that consumed me. There were people and cars and buildings everywhere.

“My God, the streets are empty.” So spoke my companion, who’d been to New York countless times before, as we walked and looked for available taxis. We were able to find one fairly quickly. Once in the back seat I found, along with the rules and a list of commitements to the rider by the city-approved cab service, a poster with a smiling man’s face on it.

“I MISS MY DADDY,” it read. “Last seen on Fl. #56 of WTC Tower 2.” Another photo with his smiling, petite wife. His address and phone number and his name was listed. Now, three years later I’ve forgotten his name.

Times Square, which we visited that first night, was draped in white. Many of the ads associated with Times Square were covered or missing. All the lights seemed dim. Though the people seemed abundant, they looked nothing but lost. And not that touristy heel-spinning, I mean they looked like they had no idea where they were going or how they were going to get there. They all moved just from habit. I couldn’t get a sense of anyone while I was there. Restaurants sat empty, chairs all tucked neatly under tables, the wild-haired owners or chefs with clean hands would be on the stoops offering half-off for two entrees. It looked like everyone was staying home. That, or they were dead.

The Bjork show was a phenomenal event that I’ll be forever grateful for having the oppurtunity to see. I was in a desperately volatile place that month–that year–and was moved to tears and sobs at the sound of her voice. The symphany, the Icelandic choir, her being completely MAGIC and shit was too much. I broke down like a Yugo. It was a little ugly. But not as ugly as the brutal girl-fight that happened while we were in line outside.

That entire trip was surreal. I was there so soon after the place had been devestated, doing what I was told might help, seeing plays and eating out and spending money to try to fix some of these fresh wounds, even just the tiniest little bit. But it all felt wrong. I felt like I was partying at a big-ass funeral. Having cocktails during the wake.

I’ve been back to New York since that trip, later spending time in both Brooklyn and Manhattan. I was happy to find New York had gotten her the groove I’d heard so much about back. But when I was there the first time, in October, 2001 I visited a ghost town. They all say you’ll never forget the first time you visit New York City. They are right. I will always remember New York as the biggest, shiniest, saddest place I’ve ever been.