Entries Tagged 'Virgin Territory' ↓

What unnerves me most is trying to gauge their mood. Sometimes they
smile when I circle back to check on them. Sometimes they glare.

In addition to dexterity, poise and a good memory, a server apparently needs to be able to read minds.

A New York Times restaurant critic spends a week waiting tables. It’s a terrific read, and a spot on look at what it takes to make it as a server.

I’m getting a leg up on the job blog and compiling the most extensive list of regularly updated websites in Nashville that I possibly can. I’m going to need a pretty deep database of blogs and publications and stuff to keep Nashville is Talking diverse and interesting. (URL to the new site coming soon.)

This is where you come in. If you think there is a REGULARLY UPDATED website in Nashville that I need to know about, please email me at brittneyg@[NO SPAM]gmail.com. Please don’t send me a link to the livejournal you update once a month. Also, no band sites please unless there is some sort of frequently updated blog or newsletter there. This is Nashville after all and that could get out of hand.

I’ve got all the standards: The Tennessean, the Rage, the Scene, the news stations, the radio stations, the college newspapers. I’m mainly looking for independently run web sites. If your blog isn’t listed at right AND YOU LIVE IN NASHVILLE please leave your name and URL in the comments. If you know of a great local web zine or art project or photoblog that updates a lot, send those on, too.

Thanks in advance for your recommendations. Oh, and don’t forget to clock out before going home.

I can’t believe I’m actually about to type this, but if the last couple of kinks are worked out successfully I will wait my last table on May 1, 2005. That Sunday morning I will ask for the last time if you want something to drink. In a week and a half I may never tie on an apron again. Starting in just nine days I’m going to come home from work and not smell like food. Instead I’m going to smell like a blog.

WKRN News2, the station that aired that story on bloggers in which I was included, has asked me to join their team as a full-time blogger. My actual title is still to be determined, but Monday through Friday from 8 to 5 I’ll be blogging directly from the station’s news room just behind the anchors and weather desk and lights and camera and action. I’ll be responsible for writing and editing the content of WKRN’s newest website, a blog called Nashville is Talking. The blog will be an extention of the News2 broadcasts as well as a general news/gossip/happenings site that will revolve around all things Music City. Local blogs will be aggregated at the right of the page, but the left side will be produced solely by yours truly. The aim of the site is to create discussion and dialogue about local events and topics–a subjective narrative with feedback from Nashville readers. Of course, those outside of Tennessee are welcome to comment, but the blog will be very Nashville-centric.

AND THEY WANT ME TO RUN IT!

There is just one tiny snag to wrinkle out and then it’s a done deal: Professional. Blogger. Who the fuck woulda thunk it? Seriously, yay me.

Can you have seperate checks? More lemon? Extra grilled vegetables? NO YOU CAN’T, CAUSE I’M BUSY BLOGGIN’ AND GETTIN’ PAID FOR IT. COMMENT ON THAT, FOOLS.

If your physician suggests an anti-depressant for your mild depression, addiction and MAJOR ANXIETY and she even tells you that it might make you more nervous, you might want to question that decision. Because you wouldn’t want to spend the next 48 hours FREAKING RIGHT THE FUCK OUT having panic attacks at Taste of India when there is delicious palak paneer and daal fry to be had. (Mmmm, and mint chutney.) You wouldn’t want to spend a perfectly beautiful Saturday or Sunday night balled up in the floor trying to breathe normally and not fly right out of the skin you’d rather claw off than exist within. You wouldn’t want to feel like running yet be totally incapable of getting off the couch.

You know you wouldn’t want that. You’ve been warned.

I’ve reworked a short story I wrote and published here a long time ago for submission into my first ever writing contest. The new version of the story is posted below. Feel free to make constructive comments about the piece if you want. But you’d better hurry. Deadline is in just a few hours.

Have You Seen Darryl?

Darryl was allergic to onions, something he told me every time I saw him. He showed up late because he always worked late. He’d had the same job for twenty-six years working second shift at the local telephone company. He told me he hated it there, that he was tied all day to his desk. He was 55 and had to raise his hand for permission to piss. He spoke to no one at his job because no one spoke to him. A co-worker once suggested he may know my phone number, which made something behind my eyes tingle and my stomach hurt.

Darryl carried a strip of velvet in his pants pocket. He took it out sometimes and rubbed it between the thumb and third finger of his left hand. He stroked the material with purpose and affection.

Long Island Teas mixed in frozen pint glasses was his drink of choice. I mixed them strong for him. He drank them up eagerly and through a straw. In between sips he propped his stubbly chin on the rim of the glass while he waited.

Always waited. Always waited for me to speak to him first. His eyelids and hairline and brow were eager for attention as I refilled the ice or turned his way to ring up a check. He sat just behind the register where it was hard to hear him and difficult to reach his glass. But it was where he could be seen. He got up to use the bathroom many times and whenever he wanted.

He only came in twice a month or so, but every time he did all he talked about was Felicity Robie. Some jazz vocalist with whom he was obsessed. When he whispered her name he would nod and rub his papery hands together. Always whispering. Always requiring you to lean into him. Every time he came in I promised to find some of Felicity’s music, maybe on the internet. He really seemed to want me to and asked me to each time he came in. By the time I’d closed the bar and smoked a joint with the manager in the parking lot I’d already forgotten my promise.

I asked Darryl what he did for Christmas just before January arrived. He told me that he did nothing again, just ate some tacos and listened to Felicity Robie.

With what felt like a punch to the gut I recalled his account of Thanksgiving. It was much the same. Except in November he bought Burger King and rented some videos. I spotted that his icy glass was empty before I could think of a response and was thankful for an escape from his expectant face. I wish I’d remembered he had no one. I would have invited him over for my own meager Christmas dinner. Except I wouldn’t have because he stared right into my mouth when I spoke, his lips parted, his tongue visible, quivering and snake-like. Because he was forever folding his papery hands.

One night an hour before midnight, just before the managers locked up the front doors, Darryl slipped in. He marched straight in and spoke without waiting. He shouted out my name. I turned and saw him in the lobby, hidden under a shiny navy blue slicker, his face wet from the walloping rainstorm that had kept the bar mostly empty that night. He stood only a foot away from me and held up a clear plastic baggie polka-dotted with droplets of rain. Inside it were two colorful concert tickets. Felicity Robie’s name was printed boldly in a square-ish font on each.

“Did you listen to any of her songs yet?,” he spoke again. Again without waiting. My eyes fell to the broom I that was supporting my weight as I shook my head no.

He carefully removed one of the tickets from the bag, then wrapped it in the scrap of velvet he pulled from his front left pants pocket. He took my wrist and tucked the ticket into my palm. Before he let go he held my hand in his for a few seconds. It felt nothing at all like paper. Then blinked and turned and dissolved into the downpour.

The bar stopped chilling pint glasses a few months later.

I now own all of Felicity Robie’s albums and a few of her imports, too.

You can read the final, submitted version inside.
Continue reading →

This Are You Still to be a Virgin ad from Tampax that dates back to 1990 has got me thinking. Well, mostly it has me laughing. “Absorb like crazy”? “Plug you up”? I doubt anyone’s truly ever been “totally psyched” to try a tampon. In fact, the first time I ever tried one was a terrible and traumatic experience.

I was a member of this all-girl Southern Baptist church group as a kid called Girls in Action. Our leader was this totally creepy woman with false teeth who always smelled like Dentyne and cigarettes. Her name was Rochelle. Mrs. Rochelle. She still repulses me to this day for some reason. Anyway, we went to the lake to go swimming, and I guess I was 11 or so, and had just a few months before got my period for the first time.* I desperately wanted to go swimming with my friends, but my mom told me I’d have to use a tampon in order to get in the water.

We went to Wal-Mart and stood poring over the options before us. Words like Super and Toxic Shock Syndrome had me totally freaked. I opted for the most slender, softest tampon I could find, something that was Junior and Petal Soft and very pink and in a tiny, tiny box. For whatever reason, I didn’t practice putting in a tampon before we got to the outdoor, doorless bathroom in the motherfucking woods. Eleven year olds are not smart most times. So my mom goes in with me to act as my coach and a pitiful excuse for a door. On our march to the public park bathroom she’s insisting I be relaxed. “YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RELAX OR THIS WON’T WORK. Got it? Now relax!”

Even though I hadn’t practiced, I’d committed that little booklet of instructions they include with tampons to memory. I’d already selected what position I’d be using.** With my mother standing watch in front of the stall, my heart a racehorse in my budding chest, I made my first ever attempt at inserting a tampon. And nearly hyperventilated. I was as far from relaxed as one can imagine, more like totally frightened of great piercing pain or stabbing a stray ovary with the applicator. I began to cry. I was so fucking scared. And beaten. Despite how much I wanted to join the others on paddle boats, to talk to the cute lifeguard who I’d seen getting a hot dog, I gave up my first try at putting in a tampon.

I stuck a thin maxi pad into my bathing suit and made my way to the blanket to watch the others swim.

For about five minutes.

There was no way I could sit there and watch Janet and Carrie and Sally playing Marco Polo without me. I looked down between my legs. The slim pad was nearly undectable in my dry suit. In fact, if you didn’t know it was there, there’d be no way you could tell. And you could tell even less than that if my bottom half was submerged in water.

Again, 11 year olds are pretty much dumb asses. So I made my way into the water, and after fending off questions from my friends, began to relax and have a good time finally. I made sure to swim up near the lifeguard stand to get a better look at the blonde freckled cutie I’d seen at the concession stand earlier. I was floating on my back, eyes closed, sticking my bug-bite, 6th grade boobs up in the air when my blood-covered maxi pad floated up near my head.

I paniced. People one by one began to notice. Laughter. “Oh my God, is that a dirty pad!!” Freaking out. Thinking I may drown from embarassment. Instead I swam away–not too fast, as to draw too much attention. I swam determinedly away from the red, bobbing maxi pad. I denied all suspicions. I told myself it didn’t happen. It was the most traumatized my pre-pubescent self had ever been.

Hard to believe I’d forgotten that story until just now. Even harder to believe I just told it to you.

Thank God for no longer being eleven.

*The first time I got my period I told all my best girlfriends about it. I was the first of us to get “the curse.” Every single one of them called me a liar.

**The foot on the toilet stance. Which, for me–I don’t know about the rest of you girls–has never facilitated an easy entrance. They might as well ask you to cross your ankles first.

Create your own visited states map.

I’m having Snow Monkey Plum black tea during the first snow of the winter.

I’ve opened my window so it’s snowing inside.

See, I told you the VCB is a problem solver.

Me: I can’t believe you left those condoms at home.
VCB: …
Me: Well, I’ve got Saran Wrap.
VCB: And…a butthole.

Tada!

New blog.

Weird, I say. This all feels too weird. It could be the Ease II pain reliever I took on an empty stomach that is making me feel so crazy, since it’s #2 ingredient is crack cocaine. Apparently. Ease II is that First Aid kit-brand pain reliever you get at work that, if you aren’t careful, will have you jacked up at 2:30 a.m. with a severe case of teeth clenching and a good, oh, 4 or so hours to kill before any serious shut-eye. But no headache. No sir! Just a pulse like marathoner and a lot to say.

But, yeah, this feels like cheating in way. That pale, purple pitas “Add an entry” page was a constant companion to me for nearly four years, and while this TypePad “Compose a New Post” page is really clean and organized and easy as pie to use, I’ll miss the slow loading pitas editor. The pita people are such good people, so laid back and generous. The buttons you push when updating your blog say things like “switch er up!”–how can you not love that?

I must admit I’m glad my URL doesn’t have the word “pitas” in it anymore. Typing it is one thing, but saying it is quite another. “Pitas?,” they’d say. “Like the food?” I’d agree, yes, it’s food, but this “weblog deal” has shit-all to do with Mediterranian bread. Oh yeah, and the name Misc., etc. is finally fucking dead. I’ve hated that name for so long. I thought it was okay at first, but the two abbreviations in a row gave people headaches when linking or searching and it was sort of not representative of the site really. Sparkwood & 21’s only tricky element is the ampersand. The ampersand is crucial. Those of you nice enough to update any link you may have to the old place should not write out the word “and.” Just to avoid any confusion.

Links to your fabulous site, an about page, photos and countless other edits soon to follow. The Ease II is wearing off and gravity is wrestling with my head.

This feels like saying goodbye to a new lover too soon, and after a lackluster first-ever make-out session.

Um…Was it good for you?