Guilt and Innocence: A daily primer

Back to School, Back to Blogging

I have survived Casa Bonita (even the three section, twelve table madness of my last day) and made it back here to Columbia, which means, Let the blogging begin!

I'm so incredibly glad to be back at school. I was kind of hesitant to come back by the end of summer; with all this back and forth it seems like as soon as I get settled one place I have to leave for the other. However, once I got back to good old Mark Twain it felt like we'd never left. I stayed up until two, drinking coffee and gossipping with Barry and Rachel, who I had completely forgotten how much I missed. So really all I have to say is thank god for school!

Also since I'm back in CoMo, I imagine I will have plenty of this absurd little blocks of time like this one that just lend themselves to blogging, so the blog will be back into it's full irreverent swing.

Dispatches from the Restaurant

As you may have noticed, I am miserable at keeping this updated while I'm working. This may be attributed to the fact that, on average, I've been working fifty-five hours a week and when I'm not working I'm generally asleep or desperately trying to salvage my social life. Anway here are some anecdotes: Yesterday a penis walked into work.

Okay, truth be told, it wasn't yesterday because I haven't worked since Sunday, as I got my wisdom teeth pulled on Monday, but a penis did walk into work. I was serving in the back of caves, when I look up and I saw what at first seemed to be a guy wearing a bunch of trash bags. Upon closer look, I realized the trash bags were strategically placed and inflated to create a giant penis costume. And my only reaction to this? I thought, "This is a family restaurant." He went up into balconies and a few minutes later security went up there and I saw no more of the penis costume, so I believe they made him take it off.

Other than that, I've served two tables from KU in the past week. I did not, however, spit in their food, though I did accidently spill some taco salad all over one table, and both tipped me well. Other than that, Casa Bonita has just been ridiculously understaffed. We had two girls walk out in one night, another new trainee quit, and one more girl get fired, so by Sunday night we were six servers short, so it seemed like everyone was serving at least a section and a half.

This server shortage also resulted in Rob not giving me the days I needed off to get my wisdom teeth pulled, so I had to call, wait twenty minutes for Gianni to pick up the phone, before we had a twenty minute conversation about me not coming in. However, I think I still have a job on Friday.

Other than that, getting my wisdom teeth out hasn't been so bad. They swell some, so I do vaguely resemble a chipmunk, but the pain hasn't been too bad and I've watched a lot of movies and the West Wing.

Slow to Learn My Lessons

Well, I'm not sure it would be wise to detail my exploits from last night. But let's say, I need to learn my lessons about doing certain things when I haven't eaten. Also, I should not try and walk halfway across Lakewood at three in the morning, and I'm lucky that I have friends who prevent me from doing some of the stupid things I want to do.

With these things in perspective, I think I may consider giving up drinking. Even though I haven't really started "drinking" like most people do, the good experiences don't seem to make the bad ones worth it.

Also, I had a weird dream where Katie and I were in Colorado, but somehow in Mark Twain at the same time (How I love the logic of dreams.) and we were drinking, and Rob (who happens to be my manager at Casa Bonita) appeared to be my Hall Coordinator and caught us and wrote us up, but we kept protesting that we were in Colorado, so it didn't count and it was all very nonsensical and confusing. However, for some reason it jsut gave me this horribly bad feeling about drinking, so I think it's time for another "Wow, that was fucking stupid. Let's not do that again," break from drinking.

In other news, Casa Bonita is going to be the death of me. When I showed up to work this morning, the last thing I had eaten was a bagel at lunch the day before, and the first thing they did was give me a group of twenty-five school children. How I made it through the morning without passing out is completely beyond me.

Also, my bill for this blog, which is probably not even worth the money, caused me to overdraw my checking account. How terribly sad is that? Luckily my Credit Union just takes the money from my Savings account, otherwise, this would be sad, sad times.

When "Taco" becomes a dreaded word

I have survived the first weekend back at Casa Bonita. So far I have NOT:

1.) Cried
2.) Dropped Anything
3.) Had any of my customers complain to a manager
4.) Actually, had any customers complain at all
5.) Burned myself (which is remarkable as that restaurant likes to keep their plates at roughly a million degrees Fahrenheit)

I have, however, gone three entire lunches without getting a damn table. It seems like it's been really slow, lately. Of course, I haven't done that badly money-wise, considering how slow it's been. I'm hoping for a moderate amount of rain, as that tends to result in more customers, but only a moderate amount, as I am not yet prepared for the mad summer rushes that will invariably come in July.

Other than that I am just waiting for this summer to end, now. It's not that I don't enjoy being home, but at this point I'm hardly going to have time to see my friends anymore, I don't know how I'm going to learn to drive, and I'm spending most of my time at a job I despise.

In other news, Darcie and I rented Hitch and Motorcycle Diaries. Hitch was cute, but becomes a little heavy-handed towards the end of the movie.  I thought Motorcycle Diaries was quite good which led Darcie and I to determine that we both believe that foreign movies are of a much higher caliber than anything that comes out of Hollywood. Also, the scene where they shoot the duck led to me repeating, "Pato, pato, pato," quite a few times, as "pato" (which is Spanish for "duck") remains one of my favorite Spanish words.

Speaking of Spanish, working at Casa Bonita amongst a high ratio of native Spanish speakers, has made me realize that my Spanish skills are woefully inadequate. I can rarely understand even parts of conversations, much less a whole conversation. However, I am determined to use this miserable job to better myself by trying to work on my Spanish, even if it involves making a complete ass out of myself. However, Michelle would be proud to know that I actually heard someone use the phrase "Que Onda?"

On yet another tangent, I just got up to make myself a psuedo-lunch (somehow food at home isn't nearly as good as I'd remembered it being), when I noticed that the headline on The Rocky Mountain News is "War on Christianity," to which I would like to say, "Way to be incindiary, stupid-obnoxious-local-paper-I-hate-more-and-more-with-each-passing-day." Admittedly, the congressman who said this is also an incidiary asshole, but I'm getting tired of all this secular/religious bickering. The whole reason the puritans settled here was to avoid the sort of persecution both sides of this debate is infilicting more and more on each other. Whatever happened to preaching love and tolerance and good will towards man? I think we all need to work on some good inter-faith alliance. But, you know, I'm a democrat so all I could possibly mean by "inter-faith alliance" is "Die christianity, die!" (That was sarcasm, please don't hurt me.)

More Sopapillas, Please

It's official, after over a month of fruitless job-hunting, I have given my soul back to Casa Bonita. Rob eagerly re-hired me and then I ended up scheduled for doubles ever day this weekend. Great. Wonderful. I can't wait.

So, this means I get to come in on Friday at noon, try to remember how to do my job, without any re-training whatsoever, and work until close. I can't wait. I just keep trying to remind myself how nice the stack of cash is going to look on Friday evening. I'm trying really hard.

The one upside of this is that Brendan's training this week and is going to be serving with me. So at least I'll have company in my misery.

I just keep telling myself that I will only be working about seven weeks, six if I take a week off to go to Boston and it can't possibly be that bad. Only, I know it can be that bad. Of course, from the Secretary's comments it seems like they fire people just as often, if not more often, than they used to so maybe I'll luck out and escape that way.

Then, this morning I got a call from Darcie. Her mom's secretary (or equivalent) got on a plane and basically abandoned her, so she needs someone to work on things. I ended up agreeing to do it, so I went from no jobs to two, apparently. But I guess her mom pays ten dollars an hour, which isn't bad, and I'm definitely broke enough to need the money.

Still, all this job-getting business has made me miss school a lot more than I ever thought I would. I miss the routine of it mostly. It keeps me from getting too wrapped up in things, and I've been doing a bang-up job of getting too wrapped up in things lately.

I leave with a quote from Brendan: "Saying about Casa Bonita, 'Well, a job is a job.' is like describing hell as, 'It is the afterlife.'"

Between Here and There

In the past I've always been fond of my uncanny ability to avoid sleep. It made finishing projects and papers at odd hours and pulling all-nighters a breeze, but lately I would kill to just be able to go to sleep. Typically I relish the few hours I get to myself in the early, early hours of the morning, but I've just felt so tortuously bored lately. I've watched nearly all the movies on cable worth watching and television in general tends to leave me painfully bored these days. I can only read so much and spend so much time on the internet before I just need something else to occupy myself with. Unfortunately, options can be rather limited at two in the morning. Of course, this problem will surely disappear as soon as I find a job, but for now I'd like to be one of those people who can climb into bed at any hour and fall asleep within twenty minutes.

Other than bemoaning my slight insomniac tendencies, I've spent most of these days doing a lot of nothing. I went out with Jenn, Tyler, and a few of Jenn's friends Friday night, which resulted into running into and sharing a table with a lot of people from high school I didn't particularly care to see ever again. Despite the vague "I'm trapped in high school" feeling, I actually had a pretty good time.

Tonight I went to Dinner with Scott, a couple of his friends, Joe, Mwema, and Darcie and then, of course, we headed to Paris, but somehow none of this is significant enough, nor lasts long enough to ease the slow, painful pace of my days. At this point, I just want a job to have something to get up and do, not because I want the money.

Brendan is finally coming home at the end of the week and I can't wait to see him because I miss the way the two of us can talk about nothing, something, and anything for hours on end. I'm hoping that he can offer something to at least ease the anesthetic feel of these past weeks.

I'm almost starting to think that I really should've just stayed in Columbia and gotten residency this summer, but I know that I needed to have one last summer with these people. It's not that I don't love my friends, but I miss the constant distractions of high school. I want to push again, to see how much I can do in so many hours, and instead I have ended up with the complete and total opposite.

Mid-Major Crisis

While I'm sure I'm not the first college student to have a complete breakdown in ideal in the middle of June, I have a feeling I may be among a slightly smaller crowd facing ideological inconsistencies.

This all started when I hand one of my short, startling profound thoughts. Sometimes I just think these things that strike me for one reason or another. This particular thought happened to be, "I want to write a book men will read." (Which makes more sense if you've, like I, had been seeing mentions for days of some article about how men don't read books written by women.) This thought caused me to start thinking about a creative writing class I saw in a Mizzou catalog, and for some unknown reason I looked the class up online. As it turns out, with a miniscule bit of pruning (i.e. moving my economics recitation I probably won't be attending, anyway), I could easily fit the aforementioned class into my schedule.

Of course, this brings up a host of other questions. What class do I drop to replace it? Do I simply replace my humanities class? (Of course, you have to understand, completing the honors college humanities sequence is something that gives you a certain amount of intellectual bragging rights.) Should I drop International Relations and give up on this idea of a political science double major and just give in and double major in english? Maybe just a minor in english?

And all this thinking leads to the, "What am I doing at Mizzou, anyway?" train of thought. I like journalism enough, but I only got into journalism because it was a more practical outlet for writing, but all of a sudden I'm finding myself thinking that maybe teaching English wouldn't be the horror I sometimes make it out to be. Sometime I can't help but feel that I would be much happier as an English major. But if I'm going to major in English, why waste a quarter-of-a-grand at Mizzou?

Where are those goddamned academic advisors when I actually need them?

Summer Malaise

Well, life continues here in Colorado, but at a slow incomprehensible pace. I did not get hired by Macaroni Grill, sadly, and the only other call I've gotten was from Old Navy who wanted me to work for three days a week at five in the morning, to which I easily said no. I think I'd rather go back to Casa Bonita than unpack shipments at ungodly hours.

In other news, I am nineteen after somehow surviving the miserable night that was my birthday. I can't explain why that night was bad, but for some reason everything about it just seemed off. Of course, all the birthday wishes were greatly appreciated and I did manage to get Garden State, the new Garbage CD, and a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble out of the night, so not all was lost.

Yesterday I met up with Kerry, Joe, Josh and David Koch and we ended up at Burger's Plus to play Risk. We also encountered about half the band since the high schoolers only had a half day. Afterwards, I hung out with Kerry for a while and she tried to teach me to crochet and I still failed to make anything but a chain. However, I am resolved to learn to crochet before school begins again, as I want to have as many diversions as possible when I work the desk.

Still, I desperately need a job, and at this point I don't even care so much about my financial situation (which is pretty dire), but I just want something to do. I haven't slept this much in years, but I just don't see the point in getting out of bed when it just gives me an extra three to four hours to waste. Also, it's looking more likely that I'm going back to Casa Bonita as every day passes, but I just don't want to do it. The thought of just being back there creates an overwhelming sense of dread. Maybe tomorrow I'll go try and weed out every last place in Lakewood I haven't applied to already. Send good job karma my way.

I'm just never pleased.

I actually earlier wrote some long, boring, tedious post about what I've been up to, but I've since realized that it can be summarized into a few key points:

1.) Do you remember when you used to long for the summer of days with nothing to do? Well, I have that right now and I despise it, it's boring and it's making me depressed.

2. )The Macaroni Grill called and I had an interview on Monday. The interview itself was boring, but my inner-monologue went something like this: "Oh, please, god, just hire me, I need something to do and I hate job hunting...THREE TABLES? Your employees only have to run three tables? Casa Bonita would give me four tables of eight, and then a fifth on the other side of the fucking restaurant because someone was late...Look, I can see the kitchen from everywhere in the restaurant. That's quaint...You're complaining about the air conditioning being too cold? Try working in a restaurant with a fucking pool in the middle of it with malfunctioning air conditioning. So it's always hot, it's always humid, and you always smell like chlorine...What? No, I'm not going to Mizzou for education, Why the fuck would I subject myself to out-of-state tuition in the middle-of-nowhere missouri when I could get an education degree from CU? And, no, having lived in Iowa does not mean you know anything about Mizzou. Dumbass."

Of course, I said none of that. I smiled and stopped just short of begging for the job. It'd be nice. It's in Denver West with the Barnes and Noble so at least I could spend my breaks there if I can't work there.

3.) Despite having digital cable and thus billions of channels I still can't find anything worth watching on television, so I've started watching Telemundo, because just trying to figure out what's going on keeps my attention. I've also got slightly addicted to their news, which means when I pick up the paper in the morning I have a "Oh, that's what they were talking about!" reaction. It's kind of fun.

4.) I need to stop putting foreign substances in my body. This includes alcohol and caffeine, mainly, among any other chemical. Because even when I'm not drunk at all, I do stupid things. (Alternatively, I also read three-quarters of The Stranger. I would have finished the book, too, had Darcie not woke up and made me turn off the lights.) And really I'm too sensitive to caffeine to drink coffee the way I do. Or at eleven at night, which seems to be my preference. And I just seem to have heightened reactions to any chemical influence at all. (Note to self: These previous realizations suggest it would be unwise to experiment with heroin. Keep that in mind in the future.)

5.) What the hell is a "quant"? I just realized I misspelled "quaint" earlier and the spell check didn't catch it because "quant" is apparently a word.

6.) I got a "Haunted" (Chuck's new book) night-light in the mail. I win.

So, is the summer over yet?

Still jobless, but now 300% more caffeinated

Yesterday, Mwema and I commenced a marathon job search at Denver West and Colorado Mills. We walked all over the place, gathering applications and then we finally crashed in the food court and filled them all out, until our hands were about to fall off and our brains were mush from writing the same pointless information over and over. Why, why can't you just give these places a resume?! They all ask for the exact same information!

Anyway, it actually seemed like a fair number of places were actually hiring compared to last summer, so maybe there's hope. I'm also hoping we've kind of beat out some of the high school kids. Now I have to repeat the same exhausting process at the Lakewood Commons and Belmar, where it would actually be easier to get a job, but at this point, I don't even care. Anywhere that isn't Casa Bonita and will give me seven dollars an hour and something like thirty hours is fine by me, even if I have to spend all day riding the bus.

I came home for dinner with the family that night, then Mwema, Joe, Lurch, and I headed downtown to hang out at Paris. I had my favorite Cafe Fantasia and Joe and Lurch pulled out the cigars, so I suppose you can guess where some of my pretentious influence comes from.

While we were there, Joe and I got into this awesome discussion about how we wanted our funerals to be. Joe was talking about how he wanted a "New Orleans Style" funeral, where basically everyone throws a huge party in your honor. Him talking about this was ironic, because as long as I can remember my mother and I have admired the idea of an Irish wake, which is basically the same thing Celtic style. From there, we discussed how mourning death is kind of a backwards idea, since a majority of religions believe you're going to some sort of better place. My point in talking about this is really just to point out how I miss these people.

Tonight was the Lakewood Pop's Concert, so we all ended up there. I was sitting with Darcie's mom (rather than with my parents, who were also there), which was a little weird, only because her mom seemed so exhausted. The concert was good and actually managed to hold my attention and included some guest appearances such as Mr. Harris, our band director as the phantom of the opera, and Castagna, our principal, as a short, Italian Darth Vader.

Afterwards, a whole crew of us band kids headed out to what was supposed to be bowling at Holiday Lanes, but by the time we got there, we decided to go to Denny's, but then couldn't get a table for twelve and ended up at IHOP. It was a crazy night of reminiscing and using glow bracelets and a ketchup bottle for a game of ring toss. It was kind of interesting to have four years of band kids, from juniors in high school to sophomores in college all in one place, and the UNC kids talked too much about UNC, but it was a fun time. It was the first time I've gotten to see Taryn and Sean since I'd gotten back, so that was nice. I miss all the sarcastic fun Taryn and I use to have together.

Now, despite three cups of bad IHOP coffee, I sleep.