put a candle in the window....

so. its saturday and i work until 3am and last night the bar was full of all the best people from around town and i enjoyed the best benefit this side of mental health days...free beer.
i sat on the sidewalk and watched all the pretty people inside and listened to the band from outside and smiled and even spoke a few times....and then it hit me...if all of these slackers are spending all their change .... none of them will be back when i am working....its going to be full of chodes tonight....lets hope i get there in time to put my ipod on first...

****so, i didnt....
i wish in some ways i could lighten up when it comes to music, but straight up dance music just does not seem to fit in a bar with a light up camel and no dance floor. its a drinkers bar and while i enjoy all of the extremely hot lesbians that frequent the bar when my fellow bartender is there, but it just makes me cranky.

the bar was also full of extremely drunk people who came over following a wedding reception, which is always fun. i am finding that the drunken slur is a second language. VODKA BABY AND KEEP EM COMING....you want a shot? NO A DRINK...vodka tonic sir???YEAH...WITH A LIME...KEEP EM COMING, WHATS THAT YOU HAVE? THAT DRINK"LL DO...sir, this is for someone else...WELL, SHES WITH ME. KEEP EM COMING....

all of this whilst my bar is ablsolutely roaring with really really really bad dance music. so, i frowned alot. i was told to quit being a poopy pants. okay, ill try. its hard though.

but all things told, i made a shit ton of money and played some decent tunes after the party left and while i am enjoying my closing time drink and my pocket is full and ccr is singing about seeing the light, everything is great forever and ever amen...

BUT...i still fucking hate everything but the girl. seriously hell to me would be an endless line of chodes ordering cosmos and a neverending everything but the girl record. so, baby, do i hope all those drug induced and fornication related sins arent really counted by jesus.

so, one of the strange things about waiting is the line between the regulars and you. i work in the kind of place that is small and homey and everyone knows each other and i have the misfortune of working lunch so instead of knowing the fine-dining waiters from town who play in bands and drink neat whiskey after their shifts, i get to know cranky bank tellers smoking thru their hour off and silently cursing my sneakered feet and feigned youth. You see them dart eyes away when you cross paths, its a city, but a small one, with not many circles to travel and i so i this week inevitably find myself face to face with a daily non-tipper and she damnit, fuck knows my name and there i am in the whole foods with a six pack in one hand and a salad bar box in the other, and i mutter a hey and walk quickly away with purpose and the next day she comes in for her usual and she looks at me in a new, quizzical way, not the typical ' i come in everyday, cant you make my half and half tea to go quicker??' way, but different and then it occurs to me, after i have wrapped her meal and made her drink and run her card and taken a full 5 minutes away from people who actually may leave me some change, that i have on the same clothes as at the store the night before and she is probably in her bible-belt way smiling that she doesnt tip and therefore does not support my heathen ways.

do you believe in rapture, babe?

****I made just enough money yesterday during the hurricane rains to buy my old man two high life after work, get some chinese food and purchase the new sonic youth. drinks food and music. the real stuff this miserable happy life is made of.****

i always get the new sonic youth as they never disappoint me. there are many things in life that do. indie rock, thiftstore fashion, the emergence of crafting.....my newly reforming love for flannel and baggy jeans could be a sign of indie rock escaping me and an all out return to the self of yesterday (or age and laziness who knows?). it was all bound to happen sometime. i am not saying the high life isnt still for me, i just think my bangs need to stay out of my eyes and i need to be a tad less angst-ridden lest someone think i am off my medication. of course, i have no medication to be off of. i've no patience with indie rock, such a stupid fucking term, by the way...i told someone who doubted my memory about a show last year to revoke my indie card and slap me with it, then the obvious duke student apologized for his misguided arrogance, perhaps he was mistaken he said to the bartender who was playing iggy pop who is also me, the bartender said, i really dont care. and i didnt.... yesterday playing tv on the radio, the least obscure band i can think of, a girl at the bar who was wearing mom shorts and drinking a can of dr pepper she did not purchase at my bar said, tv on the raideeooo? and i said, yes. and she stuck up her thumbs at me and asked if had seen them last week ( you know, opening for nine inch nails ) and i said, no, but i did see them in london a few weeks earlier and i couldnt even feel superior about my obvious points. she then said she hope they get the following they deserve, i returned to rolling silverware and she returned to the world cup and i silently prayed for liza minelli to come on so she wouldnt try to talk to me again. life is a cabaret old chums...and i love a cabaret....

***i hate everything but the girl. waiting tables can be enough of a drag without having to listen to shitty music. i feel bad...sometimes for subjecting coworkers to endless clash and jawbreaker and rolling stones tunes, but seriously, i cannot be the only person that is near driven by sound of the utz-utz-utz and girl vocals to pulling my own spine out of my neck. i can never seem to recover my good mood once it has been ruined by cheap beats. and then i hate everyone. i dont care if your drink is all ice or if your burger doesnt have the bacon you ordered. all life is meaningless to me until the 40 minute cd is over and something else, dear god, anything else comes on.

so it goes...

there isnt a way to start this that isnt somehow cliche, though i have been internet writing for years, this is the first proper blog, and first proper blog entry...9 months ago i turned 30. in an unattractive blackout involving a marc jacobs blouse and sophia champagne, i drowned my unfabulousness and told everyone i knew i hated their guts. 4 months ago i quit my job, my demeaning desk job at a 3rd ranked ivy league college...thus giving up my benefits and my family's ability to feel that my arts education did me some good. i quit my job for a gig at a bar. thats right, one drunken night i asked a friendly bartender if they were hiring because i hated my fucking job and really wanted a change and did some catering jobs awhile back...so now, here i am...pushing 31 and learning how to make martinis. ( i'm a bit frightened by the use of vermouth, i must admit. olives...i can just never seem to get them out of the jar without dumping out all the juice..) i have always been a beer drinker. high life and pabst blue ribbon, so i am constantly avoiding anyone who looks like thay may require me to shake or stir. i may suck at it, but the thing is...i am trying, i love it, for the first time in my quasi-adult-life my job is fun...i chase crackheads and narrowly stop myself from "accidently" dumping sweet tea in lunchers laps...i smile like i mean it and always remember your name, or at least what you are drinking. i guess all the time i have spent in rock clubs and bars during my 5 year tenure in the indierock stranglehold of raleigh-durham-chapel hill, nc somehow should have prepared me for life placing plates in front of people. getting those refills out before my tip dwindles below 20%....