lassitude

[lassitude]

Been a minute...

I have to vent, and there doesn't seem to be an adequate space for doing it at this moment. Twitter is a fucking flaming wreck, and I don't like to tell my family or friends about work shit, but that's what this is about. Work Shit.

Normally I feel pretty able to shrug off the drama, to absorb the bullshit, but today was really something else. In case no one else has noticed, it's two days before Thanksgiving. When you work in a restaurant, that's like saying it's two days before The Purge. Rather, The Purge is happening currently, and gird your fucking loins, because we're in it and the only way out is fucking through. You've just got to grin and bear it. There is no other way.

So I was doing it. Grinning, bearing it, even when this entitled asshole didn't like how long it took me to take his order despite having a full ass section with twenty other people besides himself and his date. Newsflash, sir: IT'S BUSY. YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONE HERE. Your app hasn't hit the table yet, so I can't even send the order you're so desperate to give me. Your incredibly special selection of the fucking grilled chicken, you absolute motherfucking redneck ass savage. It's your date's birthday! Spend some money, cheapskate! And he had the audacity to mumble some harried "Jesus Christ" like he'd been waiting twenty seven years for service. He had a drink and bread. His app had yet to hit the table. No need for that bullshit, sir. But I did it. Grin. Bear it. Even through the lousy $10 on $82 and his barely legible scrawl on the receipt of "Very Poor Service." Well, you had a very poor attitude, and I can't help it if everyone in this stupid fucking city decided to eat at the same time tonight. Your food was correct. You drinks were correct. Everything was timed properly. Anything other than that was completely out of my control, you fucking imbecile.

I had several lovely tables who told me how wonderful and delightful I was, that they noticed how hard I was working, how I was spinning like a top trying to get everyone what they needed. I just asked my floor manager for ONE greet. I'd just been quadruple sat--four different four tops. It's very doable IF three of them weren't at the first-come, first-served tables where you have to bring menus, plates, and silverware on top of everything else. So I asked the floor manager to greet my fourth table in five minutes: drinks, bread, take an order.

She couldn't do it. She slurred her words when she told me their drinks, so I asked her if she was drunk, and that seemed to set her off for some reason. Probably because she was. I could smell it on her breath. If it wasn't alcohol, it was something else for sure. She rings the drinks in wrong as she tells me what the actual drinks are. Twenty minutes later I go to the table and ask them if they're ready for food.

"We're just waiting on our appetizer."

"Oh, let me make sure she rang it in." I look. There's nothing in there other than the martinis. "Let me see if it's in the kitchen." I hurriedly ring it in and tell the kitchen I need it on the fly--that our motherfucking ONLY MANAGER ON THE FLOOR fucked up taking ONE order. Worse yet, she's nowhere to be found. All night long, nowhere to be found. I'm getting my ass fucking handed to me, and she's nowhere to be found. It's ridiculous. I've said it many times tonight: this isn't a fucking restaurant, it's a fucking sideshow. It's a fucking circus.

Cue the fucking drama. She starts ranting about how I won't have to deal with her much longer, so I snap back, "Please be professional. We are at work. Be professional." And that sends her into the "I FUCKING QUIT" spiral. She takes off the restaurant keys, starts laying them out on one of the dining room tables. Even one of my tables noticed she was hardly working--thanks for the $30 on $100, guys--and spent nearly an hour straight just standing in one spot, looking like a fucking moron while I ran around like a chicken with its head off.

Now, I understand why my fellow employees are so infatuated with this particular floor manager. She has a fun personality, she understands what it means to be a server since she was one for many years before making the absurd decision to take a pay cut and become a manager. She cuts us breaks when we get fucked by cash tables. She also enabled another server, and one of my friends, to be drunk at work on multiple occasions. He finally got fired two weeks ago, but not by her. Because--and this is just my working theory--they go out into the parking lot and shoot mini bottles after volume. It makes her a fucking nightmare for me when I have to do office duties with her as the closing manager. I mean a literal fucking nightmare of miscounted money--counted as she speaks aloud every single dollar in like a strangely accented voice. She was doing the same thing tonight, talking loudly and with bravado, as if I haven't seen the same act every single fucking time she's drunk or high while I'm supposed to be handling money and sensitive data.

So she's on her bullshit tonight, and what does she do as she storms outside and tries to leave in her car? She blames me. Says I've already called the GM and ratted her out, that she'd pass a breathalyzer, etc etc. Why was she ranting like that if she wasn't drunk? Why was she talking SHIT about me to other servers? Why did another server, who I considered previously my friend, bark at me like I was a child for asking why our closing manager couldn't complete her closing duties? "BECAUSE SHE'S ON THE PHONE WITH HER BOSS!"

I know, dear. I'm the one that fucking texted him. This isn't some fucking high school drama club; this is a BUSINESS. We are here conducting BUSINESS. She is not my fucking friend; she's supposed to be my fucking BOSS. And your boss, too, honey. If you see her as a friend first, then you fucked up, not me. This is why there isn't supposed to be any fucking fraternization between managers and employees, to avoid this exact fucking situation. If I was drunk at work, I would expect to be fired. If I fuck up badly at work, I expect to be written up. I don't throw temper tantrums and threaten to quit and expect anyone to give a single flying fuck about my decision. I am a battery powering a food-slinging machine, and so the fuck is she. So the fuck are all of us, so WHYYYYYY are they treating this like something more than it is? Because they'd rather have her than our two other idiot managers? One doesn't seem to give a fuck, and the other has piss poor menu knowledge and an even shittier attitude.

It's the blind leading the blind. It's like when the kids fuck around when a substitute teacher is on, except the substitute is there ALL THE TIME now. And it's just fuck around forever. Make money, fuck around. It's s fucking toxic, and I want to quit, but I broke $300 tonight. In five hours. I have a mortgage. I have health insurance. I can't just upend my job because I had a bad, dramatic day. But apparently she can. It's fucking ridiculous.

I should be the fucking boss. But I say this knowing they could never pay me enough. Maybe for 80k a year starting, with built-in raises each year. But no one would work for me. I'd fire everyone, or everyone would hate me.

But maybe I only think that way since it's been years since I've had a true hardass for a boss. Someone who holds standards and holds people accountable. We need rules. Rules stop us from devolving into fucking savages who smoke, drink, and fuck at work. We don't have any rules anymore, or at least we don't after volume.

I don't even know what I hope to accomplish with this rant. It's not like I didn't already tell my husband all of this shit on our commute home. I just CAN'T do this shit again tomorrow, though it's looking like that's the only option moving forward. All I know for sure is that she doesn't work tomorrow, so at least I don't have to interact with her. Though I will have to interact with her butt-sucking fan club, including the girl who barked at me for asking why our manager couldn't do her fucking job.

JESUS FUCK, what a fucking mess. This place used to be a point of pride. Now it's a fucking laughing stock. I honestly hope they just fucking accept her resignation. And she can suck my fucking dick for trying to blame me for her shortcomings. IT'S NOT MY FUCKING FAULT that you can't come to work sober. It's not my fucking fault that you hate your fucking job. It's not my fucking fault that I ALONE HOLD YOUR ASS ACCOUNTABLE. I follow the fucking rules for a reason. This is how I make money to finance my fucking life. This isn't some playground for me to showcase my vices.

Ugh, I'm so fucking MAD.

[lassitude]

[lassitude]

[lassitude]

I’ve been watching My Mad Fat Diary and it’s eerie how easily this could’ve been about my life when I was 16. Is it odd that it’s been double the years plus and I still relate keenly to all these teenage impulses and fake catastrophic occurrences? Yes. And no.

I remember being 24 and asking a 40 year old how it felt to be an adult, and Mat told me then that it felt like he was still just an 18 year old faking being grown. That you never actually feel old, just look older. Seems pretty accurate. I’m always wondering if people my age actually feel like adults. Everyone is forever pegging me for someone at least ten years younger, and I wonder if it’s because I look young or if it’s because I truly act young. Is acting young the same as acting immature? Am I immature for reading YA and watching things like this and anime and liking toys and candy? But in the same breathe I like bands no one has head of and enjoy my steak rare plus and fine dining and martinis. Like… 

I don’t know. I don’t particularly care if I’m immature, if my tastes are bizarre or not befitting my age. I feel happy. Not with my body, no, or my “career” as of yet, but I’m happier with my life now that I’ve rebuilt from the ground up than I ever, ever remember feeling before. Is it because I have Day? Is it because I’ve stopped reaching for that mythical American Dream and instead forged my own, new form of it?

I used to like the phrase “never settle.” There’s a difference between settling and having goals but being okay with constantly being in a state of becoming, of achieving.

Unrelated: treated my dad to belated Father’s Day dinner, which he proceeded to pay for 2/3 of. I told him not to, but he insisted. I’ve never sent anything back to the kitchen before, but who in their right mind eats medium well to well done ribeye? Crazy people and rednecks, that’s who. The server, who spelled her name in a strange form of Kara, spoke in this high, put-on voice that I disliked. They were getting pummeled in there, though. Who in this shitstain city goes on a 30 minute wait on a Thursday unless they’re my restaurant?

Rambling for sure. On to the next episode of My Mad Fat DIary before I pass out.

[lassitude]

Spending my day off doing eighty billion loads of laundry, vacuuming everything in sight, attempting some low carb okonomiyaki, and browsing tv tropes for themes I enjoy/researching for this post-apocalyptic novel I’m half-writing. Sorta writing. I was doing so well, racking up thousands of words a day, up until when I left for Los Angeles… a year ago. For fuck’s sake.

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Drinking Crown Apple and soda and thinking about this stupid game on my phone where I can pretend to be God. It’s so hard to make my people happy; I keep losing them to this heathen population.

Had a serving nightmare during a nap after work. A napmare. An afternoon napmare. Fuck lunch shift today, though. Busy out of nowhere, seven tables all pissed off because the hosts can't seat to save their lives. Why do I punish myself with this bullshit? Why can’t I just write the damn thing already and get out of this southern hellhole?

Talking to Day about things, I’ve made my position clear: I’m not staying here. I might not make it to NYC, but at the very least I’ll be moving back to Los Angeles. Anything but this soulsuck of a city.

[lassitude]

Last Date Night with Day for the foreseeable future. What with my schedule being totally fucked up and him joining this band, we’ll be lucky to see each other outside work. He dropped his Hades clone/Atlantis Mega tank on the asphalt by accident, shattered the pyrex tubing, and spent the next hour freak out about it, but we think we’ve found a solution. Walked around downtown, hung out in the park and watched fireflies. Ate overpriced food at Tupelo Honey (but delicious, so I can’t totally complain--I drank some floral fruity concoction called a Violet Beauregarde). It was nice, albeit humid as fuck and full of weird stares from grown ass men as I walked by. What was it, the flower cutoffs?

Now there’s a bottle of Crown Apple, some diet Cheerwine, and a thunderstorm. Fuck you, 10:30am open.

[lassitude]

Boring shift of absolute suck. Trying my damnedest not to eat everything in the house out of boredom. Now? Game of Thrones and this carb smart bullshit ice cream.

[lassitude]

My feet are literally killing me. I have self-diagnosed this pain as plantar fascitis or some shit, but whatever it is, it’s slowly crippling me.

Funny how I went from having an absolute horror show of a shift last night to having what amounted to absolute perfection tonight. Sure, I was in a 3-table section, but I worked that shit for perfect 10s on every table. I know the industry mindset it turn and burn, as many tables as humanly possible in one night, but that just hasn’t proven to be true for me. The more I can sell sell sell a table, the more I play around with them and impress them with menu knowledge, the higher my tip average is. Being in an excellent mood really helps, too, but I can never guarantee that. I’m so up and down, it’s harder for me to fake a smile than it is to suffer through a shift feeling like shit.

I’m exhausted right now, waiting for Day to show up so we can shower and sleep until tomorrow when we hit reset and do this shit all over again. Monday is what’s looking like our last date day for the foreseeable future. With him joining a band and me working all sorts of fucked up shifts, we won’t have much recreational time together. I want to do something incredible for this last one, but I have no idea what. It can’t revolve around food because of this stupid low-carb diet (that is 100% necessary, tbh. I’ve definitely gained 10 lbs since starting the new restaurant last October).

[lassitude]

I can’t believe how dedicated I used to be to blogging daily. Livejournal really was my every day diary thing. I have so many old entries, so many old concerns. I think struggling as a writer stems from the pressure of having to perform. The expectation that the writing must be great makes me hesitate to say anything at all if it can’t be fantastic. That’s no way to be, though. My writing used to be fearless. Now it’s all halting and tired symbols.

Day told me on his way to work that a pickup truck passenger spit on him and called him a “little bitch.” We’re thinking it’s because he was riding his little scooter thing. Scooters don’t need insurance or a license. Riding one doesn’t make you a little bitch; it makes you a country kid trying to make good and do something with his life that isn’t making vats of meth in the fucking woods. How dare these motherfuckers put him down for that?

Work ended up being a fucking nightmare. I went from being in a three-table section to being in a six-table section. Someone’s mother was in a car accident which meant they had to call out. Call me callous, but I don’t think I’d miss work if my mother was in a car accident. If my mother died, maybe. But I don’t really get on well with my mother, so…

I’ve been plowing throughout that Donna Tartt book, The Secret History. It’s better than I thought it would be--such lush, well-written prose. It makes me jealous and competitive, which has always been good for my writing. I just hope forcing myself to write this bullshit every day will help me reconnect with what it means to do more than say I’m a writer. Reconnect with what it means to actually write.

[lassitude]

Today I promised a friend I would write something every single day, even if it’s just a single sentence. To avoid breaking this promise, I’m answering a motherfucking meme.

Five Facts

1. Five facts about your current relationship OR Five facts about your single life.

I’ve been with Day for three and a half years. At one point we were having sex every day, but that number has dropped drastically since we started living and working together (exhaustion, mostly). Our most recent fight was over the fact that I’d given up a shift at work to have the day off with him and he spent 6 hours of it at band practice. He probably loves me much much more than I love him--don’t get me wrong: I love him, I just feel like the love in this relationship is imbalanced. I’m definitely the more demanding, imperious, infuriating one (I never claimed to be easy to be with), but he loves me all the same. (WHY???)

2. Five facts about a past relationship.

Day is my first significant other. I spent two years imagining Axel (yes, that Axel) in my bed and car and graduate school classes if that counts. I’ve had past friendships that have since gone to shit: a college roommate who hated me so much she slept on the floor of her unrequited love stalker, a boy I was head over heels for in college who instead chose this dumb pretty girl who cheated on him. I used to drive people away by being at turns unemotional and then highly idealistic and black and white. It wasn’t uncommon for me to say things like, “If you give a shit about this relationship, then why don’t you fight for it?”

3. Five facts about your mother.

She was born incredibly poor in the Philippines. She’s a clinical laboratory scientist at one of the biggest hospital systems in Los Angeles. She wrote my History papers on a Brother typewriter when I was in sixth grade so I could get straight As. She used to literally, textbook definition, beat me when I was a kid and I can probably find the genesis and origin in all of my neuroses in how she decided to punish me when I was young. I have talked to her only a handful of times since I moved to the east coast.

4. Five facts about your father.

He was born in upstate New York to a catholic family of five children. He is also a clinical laboratory scientist--my parents met in a post-grad program for their licenses. He had read hundreds and hundreds of books in the last seven years, a product of his “spiritual awakening.” He suffers from bipolar disorder: his most recent manic episode involved telling me he was the second coming of some kind of Jewish prophet named Moshe Ben Josef or some shit and he was literally calling the Jewish embassies and shit claiming to be this person. He’s battled alcohol and drug addiction for most of his life and certainly for all of mine.

5. Five facts about your sibling. If you have more than one, pick one. Or do them all!

My sister and I are three years apart; I’m older. We used to say we would move to Alaska and live together and own some kind of shop. We played Melrose Place barbies together. She threw an ABC wooden block at my head once and I pretended to be dead. I also once threw a Talkboy (yes, like in Home Alone) at her head and promptly ran away when she started crying. 

(Omitting some numbers here because they are boring as fuck.)

9. Five facts about your education.

I graduated summa cum laude from the University of California Santa Barbara. A Lesser Beauty is a loose interpretation/amalgamation of my time in college. Instead of taking time off to hone my graduate application, I went balls to the wall and applied to Harvard and Cornell and stuff after I graduated with my 4.0 major GPA and overall 3.97 GPA. After I was turned down everywhere I wanted to go, I took a scholarship to someplace I had zero desire to study at and, surprise surprise, after finding myself unchallenged and bored, left graduate school to become a fucking waitress. I often find I am over-educated and thus alienated from most people I work with.

10. Five facts about your job.

I make more money a day than many people with greater job security do. I love how each shift has all the useful components of a day: eating food, hanging out with friends, a decent low-impact workout. I don’t want to server forever, but it’s a fantastic way to pay bills while I “write my book.” It’s just a question of whether I have the creative and intellectual fortitude to sit down every day after a long ass shift and start writing the next bestseller. I will say that being looked down upon or treated as a slave by people with less than a quarter of my breeding and intelligence infuriates me.

[lassitude]

i feel like my heart is caving in.

my dad moved out here to support me through my Times of Utter Bullshit and paid the ultimate sacrifice to do it: he left everything he owned and everyone he knew back in los angeles. he was never supposed to stay here indefinitely. his most recently plans were set in motion for him to move to oregon with my stupid fucking idiot of a kid brother. they were moving to portland together, or seattle, or wherever except it was supposed to be together.

tonight the same stupid fucking idiot of a kid brother told him that he no longer thought it was a good idea for them to live together.

i understand the selfish teenage mentality that seeks independence and street creed from “not living with their parents” anymore, but my dad has no one. my mom is remarried, his three children are scattered across the states. he doesn’t have a job, he’s on disability. he has nothing. when people question as to why i, at 30, still “live with my dad,” i have to explain that he doesn’t “take care” of me. he’s my dad, but he’s also my roommate. we split the rent, utilities, and food. he has his own space, i have my own space. we take care of each other out of necessity. i’m lucky day is so understanding; i’m sure not all boyfriends are.

i just don’t understand how my two other siblings can be so cold toward someone who literally raised them up from shitting themselves into somewhat decent human beings. how can they be so selfish? no, my dad isn’t the easiest person to live with. he’s opinionated, loud, talkative, and a little crazy. but he’s hilarious and charming and likes to listen to good music and have fun. my dad is an amazing, intelligent, incredible human being. they should be honored to have him as their father, let alone have such a whirlwind of a man in their homes. how can they be so blind to this opportunity?

they will look back on this time in twenty years when my dad is dead and they will hate themselves for not trying harder to spend even just a single second longer in his company. god damn them.

god damn them.

throw all this angst on top of working a 45+ hour week and you can imagine why i’m sitting here in tears, desperately longing for some fake beach time tomorrow. i yearn for the days i could hop in the car at 10pm and be on the shores of malibu at 10:20pm. i took so many things from los angeles for granted. so, so many things. being landlocked here, a million miles away from my family and all my friends, is like being in an entirely different universe. no magic happens here.

when i first moved out here i couldn’t understand why everyone looked at me with starry eyes when i told them i was from los angeles, why they asked me if i knew any famous people (yes, i do). now i know why. now, when i watch an episode of the hills through a crappy streaming site, i understand what they see when they see “los angeles.”

[lassitude]

London: How do you take your tea?

My mom gave me tea when I was a kid because I couldn’t stay home sick since she and my dad both worked and no one could watch me. I had the flu really bad once, and she made me drink hot tea and sent me on the bus. I ended up vomiting on the bus in between the seats, telling no one. We had an assembly at school and I ended up vomiting on another kid. To this day hot tea makes me nauseous.

Paris: Describe your favorite kiss.

The one where there’s real intent behind it and I can feel the desire in him dive into my mouth, caress my tongue, down my throat and into the pit of my stomach where it tugs.

Dublin: Do you believe in Soul mates?

I used to. In college I was in love with this kid Nick. He wasn’t particularly good-looking, but he was intelligent and funny and great company. He wasn’t interested, but I was convinced we were soul mates. Looking back at that time, almost ten years gone, I see how desperate I was for him to like me. He was just a guy and I was a good girl and that was that. We had moments, but it didn’t make us soul mates. If soul mates are real, I think they’re rarer than winning the potter, being struck by lightning, or dying in a plane crash.

Oslo: What keeps you warm?

Intellectually: happy memories. Physically: I have an excellent alternative down comforter, an overpriced tan sherpa throw from Kohls’s, and a blanket adorned with geisha girls my best friend made for me.

Amsterdam: What is your ideal night out?

Carefully selected appetizers from a distinguished restaurant before moving on to classy, happening place for drinks, then maybe a lazy stroll through downtown, hand in hand. I don’t care for clubs, much.

Los Angeles: What would you change about yourself?

BODY. I wish I realized when I was younger that things stretch and don’t ever pop back into shape. I don’t wear tank tops without jackets because I hate the bulk of my arms.

Milan: How do you think others describe you?

Everyone always uses the word “smart.” Sometimes I wish they’d use the word “pretty.”

Prague: What is your favorite season?

Autumn. Hoodie weather though I so rarely get to use them anymore.

New York City: What gets you up in the morning?

Psychologically: the necessity of making money. Realistically: my cellphone ringtone, which is a polyphonic version of the original Sailor Moon theme song.

Hong Kong: What is your earliest childhood memory?

Waking up on the couch after a nap. It was my first house, the blinds were closed, and I could smell my grandmother cooking Filipino food in the kitchen. Chicken adobo, probably, or at least that’s what the memory wants me to believe. 

Tel Aviv: What is your favorite thing about your family?

We don’t bullshit each other. We genuinely enjoy spending time in each other’s company because we don’t bullshit each other.

Las Vegas: Have you ever broken a heart?

A broken mind, yes. Not yet a heart. I haven’t had the luxury of having the opportunity yet.

Madrid: Describe your aesthetic.

Dialectics and juxtapositions between hard and soft, sweet and vicious. The line between violence and grace.

Chicago: What do you ache for?

The past. The past where I’m still fresh out of undergraduate school with an amazing GPA and incredible letters of recommendation, an unreal internship for a literary agent, and Los Angeles as my playground. How foolish I am to have fucked all that up, I’ll never get over.

Toronto: Describe your ideal partner.

Intellectually equal, moderately ambitious, attune to fashion forward standards, who treats me like he can’t believe how lucky he is to have an angel sucking his dick, who fucks me hard when I need to be fucked hard, and kissed sweetly when I need to be kissed sweetly. Nice to look at, good hygiene, refined tastes for food and culture and music and film. Someone who doesn’t exist, namely, but I think what I have approaches that standard.

Sorrento: What is your weakness?

CANDY. Gluttony, I guess, is the easier answer. I love to indulge in delicious things, and just a taste in never enough.

Cairo: Whats your favorite quote?

Franz Kafka is Dead. He died in a tree from which he wouldn't come down. "Come down!" they cried to him. "Come down! Come down!" Silence filled the night, and the night filled the silence, while they waited for Kafka to speak. "I can't," he finally said, with a note of wistfulness. "Why?" they cried. Stars spilled across the black sky. "Because then you'll stop asking for me." -- Nicole Krauss, The History of Love.

Budapest: What tattoo do you want?

A couple, and I can’t decide what to get next. I do want “feral dolce” in script on the tops of my wrists with “a holiday at the sea” on the insides. I want a cherry blossom crawling across a shoulder, but I’m so picky about the watercolor style I want, that I’ll probably never get it done.

Mumbai: What is your favorite scent

Right after it rains on a summer day, the pink bottle of Nanette Lepore, the way my dad’s backseat smelled in his 1984 Toyota Supra.

Stockholm: What scares you?

Abstractly: failure. Realistically: never getting out of this fucking southern shithole and all the life-ruining tragedy that moving here brought me.

[lassitude]

I'm depressed. I can feel it sitting inside me, weighing me down. It feels like I'll never be happy again, or like I maybe never was happy before.

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my boyfriend is asleep beside me and i don't think he loves me anymore.

or, more importantly, i don't think i love him.

[lassitude]

my anniversary was so horribly disappointing, i don't even know what to say. what sort of anniversary ends without a form of intimacy? no kissing? no sex? not even a hug? i'm so... disappointed.