(So here's what happened. On June 16, my internet browser got stuck. I gues sit was the cache. I don't know. But every post for the next two weeks got time/date stamped as June 16 at 2:17 P.M. Weirdest fucking thing. So just now I tried to put all the posts in order, since they originally posted randomly. This didn't work, because when I reposted them, they would still reappear in random order. This annoyed me. So I took all the posts, combined them into one long entry, and then deleted the other posts. So this entry, for June 16, 2004, is really, really big, but that's because it's actually for several different days. And all the posts are in reverse order, for non-easy reading.)

(Isn't it WEIRD that blogs post in reverse order? Yeah, I guess you do want the new stuff at the top, but when you go back to read entries from months or years ago, you have to go in a weird bottom to top reading pattern. Very odd.

(But who the hell reads old blog entries, y'know? Aside from me and lots of people I don't really know.)


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July 2, 2004
3:18 A.M. EST
Friday

Tonight pretty much sucked. Worked a double and made only $130. Not terrible, I suppose, but, for comparison, last Sunday I made $300 in the same amount of time.

But that's the way the waiting game is played. Some days are good, some days are full of hate for the masses.

Here's tonight's gripe:

Friends, if you make reservations at a restaurant, especially reservations for more than four people, please do your best to SHOW UP ON TIME!

No, being five minutes late is no big deal. Ten to twenty, fine. More than that, and you're a total jerk off in the minds of waiters everywhere.

This is the third time in two weeks I've been screwed out of a good deal of cash because a large group of people didn't show.

Now, for those of you who never waited tables (way too many people), here's how a station works. I'll use tonight's section as an example.

(Yes, "station" and "section" are pretty much interchangeable. It means "the tables that I am in charge of.")

My station tonight was three booths and two six top tables.

(Do I have to explain "six-top table?" I wonder how much assumed knowledge I carry around in my little noggin after a decade of food-service work. Forgive me, restaurant goers "in the know," if I decide to err on the side of clarity. A six top is a table that seats up to six people.)

So I had three four top booths, and two six top tables. My night shift started at five. The three booths got sat pretty much right away. The two tables stayed empty because there was a large party coming in at six-thirty that would use both tables. I think the party was a group of seventeen, which would require both my tables and a third one from someone else. No, we're not going into splitting sections, selling/sharing tables, and table swapping.

All you business kids can understand this: I make money on my tables. People sit there, they eat, they leave me money. If the table is empty, I don't make money on it. Figure ten bucks a table an hour in tips, and I can make fifty bucks an hour in a five table station. Because of this party, I could only make thirty bucks an hour (still great, but that's in the nice perfect world where people tip twenty percent and leave after sixty minutes. That rarely happens, for too many reasons to list here now).

It's not a bad trade off, though, because even though I lose these two tables for an hour and a half, I'll hope to make up extra because generally large parties spend more money, getting bottles of wine, appetizers, and desserts for everyone, making the check bigger and, with decent folks, anyway, the tip bigger. So good, I can wait.

At seven-thirty, I got tired of waiting. Were these people showing or not? The hostesses had no idea. But it's our policy to hold tables for people, even when we're on a wait and someone else would have gladly used the tables.

At eighty, they decided to put this other group there. They were late, getting there at about eight-fifteen, I think.

So I went over three hours with FORTY PERCENT of my section empty, because some idiot made reservations and didn't show. Sure, maybe his kid was in a car accident or his dad died. I don't know. Anything could've happened to these kids. But, as I mentioned, this sort of thing happens frequently, and they can't all be emergencies. I bet most of the time it's a case of "I feel like cooking tonight after all, dear" or "Let's go to Denny's!"

So please, in the future, if you make plans, stick to them. If you decide you don't want to, cool. Call the restaurant and say, "We're canceling. Thanks." That's all it takes, and I go back to making money on someone else.

It's all about politeness in this life. The waiting life.

(Cue sound effect.)

Oh, and the group of ten I got at eight-fifteen? They sat for about two and a half hours. Their check was $173. They asked for separate checks (any good waiter will not bitch about doing so, as long as you understand it takes time to do this, especially with groups with over four members). I split the checks however they wanted and four people paid with credit cards, getting various amounts on each. They also left a lot of cash in the waiter wallet. When I counted the totals, I found that I ended up with twenty-two bucks. They didn't bother checking their math, what with all their separate charges. So I got less than thirteen percent on a table that "thought (I) did a great job." (No, it wasn't lip service. An experienced waiter can tell.)

Twenty-two bucks to show for two six-top tables in an evening. Had there been no large party reservations, I probably could've turned each table three times (that's giving over an hour and a half to each group) and probably made fifteen to thirty bucks on each check for a minimum of forty-five bucks. Maybe I'd only have made ten bucks per table. Maybe nothing. You can never tell, due to the nature of the business, but waiters do play odds. And odds are I would've made about fifty bucks on those two tables in five hours.

Dining lesson finished for now. Bon apeti--

No. No, I'll come up with a cute restaurant-ie phrase to end each post, but that most definitely won't be it.

I like "...but that's the life. The waiting life," followed by a gavel sound like on "Law & Order." But we ain't got no sounds here, so I'll have to come up with something else.

(Yes, I probably won't. How stupid and cheesy would that be? "Law and Order...?" Sheesh.)

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June 28, 2004
1:24 A.M. EST
Monday


Ouch!

I just got home from a rather tiring fifteen hour double shift at the restaurant. Sure, it didn't help that I stayed up seven and then got up at eight-twenty. Sometimes I do okay on an hour and twenty minutes of sleep. Today wasn't one of those times.

Yes, I admit that a nice feeling I had buzzing in my head all day was that "As soon as I get home, I'll have a message in my in-box!"

Man, what stupid-ass high school shit is THIS?

(Stupid high school shit, that's all.)

I get home ten minutes ago, check my e-mails and... nothing. I go to the sight to check messages. Nothing.

NOTHING!

It's fun to sorta be hung up on someone. Sucks to feel like a chump.

Again, I have no witty end line.

God-fuck, am I tired.

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Nope.

Well, crap.

So I'll start dating my own posts now.



June 27, 2004
5:03 A.M. EST
Sunday

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How irritating. These dates are all mixed up.

The post "Wow. Y'know what's irritating..." was written a couple days ago. June 25th, I think. The post, "Yes, I'm a sucker." was written all of ten minutes ago. This post is being written right now at 5:01 A.M. on Sunday, June 27th.

Let's see if it posts correctly.

_____________________________________________________________________

(Written on June 27, 2004 at about 4:51 A.M. EST)

Yes, I'm a sucker.

For self-torturing fun, I just went to that singles site. I looked up that girl's page. And she was on-line! I thought she'd given up the singles page a long time ago. There's always a time next to your profile name that says "Active within 24 hours" or "Active within one week." Hers seemed to always say "Active within five weeks," or some other rather long period of time.

But now she was on-line! At the exact same second I was on-line!

I don't believe in signs, but this was surely one of them.

I paid the twenty-five bucks. Yes, TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS to talk to a girl I don't even want to have sex with!

That says a lot about how cool I think this girl is.

I sent her a message (One credit down). I thought she'd get the message, read it, then read my profile, then think, "Aw, he doesn't look like too much of a rapist. I'll write back and say hello."

I estimated that to take about six minutes, with another minute to two to compose a quick message.

That was three and a half hours ago.

I'm feeling dejected! What's more, I'm feeling like a moron. And a sucker.

What's more than that, I find it all very funny. Not many things in this life can make me feel like an excited little schoolboy. I like feeling this way. Sure, it's depressing and angst-filled, but at the same time hopeful and optimistic.

If only she'd write BACK!!!

Kidding. Really.

I'm going to sleep now. Work in less than four hours.

Four hours... Fuck. It is late.

Sleep probably won't come easily. Good thing I have that fine book of PC maintenance to keep me entertained.

I think I'll also think about the other twenty-four people I feel obligated to contact now.

Maybe I'll hit up that 44 year old lawyer. Or the 19 year old goth chick.

I can't think of a good hook to end this post with!

So I'm leaving.

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(Written on June 25th, or thereabouts)

Wow.

Y'know what's irritating? People who get in a line somewhere and, upon seeing they're going to have to wait more than a minute or two, say, "This is ridiculous."

I hear that a lot. At Sam's, the grocery store, and especially the post office. Even though there are five registers at the post office by me, there are usually only two or three people working the counter. Lines get long. People get irritated. Someone says, "This is re-DIC-ulous..."

The people who say this are usually very similar in appearance. They're always women about forty to fifty years old. They have dark, curly hair (rarely going down past their shoulders). They dress as if they were just painting a house when they remembered they needed to mail something: jeans or old pants, a flannel shirt (open and with a t-shirt underneath). Shitty shoes..

All of these women will say the stupid line and then stare impatiently at the clerks, wondering why the fuck this is taking so goddamn long. There'll be lots of exasperated sighing and swivelling of the hips. Irritated glances exchanged with anyone unfortunate enough to make eye contact with them.

So far, this is all annoying, sure. But now we come to the trait that makes me hate them all as much as I can hate anyone without actually hating someone (yeah, so I'm a pretty nice guy in general). The thing about these people that just SUCKS. After ten or so minutes in line getting annoyed with the line and making sure that everyone in earshot KNOWS that she's annoyed, she finally gets up to the line. And what do we find out here?

If it's the post office: she doesn't have her address labels filled out properly, or she needs a form she didn't look up earlier, or she has five different boxes to mail and isn't quite sure which one gets what kind of shipping

If it's a department store: two or three of the items she's buying won't have tags or an identifiable barcode, forcing the cashier to call someone in that department to look up the proper price (and yes, the woman will get irritated at the cashier for not having memorized the price and department numbers of every piece of merchandise in the store). She won't fill any of her check out (or even fish her checkbook out of her stupidly large purse ahead of time) until the last second.

Regardless of where she is, here's one thing she never learns: She herself is making the line longer!

No, it's not all that big a revelation, but, dammit all, it matters.

IF she would have spent less time bitching about the line and more time making sure all her stuff was in order, she'd have breezed through the process (when it was her turn) and not increased the waiting time of other people. Check to make sure there are labels on all your merchandise. Get your forms of payment ready. Pay attention to the cashier, do as your told, and have all your shit together BEFORE YOU GET TO THE COUNTER.

Clerks and cashiers don't make lines longer. Stupid people do. People who say, "Eighteen-ninety-nine? But the sign said..." "I need this to get to Texas tomorrow. Certified delievery. Insured. I think. Which rate's the cheapest?"

Gosh, do I hate these people. As much as I can.

In America, it's all about me. If someone's in my way, goddamit, you're in my way! If I'm in someone else's way, goddamit, man, what's your fucking hurry?

Yes, people suck, but we can all do a better job.

Next time, get your shit together and know what you need when you get there. Keep practicing, and I promise you'll get there faster.

Heh. All this bitching about stupid people and I haven't even touched on waiting tables yet.

Oh, but I will. And soon. This page ain't called "Waiting Life" for nothing.

Definitely past time for bed... No spell check here, pal.

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June 16, 2004, for real

Y'know, none of these early posts matter. No one reads anyone else's blog until it's been around for at least a year. Can't blame that sort of behavior. Who wants to get involved in a blog that might not last? You form a nice emotional attachment and then the lazy bastard stops writing. It's hard enough to get new posts from those established bloggers who seem to have such a fine writing style.

So, for the next year, I'm working on quantity. Then I'll worry about that whole quality thing.

Irritation for the day: People who borrow computer books from the library and LOSE THE TUTORIAL CD! How hard is it to keep track of a CD that doesn't belong to you? The books even include a little plastic or paper sleeve so you have a handy place to keep the discs.

Like the great writer Camus said: "People who don't respect the belongings of other people deserve a very painful, pretentious (and probably French) death."

(By the by, "The Fall," "The Plague," and "The Stranger" are all fine books. So is "The Evil Dead Companion.")

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And then, on July 2, I fixed my stupid Explorer Cache problem, so the dates are fine from here on out.

Thanks for reading all this mixed-up crap.

It's funny how this blogging thing comes about. I don't know how you got into it, but although I've been an on-line kinda guy for eight or so years now--having racked up months of time in various chat rooms--I never read any blogs. I knew they existed. Heard some were funny. Never read them.

How did it start...

A friend sent me a link to a page on the St. Louis City Paper, The Riverfront Times. Something about a band. I read it and commented, but I was much more interested in the "HOOK UP WITH ME TONIGHT!" ad on the side of the screen. It was a link to the singles service that the Riverfront Times uses.

I signed up immediately and looked for people in the St. Louis area. I grew up there, so maybe I'd see someone I knew. Yes, the chances are stupid, but what else do you do on a singles page when you're not a single?

It had been a while since I'd had any sort of internet addiction. Chatting, porn, chess... They've all come and gone. How can searching through women by age group and zip code like they were so many jackets on a shitty mall store rack not be a temporary fixation? The questions in the forms are stupid, sure, but that's part of the fun. I WANT to know what celebrity you think you look like. Almost everyone said, after listing the name of the resembled star, "or so I'm told." A natural repetitive phrase. I like those.

I soon got tired of searching through the lonely of St. Louis, which is when I found out that this service is nationwide, getting picked up by various on-line sites everywhere. I can look for women in Iowa! (I did.)

So then I started looking for people in D.C. I found HUNDREDS more people. I guess the wimmins in D.C. are just lonelier.

I found a really cute girl who lives only a few miles from me. I really liked her personality (as much of it as I could determine from that goofy questionnaire). She was cute, first of all (blurred picture, but enough to make out what's important). She had a good prose style. She didn't use the standard "I'm a woman and a professional and something of a slob and sexy and well-read but I only said I'm something of a slob so you won't think I'm conceited." Amazing how many clichés pop up when the masses are told to pour their personalities into a form.

So this girl was not form-like. She was cool. I liked her a lot and wanted to say hello. Here's where I found out that in order to contact anyone, you have to pay a whole dollar.

That's not a big deal. I hope I'm never so hard up that I can't invest a buck in chatting with a stranger who seems cool. But you can't just spend one dollar, you have to buy twenty-five dollars worth of credits.

Like I'm going to strike up conversations with twenty-five people I don't even know. How many interesting people can there possibly be on this damn site?

I almost paid the money (yes, she seemed that cool). But this girl was smarter than those other girls. She had written in one of her profile answers the name of her blog, adding that "maybe, just maybe, if you ran a google search... and you did a little reading, you'd find out whether you'd like to get to know me or not."

(You aren't allowed to put e-mail or web addresses in your profile for obvious business reasons, but apparently the trolls who roam those boards aren't all that careful.)

I did a quick web search and found her blog. It was a nice blog, going back almost two years. I spent a few days reading her entries, getting more and more enchanted and wondering why this girl felt the need to put up a profile on a singles board? She's cute, smart, funny, and admired by at least hundreds of internet readers, probably more. She was even nominated for a blog awards (I forget which one. Wil Wheaton won it two years ago).

Reading her blog, I thought, "Wow, the proverbial Beautiful Human Being." What an interesting life she's had, and what great insights she offers for otherwise insignificant events. She instantly charms her readers without using a single idiotic affectation. How amazing is that?! I'd really like to know this girl. So I sent her an e-mail that ended up being much longer than I meant it to be. I didn't notice the typos and shitty wording until after I sent it. Here I didn't even know the girl and already I was feeling like I wore the wrong outfit to the school dance. Maybe I did. I never got a response.

A few weeks later, I wrote another e-mail, telling her my other one was much too long for an introductory e-mail, and dammit, I don't even know if I wrote to the correct address (Is it possible to be that stupid?). Write back. You sound cool.

Again, no response.

I got to thinking that she's just really, really busy. She's probably spending all her time warding off the freaks who write to her daily and tell her that, unlike everyone else, they get her, so move in with me here in my mom's basement in Memphis, 'cause you'll like my weird pets and never having to work again outside of good ol' Woman's Work and Marital Duties...

Do blog celebrities use special spam guards?

As I mentioned, I'm not single. I didn't and don't want any sort of fuckaround fling. She just seemed really cool, and somewhat lonely, and close by (same county, at least). And I know I'm not a freak and that I'm generally fun to be around. So I thought we'd make good friends.

Whenever I think of "making friends," I immediately think of all the times in my life I tried to do so and failed miserably (especially in grade and middle school). I have never made a friend. All of my friends "happened," for one reason or another. I don't have a single friend that I didn't meet at either work or school, our relationship building over varying periods of time into familiarity and then friendliness. Making a friend these days seems way too close to stalking, especially if the object of your interest is someone you found about on an internet singles page.

So I never met her or heard from her or had any interaction with her at all, but I did read her blog, which lead to several other blogs, and now I'm again experiencing that bizarre feeling of familiarity you get with any group when you start to know a few of its better known people, words, and phrases. Sorta like after you read a Star Trek encyclopedia and run into a Trekker at a comic shop somewhere. You can get what he's saying, even if you can't get all he's saying.

Like today, at the library, I picked up "Never Threaten to Eat Your Co-Workers: Best of Blogs." Flipping through it, I recognized at least half the names. After getting home, I looked up some of the blogs I hadn't yet read. (How did I miss Ali Davis's great porn clerk entries?) I enjoyed the majority of these blogs. I like that blogs mostly consist of ideas or experiences that are shared without regard to how well they can be marketed. The only reason anything is punched up or deleted lies solely with the discretion of the writer. This is too personal, too stupid, too boring. Or maybe it's not. Read it. If you don't like it, fuck off. A good attitude, I'd say.

Lately I've been reading a lot by Harlan Ellison, just starting his "Watching" book of essays about film. It seems very blog-like to me. What's the difference between a book of essays and a blog, anyway, except that one's been edited, revised, and edited again, and the other is fresh and new and shitty with only one person to blame and honor? The idea is the same.

By the by, Ellison and William Goldman are my two favorite writers in the film field. They're such assholes! But passionate ones, and I love them for that.

I hate the phrase "But I digress," even when I do. I could have called this blog "TangentMan." I didn't because that would be dumb.

Back to the girl: Very soon after not hearing from her, I started this blog. Still not sure why. I'm sure I thought it'd be fun, and unlike those others who are too lazy to commit to anything, I won't ever go more than a week without writing something.

Hurm...

Did I complete a point here? I think I was writing about how I found out about blogs. I also think I had something of a nice little story in mind. Once again, I rambled.

I'm a bit too tired at the moment to rework this entire entry. Should blogs be edited at all? Doesn't that kill the spontaneity? Do you ever wonder if someone spends hours writing the perfect blog, then goes back and puts in a few typos so it'll look like he just quickly tossed off something from the back of his mind? Does "tossed off" make you think of masturbation?

Y'know, looking over this page, I notice I wrote this entire entry without mentioning the girl's name or blog. I'm not sure why I did that.

Okay, now it's ten minutes later and I'm still not sure why I did that. Does anyone care? This is a blog, after all, so probably not.

Ah, I see. I'm thinking if I put her name in here, she'll find it somehow (searching the web for references to her site, you see), dig up the two e-mails I sent to her, write to me, and say, "Wow, you sound like great fun! Let's go hang out and not have sex!" But then I'd always wonder if she's thinking I'm really a psychotic freak in my mom's basement in Memphis, who stole the bulk of this entry from someone else and put it here to make it sound like I'm not a freak, and then, at last, when she least expects it...

I'm really not paranoid. But I do like to think up funny stuff.

Her name is--


Ha! Now it's about three weeks later (June 27 at 4:45 A.M).

I DID post here name here, but now I'm taking it down. Why? Still can't give you a clear reason.

But it don't matter, do it? Nobody's reading this goofy thing. Call it bonus points if you've REALLY been here since the beginning. If you haven't, then I'm glad your life is interesting enough to not spend it reading the blogs of unknown and unaccomplished people.

I feel like popcorn!