Waiting Life

2005-03-02T11:34:00.000-05:00

News Flash: Cop Pulls Over a Person Who Felt a Need to Write a Blog Entry About It!

This last weekend was a rough one. My double Thursday sucked because of the snow. Hardly anyone came in. I made ninety-eight bucks in twelve hours. My Friday double was much better (the days after a bad storm are usually good, because people like to get out). After work Friday, I went with a few people to a bar down the street. After that, I hung out with a friend until about five in the morning.

I should have slept in the next morning, but for some reason, I woke up at ten and couldn't get back to sleep. I did some editing for a while and went to work at four.

That shift was insanely busy and happily very profitable. I was damnably tired when I finally clocked out at just after one in the morning. Not only was I running on little sleep, I'd only eaten a can of tuna fish all day. But the lack of sleep or food didn't stop me from having a drink at the bar as soon as I was off. Very quickly, I felt my face freeze up in that wonderful, slightly buzzed sort of way. I remember saying suddenly--loudly, interrupting whatever conversation had been going on--"Ye Gods, I'm already fucked up!." There was a pause, and everyone went back to their conversations. I drank a glass of iced tea before I left the restaurant at about two-thirty.

I drove home carefully, going only a few miles over the speed limit (This is a good practice. Everyone speeds a little bit. Going under the speed limit only draws attention.). I was just getting to my neighborhood when I realized I needed to make a left, but I was in the right lane. There was only one other car next to me, who irritatingly felt a need to go my exact speed. So I gunned it, whipped in front of him, and made my turn.

I make three turns to get from the entrance of my developement to my apartment. I made the first turn and saw a cop car way behind me. I made the second and saw he was still there. By the third, I knew I was fucked. Cops on the prowl, even without their lights on, move like sharks going after prey. That steady, sure motion is instantly recognizable.

I pulled into a parking space in front of my door, hoping that my being home and no longer needing to drive would play in my defense somehow (it has worked in the past).

The cop turned on his lights and pulled up behind me.

And just like that, I was back in Thompson mode.

Sorry to be so damn repetitive with my last three posts, dear reader, but getting pulled over calls for that kind of behavior, right?

And I heard the voice in my head, taking stock of the situation: "You're a very scrawny fucker who hasn't eaten or slept much and you have alcohol in your system One beer alone will put you at 1.0. If he pulls out a breathalyzer, you are done."

I pushed the line "Make the bastard chase you" out of my head and rolled down my window (Why make the officer have to knock?).

After walking up, he stood slightly out of my sight: "Sir, that was an awfully dangerous move you made back there."

"Good evening, sir. Yes. Yes, it was. Sorry." (No, I didn't "do the voice," although I did lower mine a bit.)

"How much have you had to drink?"

"Just a beer, sir. I just worked a nine-hour shift--"

"Where?"

I told him and continued, "Had a beer, then I came home."

"Can I see your license and registration, sir?"

"Of course."

I pulled out my wallet and gave the man my driver's license and insurance card.

"Not your insurance card. Your registration."

"Oh. Yeah."

I grabbed my owners manual with all the car-related papers and flipped through it. I took out the Personal Property tax form and showed it to him.

"Is that it?"

"No."

I'm not sure what the other legal-looking page was, but I held that up, too.

"No."

I showed him a few more pages, all of which he said were wrong.

"I just bought this car last year. I'm sure I have all the right stuff. My apartment's right there. Let me go in and get it for you."

"That's all right, sir. Just wait in the car." With that, he walked away.

I've been pulled over maybe six times in my life. I've had three speeding tickets, all of them fairly minor (never any points on my license). And not one police officer has ever asked me for my registration.

He was gone for over ten minutes.

I thought back to a story I'd heard recently about a man who got pulled over and knew he was drunk, so he stalled the cop as much as possible, asking questions, making conversation. All while doing this, he was moving around, drinking water, eating crackers; doing whatever he could to work the alcohol out of his system. I heard that it worked. And why should I take any chances?

I drank the rest of my iced tea, ate the rest of a can of cashews I had in the car, along with a package of Austin peanut butter crackers. Then I took a Listerine tab. After that, I smoked a cigarette. I don't know what affect the cigarette would have--good or bad--but I felt I needed one. This was the first time I had ever smoked a cigarette in my car. The window was down, and I kept the cigarette out the door, but still, there it was, precedent started.

The officer finally came back.

"Sir, I'm not going to give you a ticket for not having your registration, but I am giving you one for making that dangerous turn. No points on your license, a seventy-five dollar fine."

"I see."

"When you jumped that lane and made the left turn, you forced the car behind you to slam on its brakes. You didn't signal, so he had no warning."

(I don't recall seeing two cars behind us, but I know that I did use my turn signal. I know this because I always use my turn signal. It's a habit, brought on by hate. It irritates me greatly when people misuse a turn signal. I'd almost rather they didn't use it at all, rather than turn it on too late. Using your signal after you change lanes is about as stupid as making the phone ring after the other person picks up. The same goes for people who turn on their signals while waiting at a red "turn only" light. Of course you're going to turn here. You have no choice unless you're planning on running straight through that building somehow. It would have been better if you'd have used your signal to show you were getting into the turn lane itself, but that's too complicated for you, isn't it, moron?

My, I can bitch about anything, can't I?

So, yes, I used my signal, but I only hit it a second or so before switching lanes, and I know that that is a totally wrong and shitty thing to do. The guy on my left seemed determined to stay beside me, slowing when I slowed and speeding when I sped. I gunned it out of irritation, and got nailed for it. Did the alcohol have any part in that? I'll never tell. (Heh. Sounds like a commercial.)

Back to the story.)

The officer continued, "That caused the two cars behind him to brake, and it could have caused an accident. I thought for certain you were drunk, but maybe that one beer affected your judgement."

"Yes, after working so long--"

"Hey, man, I understand. I'm running on four hours sleep and working a twenty-four hour shift, so believe me, I know how it feels. Just be more careful. It's better to drive another block and turn around if you miss an exit, then possibly cause an accident."

I signed the form, took back my license, and watched him through the mirror as he got in his car and drove off. I waited a few minutes for no reason, then went inside. I had a brief conversation--during which I mentioned nothing of the ticket--then chatted on-line for about an hour. I didn't fall asleep until after four, then got up at eight to be back at work at eight-forty-five.

So what's the life lesson here? I think it's "Don't get pissed at people driving next to you and jump ahead of them at two-thirty in the morning after you've been drinking especially when there's a copy behind you."

And I'll never do it again. Probably.

There are two comments to make about this. First of all, most importantly, it is not true that all Montgomery County cops are assholes. I've heard this time and again from people. I've heard lots of stories from reliable people that validate this claim. And it is true, there are a lot of shitty cops in the world, and some of them are around here. But this guy was professional, polite, and human. I did a bad thing and he busted me for it. Could have been A LOT worse, if he'd have given me any drunkard tests. I'm not about to fight this fine.

Which brings me to point number two.

Lately, I've gotten to be all kinds of social. I've gone from "maybe a beer or two a month" to "maybe four or five a night." Just so happened that on this night I didn't have much anything at all. I know my recent socializing is brought on by post break up crap, even though I haven't had any of the lingering depression for well over a month now (I haven't carried that little "feelings journal" around since January, simply because I don't need it anymore).

The time has come for me to be a little less wreckless, a little more thoughtful, and most definitely a lot less drunk. The seventy-five dollar fine seems like a good amount to pay. It's not enough to make me feel like I really fucked up, but it's enough to slap me in the face and make me pay attention to what I'm doing. More than that, for me to realize things could have been a whole lot worse. I've had friends get pulled over for similar things and, through chance alone, ended up with thousands of dollars in fines, along with raised insurance rates and legal issues to deal with. I got off easy, and I'm not going to let that lesson go to waste.

So you see, kids, the system can work, if you work with it.

(But watch! The gods of mischeif will play a joke on me, and I'll end up in prison for a crime I didn't commit. It'll make for a good story, and as long as I have internet access, I think I'll be fine.)

2005-02-23T14:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I read The Washington Post's two page article on Thompson, written by Henry Allen. I noticed that not only did he quote the same passage I referred to--the "high-water mark"--he also made mention of young Thompson typing out The Great Gatsby. And there's also the reference to Thompson ending his life like Hemingway, a writer Thompson admired.

I think of the scope of Thompson's life, all the things he did, people he met, stories he wrote, and it just seems odd that in the space of a few short pages, the same seemingly minor events would appear. It's like once a person dies, all that's left of him--the man himself, not his work--is a series of trivial events, like in the Biography section of any actor on the IMDb.

I found my fisherman's hat and aviator sunglasses in a box yesterday and wore them while I edited (didn't buy any liquor, 'cause I wasn't in the mood). I randomly recited certain memorized passages and poems of the man, doing my best to imitate his mumbled, gutteral drawl. Honestly, it felt equal parts foolish, stupid, and pointless. Maybe because I didn't have an audience. Maybe because even if I had an audience, they would wonder why I was talking so weird and acting so strange and would you give me back my fucking beer, you asshole.

I put the hat and sunglasses back in the box and returned to editing. It looks like a two page write up in major newspapers is all the eulogy Thompson's gonna get, and he'd probably like it that way. Thompson, the man, doesn't need to be analyzed. He just needs to be read.

Res Ipsa Loquitor.

2005-02-21T16:11:00.000-05:00

Swan Song of the Doomed

Last night I shot a short movie I've been writing for a while. I took some scenes from my old movie about waiting tables that folded partway through production and wove a narrative around it. It plays okay for a ten minute short and it was a lot of fun to do. I had a good time acting with John again, and Chris ran the camera for us.

We shot from about seven to eleven. When we finished, we grabbed some burgers and went over to John and Chris's place to watch the footage. John and I sat on the couch while Chris moved back and forth from the computer room where he was chatting on-line to the living room (since he held the camera, he'd already seen everything).

About half way through the tape--laughing more at the screw ups than the successes, which makes me wonder how this movie will turn out--Chris came back into the room and said, "Hey, Dan." I looked at him. People in groups of three only use first names if it's to get one's direct attention. I waited for it. "Hunter S. Thompson is dead. He shot himself."

After a pause, John said, "Jeez, Chris, you really know how to kill a room..."

I first found out about Hunter's writings like I found out about most things in my young life, through being a big fan of Saturday Night Live since shortly after I started walking. I watched everything the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players did outside of the show. Some time in the early eightes, I saw pieces of a movie that ran on late-night television (probably one of the cheaper cable channels, because I know I saw various parts of this film over the course of several months) where Bill Murray wore sunglasses, smoked cigarettes out of a filter, and threatened to beat the crap out of everyone. The movie didn't make any sense to me, but I always enjoy watching Murray in any role and thought it was funny. The movie was "Where the Buffalo Roam." I found out later that Murray was playing a real person called Hunter S. Thompson. The name stuck with me.

Shortly after I started smoking at the end of 1990, then eighteen years old, I took a trip to visit my sister in Memphis. Driving around the dirtier sides of town (sadly too young to enjoy the finer points of Beale Street), I walked into a tobacco shop and saw a cigarette filter much like Thompson's. It was black with a silver tip, but close enough, so I bought it. There was no reason for me to buy it other than I thought it looked cool. I had never seen anyone else use a filter for their cigarettes, and I was still in that "If no one else is doing it, it must be cool" phase. Ah, to be a teenager again...

I probably would have only used the filter for a couple days as a novelty if not for a few practical considerations. I had just given up my "commercial/comic book artist" major and switched over to writing. I got a Canon StarWriter word processor and wrote a novel in two months (and it has all the flaws a novel written by an nineteen year old kid would have, although I still like reading it every few years). I liked having the filter to hold cigarettes as I typed. And since I was spending so much time driving from St. Louis to Memphis to Chicago in those days, I liked the way the ashes flew out the cracked window, so I didn't have to use the ashtray so much. Mostly, I think, I just got used to the taste (It's not just a holder; it filters the tar and gives the cigarette a different taste.).

But as I found out, using a cigarette filter is not at all considered "cool." Most people just wonder why the hell I use it. I've heard all sorts of comments about it, like being told if I was "three feet shorter and six feet wider" I'd look just like the Penguin, and general questions about that "half a fag" filter. Not too many people, surprisingly or not, have asked me if I'm gay.

None of this stopped me from keeping my filter. Popular opinion doesn't hold much for the adult version of a solitary child. I wear socks with my sandals because it feels better. I rarely take my jacket off in public, even when sitting down to dinner, because I like having all my stuff with me. So the filter has always been with me.

And every once in a while, someone would say, "Hey, you have a cigarette filter like Hunter S. Thompson!" (Sometimes, I would get "You have a cigarette filter like Bill Murray in that movie..." In the last few years, it's been "that movie with Johnny Depp.")

After hearing that enough times, when I happened upon a copy of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," I read it. I thought it was great. Can't say I got that much out of the drug stuff, though. I never used drugs, didn't know the allure, and always thought using drugs just to use drugs was boring, both in fiction and in the real world (Anyone who's gone to a party with a drunk knows there are few things less interesting than the drunk himself, unless he gets arrested, in which case wacky antics can ensue).

But reading the book, I thought, "The prose is so damn good!" There are some great passages in that book. I loved Hunter's take on being alive in the sixties and how America was starting to change in the seventies. The section about looking west and seeing "the high water mark" especially struck me when I read it (they used that bit--almost word for word--in the Johnny Depp movie version). Here was a guy who knew how to draw you in and see the world as he saw it, making the trivial seem important, and knowing that danger could be anywhere (real or imagined).

I picked up a few other Thompson books over the next few years. I liked most of "Songs of the Doomed," but not so much of "Generation of Swine" (His political stuff is only interesting if it's fairly new. In the mid-nineties, who still cared about Gary Hart?). I read his collections of old letters.

I also read three biographies of the man. They all seem to be written with a sense of awe, as if the authors knew their subject was more than a man, almost godlike in his ability to create himself from such a young age. His persona was almost fully in place by the time he was twelve. That could just be retroactive invention, but most people seem willing to accept it.

I had a good idea of the man Dr. Thompson was. I no longer saw him as a Bill Murray type charicature, but almost as a force of nature (Jack Nicholson called him a "baffling human iceberg." A fine description of the man.). Being an impressionable youth, I adapted some of his writing style into my own (I've come to believe that every writer is simply a composite of the styles of the writers that impressed him the most, mixed with personal experiences. I've had all the late night arguments and discussions that this belief brings, both from those who agree and disagree.). More than that, his general mindset seemed almost alluring to me, possibly because he was so much different than me. I'd almost go so far as to say we were polar opposites. Regardless of the meanings, I liked to try to view life through his eyes, on his terms. I was big into acting at the time, taking on characters, and I'm sure that played a good part in it all.

For Hallowe'en of 1996 and again in 2002, I dressed as Thompson for the celebration at whatever restaurant where I was working. I had the fisherman's hat, gold sunglasses, Hawaiian shirt, white pants. Even a bag with grapefruit, Wild Turkey, and large knives. Always getting into character, the whiskey was real, and added a fine sense of danger to a shift (drinking on the job will always get you fired unless you're one of the valued few, and even then you're issued a corrective of some kind). In '96, the costume suited the way I was living at the time, going through a bottle of whiskey a day while writing my thesis paper for my degree. The paper was about the drug culture in modern society and, in true Gonzo mode, I spent weeks following my coworkers around to various parties and raves, making notes as they got as fucked up as possible. I contrasted it with my own drinking, comparing illegal drugs to legal ones and asking if one was really any worse than the other. The paper, as originally written, could have been written by a lesser-experienced clone of Thompson, with doomsday sayings and all the heightened drama of fairly ordinary situations.

After six or so months, I got bored of the new addiction (constant drinking) and gave it up. The paper, when I finally turned it in, had very little left of me as an active participant. I had turned it into a more or less standard research paper. I wouldn't pass it off as art, but it did eventually earn me my degree.

But those six months as the alcoholic writer (who also waited tables) stuck with me, and whenever I decide to socialize with people, whether I'm a full time smoker at the time or not, I buy a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of whiskey, grab the filter and sometimes even the hat and sunglasses, and proceed to be as incredibly bizarre as possible. It's sort of childish play-acting, but it comes out so naturally that most people only think I'm somewhat drunk. Fact is, I hardly ever get past buzzed, but at a party it's sometimes fun to act that way, if only to guage people's reactions.

As I said earlier, I don't like drunks. They're loud, irritating, and incoherent. But when you gain that shield of irresponsibility for your actions (Everyone forgives a good friend for a single night of drunkenness), you can pull off some pretty damn funny situations. That's usually my goal in any social setting, seeing how far I can push people, but still not come off as a total jerk off. Besides, social situations where everyone sits around gossiping are damnably boring.

So I've long had a disposition to "act like" Thompson. It's like he's a role I played on stage and had trouble completely shaking off. When the mood hits me or the situation calls for it, Thompson can always quickly come out to take charge and make for a very lively evening.

If I had some weird urge to act like a Festrunk brother (Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin on SNL), people would get that I was doing an impression. It's not like that with Thompson. A lot of people don't know who he is ("Ain't he a poet or somethin'?"). Both times I dressed as him for Hallowe'en, a few people said, "Are you supposed to be Gilligan?" This allows a certain freedom, and not just because I'm being judged on the success level of the impression. To those few who do recognize who I'm going for, they seem to feel like they're in on a joke, and woe to the poor bastards who don't know what to expect. I try to only spend time with those who welcome any change from the ordinary.

To my closer friends, they've always accepted that I'm simply a fan of Thompson, with a weird habit of falling into his character from time to time (again, no one close has ever told me not to do this, reinforcing the idea that it's worth doing). This explains Chris's almost reverential tones in telling me that Thompson died. I've already recevied two calls today asking me "How I'm doing."

Honestly, I don't know how I'm doing. Death always sucks, yeah, but it's not like I ever met the guy. I haven't read all of his books or all his articles, but I keep tabs on him, like I would an estranged uncle who gets into trouble with the law and whose name pops up at the dinner table every once in a while. I always paid attention when Thompson's name popped up in the news. I just liked knowing that he was around, out there, keeping an eye on things, and always able to bring back a story.

And now he's dead.

Hunter read a lot as a child. People interviewed about him have said that he was at a college-age reading level by the time he hit high school. He loved the giants of American literature, like Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway (If I remember correctly from one biography, when he was a kid he once typed "The Great Gatsby" verbatim on his typewriter "just to know how it felt to write great words."). Maybe the connection was greater than he knew, which is why he, like Hemingway, decided to kill himself. Hemingway had good--or at least understandable--reasons for wanting to die (a crapload of health and mental problems), but Hunter seemed fit. The piece he wrote last November in Rolling Stone backing Kerry was just as well-written as anything from the seventies, and I had the impression afterwards that he seemed eager to ride Bush's ass for the next four years, gleefully pointing out his inadequacies and failings.

But it won't happen. No more reports about how the world is doomed. No more hard stories about the excesses of minor celebrities and major politicians who will soon lose their hold on the spotlights they crave while pretending to hate. It feels like one more strong, independent voice is gone, to be replaced by the crappy blandness of CNN-style coverage. No heart or insight, just the facts as they choose to show them. No emotional frame of reference. No anger and outrage. No voice to tell you that this is wrong.

People complained that Thompson was getting repetitive in recent years, and I agreed with them, but I knew that he was still there. He had all the potential. Like a shitty season of Saturday Night Live, where you can say, "Yeah, that sucked, but mabye next year it'll be better," and sometimes it does improve. Sometimes it doesn't. But it gives you something to hope for.

I can't imagine anyone taking Thompson's place. There's no one readily available, but maybe with the hole death has created, a new voice will appear. It'll probably come from a high profile web site. Thompson ventured into film and the internet, but he was mostly at home on the printed page, where his most profound works appeared. This new guy will have to have all of Thompson's singleminded determination, strong will, experience and knowledge, and the added bonus of being internet savvy. Yes, I know I sound like a comic book dork trying to come up with a mythical creature who could possibly take down Superman. But we do need someone slightly on the outside of mainstream culture, looking in, and, while not telling us what to think, showing us that certain events are important and need to be questioned, considered, and acted upon.

I'm not feeling pessimistic or angry. Mostly, just sad at the loss, and left with the feeling that if George Carlin dies anytime soon, we will all be doomed.

2005-01-20T04:16:00.000-05:00

For the last two months I've been carrying a reporter pad notebook around with me. It's always in my apron at work or in my jacket outside of work so I can write whenever the need hits me. And the need has been there a lot lately.

The books are not filled with cute stories about waiting tables (maybe a few, out of habit). The books are filled with the most horrible of all writing: minor post-break-up mental breakdowns.
For the last two months I've been all kinds of fucked up, mentally speaking. It hasn't been so bad that I couldn't function. I haven't missed a single shift at work, and I've done a few other odd things besides. I flew to Minneapolis the first week of December to be best man in an old pal's wedding. For Christmas week, I flew home to Missouri and spent some time with my family and friends.

I took notes and wrote about almost everything I've done for the last two months, but I can't concentrate on any story long enough to finish it. More than that, the prose has this terrible dread hanging over it, like everything's being seen through depression-tinted glasses. I think it was just a lapse in my general mood that allowed me to write that bit last month about how I didn't urinate on my car.

To repeat the girlfriend basics, in 1992, when I was twenty, I met my (now ex) girlfriend in Missouri. She was from the D.C. area. I followed her home and have been here ever since, with a few extended stays in Missouri from time to time. She's the only girlfriend I've ever had.
Despite having met and worked with hundreds of people in my time out here, at various restaurants, a tv studio, and a recording studio, I don't have many D.C. area friends. I count four of them--all male--and two of them I see very rarely. These are good friends, too. I've got no complaints against any of them. Well, against one, I suppose, but he's a good guy, just a little… ah, young. He'll grow out of it.

I have no close female friends out here. There are a lot of girls who I know, talk to, and am on friendly terms with, but for any number of reasons, none of these girls have made the jump from acquaintence to actual friend.

I like having girl friends. Or, more precisely, friends who are girls. There are certain things that I can discuss with girls that are somewhat awkward to talk about with guys. Sports, cars, drinking, fucking. Those are guy subjects. But try having a conversation that starts with "I feel like this and I'm not sure why…" with a guy and you're going to get some pretty weird responses, followed--at best--with some very practical, rational, reasonable advice that isn't quite helpful. I think this is because, being a guy myself, I already know that sort of thinking. I want to know what the other half thinks. Women have a fantastic way of approaching any given subject from a point of view that I usually hadn't even considered. It opens up new ways of thinking, and rarely is the conversation ended without me receiving several new points to ponder.

But, as I said, I have no close female friends out here.

This became painfully apparent to me recently, right after I split with my girlfriend. The reason, obviously, is that when I was with her, I didn't need any close female friends. She wouldn't have objected to me having any "girls who are friends." I just didn't bother looking for any.

As of right now, I feel really weird talking to my ex (still hate that phrase) about any sort of "What I'm feeling" stuff. I imagine that in a few weeks or months, we'll hit that good "Remember when…" stage where we can talk about anything, but right now, talking to her about personal depression stuff feels really awkward, to say the least. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does.

In Missouri, I have people I've known since I was ten who I can talk to about anything. But they're eight hundred and fifty miles away. I can send them e-mails. I can call them. I can feel bad I didn't get to see them that week I was in Missouri recently. But phone calls and e-mails only go so far. There's no substitute for a real, live person sitting across from you, reading your expressions, catching your inflections, and being able to take a long pause to consider things without having to wonder if the cell phone lost its signal.

I wrote a piece for this blog in late November called "Friendship" but never posted it. It looked a little too unfinished (and, as I said, depressing). Now that I'm quoting from it, I guess I don't need to post it, and maybe it's better that way.

The piece was about the various kinds of friends a person has. I focused on the big two: work friends and real friends, and gave a few examples.

A work friend is someone you pal around with on the job and have a good time with while you're working, but as soon as work ends--as soon as there is no set reason for the two of you to be together--you go your separate ways. Maybe stop off for a drink or two, but that's it. If work was somehow removed from both your lives--the company went out of business, whatever--you two would not see each other again except by accident, no matter what promises were made to "keep in touch."

A real friend is a person who spends time with you no matter where either of you work. Effort is made on the part of either your or him to get together and do things, or just talk on the phone.
Obviously, in my long restauranting career, I have made many, many work friends. People who I liked and liked me but neither of us had anything in common with the other aside from the job, and it was only because of certain personality traits that we got along with each other better than with some of the others.

A work friend can make the jump to a real friend, provided enough outside activity happens. The two of you get together, find you like lot of the same things or are just comfortable with each other, and then the get-together times become self-sustaining almost by themselves. And there you are: A new friend.

(I've never seen it happen where a real friend becomes only a work friend. That would be weird, I think. An extremely soul-crushing job would have to do it.)

So those are work friends and real friends. You get what I’m saying.

Sometimes, the line between real friend and work friend gets blurred, and you're not sure if this is the start of a real friendship or if you're just intruding on someone's personal time and you need to get the fuck out. It's a tricky thing. I'd say that if you have doubts, it's not gonna work out.

I was trying to think of a simple way to separate the real friends from the work friends. A common characteristic, or some action to define a real friend.

And this is what I came up with. No, it's not elegant like String Theory, but it says what I mean, and even though I wrote this a long time ago and have been attacking it with newer ideas ever since, I haven't found anything to prove it wrong in my personal experience. Maybe you'll find that you have in yours. Regardless, here's the line:

A real friend is someone who calls you when there is no need to do so.

Awkwardly written, sure. Maybe "A real friend is somone who spends time with you needlessly." Or, to use less words, "A real friend calls you without need."

I still like the first one better. It works like this:

The work friends only call about work. "Can you pick up my shift tomorrow night?" "Did you get the memo on the TPS reports?" "You're fired, jerk-off." "Will you be picking me up tomorrow morning, Frank?"

There is a need to call, because something related to work needs refinement or explanation or planning, and work is necessary because without it, we don't make money and we can't pay bills and we die slow deaths. Chances are, the person would be calling you even if he hated your guts (in that case of that last one, depending on how much he disliked public transportation).
It's possible that it could be a little more personal than that, such as calling to remind someone to bring in a movie you wanted to borrow or ask if plans were still on for everyone to go out to a certain restaurant for lunch the next day. But it still involves being at work.

So all these kinds of calls say nothing about personal feelings, because a separate need was there which is what caused the call to happen.

Now onto the needless call.

If a person calls you for no other reason than to inquire as to your day, ask if you knew a certain bit of humorous information, or make plans for a get-together later, then he must genuinely want to be reaching you. Not the copy boy. Not the office manager. Not the door guard. You, personally. So he must like you, and he must want to give up his own free time to spend with you.

(I'm not going into corporate politics, manipulations, and all that crap. Nice thing about waiting tables is there's hardly any political shit at all. Fuck all the managers you want, you're still not getting more than $2.38 an hour, just like everybody else. Unless you plan on suing later, that is, you dirty bastard.).

Notice that I said need instead of reason. Nobody does anything without reason. People say stuff like "He did that for no reason!" but that's not at all accurate. Look softly enough, and you'll see that every action a human being makes has a reason. Most of the time, the reason is "'Cause I felt like it," but that is still a reason in itself.

Now I feel like I got all pedantic without properly explaining what I really mean. I think it's that self doubt creeping back in. I have a good deal of that lately.

Over the years, I've met a few people at various jobs who I really liked a lot and wanted to make the transition from work friend to real friend. Without exception, every attempt has failed.

As I said in a previous post, "How the heck do you make friends, anyway?" I don't think you can, and most people seem to agree with me on this. In my experience, all of my friends just happened, gradually and without much notice. Usually, it'd be a case where I went to school with them or worked with them and somehow we just ended up being outside of work friends. Wasn't planned at all. It happened and here we are.

All of these "happening" friendships were with guys. It has never happened with a girl. There are reasons for this, as I'll write soon enough.

I wasn't interested in any of these "female work friends" in that way. I genuinely liked their personalities and wanted to spend time with them. Have conversations. Watch movies. That sorta thing. I wanted those same enjoyable work experiences to happen away from work. This is very practical because, as every work friend knows, when one of you leave, the friendship is over. I was looking for ways to sustain that friendship.

But anytime you want something, you risk appearing obsessed, especially if you want it badly enough. And that brings me to another term I think I made up myself: the "Platonic Crush."Never heard that anywhere else, but I came up with it some years ago to explain how I felt about certain girls. It sums my feelings up rather well. I see a girl, get to know her, realize she's really cool and fun to be around, and then I get sorta hooked on her. But, at the same time, I have no desire to have sex with her. I usually don't even find these girls attractive, even when I know they're attractive.

It's genuinely not freakish obsessive behavior. I've had several of these crushes now, and they all happen the same way. And this goes back as far as middle school.

It happens like this: First of all, the girl and I are put into a situation where we see each other frequently. Way back when, it was being in the same classroom. Now, it's just working together.
Secondly, I realized I usually didn't notice these girls for months or longer. Each girl was just one of many that I went to school with or worked with and didn't pay any attention to. They were background people, members of a crowd that I had no feelings about one way or another

And then the change happens. It's usually like this: (really)

I'm minding my own business, being goofy and weird in my own special way, when the girl I didn't formerly notice asks something very personal of me. Either confiding in me all kinds of personal shit or saying I'm really cool and we should hang out or something in between.

Most of the time, I'm playing Mr. Counsellor to them. But the "let's hang out" thing happens a lot, too.

And I think, "Wow! This person likes me because she confided all this really heavy personal shit in me and wants my opinions, or she said that we should go out and do stuff together. Cool!"And, for the last twelve years, all the girls who treated me this way knew I had a girlfriend, so I never felt like I was "being hit on." Not that I could feel that way, anyway. I'm a gawky sort, you see. Charming in my own way, sure, but gawky, and not the sort of boy a girl hits on abruptly like that.

So I always took it as "This girl wants to be friends."(It sounds so stupid to say that. "Wants to be friends" is a horrible, horrible line, and dredges up memories of all kinds of shitty kiddie books and after school specials.)

Here's what happens the next day. Either I show up and say, "I thought about your problem and have a few ideas…" or "Hey, I know what would be fun for us to do…" and the response is always the same:"What the fuck are you talking about?"Not in words, no. In attitude. Like that little girl in that graduation story I wrote, it's as if she was saying, "I confided in you 'cause I needed it at the time, but it didn't mean anything, so please back off." In the other case, it's usually, "Oh, that was just talk. I didn't mean I really wanted to go out and do stuff with you. You're just fun to be around at work. And just at work."

It's like saying "We'll keep in touch" to the departing coworker. You mean it when you say it, all full of good-bye sentimentality at the time, but a week or so later, when the feeling is gone, then you're left thinking, "Why did I say I'd keep in touch with that guy? I barely knew him."

You didn't lie. Just felt differently at the time. And it's the same way with "We should go out." Maybe that was a really good day, and work was fun and we were both laughing a lot, and she thought it'd be cool to do this or that and we'd have just as much fun. But then the day ended, and a few days later, when the mood had faded, she might remember saying the words, but not the reason why, and so she's left with the embarassing feeling of hoping I don't ever ask when we're going out, but I do ask, and am usually met with some sorta weird vibe that's like "Uh… I can't believe we had sex last night. Let's pretend it never happened and never mention it again."

(Y'know, it occurs to me right now that I could just be making myself sound like a total perv/skeev/freak who scares the hell outta women. But in defense against that, if I was so off-putting, then why would I get told such incredibly personal shit from coworkers, and invited out in the first place? Every job has the token "unsanitary, lecherous sloth who probably molested someone at one time or another." This could not be me because, as far as I know, I am not perceived as slothful.)

This is how all six of my "Platonic Crushes" have ended up. (Yes, six. I counted.) A girl confides in me or heavily compliments me, I respond in what I think is an understandable or appropriate way, and then I get he big smackdown, which, sadly, isn't a smackdown so much as a let down, a slow and uneasy parting of the ways, resulting in awkward glances and dismissing comments until one of us leaves for good.

Also, I'm not such a sensitive fool to think one or two nights of conversation should lead to a good friendship. Usually, the relationship (such as it is) grows over the course of a few weeks. I always get lulled into a sense that, no, it's not my imagination, this girl is genuinely comfortable around me.

I really hate pushy guys. I'm not much of a regular guy, anyhow. I don't care much at all for sports or alcohol, and I never think "Man, I'd like to fuck that hot chick" just because she's hot (I've met far too many beautiful women who were actually very, very ugly.).

One trait most regular guys have is the arrogant belief that the girl he likes likes him back just as much and probably more. "C'mon, baby, hang out with me. Let's get some drinks after work. Come back to my place. It'll be fun. You'll like it."

That, to me, is an asshole. Forcing yourself on someone who doesn't want to be around you in social ways isn't as bad as doing so in physical ways (that'd be rape), but it's still horribly inconsiderate and unsettling. It puts the girl on the defensive, to where she has to stand up for herself (knowing she'll probably be called a "stuck up lesbian" by the guy), or just deal with it and politely put the guy off (in which case he'll call her "a tease"). Either way the girl looks bad, and all because a guy can't understand that he's not the center of the whole damn planet.

With this always in mind, I do not force myself on anyone. To people who say, "You gotta go for the gold! You gotta take what you want!' I say, "You gotta take a step back and pay attention to what's going on around you, you inconsiderate fuck."

So for me to get attached to any girl--to think she actually wants to make the jump from work friend to real friend--takes a whole lot of signs on her part.

The most difficult part of a Platonic Crush is because of how it is perceived. It's easy to try to have sex with a girl, but it's much harder when you don't want to. If you see a girl you want to have a serious "dating and maybe marriage but definately fucking" kinda relationship, you pursue her and hope she likes what you're selling. She gets that signal right away and knows how to respond to it, either positively or negativesly. I don't even think this is learned behavior. Females have been batting down eager males since the planet first cooled.

But that only applies to the big sex. When you have no romantic or sexual feelings for the girl at all--you just like her personality and want to spend time with her--you're left adrift in a sea of mixed signals.

All girls have a nice defense mechanism for warding off unwanted boys. They see signs quickly. "He's complimenting my hair, my shoes, my eyes. He wants something. I'm not attracted to him. I better laugh off the compliment with the standard 'This old thing?' or 'Oh, you're just being silly'…" That way I don't come off as stuck up and he's not encouraged."

If you ever get a Platonic Crush on a girl, try saying "I like you a lot and want to spend time with you" to her and see if she doesn't listen to your words and somehow hear, "This guy just wants to fuck me, like all the others."

(Boy, does it feel even more shitty when the girl in question is someone that nobody finds attractive, but she still tries to ward you off. Even in that situation, cries of "I just like hanging out with you" sounds more and more like reverse psychology.)

Anyone else currently hearing a few lines from "When Harry Met Sally?". "Men and women can never be friends. The sex thing always gets in the way."

Is that the universal truth, then? It would suck if it was true, because honestly there's nothing like talking to a really cool girl about some of the things that guys just don't get.

(Does this post make me sound gay?)

I've always liked girls. It's unfortunate that all the female friends I've ever had are much older than I am (usually women I met through the theatre, where people are much more relaxed on issues of sex and relationships). When in my early twenties, I had several really good female friends who I had enjoyable converstaions with. Not just about life, the universe, and everything, but about people and movies and art.

Boy, do I love me some platonic women friendships.

And so it's almost turned into a goal for me to find a female friend who's the same age I am. I don't actively look, really. I put up that singles ad last year in the hopes that I'd meet a few women to correspond with and then maybe go out with. Didn't happen out here. When I stayed in Missouri for a few months last spring, I changed to ad to the St. Louis area and got several responses, one of which turned into a genuine friendship I'm very happy to still have. And, because our relationship was internet based (a whole different kinda friendship), we got to know one another quickly and intimitely, the sex thing never came up, and we spent a lot of good time together.

(All this makes me think my sense of humor just works better in the midwest. But I'll leave the quirks and tastes of east coast natives to writers who have said it much better than I ever could. Fitzgerald, specifically.)

I think this is a long enough post for now. Come back later for part two, when I discuss how spectacularly I've fucked up several potential friendships, and how a few others took me totally by surprise.

[Editorial note: I'm on about my sixth pass editing this entry right now, and I still think the prose and general composition totally sucks. For that, you have my apologies. I promise you it's not from lack of effort, just lack of clear literary thinking, and I thank you for having read this.]

2004-12-18T14:34:00.000-05:00

What I did when they came for me.

Yesterday I worked a usual fourteen hour double. Made good cash, had a fine time. Such a good time that I decided to hang out with the crew afterwards. I don't hang out after work very often. I just worked with these people all friggin' day, so why do I wanna spend more time with them when I could be, you know, not seeing them. Besides that, I don't like alcohol very much (aside from needed medicinal uses, for the most part), and even if I did, why anyone spends seven bucks on a beer is beyond me.

No, when I feel festive, I smoke cigarettes. Plain, old, disgustingly awful "I can't believe I'm doing this after not smoking for six months" cigarettes.

But it's okay. I use a filter. I'm the only person I know who uses a filter. Yes, just like Hunter Thompson's, except mine is black.

Not only does it look cool, people mistake it for a one-hitter, which makes my coolness go up, even though only people who don't know what a one-hitter looks like could ever mistake a cigarette filter for one, and how cool can I be in the eyes of a person like that?

Still, I do like to smoke outdoors in the damnable cold when I feel like hanging out with people I've been working with for fourteen hours and honestly can't say I have much anything in common with outside of work itself. I have no love of sports and gossip, only life and society, movies and comic books.

(Janeane Garofalo, the patron saintess of comic book fans, once said that she found angsty, smoking, comic book guys to be really hot.

(To quote some on-line interview with Janeane:
How would you describe the guys who fall in love with you?
They're the guys you would find in comic-book stores.

(I, like so many others, need to find a Janeane Garofalo.)

(And yes, I did spell her name correctly.)

I had worn my uniform into work that morning, so my jacket was out in my car. I lit my cigarette and walked across the parking lot to my car to get my jacket (Everybody clear with this fine literary imagery?). My employers frown on employees smoking in full uniform, and I agree it looks bad, smoking being the social leper-dry of the new millenium, so I folded my apron in and up over my waist.

Good gosh, how to explain that simple act. Picture an apron that goes down to about mid-calf and wraps to the sides of your legs. A full length apron, right? You've seen pictures.

Instead of taking it off, which jumbles up all the crap in the pockets, I'll flip the outside edges toward the center, then fold the whole thing up so it's the size of a waiter wallet (which is safely protected along with my pens and wine key and not sliding around in the center of all that cloth).

The apron is still tied around my waist. I hold the bulk of the apron upright so it looks like I'm carrying a small cloth book over my stomach. And I can walk freely.

Seriously, it takes two seconds to do this. Much less time than to try to explain it, but there it is.

With cigarette in filter in mouth (hands free!), apron pressed to stomach, I made the long cross-parking lot trek to my car.

Once I got to my car (parked on the street), I went to the passenger side door. I didn't want to get in my car while smoking, you see. Sure, I don't mind a cigarette on occasion, but I don't want that smell in my brand new shiny car. Even when I was a smoker I never smoked in my own living spaces (after the age of twenty-two). There's a huge difference between the fine spark of a new Camel Light and the smell of an unwashed bowling alley.

I stood by my passenger side door at midnight and tried to undo my flipped up apron. The apron string had gotten a little tangled, so it took a few seconds to get the knot undone. Apron strings have been known to get tangled in belts and shirt tails, and that's what happened this time. I swear, it only took about ten seconds for me to fiddle with the apron strings to get the damn thing off.

But that ten seconds was enough time for the cop car to flash its lights, speed in front of me, and come to stop diagonally in front of my car, so as to prevent me from going anywhere at all in my parked, unmoving car, of which I was still not in. And standing on the passenger side, at that.

The cop gets out in true cop fashion, with his flashlight held up next to his head, pointing straight at me, apron strings in hand.

"You wanna tell me why you're urinatin' by your car?!" he asked.

It probably would have been bad to laugh at the stern man, so I did not.

"Actually, I was just taking off my apron. See?"

A pause. No one moved for a full two seconds. It would have been a nice picture.

"I stand corrected," he said. He got back in his car, drove down the street, and parked between concrete islands, to await any number of drunk college kids who still don't understand that cops like to hang out next to places where lots of people drink and there is no direct public transportation.

Even had I wanted to leave then, I would not have. I would have taken an interest in sports for at least twenty minutes, so as not to have to drive by that cop car at that time.

(Several of my coworkers have upcoming court dates for DUIs, all of which they got directly after leaving work. When costs are factored in, this makes brings the price of our draft beers jump from seven dollars to about four-hundred and twenty-two.)

I stowed my apron, put on my jacket, went back inside, put a little extra sugar in my iced tea (festive!), smoked another cigarette, made two new female acquaintences (both married), helped drunk people not fall down as they tried to leave, smoked another cigarette while holding open the door for more drunk people, and then I drove home.

And right this minute I'm chewing knock-off CVS brand nicotine gum, which I do kind of enjoy, but probably only because I'm one of the few people who read the instructions for nicotine gum and knows how to properly chew it. Smokers of the world, it really isn't that bad.

Although it looks really dumb sticking out of a black cigarette filter.

2004-11-28T01:46:00.000-05:00

You know, I was thinking I was a bit harsh with my last post, since it was only about how to go about paying for a check in a restaurant, so I printed it and showed it to several of my coworkers and managers. They all agreed entirely with what I wrote (although one guy added, "You might wanna clean up the language a little...").

Of course, this lead to a good number of people wanting to know why I was writing such stuff about waiting tables. It certainly can't go into any sort of manual, unless there's a good "How to act in restaurants" manual someone is putting together. I told them I write about waiting tables on my blog, which lead to me having to tell most everyone what a blog was.

Thankfully, I didn't have to explain what what the Internet was, too.

After a very brief explanation (anyone who takes more than three sentences to explain a blog is surely being pedantic), I got many suggestions for other irritations to write about, like people who don't tip well or are rude or stupid or annoying or just plain unsanitary.

And then there were the ideas that I liked, and promptly stole them all, for later use.

But for now, my bed calls me, and so off I go.

2004-11-25T01:58:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Breakup Babe on getting that Random House book deal. I noticed it at the top of the blogger news when I wrote my last entry. I meant to comment on it, especially since my last post was about breaking up.

And Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.

Today, I'm going to work a swing shift from eleven to nine. Yes, the restaurant is open today. I know not many restaurants are open on Thanksgiving, but mine is, and it should be a fantastically busy day.

A thing about payment.

The little book that holds your dinner check is called a waiter wallet. We usually call them "books" for short. A waiter wallet is a book with two flaps on the inside to hold papers and a little slot at the top to hold a credit card. Some of the cheaper waiter wallets only have one interior flap and no credit card slot. The really cheap ones aren't even books at all, but vinyl-covered pieces of card stock with a pocket on one side.

At most of my restaurants, we use the book-like, two flapped, credit card slotted types.

Dropping a check on a table is sometimes awkward for a waiter. You and your friend have finished your entrees, declined dessert, and are about finished with your drinks, of which you do not want a refill. At that point, there is no reason for you to be sitting at the table. Sure, you may want to talk for a while and let your food digest, but you are not going to pay for any more food or drinks.

To any rational person, that means it's time to drop the check. How am I to know you might get another beer in half an hour--but don't want anything now--if you don't tell me?

I usually end it like this (after being told no to dessert and drink refills): "Is there anything else at all I can get for you today? No? Okay, then."

Here, I pull out the waiter wallet containing the guests' check, which I cleverly hid in my apron before approaching the table, knowing they weren't going to get anything else. I stand the waiter wallet like a table tent in the center of the table so as not to imply that either one of the guests should pay for the check (knowing that chivalry isn't quite dead, but it is scorned and laughed at). I do this as I'm talking, continuing with, "I'll pick this up and make change or run a credit card for you whenever you're ready."

With that, I walk away from the table. Some of the more experience diners will immediately grab the book and say, "Hold on," while fishing a credit card out of his wallet. I like these kinds of people. Saves me a trip back to the table and the guest time for when he wants to leave.

Usually, people ignore the book (probably some social awkwardness wondering who is going to pay the check) and continue talking. I go on to check on my other tables.

It is not possible to keep constant watch on that single table at this point. I can't stand off to the side watching those two guests for when one of them takes cash or a credit card out of his wallet and puts it in the waiter wallet. Even if I could stand there and watch for this, do you think the guests would want me to?

No. So I go about waiting my other tables.

I will keep passing by the table with the newly dropped check. Every time I go to get an order or a refill for a different table, I'll look at the book on the table and see what stage of paying the guests are at. These are the stages:

1. The book is still standing upright in the same place on the table, which means they haven't done anything with it. Fine, I'll come back.

2. The book is laying down and there is no money or a credit card sticking out of it. One of the guests picked up the book to look at the total on the check, but hasn't yet pulled out a type of payment. Fine, again. I'll come back in a few minutes.

3. The book is laying down and there's money or a credit card sticking out of it. Time to make that change or run that credit card.

Now, you would think that these are the only three options, but there is one more shitty option that far too many people take, and it fucks up the whole payment process. Here it is.

The book looks like it's in stage two, but it's not, it's in stage three. The guest has taken the book, looked at it, and then thrown either cash or a credit card into the book and then closed it, not adjusting the money or credit card so that anyone can tell that there's money or a credit card in it.

And, you know, this is really the point of this post, and while it seems stupid to even mention, it always leads to awkard endings for guests and makes things much shittier than they have to be.

Waiters know that they have to be fast. If you have to wait for a waiter to get drink refills or take your order or bring you a check, you're going to think your waiter sucks. Sometimes rightly so, othertimes not. I'm sure you understand this. If you think the waiter sucks, you're ot going to leave a good tip. Waiters certainly understand that.

You know the Hollywood saying, "You're only as good as your last picture?" For waiters it's "You're only as good as your last task." If I'm right there for your drinks, order, drink refills, food, food extras, desserts, and coffee, you'll either think I'm a good waiter or, because nothing went wrong for you to notice anything, you'll not think of me at all.

(Yes, it does suck that when waiters do eveything exactly right, most people don't notice. It's not unreasonable. How often do you notice things that don't fuck up? Very rarely, because if they're not fucked up, how are you going to notice them?)

So I did everything right all throughout the meal, and now you're ready to leave. Actually, you need to get out of the building right now. You're a law-abiding citizen, so you're not going to skip out on your check. But to pay, you need to have your check, and you need me to bring it to you. If I take ten minutes getting you your check, you think you're going to remember that the coffee was, in fact, fresh when I said it would be, or that your heavily modified food was modified exactly right?

No, you're going to think I'm a slow-ass bastard for making you sit there for ten minutes.

It's this last task I fucked up, and so now my tip just dropped off to nothing, even though all my other work was good.

Again, not saying this is wrong. Any waiter who makes a guest wait for ten minutes must have serious problems.

The point is, bringing the check was the last thing from me you saw. If I had taken ten minutes to get your drink order at the beginning of the meal, then I have all the other steps of the meal to redeem myself. If I do screw up at the beginning, I focus on that table and make damn sure they leave with a good impression. Or, at least, tip with a good impression.

I bring all this up to illustrate that the check is very important, because it's the last job I have to do for a guest. "Check 'n' change," they call it, and it's a four part process. Not only do I have to bring you the check, I then have to go back to pick it up, make the change or run the card, and bring whatever's left back to you.

And I do not want you thinking I'm slow for any of that.

So let's go back to the three stages of me dropping the check. It's on the table, you haven't touched it. This is nothing to me. I'm waiting on you, so I'm in the clear.

Once you touch that book, I have to get over there and make change for you, so you're not thinking, "I wish the waiter would take my payment so I could get the fuck outta here."

But--and this is where stupid social rules get into play--I cannot make it sound like I want you to get out, even if I do. Even if you're my very last table and as soon as you leave I can go home but goddamit you had to order desserts and then coffee and now you're chatting about nothing important and we all know there's no way she's going to sleep with you, you moron.

Obviously, I can't let you think that I'm thinking that. So if I see a book lying on a table and I walk over and say, "I'll be right back with your change," but you're still in stage two--you've looked at the check, but haven't put in any payment--then it looks like I'm rushing you.

And I always get the same stupid line, "Okay, but don't you want me to put some money in it first?"

Har. If you ever think you're being clever by joking with a waiter, I'll tell you now: You're not.

So I'm reluctant to pick up books when they're lying on their sides, because I don't want to give a bad impression. This is why I wait for stage three; payment is in the book.

How can I tell you're at stage three? Because the credit card is in the little credit card slot at the top of the waiter wallet, which makes half the credit card stick out the top of the book where it's easily visible. When you put your card in there and place the book at the edge of the table, I know you're ready to go. If you're paying by cash, stick the cash out of the top or side of the book and I'll know to stop by.

Very simple shit, right?

I'm going to make a guess here, based on a decade of restaurant experience. I would say that about three-fourths of all people do not see the little credit card slot at the top of the book--the one with words "Please place your credit card here"--nor do they think to fan out the money so it's sticking out the side of the book.

They just chuck it in and leave the book wherever it lies, sometimes at the back of the table, away from the aisle.

So what's a waiter to do, if he doesn't see you put your payment in the book at the exact moment you do it?

He's left with this thought, "It's been at least ten minutes since I dropped the check and someone must have paid by now, but I didn't see any payment in the book when I walked by the table, and I'm afraid to just pick it up because I really don't feel like hearing the stupid 'don't you want some money' line, nor do I want to blow my tip because they think I'm rushing them out the door..."

Eventually, the waiter will probably use the shitty language of all waiters and ask the guest if he's "all set with that."

(Waiter language evolved for very precise social reasons, but each one deserves its own entry, and this one's getting too long as it is.)

The waiter's taking a big risk here, depending on the personality type. Some people don't care at all and will just say, "Oh, just a sec..." and pull out payment. Far too many people will act indignant. No, really. Like I'm a total bastard for insisting he pays, or that he's taking too long to pull out his overused credit card, or implying that he's probably gonna skip out on the check because he looks like an overweight loser who shouldn't have eaten all those fries.

Money and food can bring about weird reactions in people.

What's the alternative thought to taking a chance on picking up an empty book? "I don't see any payment and I'm not going to stop by until I do."

If you choose this, then believe me, there is a credit card in that book, and the guest is in a hurry to get out the door. Within a few minutes, that guest is going to hold up the book and wave it around like he's at a semaphore competition. He's going to think why does he have to get YOUR attention, aren't you supposed to be waiting on HIM?

And your tip probably just got shot to shit, regardless of your work during the rest of the evening.

Now, did I just spend a hell of a lot of words basically saying, "Always put your credit cards in the little credit card slot at the top of the book because it makes life for everyone much easier?"

Yes, I did.

But from now on, for the rest of your life, every time you go out to eat in a restaurant, if you don't put your credit card in that little slot at the top of the book--knowing how little effort it takes and how incredibly simple a thing it is to do to make the end of the meal go that much smoother--you are going to know--not think, but know--that you're being a total asshole.

And that's good enough for me.

(Keep in mind that if you do always put that card in that slot, then you're a very cool person and we want you to come back and sit in our sections every time. Thanks for being considerate of others and aware of your surroundings. Good job.)

2004-11-22T18:57:00.000-05:00

My list of table waiting topics has grown considerably over the last two or so months when I didn't write much of anything.

Most of the ideas are minor, stupid things that guests do, but each relates to waiting tables. The reason these ideas have piled up lately (instead of appearing here) is I had one non-waiting table idea taking up all my writing time, but I didn't feel like writing about it, if that makes any sense.

It's interesting how it's difficult to write or talk about events when they're happening, but once they're over you wonder what the hell you were so upset about. Before the blood tests and all the needles, I get a bit squeamish, sure, but that night I hardly think about it.

It's like Hitchcock said, "There is no suspense in the firing of a gun, only in the anticipation of it."

My girlfriend and I broke up on Saturday.

What's more, it was my doing. I got the whole "let's split up" ball rolling a couple weeks ago. I know I sprung it on her as something of a shock, but how do you go about saying that sorta thing without springing it on someone?

Our schedules lined up on Saturday so that we could have The Final Talk. Now it's all done with. Not totally done with--few things ever are--but close enough, and I'm no longer writing that stupid-ass depressing shit that has filled my little notebooks since early October.

Lots of people break up with other people, and it's really no big deal, but for me (us), it is different, in that we've been living together for twelve years and she's the only girlfriend I've ever had.

There was that time we had a long distance break up and I went off with that other actress for two months, but as soon as I came back (to "get my stuff"), we got back together.

That event alone was over ten years ago. We have been together a long time.

The final conversation took about eight hours. All sorts of emotions were dredged up and put shoddily on display. Accusations, denials, buried truths. All of it. A quarter of the things I said were bullshit and she knew it. I was just angry, and sometimes emotion has a bad effect on rational thought.

In the end (discounting the bullshit, which she was smart and cool enough to disregard, even before I said it was wrong of me to make those not-quite-true statements), she understood my reasons for feeling the way I did. In the end, everything worked out as well as could be expected.

Yes, there was break up sex.

There will never be a point in my life when she won't be my best friend. There will never be a time when she won't tell me how stupid I was to leave her. There will never be a time I don't agree with her.

But some things you just have to find out yourself. For real. And a safety net only hurts your best intentions.

I had planned to go back to Missouri soon for another extended visit. I've been averaging almost half my time out there for the last few years. I have a better talent pool out there, odd as that may sound. Most people around here picture hicks, shotguns, and inbreeding when they think of Missouri. I think of unpretentious creative people who know how to use drugs properly and put much less of an emphases on money in their lives.

It's not one of their better traits, but many Missourians also know how to beat the shit out of people who need it.

I'm flying to Minnesota to best man a pal's wedding next weekend. I'll come back here and work at the restaurant until at least Christmas.

(I used best man as a verb.).

After that--and this is the strange part--I'm not sure what I'm going to do next.

There hasn't been a time since Clinton first took office that I haven't known what I was going to do next. Maybe not exactly what, but I always had a pretty strong guideline.

You know how weird it feels to say "I'm single" after twelve years of saying "my girlfriend?"

Very.

For the last few days, I've experienced everything from optimism to the point of euphoria to extreme depression, sometimes changing moods in seconds. I have thoughts like, "I'm gonna get my own place and hang out with all the freakoid artists in the world and create so much cool shit!" But then I think "What if the only thing that changes is that I get really, really lonely?"

I keep picturing Bill Murray sneaking out of the army in "Stripes" after his fight with Sgt. Hulka. "I call Anita. She has to pick me up at the train, right? I go back into an apartment. I see if I can get my cab job back..."

That could be me, six months from now.

I wouldn't feel any shame in doing so, honestly. I'm going through one of those odd phases where I need to gain a new perspective. Preferably, a few new perspectives. And after I have it (0r them), if life as it was turns out to be better than it is, then I'll certainly appreciate it a lot better.

Sort of a combination of "What doesn't kill it makes it stronger" and "If you love something, set it free..."

I had to start watching "Stripes" again when I realized I didn't know the whole "Bill Murray leaving" quote (Not that anyone has to search for a good reason to watch "Stripes."). In addition to Sean Young and P.J. Soles being really cute, this is a great movie.

"There's something very, very WRONG with us!"

And what's the moral of the story? If you stay true to yourself and keep a positive mental attitude, pretty soon not only will you succeed in whatever you want to accomplish, but most of the people around you will go on to star in a lot of moderately successful eighties comedies.

So I got that goin' for me.

2004-11-17T22:41:00.000-05:00

Six weeks since my last post. That comes from a simple lack of honesty, in that what's been happening lately is, in my mind, even too personal for an anonymous blog like this one. Whenever Big Life Issues come up, I prefer to talk to friends who are more world-weary than I am. And, after these conversations, the introspective thoughts that follow would not make good blog reading. I can only rehash the same crap so many times verbally before I don't feel like writing it down. Besides, as I said, it seems a bit too personal.

Leave it at this: I've been pretty damn fucked up lately. Brooding, depressed, angry, short-tempered, clingy, and generally carrying that "adrift at sea" feeling around with me since early October. And, boy, do I hate being like that. So, to get over it, I decided to do something fun. It turned out to make me feel even more miserable for a little while, but in the good way where you know you made the attempt. And it ended great.

I read about the Fray Day event here in Washington, D.C. last month on Tequilia Mockingbird's blog, and it's been in my mind ever since. I haven't done any performing in a while (not counting my movie projects, which aren't really performing at all, but rather reading lines in front of a camera to a crew of maybe two people). I like performing, whether as a disc jockey at a wedding reception or on stage in a play somewhere (I much prefer to act in plays, but the DJ jobs always paid a lot more).

Oh, I should say more about Fray Day. Lookie here for all you need to know: http://fray.com/events/fray_day_8_dc/index.html

So this looked like a good time. Bunch of people, getting together to tell a few stories. Only rules are it must be true, must be personal, and must be less than five minutes.

As I write this, I'm cringing at that last item, but I'm getting way ahead of myself.

I decided to tell a story I wrote a few years ago about my niece's graduation. I gave the story to my friend Leandro for his Capitol of Nasty website, where I'm told it gets lots of hits (like that really means anything, since a totally lost soul looking for kiddie porn would probably stumble onto that page). Several people said it was a really good story, so I thought I'd shorten it a bit and bring it along.

Here's the story on CoN's site, where it's sat safely for over three years. This is the original version:
http://con.ca/issues/6/5/214/

But then the... other crap in my life took hold, and I started working on the most personal story I could ever tell. The more I thought about it, the more I loved it. It was horrible, and maybe too much for an average audience, but it was real and raw and I thought it would be good. So I wrote it.

No, that's not quite accurate. I wrote a very detailed outline, then I ripped it apart and put it together again, and changed things, and changed other things. I started over, then worked in some of the original material. It still wasn't right. There was no satisfaction here.

At five o'clock, I was a bit panicked. I swear I could see the story, but I couldn't put it together in time. Another day, fine, but not in one hour. Besides, maybe it was too much. Who the hell wants to hear a guy blather on about--

Man, I couldn't even finish that sentence. Okay, so I'm still fucked up about it.

At six, I pulled out the other story, started chopping it to shit, printed it, and ran out the door.

I thought forty minutes would be enough time. I forgot about the stupid slowness of D.C. drivers. Twenty in a thirty. Forty on the highway. And always in the fast lanes. I thought speeding was the problem.

I got to the Love Cafe (what a great name) at seven-ten. I didn't know what to expect. When I envisioned me reading the story, I always saw a large auditorium. Where that came from I don't know. How many cafes have large auditoriums?

The place is small, like a cafe should be. The microphone stand stood in front of a brick non-fireplace (whatever it's for) fifteen feet from the door. There's a bathroom to the right of it and a smaller sitting area behind it. For the people gathered to listen to the speakers, there were about ten places to sit. Very odd set up, and I really should draw you a picture to explain it properly.

But it doesn't matter. Hell, picture the fifties diner from Back to the Future with trendier decorations and that's good enough.

They passed around a sign up booklet. I wasn't sure what to expect or what was going to happen, so I didn't make a move to sign the book. I stood by the counter and watched the speakers.

I enjoyed all of them. Some were better than others, but they were all real, and that's the whole point of this event. This is real life and it's being filtered through the speakers' individual personalities to share the experience with you, the listener. You can't go wrong with a set up like that.

I noticed the featured speakers Bill and Julia (the lady Mockingbird) right away, sitting in what I guess are guest of honor chairs off to the side.

Sudden thought. Skip the Back to the Future comment. Remember the little place where Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks had their failed rendezvous in You've Got Mail? That's more like this place. Sorta.

So I'm still feeling all fucked up because I didn't finish the story I wanted to tell, in addition to feeling fucked up about the subject of the story itself, and also thinking I look like disheveled crap. Then I realize that no one is reading their stories. It's all free form story-telling. One guy had a Palm he read notes off of, and Bill used an index card, but my story is not only typed on six pages, it's not memorized.

Sure, I could have winged it, but it would've been, "This girl at a party told me her boyfriend cheated on her and then I went home." My story wasn't so much about the actions of the characters as it was what I thought about those actions. My attempt at a Fitzgerald story, honestly.

I enjoyed Bill's story "Mom and Dad Will Find Out!" a nice childhood adventure story, with a moral and good laughs. Bill has great presence and speaks like an experienced stand up comic (with social value), and told his tale well.

Julia told her story about the stupid bank clerk making fun of West Ver-ginny types. I remembered the story from her blog. While I haven't read the entire Mockingbird canon, I've read a good deal of it. Julia told the story better than I remembered, and without even a single index card.

By the way, I've been reading Julia's blog since January or thereabouts, so obviously I've come to admire and like her quite a bit (if you read her stories and don't fall in love with her, you must be something of an ass (or a plagarist)). Hearing her talk is something you should see, if you can (and if you can see hearing someone). She once posted a comment about liking to speak in front of people and you can tell that she does. Remember the bit about blog entries sounding that much better when read by the writers themselves? It's true.

Very soon after Julia read, the hostess, Tiffany, had run out of names on the sign up list and started calling out people to tell their stories. After seeing the energetic performances of all the other speakers, I decided to give this one a pass. Sure, I had high hopes of participating, but I was still feeling pretty unsure of myself, and decided to wait.

Then people who had already spoken got up and told more stories. Even Bill winged another one (he apologized for its lack of structure, but Tiffany yelled for him to skip the apologies and get to it). Bill's second story sounded like he had it planned all along, and I didn't think I could compete with that, either.

Man, I'm so negative about myself lately. Ah, well. It will pass.

And that was it. No more takers. Tiffany called for readers. She pointed at one woman who said she "had nothing today." Or that's what it sounded like she said.

I thought of that opening bit from the Butthole Surfers "Locust Abortion Technician" album. "Well, son, a funny thing about regret is, it's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done."

I had to complete the end of the line in my head: "And if you see your mom this weekend, be sure and tell her, 'SATAN!'"

After that, I spoke up. It's very egotistical to say this, but I like to think I surprised myself more than anyone else by doing so. I'm not even sure what I mean by that line.

My memory always gets hazy when trying to remember what I said in these kinds of situations. I have a fine photographic memory of other people and events, but sometimes I get so nervous that mental recorder gets fucked up where my own actions are concerned.

Fortunately, I had my little digital audio recorder going in my pocket, so I don't have to care about my faulty internal workings.

Tiffany: "So, um... I'll take any--"

Me: "I have one, uh.... I did bring a story, but I didn't know it had to be memorized."

Tiffany: "It doesn't have to be memorized."

Me: "Seriously? Aw, crap. I woulda said something a while ago. "

(Inaudible comment from someone nearby.)

Me: "No, I mean, like, written out."

Tiffany hands me the microphone.

Me: "Thank you. I've been thinking for the last few minutes maybe I can memorize it quickly and... no. Heh. So it might not be as organic as any of the other nice stories tonight."

Tiffany told me to talk more directly into the microphone. Even after all the years of DJ-ing, I still can't not say "Sibilance" in true Tom Hanks/Wayne's World sketch mode when holding a mic, so I did.

And then I went into the story, and I totally froze up.

I heard my freshman year speech class teacher in my head. "Be confident. Don't read each individual word. Glance at your notes occasionally and keep making eye contact with your audience. Listen to them and respond to them. Don't just run them over with your words."

Although I did fine in speech class, I would have received all failing marks tonight. The few times I got laughs, I talked right over them. I was not listening. I was just reading. The room was the sea and the pages were my lifeboat. My mouth got really, really dry. And no kidding here, my ears popped, but only the left one stayed that way, so it sounded like I was, in fact, partially underwater. And I couldn't stop shaking.

Standing up there, I thought of the last few weeks and how my self-confidence has been totally turned to shit. How cocky and sure of myself I had been for so long before that. Being out there. Center of attention. Anything for a laugh.

And now I couldn't stand up in front of twenty people and tell a story that I'd read many times before. A story several of my on-line literary friends complimented when there was no reason to do so. This was a calm, safe, non-judgemental group and I was with familiar material. I should have been fine. But I was not.

They say a man needs to get his ass kicked once in a while to gain perspective. While reading a short story in public doesn't compare to a black eye or a dislocated jaw, it did the job.

The only thoughts I remember about the actual reading are that a few times I read words incorrectly and didn't go back and fix them ("conventional conversation" came out as "conversational conversation") and I randomly skipped whole paragraphs when I thought the pace was getting too slow. I guess a better way to say that is when I thought I was boring the shit out of people.

I mentioned earlier the three rules for stories on Fray Day. I was cool with the first two, but I blew the last one, that the "story should be less than five minutes." I cut a few pages out of the original story (I don't smoke anymore, so that whole bit went out, in addition to some of the other stuff that was really only experimental filler), but it wasn't enough. I knew it wasn't enough. You can't read five and a half pages in five minutes. But because I spent so much time on that other story and not on reconstructing this one, I ran long.

But I didn't know how long until I checked my recorder. I couldn't listen to the actual reading of the story (hell no, not yet), but I could skip to the end.

I thought that maybe I had run on for seven minutes. Or eight. I checked the time code for my reading.

Thirteen minutes and twenty seconds.

Thirteen-twenty.

Man, what a dick.

I'm glad I wasn't watching a clock. If I had been, I'd have ripped out pages three and four and skipped right to the end.

So, after thirteen minutes and twenty-two or so seconds, I tossed the pages into my backpack and said thanks to the applause. The inventor of applause should be given a big plaque and maybe a continent. Even though I had less than happy thoughts about my performance, the applause felt good. Whether it was social inclusion or remembrance of applause past or... who knows. It felt good.

I bought an iced tea right away and went back to standing in my previous spot.

I spent too much time criticizing myself to pay close attention to the next speaker, but I did enjoy her story. She was a very experienced storyteller.

I really liked the total lack of competition in the room. Some people were better at speaking than others, sure, but there was no feeling of comparison. That this wasn't as good as that or he really stands out above the others but let's let the others talk anyway. It was a bunch of strangers acting as friends, sharing stories. If only that kind of support was around in all areas of life.

Julia told a second story, this time about her grandfather. I had also read this story on her site and would swear she had memorized it verbatim. Didn't matter. She told it better than anyone else could have, even the reader's mouth in your own head.

And it was a fitting end to the evening.

The expected mingling at the end was fairly brief. It was nice people saying nice things to each other in a way that makes hardened cynics think the world isn't that bad a place after all. Obviously, I had to at least say hello to Julia, so I made my way toward her.

This post is already getting longer than I thought it would, but what the fuck, I'm digressing, 'cause I want to.

Being a huge Saturday Night Live fan, I've read every book I could find on the subject. I remember reading in the 1986 Saturday Night book that what many writers and performers found appealing about SNL was that it was the only show where you could, and I think this is a quote, "take the moment to reflect on the moment," that that was what the performers should always do. It was LIVE, and the script was only a guideline. If it felt right, say it. Flubbed line, bad prop, odd reaction. Didn't matter. It happened, so comment on it.

That may not have any relation to what I'm thinking here, but it seems to apply. As I was writing the last few paragraphs, I had one of those fantastic flash-forwards where you can pretty much see the future.

This is nothing spiritual. This is just the way it is. I posit this "reality to be," and you can come back and tell me if I'm wrong. It's like this:

In the next day or two, Julia's going to write about Fray Day on her blog.

(Like you didn't know this yourself.)

People will comment on it. Several will say "I wish I coulda been there." Someone might even ask for a copy of the tape.

(Wait. Was it taped? I was so spaced out I forgot to look, but I think someone mentioned a video camera.)

I've posted maybe two comments on Julia's site. And I fully planned to post a comment telling everyone that, yes, she was great and, yes, you shoulda been there.

But now I'm thinking I'll include a link to the story you're reading now.

I haven't yet done any of this yet. Right now, her most recent post is about the upcoming Fray day event.

Since mine is a fairly new blog and I've had all of three comments so far (one good, two... less so), and you are reading this... Well, chances are you clicked a link on her comments box, and here you are, reading about your past and my future, and the two are the same.

I like those stream of conscious thoughts.

Yeah, so I read a lot of comics and think in weird terms like this. I love time travel stories. I like thinking about patterns and predictability. Even chaos has the some great, predictable patterns.

I hope you're not feeling conned, somehow...

But this was a truth that occured to me as I was writing, so I wrote it, and, in the end, changed what I was originally going to write. I took the moment and commented on it, so here we are.

Now, going back to where I left off.

I never have any problem writing what I see and do, and writing the actions and words of other people. When it comes to me, I can get damnably personal, and I don't mind, because you don't know me and probably never will. (Well, that's been my attitude for all my other writings. I've only had this blog for a few months and decided to focus on the table waiting thing, which probably wasn't a good idea to begin with.)

Even when I write about people I meet in the real world, I don't mind putting their thoughts on paper (or electrons) because if the people reading don't know me, how will they know the people I write about? Many times, I don't even bother changing the names.

Ah, but to write about Julia, who is known in this blog world and is held in such high regard, especially after I placed the link on her site to this blog, which I haven't done yet, but know I will. It feels odd somehow. Not quite wrong, but...

I need Horselover Fat to help me out, I think.

Ah, I got it. It ruins the honesty when you feel that the person you're writing about might actually read your words. It really shouldn't matter, but it does.

Then I think back to my third or so post where I wrote how I got into the whole blog thing, and that I wouldn't have if not for Julia, in a very roundabout way.

And then I think back to how I took her name off the original post, and never did say who it was I was talking about. Until now, that is.

I must be tired. Only a tired man could keep this many bizarre threads in his head at once.

Here's the end of the evening.

I said hello to Julia and offered congratulations on her well-told stories. She said she liked my story, too, and that I looked (or my name sounded) familiar somehow. I told her I'd sent her a few e-mails. She asked me for my e-mail address (adding that she had it somewhere, but this would be easier). I offered her one of my business cards.

Now, about my business cards. On one of my longer trips out of town, years ago, I made up some of those goofy homemade cards and gave them out to pals who wanted to keep in touch while I was gone (I got tired of writing my weird e-mail address several times a day). I bought a thousand blank business cards (a hundred sheets with ten cards on each) at Sam's. They cost like five bucks. First, I made generic "Independent Counsel" and "Paranormal Investigator" cards. People thought they were cute, so I made more bizarre ones, like "Professional Wesley Snipes Impersonator," "Fluffer," "Psychopath," and "El Hombre Invisible." Then people started sort of collecting them, doing the "got it got it need it got it" thing. Two people now have taken entire stacks of my cards. (What the hell are they planning to do with them, I wonder.) I started getting suggestions for really wacked out stuff to do. One day, I made up some really, really foul ones, stuff you would never see on a business card, like "Amateur Rapist" and "Director of Child Porn" and "Teenage Sex Therapist (Females Only)."

I had a bunch of cards in my wallet. I handed the stack to Julia, and made some comment to the effect of "You like weird stuff. Take one you like."

She sorted through them and chose the "Savior (and fry cook)" card.

Later that night, as I was going home, I looked at the remaining cards. It was rather distressing. Almost every one was of the extremely foul variety. There were no cute cards. No "Ghostbuster." No "Former Mr. Alaska." No "Comic Book Dork." All incredibly foul lines that I would only give out to people who know me and my sense of humor and would get the joke.

Also, they weren't that varied. One "Amateur Rapist" in a big deck is one thing, but when they're almost ALL "Amateur Rapist" cards?

Sheesh. "Great to meet you, Julia. I promise you that card is not some sort of reverse psychology. Let's do lunch in an alley at midnight."

It's after two now and even though this was only five hours ago it's not very clear in my memory. My head still wasn't straight after that bizarre reading and I was starting to feel strangely sleepy.

I told her somewhere around here that I thought she improved her stories by reading them aloud. About the same time, I also signed the book of speakers.

But I had one last thing to say to her, so I said it. I don't remember how, exactly, but it was basically this, referring to a message I sent her a few weeks ago: "I'm the guy who, uh... I said I'd buy you a piece of cake sometime."

She was walking away as I said this. She turned back and looked over her shoulder at me. She smiled. All she said was, "I would like that."

Coulda died then, I tell you.

There is far too much misery in this world. Ask anybody. But on days that seem dark and wet and you don't know how the hell you're going to make it out of this one, a few kind words at the right time are all it takes to really boost you out of your momentary crises and make you feel that everything's going to turn out okay and we're all with you so don't worry about it.

If I'm overstating it, leave it at this: I couldn't get the stupid grin off my face the whole ride home.

I talked to Bill for a minute about what a cool event this was and then thanked Tiffany for putting it all together. I know it's my waiting background, but damn it if I didn't want to tip everybody (of course I left a buck for my iced tea). I walked back to my car and found that it wasn't ticketed like I thought it would be (it looked like a good place to park, but who can tell these days?). I drove back to Monkey County in half an hour, ate a pizza, wrote this entry, and--to guess the future again--fell asleep within a half hour of posting it.

I'm very glad I went. I could have stayed home and continued to edit my movie, but sometimes a guy needs to get out and try something different. Meet people he hasn't met before. Go it alone without the safety net of the same routine and the same people. Sure, I got a bit knocked about inside and feel like I embarrassed myself in front of too many people. But like a heavy workout, in the end, it just felt good.

And, most importantly, right now I'm thinking tomorrow is going to be a great day.

2004-09-29T03:31:00.000-05:00

How I'm Not Political and Stuff

Politics is a weird topic for me. I don't follow many minor details (like local goings on), but I do keep up on the nationwide and worldly topics. I know how I feel about all the issues, and most importantly my opinions are mine, not the opinons of some party that I'm supposed to support. I think for myself, even if I frequently use quotes from other people to sum up some of my attitudes (like as Bill Hicks said about abortion, "You're not a person until you're in my phone book.").

If anyone ever mentions some topic of social or political value, I immediately have a comment to add or, better yet, a question to ask. Yes, a question. My attitude is, "I already know what I think and why. I want to know what you think." I don't always get to hear their why.

So I'm not shy about stating opinions or arguing an ideology. But the other day I was having a conversation with a friend about political activism and it left me feeling strange, like I was unsure of myself.

First of all, this girl is wholly devoted to Making A Difference. Her work and attitude endlessly impress me. She's living her life as if she will make the world a better place by sheer will power alone. She seems to have an endless drive to fight the good fight, to the point of making Princess Leia look like a slacker. And she's only 21!

Heh. She would appreciate the age mention.

But she asked me what I cared about. What causes I would fight for. Animals? Human rights? Environment? Unions?

This got me to thinking how one does fight for, say, environmental rights? Blow up tractors? Write your congressman and say; "Don't dump nukes?" I can't imagine me tying myself to a tree.

I'd like to think I'm too young to start that whole "It was easier back in the old days" crap, but seriously, how much easier is it to fight for black and white to have equal rights than it is to fight multinational globalization? With one, you just hang out with black people and tell anyone who discriminates against them to fuck off ("Are too gonna sit in the front of this bus."). How do you stop Nike from using slave labor? Don't buy their shoes. Good, my First Year Activist Class. And then what do you do?

It's not just me who thinks being socially and politically active is hard to do. Most people have the attitude of "All politics is lies so what's the point in trying? The right and left are both fuckers, so I'm staying out of it."

And who hasn't voted in an election where it came down to picking the guy that you disliked the least? You don't like Bush or Kerry? You've got over a month, buddy. Go get yourself a new candidate. Best of luck to you.

A lot of people talk (too much) about who they hate and why, saying, "Man, I'm gonna do something about this," but then never actually do anything. Some people can get their messages out through independent music. The few people I know who write for newspapers have been able to get their opinions out that way. Some people start their own web sites.
But what do most people do? Bitch about Republicans or Democrats on internet bulletin boards. It's so much easier to speak your mind when you're totally anonymous and there's no fear of being held accountable for what you write.

(This doesn't include personal websites. The g-men will take you down for that, but you have to be writing some serious anarchy shit, or at least link to a site that makes homemade bombs.)
I have a strong dislike for political parties. I don't side with any of them, and I hate hearing that since I'm not a Democrat or a Republican I must be an "Independent" (capital I). "You know, like the Green Party." Ugh. I'm not really against the Green Party (aside from the stupid name, which is even worse than Whig), but I don't want to be automatically associated with it just because I don't fit into the other two categories.

People have a weird thing about labels. Words start getting new meanings that supercede the old ones. I always hate when people use words incorrectly. Like David Cross said, "if you use penultimate and you meant ultimate, well, you're only off by one, so it's not that big a deal, but if you say 'literally' when you meant 'figuratively', you totally fucked the whole word up!" "Ignorant" doesn't mean "stupid." "Momentarily" doesn't mean "in a moment."

During the conversation with my friend, I called her liberal. She laughed and said she was not liberal. I posted the definition:

Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.

Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

Now where the fuck does it say you have to be a Republican or Democrat in that statement? (Did you know most people don't think you can be a Conservative Democrat or a Liberal Republican? You can, and they do exist.)

I'd say that anyone could be a liberal, from a certain point of view. Except maybe the Pope. I'd say he's pretty well limited by established views. I would hope, though, that he is tolerant of the ideas of others, even if he doesn't like them.

To be fair, my friend may not be "ample," another definition of Liberal.

If I have to pick some stupid label, I'd go with Bill Maher's "Fiscally conservative, socially liberal" line. Don't blow money on stupid shit, but don't tell people how to live their lives, either.
I'm not big on labels, but that doesn't mean I don't know what I believe. So I've got my beliefs in place. Now, what to do with them.

You could say that protests are arrogant, because you're basically saying, "I AM RIGHT. THESE PEOPLE ARE WRONG. BE LIKE ME!" Few people ever believe they're wrong. Do you think the people being protested know they're wrong? Like they just didn't think their plans through, and all it'll take is a few slogans and signs to open their eyes?" "Shit, Grand Moff Tarken, maybe this Death Star was a bad idea."

(Sorry for all the Star Wars references. The movies did just come out on DVD, y'know.)

But look at the reality of marches. A bunch of people getting together to walk down a street, posters in hand and slogans in mouth. Sometimes they just walk a certain path. Others, they march toward something, like when protesting city hall. The only way for a march to make any difference is for it to be either seen or documented. If a person sees a march and hears the slogans being yelled, then the protesters can be said to have made a difference, because someone heard their message. Now it's up to the listener to drop what he's doing and join the good fight, but I wonder how often that happens. Most people stand on the sidelines and watch, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of those big balloons. Or a float.

(In whatever differentiates a march from a protest, is either one invitation only? And if not, how quickly does either one turn into a mob?)

So the people there on the scene are influenced. In New York, that can mean a lot of people. What if you're protesting a snow cone company in Wild Springs, Arkansas? If you don’t happen to be driving by at that time, you're not gonna know about it.

The other way for your messages to be heard is through the media. A demonstration in New York has no effect on a guy in Montana if the news isn't there to cover it. Whatever you're protesting had better be media friendly or your cause is doomed. And what if the newspeople do show? Almost every time a march or protest is going on, a reporter sticks a mic in the face of one person (usually not the best speaker of the group) who says something rushed and stupid like, "Yeah, we're here to, uh, to protest this group because of… of... because they kill babies and… and… eat dolphins, too." That's all the airtime the protesters get. The viewer in Montana--who knows nothing of the protesters, the company, or the issue--thinks, "Fuckin' tree huggers…"

So best of luck in getting your word out with a 14" by 20" piece of poster board and a sound bite. I hope you put a web address on that card.

And the people being protested? How does it really affect them? They've got security. The police are there. They'll take care of any problems with gas and rubber bullets so the Company can get back to its closed-door secret deals.

And what if the police for some reason revolt? Say all the police decide, "Shit, man. These protesters are right. Fuck these dolphin-eatin' motherfuckers. Let's bash some heads." The police join with the protesters and then what? Break down the doors and kill everyone? Great message there. Right up with pro-lifers killing doctors. Or what else? Sit down with the people who have all the money and make all the baby-killing rules and explain to them that their ethos is wrong? "If you stop this, all those babies will be alive and you'll make millions of dollars less a year. Isn't that great?"

I see no motive to change.Or, as with the WTO, the protesters are gonna piss off the wrong people and, in the end, do nothing of any value, except have police records and be watched a little more closely.

I was stuck on the GW parkway for two hours during the WTO protest in September of 2002. Listening to the radio, I heard nothing of any value, except that there were protesters protesting the WTO. (I don't work in downtown D.C. usually, but that week I was working a convention that showcased new medical supplies and procedures, along with various hospitals and facilities. The protestors fucked it up something good. Knowing how terrible some drug companies are, maybe that was a good thing.)

That night, I went to my job as a bartender (yes, I have to tie this into restaurants somehow). I much prefer waiting tables to bartending. I don't give a shit about sports so I can't much chat it up with that kind of bar guest. Fortunately, this was a nice family-type restaurant, so I got a nice cross section of the area. All kinds of people would sit at my bar. The ages would range from the early twenties to the late sixties. Sometimes it'd just be a person who wanted a quick meal and didn't feel like sitting at a table alone. Or maybe the restaurant was on a wait and he was in a hurry to eat. Other people just liked being near the television (or the door).

We had two televisions behind the bar. One was always on sports (ugh) and the other always on news. We used to have them both on sports, but that summer the D.C. Sniper freaked everyone out so we'd gotten in the habit of always having one television turned to news.

All these news channels seemed to show the same footage of the WTO protest. Most of it was little more than kids, cops, and quick camera cuts. I remember one girl in a huge padded suit getting pushed around by other people (protesters and cops alike). She had no expression. It was very weird, like she had turned off her own mind.

There were one or two clips of people yelling. Nothing I could make out. All the footage for the entire week was like that. A few brief little fight snippets, the shot of the blank-faced girl in the padded suit, and then a talking head would go on to something else. It would have been nice to get a good interview with one of the protesters or even an expose on the WTO. But the WTO is big money, big money pays for the news, and the news doesn't want to piss big money off, so of course they're going to make all news bland, saccharin shit.

You know what I heard from the people sitting at my bar?

Not: "Great going, guys. Show those money-grubbing bastards the what for!"

Not: "Man, I really applaud those kids, standing up for what they believe in."

Not: I'd never heard of the WTO. They suck! I'm glad these protesters brought this to my attention. Someone should do something about them."

You know what I heard more than anything else? Variations of these: "Stupid fucking kids need to get a job" and "I was stuck in traffic for an hour because of those bastards."

And this is not out or two people in one night. This sort of thing is all I heard for the entire week. I was hitting fifty to sixty hours in those days, trying to pay for the video equipment I just bought. I served a lot of people.

Yes, this was just one bar in suburban Maryland. But somehow I doubt that at any of the other bars in suburban Maryland awards were being given out for Best Use of a Burning Tire by a WTO Protester. I doubt this happened much anywhere in the area. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Whenever I'd hear one of these "Stupid hippy" comments, I'd usually say (and picture me wiping a bar glass as I say this, like all the good bartenders in all the good westerns); "You know what the WTO is?"

"Who cares?" would be the response. "Those kids are dumb hippies."

"No, they're kids that understand how evil the WTO is. Let me explain this to you: the WTO goes to nations in need, like after a war or natural disaster, and says, 'Hey, guy! Having some problems? Here's some money,' and hands out enough money to get the country going again. Never mind the interest rates. We'll deal with those later. Eventually, the country's economy starts going again. That's when the WTO shows up like a bad drug dealer to collect its money. 'What? You're a little short this fiscal year? That's okay. We'll help you out. You need a new treasury department. And look, we have some treasury people right here, just for you.' Bam. Out go the natives, in go the accountants, with one priority: making money on this country. So the newly installed accountants start cutting the stuff that doesn't make any money, like health care, public works, that sorta useless crap. And, if possible, they get this country to start manufacturing something the world can use, like bombs, guns, or, who gives a damn, make some fuckin' napalm. That stuff will sell!

"(Yes, I'm exaggerating here, but not by much.)

"So this country's going to shit, but they're starting to make money. They're not keeping any of this money, because the cash is all going to pay the exorbitant interest rates the WTO charges. Maybe, in a few decades, the country will have the loan paid off, but by then, it'll be a worthless shell of its former self anyway."

I get no argument to any of this. People listen silently, like they have no interest in what I’m talking about.

"And these kids--I'm sorry, the stupid hippies--think what the WTO does is horrible, and so they're protesting it.

A short little pause.

"I don't know about all of you, but I say screw those little brown people. Their culture sucks, anyway."

This offended people. When they protested what I said, I replied, "Oh. So you agree with the stupid, dirty hippies?"

I didn't make the greatest tips as a bartender.

So while I don't think protesting really helps any (the WTO doesn't show any signs of weakening), I'm not cutting down protesters at all. It takes a lot more balls than I'll ever have to put your own life in danger just to speak your mind. They are to be much admired for standing up for what they believe in. Activism--regardless of what it accomplishes--is very cool. What have you got to show for your life, pal?

The week of the protest, I took the Metro down to D.C.--camcorder in hand--to witness this social activism in person. I was looking forward to speeches, pamphlets, cooperation, and inspiration at its finest.

What I got was a bunch of hippy kids sitting around, smoking clove cigarettes and listening to crappy music.

There were dozens of cops on the street. They weren't busting heads. They weren't in riot gear. They just stood there, watching everyone.

They didn't seem to care when I turned on my camcorder and walked around the area. I even taped them for a few minutes. The kids didn't care, either (I had the impression they all checked to make sure I wasn't form NBC or the like. I don’t remember why I thought this).

The whole scene of cops and kids to me seemed like the children were at the playground and the parents were making sure they weren't gonna fall off the jungle gym.

Only one person approached me with a hand out. It was a single piece of yellow paper that listed a website where you could read about WTO atrocities. I thanked him for the paper and he walked on. There were many of these yellow pieces of paper crumpled on the ground. I thought, "You activists obviously don't give a shit about littering, do you?"

But these weren't real activists. These were kids who wanted to get out of school. I guess all the real activists were either in jail or… (Almost made an easy "out huggin' a tree" joke there).

(Oh, I did.)

So I don't lump all activists in with these guys. There are people in the world that really care and do the best they can with what they have. Sometimes, it's just handing out food at a soup kitchen, or organizing drives to give food to the homeless. Seems like it's a lot easier to help people in your own city than it is to help some poor people you've never met on the other side of the planet.

So with protests, I can support the ideas, but in the end what good does it do?

The same with marches. More so with marches. With a protest, you have people getting the shit kicked out of them by cops, and that makes for good television. That leads to (at least a little) exposure. But a march? Just the quick, badly worded sound bite I mentioned earlier.
Again, I don't think badly of the people who organize marches and protests, I just wonder what they're actually accomplishing.

In the case of the WTO, what happened? Did the WTO get the message and start handing out food to the locals? No, they moved to another place (that was also protested) and continued their secret deals. And the secret deals are going on today. (For reference: http://www.wto.org/)

Maybe I'm wrong. I can type "Word Trade Organization" into Google and find a shitload of websites, but I can't sort through all of them to find out what effect the protesters have had on the people who matter. Did they delay a talk? Maybe. And if they did, that's great. But the talk did happen, and the same people got screwed. Maybe they got one more day of not being screwed. Or maybe the delay pissed off the wrong people, and the screwing was twofold. Never can tell with screwings.

Yes, I sound very cynical about all this activism stuff, but that's only because I wonder at the VALUE of it. I'm certainly not telling anyone to stop doing what they believe in. It just so happens that I've never been directly influenced by someone who organized protests. My influences mainly come from books and, just under that, music. I love punk music. Have since I was a teenager. If you have a message you want to get out to a large number of people, self-publishing/printing/pressing your work is the best way to do it. But one thing I noticed about the punk scene is that it mainly supported itself. The members of one band would go to the shows of another band, buy their music, and so on. There was a firm feeling of solidarity, even during the occasional times when people would get pissy and say this band sucked or that band is getting repetitive. They still supported them, even if they didn't like their style of art.

And I'm thinking this activism thing is a lot like a punk scene. Lots of kids going out and trying to make a difference with their marches, protests, and websites, but the only people who are influenced are each other. Instead of only preaching to the choir, they're diving off the stage into the choir, each trying to go higher than the last one. Ask an activist about the WTO, and he'll tell you why they suck and who's going to be protesting them next. That's great information to have and know, but it's mostly being shared with the people who already know it. Is it going to get to anyone who's in a position to do something about it? Not if all they can manage to do is get people to realize they're angry. You can't fit a political argument on a crappy, hand-held sign that says, "Fair Trade not Free Trade." What would you say if you saw this? "What's wrong with free trade? If the trade is fair, then it's not gonna be free, is that it?"

To keep this activism scene going, the kids are gonna stay tuned into the protest network on-line, keeping up with all the local events in their own areas and try to participate. That's great. But, again, they're probably not going to get many "straights" to attend. You don't see many people from nine-to-five type jobs at protests. Is it because they're robots who "work for the man?" No. They just have lives to deal with. Responsibilities. Paying rent, car loans, utilities, maintaining a household, and a bit of recreation on the side. Some of the most politically active people I've met don't have jobs and still get by on money from mom and dad. Their only responsibilities are school a few times a week.

Funny how having to feed yourself takes a bite out of your crusading time.

It's like, "Dude, I protested this group last week." "Yeah, I saw you get busted on the news. I protested this other group yesterday." "I saw you! Great sign, dude. 'Free Speech not Martial Law'. Right on! What's up for next week?" "Same thing, man. Soon as I finish my psych homework."

All right, so I'm making a few stereotypical jokes at the expense of protesters. But any group that can't take a few jokes is not the kinda group to go around changing the world. Well, in that case they'd just be Republicans.

The conversation with my friend left me feeling kinda weird because I almost got defensive about not being socially active. "But… but I try to be a good person and lead by example." Ugh. I'm glad the conversation ended fairly quickly after that.

The fact is, I don't do anything that's socially active. I do a lot of social thinking, and not just the goofy comedy routine I wrote about tonight. A good deal of my information comes from books, CDs (yes, Jello Biafra, among many others), and websites. Like anyone else, I combine this information with my other influences and arrive at opinions, which I then consider further, refining them by talking to others who are as unlike me as possible. I don't want to talk to anyone with the same ideas I have. I'd rather talk to people with totally different viewpoints (usually conservative types, but not that limited) to see what they think. The more an idea is attacked, the stronger it gets, unless it dies, in which case your next idea will be even better. The rules of survival apply to all things, real and imagined.

Now, do I have plans for all this social active thinking? Solutions to the problems of "How do you make anyone give a shit?" Yes, I do. Very elaborate plans that are so bizarre they just might work (to quote many eighties sitcoms). Will my ideas work? Won't know until I try them, and I have a lot more to learn before I do.

Not that I’m going to write my plans for saving the world in a blog. But if the world were saved one day, I sure would like to be able to take the credit.

With the next entry, I'll be back to good old-fashioned restaurant irritations.

2004-09-28T04:52:00.000-05:00

Party of Five or Fifteen

August and September are the slowest months in many types of restaurants, so while I've been standing around not making money I've had a lot of conversations with other waiters. When we're not talking about who's fucking who (biggest topic) and where (ugh), movies or comics (much smaller group on the comics side), we talk about the job itself. This sort of conversation usually soon turns into What I Hate the Most.

These hates fall in two categories: the actions of our guests, and the actions of our coworkers.

I'm not in the mood to talk about lazy busboys. Let's talk about guests.

(If I haven't mentioned it before, I never refer to People Who Eat In Restaurants as "customers." I always call them guests. Most waiters call them customers. I think "guest" is a more accurate word for People Who Eat In Restaurants than "customer," that's all. Serving a guest implies hospitality, instead of only service. There is a difference.)

Generally, waiters make the same complaints about guests: they're bad tippers, they make impossible demands and whiney complaints (translated as "What can I get for free?"), and show a total lack of understanding for both principles of business ("Seven dollars for a chicken sandwich? That's outrageous! I can buy chicken at the grocery store for a dollar!") and principles of science ("What do you mean it's taking longer for my extra extra well done steak to cook?").

These are all general gripes. Recently, when I mentioned something that really annoys me, I found out that it tops the list of irritations for many other waiters, too.

The shortest name I can give this is "Large Groups of People Who Don't Arrive at the Same Time."

That's a bad name for it. It goes like this:

Mr. Underhill makes a reservation for ten people at seven o'clock. At seven-twenty, Mr. Underhill and his wife arrive. At seven-thirty, Mr. Underhill's brother and sister-in-law show up. At seven-forty-five, The Underhill's son, daughter-in-law, and two nephews come running in. At eight, Mr. Underhill's lawyer gets there. They're still not sure if Mrs. Birchly, the nice old lady down the street, got the message to attend.

Why does this make the job of waiting difficult? First, a word about reservations in general: Reservations are hated by waiters. And for good reason, too. Half the time, people who make reservations don't show up. More than that, they don't cancel. Wouldn't be nearly so bad if they cancelled.

The other night, I was in a section with three four-top booths and one six-top table. The six-top was reserved for a group of five at six. I started my shift at four, so for two hours, that table sat empty. By six-thirty, I had asked the hostesses at least three times if this group was still coming or if they had cancelled. No one had heard anything. After thirty minutes, we assumed the guests-to-be forgot their reservation and put the table back into rotation to be seated. There was a reservation for five people at seven-thirty, so the hostesses marked my six-top table for that. This group showed up at about ten to eight and stayed for an hour and a half. The table was bussed and reset just in time for the hostesses to stop seating my section, because the back room where I was working closes at around nine-thirty or ten, depending on business.
So because of reservations, my largest table was seated one time in five and a half hours. That is a good deal of lost income for me. I would have rather had a string of couples (two-tops) sitting there all night. Four chairs on each round would have sat empty, but making money on two people is making no money at all. Also, couples usually take about forty-five minutes to eat. I might have had six couples sit there--twelve people total--throughout my shift, instead of what I did get, which was only five.

(If you average a tip of three dollars a person, the difference was making fifteen bucks instead of thirty-six.)

Sure, I had three other booths to take care of, but as with any job, you want to make the most money possible, and having some of your money-making tools (in this case, my six-top table) left unused is not only unproductive and unprofitable, it's really god damn annoying.

So reservations that show, waiters don't mind so much. Reservations that don't, waiters hate.
Now we go back to the Underhills, who trickled in over the course of an hour. This time, we'll see it from the point of view of the waiter.

At seven, the waiter is thinking he's about to get sat. (Restaurant lingo is riddled with this kind of bizarre language. You "get sat" when the hostess seats some people at a table in your section.) He catches up his other tables and gets ready to greet his ten top, which will be arriving any minute now.

A good hostess staff will stop seating the waiter's other tables here, so he doesn't have to greet a ten-top just as he gets one or more other smaller groups. Sadly, most restaurants don't have good hostess staffs.

At ten after seven, the waiter is hoping they're not too much later. At seven-fifteen, he's thinking he's gonna get fucked again. He goes the hostess stand and asks if there was a cancellation. No message, so they hold the table. Most restaurants have a policy of holding tables.

The hostess decides to seat the waiter's other tables. She does this JUST as Mr. Underhill and his wife walk in the door. (This is called getting "double-sat," if I haven't already mentioned it.)
Now, before this turns into a stupid sitcom, let's drop the whole double sat thing. Yes, that does happen, and just as I described it, but it just clutters the example.

Mr. Underhill and his wife come in at seven-twenty and sit down. The waiter says hello and tells them the daily specials. He also asks about the rest of the party. Underhill says they'll be in soon. The waiter asks to get a drink for Mr. and Mrs. Underhill. They get alcohol, meaning the waiter has to do a call at the bar. This takes considerably longer than getting a Coke or tea from a side station.

The waiter comes back from the bar with the drinks in a few minutes. He sets them down and asks if the Underhills want any appetizers. They say they'll wait for the others. The waiter walks off.

At seven-thirty, Mr. Underhill's brother and sister-in-law show up. The waiter comes back to get their drink orders. Another trip to the bar. The four guests still don’t want to order, prefering to wait for the others. The brother asks what the soup of the day is. The waiter tells him and walks off.

At seven-forty-five, the Underhill's son, daughter-in-law, and two nephews come running in. The older two get drinks from the bar, the kids get soft drinks. When the waiter comes back from the bar, no one is ready to order, nor do they want to, preferring to wait for the other two. The daughter-in-law asks what the soup of the day is.

At eight, Mr. Underhill's lawyer gets there. He wants a Coke. The waiter gives him a Coke and asks the group if they want to wait for their last person to show before they order. Mr. Underhill says yes. The waiter starts to walk away. The brother asks if they could get some appetizers. The waiter hears this and comes back, then takes the appetizer order. He starts to leave. The sister-in-law's kid is crying. The sister-in-law orders food for the kids, asking for it to come out with the appetizers. The waiter starts to leave again, only to be stopped by the lawyer, who wants to know what the soup of the day is.

Before leaving the table again, he asks one more time--to be perfectly clear--"Do you want to wait until the last person arrives before you order your entrees?"

Mr. Underhill says "Yes." A few people grunt "Yeah." The rest nod their heads.

The appetizers and kiddie food come out on time in about ten minutes. The waiter checks on them. They're fine. One person needs another drink. The waiter gets it.

Twenty minutes later, the waiter clears the appetizer plates. Both kids need drink refils. Nothing else.

Fifteen minutes pass. The waiter keeps walking by the table, but at this point he can't ask "Are you SURE you don't want to order now?" without sounding like a pushy asshole. He's already asked about the ordering thing several times. No one says anything to him.

A couple minutes later, the waiter is in his side station, putting in an order for another table, when Mr. Underhill taps him on the shoulder. "We're ready to order," he says, with that tone of "You stupid mother fucker, why do I have to get up to tell you this? YOU are supposed to wait on US!"

The waiter hurries back to the table. The tenth chair is still empty. Mrs. Underhill looks annoyed. The kids are both finished eating and looking for something else to do. The other women are obviously hungry and irritated.

The waiter tries to make a joke out of it. "Gave up on the last person, huh?" No one responds, as if there never was supposed to be any tenth person, and why the hell didn't the waiter take the order an hour ago?

They all order their entrees. Some get refills on their drinks. The waiter orders the food, putting a "rush" on it.

Five minutes later, Mrs. Birchly arrives. She flags down the waiter and asks him what the soup of the day is. She needs some time to read the menu. She orders a hot tea.

The waiter comes back a few minutes later to find that Mrs. Birchly has been chatting with Mr. Underhill about her new hat. The waiter asks what she'd like to order. She says she hasn't looked at the menu yet.

A few minutes after that, when the waiter is taking an order at another table, Mrs. Birchly flags him down, saying she's been waiting to order her food. The waiter takes her order, just as the food for the rest of the people arrive.

The waiter puts a "Super Rush: Late Arrival" memo on Mrs. Birchly's food. He goes back to the table to check on everyone (make sure everyone likes what they're eating and see if anyone needs anything else). They've had their food for about three minutes now. Mrs. Birchly asks how much longer it'll be on her lobster. The waiter says, "Soon."

Because everyone was so hungry, they are all (minus Mrs. Birchly) finished eating within ten minutes. The waiter starts clearing the empty plates, avoiding the angry glare of Mrs. Birchly. Her lobster comes out just then. She asks for more hot water.

Mr. Underhill says that no one wants any dessert (without asking if anyone actually does). The nine people stare at Mrs. Birchly while she eats her lobster. Everyone is slightly uncomfortable, although no one will say (or maybe even knows) why.

Mr. Underhill asks for the check. The waiter brings it, runs Underhill's credit card, and says thanks. Mr. Underhill leaves him an average tip. The party leaves in an average mood.

Now, I've tried not to make this all goofy and outlandish. The timing may be a little more precise than usual, but this sort of thing happens to me about once a week. A large party trickles in and can't make up its mind on what it wants to do. Some want to wait, some want to order. They tell me to do one thing, then get annoyed when I do it.

What's the message for today? If you plan to go out as a group, SHOW UP AS A GROUP. And if you don't, understand that a waiter can only do what you tell him.

And now, other concerns about large parties.

In the above example, the waiter had to go to the bar several times to get the first drinks for each guest that arrived. Here's what going to the bar usually means.

If someone orders a gin and tonic, a waiter can't make it himself. He has to order it in the computer. Then he has to go to the bar to get it. Again, he can't make it himself. He has to wait for the bartender to make it. There are two main methods of this. The most common is when he orders it in the computer, a little piece of paper prints at the bar with the words "GIN AND TONIC" on it. The bartender--as soon as he can, which can be up to a few minutes--then makes the drink and leaves it in the window. The other method is that the little piece of paper prints at the waiter's computer, and he has to take that to the bar, tell the bartender what he wants, and then wait for the bartender to make it.

(Both these methods are theft-deterents. Bartenders are held accountable for liquor usage. Waiters are not, because there are so many of them.)

If a group arrives all at once, and each person gets an alcoholic drink, the waiter will ring them all in the computer, get the drinks from the bar, then bring them back to the table. Simple. When people trickle in, ordering as they arrive, the waiter has to do these same steps over and over again. This takes a lot more time (as I'm sure you understand. Consolidating steps makes any action more efficient.).

I suddenly feel the need to defend waiters again. Yes, we are there to serve you and all that, but the more efficient you are, the more efficient we can be. Most people who complain that a waiter's service sucks are the same people who send him back to the kitchen for multiple items at different times.

(Every waiter's had this happen. You drop off a cheeseburger and ask the guest if he wants anything else. The guests says he wants some mayonaise, so the waiter goes back to the kitchen and gets him some mayonaise. Then the guy says he wants some onion, so the waiter goes back to the kitchen to get the guest some onions. Then the guest asks for an extra pickle… Even asking, "Is that all you need right now?" doesn't work. The guest won't realize he wants something else until the waiter returns. Happens more than you think. And waiters always think the same thing: Get your shit together, moron!)

Here's another large party problem: at a table of ten people, everyone has ordered an entrée. ONE person ordered chicken wings as an appetizer, and he wants it as an appetizer. He does not want it with his entrée. So the waiter orders the food as that guest has asked.

This REALLY pisses people off. And people don't seem to understand why it happens. Let me explain it to you.

If a person, eating alone, orders chicken wings and a steak, here's how the order will work: the cook will make the chicken wings immediately. As soon as the wings are finished and brought to the table, the cook will start grilling the steak. It takes about ten minutes to cook a steak (temperature depending), which is about how long it takes to eat an order of wings. The steak will be finished just as the appetizer plates are cleared. This way, the guest will eat fresh chicken wings and then a nice, hot steak. If the steak and wings were cooked at the same time, the steak would get dry and shitty while the guest ate the wings. By the time the steak got to the table, it might still taste okay, but it won't taste as good as when it was first prepared.

This is all common sense right? Let's add nine people to this guy's table, as above. The ten entrees and one appetizer are ordered to the kitchen. The cook starts making the chicken wings. In about ten minutes, when the wings are ready, the cook starts preparing the ten entrees. The one guy at the table is eating his wings, while the other nine people are staring at him, getting hungrier. The one guy feels awkward because these are HIS wings, dammit, and if the others wanted some, they should have gotten an order themselves. The other guests are getting impatient. It's now been fifteen minutes and their food's not ready. The food WON'T be ready until at least the twenty minute mark. If anyone ordered a well done steak, it could take twenty minutes to cook, on top of the ten minutes while the wings were being prepared.

I've had people get very angry at me for this sort of thing. It's usually older people (not known for patience with food), but what am I gonna say? "Sorry your food's taking ten minutes longer than it should, but THAT GUY RIGHT THERE is the cause of it."

There is nothing I can say. I can only look like an incompetent moron who can't make the kitchen do magic.

What are the solutions? Prepare all the food at once? Great. So one person is going to have a plate of wings AND a steak with side orders arrive all at once. I'm sure that's what he wanted. How about making the wings arrive with all the other entrees and then have that guy's steak come out later? So when everyone else is finished eating, the guy with the wings will just be getting his steak. Then everyone can stare at him and hope he hurries the fuck up so they can all leave.

The solution is this: when you're part of a large party at a restaurant, pay attention to what other people are eating. If no one else gets an appetizer except for you, then you are going to be the asshole of the group, right there with your waiter. At least tell the group at large that you're getting an appetizer and ask if anyone else wants one. Then they certainly can't complain when you're eating and they're not.

As with most things, the solution comes down to simple communcation.

Man, this was a long post. But this is my Blog about waiting tables, and if I'm going to write about waiting tables, by gum, I'm gonna write about the things that piss people off the most.

2004-09-06T16:29:00.000-05:00

Perception of Incompetence

There are many good lines about waiting tables. Perception of Service and Sense of Urgency come to mind right now. If you've never waited tables--and there are far too many of you out there who have not--these may not mean anything to you.

Perception of Service is how the guest thinks you served him. If you're a great waiter and performed like one (no forgotten or fucked up orders) without having to put forth any real effort, the guest might think you did not do a good job because you didn't appear to be working hard. More than that, you might appear to not really care, either. So there goes your tip. Sometimes, a not so experienced waiter makes a better tip because the guest thought he was working very hard. Perception of Service also sometimes refers to simple details, like turning the handle on a coffee cup toward the guest after putting the cup on the table. If you understand why this is important, then you understand Perception of Service.

Sense of Urgency just means that you appear to give a damn that the guest is taken care of. You don't have to act like a spastic moron to show a Sense of Urgency. Have you ever walked into a store and needed help with something, only to be treated by a clerk like you're an idiot who's interrupting his phone call. Or felt like a stupid pest when all you wanted to do was quickly buy something and get out? That is the exact opposite of Sense of Urgency.

Perception of Service and Sense of Urgency encompass so many different things it's hard to concisely define the phrases. It basically means you act like a good host. I'm hoping you non-waiting, non-retail readers are intuitive enough to know what I mean.

In my ten years now of restaurant work (with a few exceptions while I "got a real job"), I've always analysed the trade of waiting tables. I've always quickly become a server-trainer. I spoke up with helpful hints at staff meetings and had many productive ideas to give out during the pre-shift meeting.

New Restaurant Term: "Pre-Shift Meeting." Most restaurants call it something else, like "Line Up" or "Menu Class." This is the time when all the waiters for that shift get together with a manager or chef (and that's sometimes the same person) to go over the specials of the day and talk about any upcoming special events or happenings. Sometimes the information is just "We have a crapload of reservations at noon" or "We've only got two bussers so try and help them out." There might be a few longer-term announcements, too, like "There's a staff-meeting next Saturday" or "We're all going rafting in two weeks." More fun restaurants will announce things like "Jennifer apparently has syphilis" or "I've finally snapped and will soon kill all of you. Have a great lunch." In my experience, the only restaurants that don't have any type of pre-shift meeting are the ones that don't offer an extensive menu. If the food is the same every day, there's really no point in getting everyone together, especially if you're just going to kill everyone after lunch.

I like putting in these sidebars to explain things, but then I lose my train of thought. Damn.

(And why do people keep spelling "lose" "loose?" It's gotten so bad I've even seen it in print a few times. A typo on the net is a simple mistake, but to get past a print writer and his editor?)

So I tend to analyse this job of waiting tables a lot--

(Also: "A lot" is TWO words, like "You have a lot of fish." Not "We hate alot of people.")

--and that's why I feel confident to write about it here. This isn't just because I feel like running my cyber mouth. I have two reasons: the first is that my movie about waiting tables will be that much funnier (having failed once, I'll probably never try to shoot it again, but I still want to write the damn thing). The bigger reason is so that YOU, the restaurant-going public, will stop being such inconsiderate assholes when you go out to eat.

So I still don't qualify as an altruist.

All restaurant managers want their waiters to be efficient. The faster people eat and get out the door, the faster new people come in to spend more money. The tables in a waiter's section are what make his money. So waiters need to anticipate the guest's needs.

Part of this is always carrying an updated copy of the guest's check so that as soon as the guest says, "Check, please," the waiter can give it to him.

(No, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say, "Check, please." It's sorta like "Beam me up, Scotty" or "Play it again, Sam" in that it's a cliche that came from nowhere. Most people say, "We'll take the check." Some say, "We're ready to go, so..." and never actually ask for the check. Some say, "I'm ready for the ticket." Yes, "ticket." Where do these people come from?")

I rarely follow management-type waiting bullshit. I don't "sell" people on expensive items. I don't "push" anything, especially desserts or alcohol. You know that line of "Treat others how you want to be treated?" I hate pushy people, especially salespeople. When someone sits in my section, I ask, "What would you like to order?" If you have a question, I'll answer it. You want to know what's good, I'll ask you what sort of things you generally like to eat. Chicken or fish. Spicy or mild. I usually recommend cheeseburgers, because restaurants make good cheeseburgers. If you want to see a dessert menu, I'll give you one and describe every item on it, but I won't shove one in your face. I won't even say, "Don't forget about dessert. Ours are excellent and you should get one." All I do is ask if you want to see the dessert menu. If you say no, then it's dropped immediately. I am not a corporate whore.

I don't always carry the updated checks on me, but I do keep copies when the guests are about ready to leave, like when the dinner plates are cleared and the guests are finishing their drinks or thinking about dessert. That's when I print a new check and carry it with me in a waiter wallet.

The other day, a guest said, as I cleared his plate, "No dessert tonight. I'll just take a check." Holding his plate and his wife's plate in my left hand, I pulled out the waiter wallet containing his check with my right and set it on the table. Very efficient, right? Restaurant managers everywhere would be proud of me.

Here's what the guest said: "Oh, in a hurry to get rid of us, are you? Need the space for someone else?" He looked around, "Doesn't seem to be that much of a wait right now." He said all of this very quickly, with a somewhat jocular tone (I hate that "I might be joking, but I might not" tone people use with waiters. Makes me think they're just trying to get something for free, which they more than occasionally are.)

I quickly said something like, "No, not at all. Just trying to be efficent. Take your time. Would either of you like refills on your drinks." I'm sure I sounded like I was backpeddling. But what else could I do? I really wasn't trying to get him out. I had other open tables and it was a fairly slow night. There was no wait at all. I honestly was just trying to be efficient. But his PERCEPTION was that I was rushing him. And that sort of perception is very, very bad at a time like this.

This guy was not being a dick, but he said enough to make me wonder if he was really annoyed. This is the worst time of the evening to irritate a guest. If you're slow getting his drinks or extra condiments at the beginning of the meal, you still have time to make it up throughout the rest of the night. But dropping the check is usually the last interaction you have with a guest. Even if you did everything perfectly all night, taking too long to give a guest his check or his change can quickly drop your tip from twenty pecent to ten, just because of that immediate irritation the guest is feeling by having to wait. This irritation is doubled if the rest of his group is already walking out the door and he's sitting there alone, his food and drink finished, with nothing to do.

Time is subjective in restaurants.

In the end, this guy left me sixteen or seventeen percent. Not bad, but not great. No way to know if I had fucked up the tip at the end, of if he was just a crappy tipper.

I usually don't do that sort of quick draw shit with checks for this exact reason. I don't want guests to feel rushed. Most of the times when people asked for the check, I've had it right there in my apron but still walked away and returned a couple minutes later so it looked like I went out of my way just to do something for them.

And that is called good Perception of Service. It is not always about being efficient. It's about, in a way, lying, which is all good waiting really is.

And in the waiting tables movie I wrote, there is a scene where this is demonstrated. A guest asks for the check. I walk off to get it and he gives me shit about not being prepared and, hence, being a shitty waiter. Later, a guy asks for the check, and I give it to him immediately. He response pretty much the way the guy the other night did. In the interests of comedy, neither guy tipped me. This illustrates a few things:

One, I still occasionally make the same stupid waiting mistakes I've made for years, even though I know better.

Two, there is no Standard of Service. People have very different expectations when they go out to eat. A simple example: clearing someone's plate when he's obviously finished eating. One type of person will expect you to clear his plate as soon as he's finished and will think you're an incompetant moron if you don't do this. The other type of person will be offended if you attempt to clear his plate before everyone else at the table is finished eating. He will think you're an incompetant moron if you don't know you're not supposed to clear one plate before you clear all the others. Getting this very specific preference wrong can sometimes totally fuck your tip.

Three, the set ups of the scenes in my waiting tables movie (Hereafter referred to by its very simple and not-too-original title "Wait") are timeless: they keep happening over and over again. Also, it would have been one damnably funny movie if only I had a crapload of money to make it (And for the ninetieth time it's not just a rip off of "Clerks" set in a restaurant, dammit.)

I think this concludes today's Waiting Life lesson.

(And Looking back on it, "Beam me up, Scotty" and "Play it again, Sam" are not good analogies for "Check, please." "Check, please" at least HAS been heard in lots of movies and tv shows, like in every eighties romantic comedy just as the girl reveals she's ready to now have sex for the first time. "Check, please" is always a good punch at the end of a joke. Didn't Billy Crystal say that after Meg Ryan's fake orgasm? Aside from "When Harry Met Sally," the restaurants in those types of movies are very, very nice. It's much funnier when a girl gets all hot and sexy in a classy joint. Or when Ghostbusters fling slime or Blues Brothers drink out of the wrong glasses.)

I love the movies.

2004-09-01T16:17:00.000-05:00

September 1, 2004

My thirty-second birthday.

Can't say I feel any different. It wasn't even my thirtieth that made me feel like I was getting old. The only birthday that ever had any effect on me (other than sixteenth and twenty-first, for obvious reasons) was my twenty-eighth.

When you hit twenty-eight, you can no longer say you're in your early/mid twenties. You can do that at twenty-five and even sorta get away with it at twenty-seven. Once you hit twenty-eight, you're pretty much thirty.

I usually work on my birthdays. I don't like going to bars or any of that socializing crap. Just so happened I was off today, my set schedule being what it was, and I didn't feel like picking up an extra shift. I stopped by the restaurant today to talk to somebody and get some video (more on that later). Not being much for subtlety, I told everyone I saw, "It's my birthday!" Hugs, handshakes, and happiness galore. After turning down a few drink offers (four p.m. is too early to drink when I'm not in the mood), I mentioned to a girl that I usually like to work on my birthdays. She said, "Yeah, you seem like the kind who likes to be doted on." Wasn't really sure how to take that. Then she said, "Sure, you'll talk about your birthdays now. But wait 'til you hit your thirties. Then you won't wanna talk about them at all." I told her I was now thirty-two. She said, "Oh," and laughed. A sort of insult and a roundabout compliment all in one minute from the same person.

I imagine I'll be at my computer all day today, taking breaks only to sort through a box or three of papers and electronics. Can't even say I'm all that in the mood to have sex today, although I'm pretty sure I will (sex is a quick and cheap present, you know). Not quite in the mood for sex today? I must be getting old.

This is a lame post, even by my pedantic ranting standards. I guess I really just wanted everyone to know it was my birthday.

But no one reads this blog yet, so what's the damn point, y'know?

Useless fact! Edgar Rice Burrough is ninety-seven years older than me. And today Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. celebrate their second anniversary. You go, Daphne and Freddie!

Useless rant! The word "arguably" is being used too much, and usually by wishy-washy pussies.

2004-08-31T22:16:00.000-05:00

Just got back from the video store (Yeah, it was Blockbuster. Can't help it anymore. All the nice local chains have closed, except the two that SUCK. If "Air Force One" is still a new considered a new release, I don't need to be there.)

First off, to get it out of the way, I rented "Fog of War" and "Melvin Goes to Dinner."

You ever notice on the covers of movie boxes for romantic comedies that the characters almost always have the same expressions? I think I've narrowed the traditional boy/girl romantic comedy covers down to two:

The boy looks nervous and the girl looks self-assured (imagine a guy looking right at the camera with both eyebrows raised while the girl has her arms crossed in the back ground, with a knowing smirk on her face).

The girl looks off into the distance, with either an expression of wonder or calm, while the boy looks at her with marvel and/or envy.

Basically, in romantic comedies ("rom-coms" Ugh.), boys are stupid and scared, and girls are smart and spiritual (lot of S's there).

I like paying attention to stupid traditions in movies almost as much as I like noticing stupid traditions in speech. I'll try to always provide new ideas, at least one notch above "Ever notice how many trailers start with 'In a world...'"

How horrible it'd be to write about some social pattern when it has already become part of a stand up comic's standard routine. "And what is the deal with airline food...?"

I especially enjoy looking at the cover of "Paycheck" (Oh, how poor PKD is mangled on the screen.). Here's what the characters are thinking just as their pictures are being taken: Ben Affleck: "I think something terrible is about to happen to me, coming from RIGHT OVER THERE!" Uma Thurman: "What? Something terrible? Right over WHERE?" Aaron Eckhart: "Heh-heh. I'm doing something terrible-- Right. Now."

Didn't bother seeing the movie, though I did like the short story. Someday, maybe. (If I can watch "Timeline" after reading the book, I can probably get through this.)

Stuff I almost rented but didn't:

"Rundown" Looks like a lotta good bonus features. And I always like a good action movie.
"Dogville" Wasn't in the mood for it tonight. By the way, I don't like Bjork's music at all.
"The Weather Underground" A fine documentary, by all accounts.
"My Voyage to Italy" The Martin Scorsese documentary that all film dorks will watch.

And that's all I can remember. They had a three for twenty-five sale on used movies. Too bad the only one I wanted was "American Splender."

I love movies.

I'm out of comments. Tommorow's my birthday.

2004-08-14T17:54:00.000-05:00

Yes, so I went on for a while about "There you go" because it's bothered me for a long time. The way people use language in general has always interested me. Can't help noticing these things, and then making fun of them. I had a great time when "My bad" first got popular. A lot of people get really pissed when you goof on their new speech patterns. I think it's more a case of people not liking having to think about themselves, their lives, and the way they relate to the world.

The easiest way to piss anyone off is to ask him to think about his beliefs. Never does a simple "Why?" cause more damage.

I tried to gain popularity for the phrases "My good" and "It's all bad" for when I did something correctly or someone else fucked something up for me, respectively. They didn't catch on.

(That last was pronounced "S'all baad," by the way.)

Here are two new things I've heard a lot more lately (not to say they're new, just that they're being used a lot): "Exactly" and "Pretty much."

If you make a somewhat witty or wry observation about work, usually to the effect of "The management doesn't give a fuck about us workers" or "Our coworker's a two-faced whore," and the person you're talking to is in agreement but has nothing to add, he'll say, "Exactly" or "Pretty much." They both mean the same thing.

"Exactly" is almost always pronounced "Egg-ZAAKK-ly" with a bit of a drop in tone at the end.

"Pretty much" is usually said with a slight smirk, but not a happy one. More like the expression to accompany "Man, I can't believe how the powers that be in this country continually fucks us. This sucks."

Many times, the person will only be agreeing with you because you're standing in front of him and the person you're talking about isn't. In that case, people being the gutless sheep they are these days, he won't want to add to what you're saying, but he wants to stay on your good side, so saying, "Pretty much," allows him to agree with you without anyone accusing him of also being against the person in question.

Yesterday, I said something to the effect of "customers suck" and a coworker responded, "Exactly. Pretty much." Very little pause there. He wasn't correcting himself.

Later I said to this same guy something like "Money sure sucks on Friday nights lately." "Exactly."

Then, "All women love to fuck random guys." "Exactly."

So basically, if you make an observation that someone else doesn't disagree with, but can't really contribute to, either because you said it so well or he's too busy to really care (like with "There you go"), he'll either say "Exactly" or "Pretty much."

I've noticed for over ten years that Americans are devolving into a race of nonsense phrase spouting absent-minded morons. At least there are a few variations in the phrases along the way.

An example for waiters: If you see someone sitting at a table in your restaurant that you were at one time very friendly with but haven't seen in a while, find an excuse to go talk to the people at his table, like refill drinks or drop off some food. While there, ask, "How is everyone?" Your old friend will glance at you and say, "Howyadoin'" with the usual lack of enthusiasm everyone has when slinging that phrase out to people he doesn't know. But he will most likely glance at you briefly as or after he says it and then he'll recognize you. Then he'll ask you how you're doing, even though he just asked less than a minute ago. He only meant it the second time, obviously.

It's because of stupid observations like this that I frequently hear "You've got WAAAY too much time on your hands."

They're right. I suppose I could be out drinking a beer right now, or watching television. Maybe both at once.

Worthless fact: I never ask anyone how he's doing unless I genuinely give a shit.

2004-08-03T15:19:00.000-05:00

Having spent so damn much money on all my computer/audio/video equipment, I've decided to give up buying movies, choosing instead to rent or borrow them. The libraries in St. Charles had over 2000 DVDs when last I was there in March. When I returned to Montgomery Village, I hoped to find an equal (or better) collection in our local library system. I found none.
But then, about a month or so ago, a new rack displayed two titles. Some Yves Montand movie from the middle sixties, and, I think, "The Godfather." The next few times I stopped by the library, this rack was completely empty. Not surprising, considering the library doesn't charge anything to borrow movies (a buck a day for DVD late fees, but that's reasonable).
Now that it's been up a while, and not quite as popular, I find more and more DVDs each time I visit. Usually, they're movies I already have or don't want to watch (is anyone out there a big Yves Montand fan?). But then, last night, I found two movies I've wanted to see for some time.
One is the DVD collection of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." I've heard this sucks, yes, but I'd still like to see it. I almost bought it many times, but who wants to pay thirty bucks for a movie (series) everyone says is terrible? Besides, you can find the episodes on-line. All I really wanted to see were the bonus features, like the documentary about Douglas Adams (alas).
(From this same library, I borrowed the CD of "The Salmon of Doubt." If you like Adams' writing, I highly recommend it.)
The "Hitchhiker" DVD was in perfect shape, and included the paper insert. People usually lose those. Stupid bastards. But I've already gone off on people who lose CDs out of books.
The other DVD is "A Man For All Seasons." Best movie of '66. I've never seen it. The DVD has both versions, widescreen on one side, pan and scan on the other. A fine way to put out a movie. The real version, for people who care about film, and the shitty, chopped up version, for people who don't.
The real point of this post: When I went to play the widescreen version of the movie, I couldn't, because some moron had written, in big, permanent marker numbers, some catalog code on the disk itself!
This was not vandalism by a library borrower. This is some code put there by a person who works in the library. I've never worked in a library. I don't know who does the purchasing and cataloguing. One would think that this would be an experienced person, familiar with all types of media, and what not to do with them. Did this person, years ago, use a razor blade to etch numbers into the A side of a record? Or recently use white out to put a code on the magnetic tape of a video cassette?
I saw about two minutes of this movie before the disk could no longer be read. At least I got to see enough of it to know there's not that much lost in the pan and scan version.
And if I really cared that much, I'd go and buy the movie myself. It's only about sixteen bucks.
So this is just another thing to bitch about, like most blogs in the world.
_____________________________

Say, I was rereading parts of "Braindroppings," because I still think George Carlin is one of the funniest angry people around. Besides that, I rant about similar kinds of stupid language usage (like in my last post). Always good to revisit a master. Then I read this part:
"And let's lose these guys who think it's cute to say, "Ouch!" when someone delivers a small put-down."
Shot down by the master!
I've decided to retract my reply. Instead, I offer this: "Anytime I say what I think is meant by 'There you go' (as in the last post) someone listening says, at the end and after a movie-perfect pause, 'There you go,' as if no one has thought of using that clever response already. Some people give the also popular 'Someone has WAAAAY too much time on his hands…' I'd add, 'You need to get a life,' as a response, but I hear that anytime I talk about anything other than reality television and pop music. I'm waiting for someone to say something totally original, like 'I think I'm going to kill you, mother fucker, for making me feel small and stupid, especially when I say such standard staples of stupidity like Nuklear, Jewlary, and Relator. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having someone else do my thinking for me!'"
I like words. They're fun to think about. And I don't drink much and I stay away from video games. Frees up lots of mental processing time. I can even multitask in my own head.
Now, to piss off somebody somewhere, the anti-woman joke of the day: "What's the first thing a woman does when she gets out of the battered wives shelter?" "The fucking dishes if she knows what's good for her."

2004-07-08T00:47:00.000-05:00

Today, be a pal and shoot anyone who says, "What it is is..."

Shoot and then mutilate the corpse of anyone who says, "What it is is it's a..."

That second one is starting to take hold. These people need to be put down NOW.

(If you're against killing, at least make a whole lotta fun of these people and call them illiterate morons.)

Other phrases I don't like:

"Not a good thing." 1984 is upon us! People don't like to say that something is bad (It's so darn negative!). So instead we'll say that something isn't good. It's only a short while until people start saying things are "ungood." That's when we all readily accept the happiness of sitcoms.

"You might wanna..." People only say this so they won't sound like assholes. "I don't want to TELL you what to do. So I'll tell you what you MIGHT wanna do..." No, they don't sound like assholes. They sounds like fucking idiots. I'd rather have an asshole tell me off any day.

(And people are much more frequently using "You might wanna..." in an incredibly condescending tone, essentially saying, "You are going against everything I know to be right and true. If you want my opinion of you to change, YOU MIGHT WANNA let go of the microwave before you jump in the swimming pool."

"There you go." Anytime someone uses this in response to something you said, what he means is "I don't give a fuck what you're talking about. I'm busy in my own world and would really like to get back to what I was doing before you started talking to me. I don't want to look like an asshole so I'll pretend I somewhat care about you until you've stopped talking. At that time I will actively not care about you again. And since I haven't really listened to anything you've said, I'll answer with the simple all-purpose phrase, 'There you go'. Now fuck off."

Think about the times you've heard this phrase. It's usually right when the other person STOPS TALKING. It's like this:

You: "Yeah, so when I get home, I'm gonna tune up my guitar and learn how to play that old Wings song."
Him: "There you go."

You: "Yeah, so when I get home, I'm gonna turn on my computer and download the latest updates for all my peripherals."
Him: "There you go."

You: "Yeah, so when I get home, because I'm such a miserable retch, I'm gonna take a knife and open up a vein."
Him: "There you go."

The only exception to "There you go" being a fuck off phrase is when someone like me (a waiter) serves something to a guest. On occasion, I will set down a Coke and say, "There you go." I mean nothing derogatory by it in that situation.

But the rest of the time, "There you go," means shut the fuck up.

Good lord, I think I'm out of phrases I hate!

No, there are more. Many more. But it's late and I'm not feeling very angry. When I'm angry, I rant better. As it is, I feel like reading the rest of this fine Barry Wean comic.

2004-07-02T02:25:00.000-05:00

Ah! Looks like continually refreshing the screen DOES work after a while.

But I will reload Windows. Soon.

2004-07-02T02:23:00.000-05:00

What the hell is up with the stupid dating? It is NOT still June 16! It's July 2 at 3:20 A.M.

I have a feeling this is due to my browser cache getting continually stuck.

Irritating... I'll be reloading this computer soon.

Until then, I'll keep up the little time/date stamps in the posts.

~Chung-chung!~

2004-06-16T13:17:00.004-05:00

(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.)

_____________________________________________________________________

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.)

_____________________________________________________________________

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.

_____________________________________________________________________

Nope.

Well, crap.

So I'll start dating my own posts now.

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

_____________________________________________________________________

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.

_____________________________________________________________________

(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.

_____________________________________________________________________

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.")

_____________________________________________________________________

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.

2004-06-02T21:13:00.000-05:00

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!

2004-05-11T13:53:00.000-05:00

Ah. Comments enabled.

Okay, then.

Guess I'll work on giving people something to comment on.

2004-05-11T13:29:00.000-05:00

The hardest thing about writing any blog is trying to remember what you wanted to write about. I had a list yesterday. That list was longer than the one Sunday, which was longer than Saturday's, which was still longer than the one Friday. Each progressive day my list of topics to write about as soon as I got back to my computer grew even longer. I was going to enjoy writing out in detail every flaw that my fellow human beings possess. I might even start a new religion!

But then I finished my four consecutive days of waiting shifts (totalling thirty-six hours on the clock, which really isn't that much compared to the last few weekends) and forgot everything I wanted to write. The list disappeared along with all the short-lived problems of food-service quickness.

The list is there, though. I can feel it buzzing. I just can't pull it out, like it's stuck in a drawer. I hate metaphors. (But I use them, anyway, just like I use and hate razors.)

Now I have a nice pad of paper. And a digital voice recorder. My thoughts will never again be lost. Unless I run out of paper. Or my batteries die.

I'm starting to enjoy this blogging stuff. It's like an e-mail, without the direction. Or purpose.

Say, where's the space for people to comment? Not that anyone would comment on a blog that's only run for two posts. And not that I'd want to hear from someone who'd respond to a blog that only ran for two posts.

2004-05-06T17:22:00.000-05:00

The days off seem more draining than the days on. When I'm there, I'm running and always on my feet, but I have an easily definable sense of purpose. On the days off, I have no guidelines on how to go about my day. It's days like this I see video games as a major addiction. I'm glad I don't have any, except that Snood game on my phone. I'm beginning to hate Snood.

The line was "I always wanted to be a dancer, but I could never get the shit off my shoes." Regardless of what you think of the author, it's a good line. That shit keeps piling up. My job to day is not to get rid of it, but put it in order. If it was an easy job, everyone would do it.

Taking orders and getting refills takes so much less effort.

Strangely, I don't feel funny. But this is my first post. I imagine I'll have to warm up to this method of writing. Sometimes, I miss my notebooks. Then I see them piled up in a corner of my closet, and wish I could just throw the damn things away. Here's hoping a website carries much less baggage.

Now I need a refill.