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Saturday, August 23, 2003
I called my brother Sean today and I said, "Hey, so what do you do when you still feel like shit, even though you feel like you shouldn't feel like shit anymore, and you are bored of feeling shitty and you don't know what else to do?" I asked him this because he has been through a long, horrible, ridiculous divorce, and although my situation is nothing like his, I know he will empathize. "Well," he said, "I got drunk for a year." "Yeah," I answered, " I'm already working on that. What else? What else can I do to not feel like shit?" And he said, "Well, I don't recommend getting drunk for a year, but just know that I don't think it's boring, and you can talk to me whenever you want."
I went to a dinner party at my friend Carol's apartment last night, way up on the West side. It was really fun, at least I think it was, because most of it is fuzzy. I slept at Ian and Tessa's to avoid a party in my building, but before I crashed I apparently wrote a very angry and caustic blog for Ian. I'll hold to it, though, since although the words were harsh the sentiment was true.
If I had my druthers, I'd go back to bed right now and sleep off this hangover and start fresh tomorrow. I'm ready to finally have a good day.
Yesterday I made a grand return to the gym. I haven't actually worked out in months, or really in a year, preferring yoga and cycling. But I haven't been able to motivate myself to get to yoga class, so I dragged myself back to the Bally's on 6th Ave. I had a reasonably good workout, as my sore muscles today are telling me, but I know I am a far cry from getting back into shape. To that end, I wandered over to the Personal Trainer area in the basement of my gym and talked to a guy there for about fifteen minutes. He seemed to completely understand my plight- I'm in great shape, with a really healthy heart and really strong muscles but I've got a lovely layer of flub that won't go away- and he told me what he'd do to help me tone. I have a meeting with him on Tuesday, but unless I can come up with a grillion dollars between now and then, I won't be able to see him again. My trainer in Los Angeles cost me $20 a session. Here in New York, make it $65, most of it up front. If I want to work with this guy, I have to fork over $1582 over the next three months. For that money, I would get 24 sessions with him, meeting two or three times a week. I know that $65 is not that much cash for a meeting with a PT in New York, but really, how does anyone afford it?
I'm almost ready to give my two weeks at work, regardless if I have another job lined up. As my brother Kent always says, I'm going to do it wrong differently.
If I had my druthers, I'd go back to bed right now and sleep off this hangover and start fresh tomorrow. I'm ready to finally have a good day.
Yesterday I made a grand return to the gym. I haven't actually worked out in months, or really in a year, preferring yoga and cycling. But I haven't been able to motivate myself to get to yoga class, so I dragged myself back to the Bally's on 6th Ave. I had a reasonably good workout, as my sore muscles today are telling me, but I know I am a far cry from getting back into shape. To that end, I wandered over to the Personal Trainer area in the basement of my gym and talked to a guy there for about fifteen minutes. He seemed to completely understand my plight- I'm in great shape, with a really healthy heart and really strong muscles but I've got a lovely layer of flub that won't go away- and he told me what he'd do to help me tone. I have a meeting with him on Tuesday, but unless I can come up with a grillion dollars between now and then, I won't be able to see him again. My trainer in Los Angeles cost me $20 a session. Here in New York, make it $65, most of it up front. If I want to work with this guy, I have to fork over $1582 over the next three months. For that money, I would get 24 sessions with him, meeting two or three times a week. I know that $65 is not that much cash for a meeting with a PT in New York, but really, how does anyone afford it?
I'm almost ready to give my two weeks at work, regardless if I have another job lined up. As my brother Kent always says, I'm going to do it wrong differently.
Thursday, August 21, 2003
I've been offered a new job. There is so much baggage in that simple statement that I hardly know where to begin. I've set down two rules: that I work with a certain manager, and that I get to choose my schedule. I'm reasonably sure that both demands will be honored, and if they are, I've pretty much said I'd do it.
I would be working in a bar in the East Village that is set to open in three weeks. I would work, most likely, Wednesday and Friday night, and possibly one other day shift. During that time I would make at least half again as much as I am making right now on six shifts at my restaurant. However, the hours are ugly: 8 PM to 4 AM, both nights, never getting done earlier than 4. The day shift would be 11 AM to 8 PM. I would have to write off half of the next day after working till 4, not getting home till 5. But it would mean Saturdays and Sundays off, and at least four days off a week. It would also allow me to pay for a wine course, or an acting class, or my credit card debt... I mean, it could be a whole new financial world.
However, I would have to leave my job, my job where I slave to make a few bones a week, but where I have good friends and easy success, and the clout of one of the best restaurants in New York. Now, I'll say where I work, and people won't recognize it, won't recognize the skill I have to have to work there.
So really, we're talking about pride here. Pride in a job that is not at all what I want to do. But I am proud of my restaurant, proud of how well suited I am to work there, proud of the work I do and proud that the staff and customers love me. At the same time, I would find pride in scrubbing toilets or working the guacamole gun at Taco Bell. I guess I can take my pride wherever I go, but it just won't be the same. Not at all.
I probably won't find out if my two weighty requests, for management and schedule, have been granted until early next week, so I have the weekend to sit on it. In the end it's change, and change is good, if it means more cash in the bank and more time to write, sing, EMT, act, and play. On the other hand, I cut my hair off and am considering a new restaurant job, something that even a few months ago I would have never done. I'd hate to make these huge choices and then regret them, chalking them to simply looking for diversions. Well. What's a girl to do.
I would be working in a bar in the East Village that is set to open in three weeks. I would work, most likely, Wednesday and Friday night, and possibly one other day shift. During that time I would make at least half again as much as I am making right now on six shifts at my restaurant. However, the hours are ugly: 8 PM to 4 AM, both nights, never getting done earlier than 4. The day shift would be 11 AM to 8 PM. I would have to write off half of the next day after working till 4, not getting home till 5. But it would mean Saturdays and Sundays off, and at least four days off a week. It would also allow me to pay for a wine course, or an acting class, or my credit card debt... I mean, it could be a whole new financial world.
However, I would have to leave my job, my job where I slave to make a few bones a week, but where I have good friends and easy success, and the clout of one of the best restaurants in New York. Now, I'll say where I work, and people won't recognize it, won't recognize the skill I have to have to work there.
So really, we're talking about pride here. Pride in a job that is not at all what I want to do. But I am proud of my restaurant, proud of how well suited I am to work there, proud of the work I do and proud that the staff and customers love me. At the same time, I would find pride in scrubbing toilets or working the guacamole gun at Taco Bell. I guess I can take my pride wherever I go, but it just won't be the same. Not at all.
I probably won't find out if my two weighty requests, for management and schedule, have been granted until early next week, so I have the weekend to sit on it. In the end it's change, and change is good, if it means more cash in the bank and more time to write, sing, EMT, act, and play. On the other hand, I cut my hair off and am considering a new restaurant job, something that even a few months ago I would have never done. I'd hate to make these huge choices and then regret them, chalking them to simply looking for diversions. Well. What's a girl to do.
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
I couldn't go to the doctor today. I woke with a dream still fresh, not in content but in feeling. My mother warned me that my good feelings were bound to be colored by relapses into sadness; she was right. I called the gyn, rescheduled for Friday, and crept back into bed until after noon. I was supposed to go to yoga and then sign up for an audition, but it wasn't until 2 PM that I was ready to walk out the door. I went straight for Bergen Bagel, grabbed a veggie burger and then got on the train headed for Central Park.
By 3 PM I was on line (god, I really wrote "on" line as opposed to "in" line... I must be a real New Yorker now) for the Ben Folds/Aimee Mann show at SummerStage. I was by myself, waiting for the venerable James Amler to join me, and so I met the ten people near me and we watched out for each other until we parted late that night. I was in the first bunch of folks let in, so I hurried to the stage and settled, staggered between the first and second row. James got there by my second beer, and minutes before Ben Folds took the stage. I have to confess I've never heard his music before. I know my bretheren might see that as sacriledge but I certainly got to hear it tonight. The only problem was I surrounded by a hundred barely-out-of-their-teens girls, who screamed along so loudly that usually I couldn't hear Ben sing. What a show. Just him and a piano, in the full sun, and he lit up the stage. He said a lot of funny things that went over the young women's heads, but they laughed along anyway, and I saw how easily Ben and my brother must have become friends. I was sold. He writes great tunes and he wallomps the piano like no one I've seen.
And then Aimee Mann took the stage. I've been a fan since she stood up during the opera and screamed, "Hush, hush, keep it down now, voices carry" to the chagrin of her video boyfriend. I'd never seen her live. It was one of those experiences that you wish you could relive a few times so you don't miss anything. I knew 70% of the music she played, and when she started a tune I didn't know, my mind started to wander in the directions her music pointed me. It didn't help that I started the day off in less-than-perfect form, but it allowed me to try to think some of this stuff out. Or at least, manuver my mind to a place where it's okay again.
James once again saved the day; at the wedding, he danced with me all night and made it so incredibly fun I almost forgot my woes. The Rombauer Cabernet Sauvignon helped as well, but James made all the difference. He didn't know it, but all through Aimee Mann's set, he was exhaiing on my sweaty back, cooling me and letting me know he was there.
As soon as the show was over, we headed to Blue Smoke where my terrific friend Hayley works. We spent a couple of hours there with her brother, boyfriend, and two friends from Missouri. She came swinging around the bar to sit next to me and demanded the short version of what happened at the wedding.
Listening to great music relieves you of yourself. I sorely missed my brothers, but it was wonderful, and it's also exactly the kind of thing that I usually bail out of at the last second. I made a promise to myself after the wedding, however, that I would continue to spend time with these people who make me happy.
By 3 PM I was on line (god, I really wrote "on" line as opposed to "in" line... I must be a real New Yorker now) for the Ben Folds/Aimee Mann show at SummerStage. I was by myself, waiting for the venerable James Amler to join me, and so I met the ten people near me and we watched out for each other until we parted late that night. I was in the first bunch of folks let in, so I hurried to the stage and settled, staggered between the first and second row. James got there by my second beer, and minutes before Ben Folds took the stage. I have to confess I've never heard his music before. I know my bretheren might see that as sacriledge but I certainly got to hear it tonight. The only problem was I surrounded by a hundred barely-out-of-their-teens girls, who screamed along so loudly that usually I couldn't hear Ben sing. What a show. Just him and a piano, in the full sun, and he lit up the stage. He said a lot of funny things that went over the young women's heads, but they laughed along anyway, and I saw how easily Ben and my brother must have become friends. I was sold. He writes great tunes and he wallomps the piano like no one I've seen.
And then Aimee Mann took the stage. I've been a fan since she stood up during the opera and screamed, "Hush, hush, keep it down now, voices carry" to the chagrin of her video boyfriend. I'd never seen her live. It was one of those experiences that you wish you could relive a few times so you don't miss anything. I knew 70% of the music she played, and when she started a tune I didn't know, my mind started to wander in the directions her music pointed me. It didn't help that I started the day off in less-than-perfect form, but it allowed me to try to think some of this stuff out. Or at least, manuver my mind to a place where it's okay again.
James once again saved the day; at the wedding, he danced with me all night and made it so incredibly fun I almost forgot my woes. The Rombauer Cabernet Sauvignon helped as well, but James made all the difference. He didn't know it, but all through Aimee Mann's set, he was exhaiing on my sweaty back, cooling me and letting me know he was there.
As soon as the show was over, we headed to Blue Smoke where my terrific friend Hayley works. We spent a couple of hours there with her brother, boyfriend, and two friends from Missouri. She came swinging around the bar to sit next to me and demanded the short version of what happened at the wedding.
Listening to great music relieves you of yourself. I sorely missed my brothers, but it was wonderful, and it's also exactly the kind of thing that I usually bail out of at the last second. I made a promise to myself after the wedding, however, that I would continue to spend time with these people who make me happy.
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
I stopped by my doctor's office today in hopes of rescheduling my colposcopy, and it turns out that my doctor is going on vacation. And even if she wasn't going on vacation, her next appointment is September 26th. Yeesh! What's a girl gotta do to find out if she's got baby cancer cells on her cervix! So I called my former doctor's office, and it turns out that my gyn there is on maternity leave! What, is it not all about my cervix? So I'm seeing some stranger tomorrow for yet another lovely pelvic exam, starting from the beginning because our health care system sucks and I have to get completely re-tested before even getting a colposcopy. My current gyn, who I briefly got on the phone, said I should just do it over because "maybe this time it will come out normal and you won't have to get a colposcopy". What? What exactly do you mean? This thing I've been sweating over could be a computer glitch or something?
Doubtful. But I'm getting ANOTHER (my third in a month) pelvic exam by yet another (my third) doctor in the morning. Exactly how I want to spend my day off. But I hope to be under the stars tomorrow night listening to Aimee Mann and Ben Folds in Central Park, so really, I can't complain.
Je suis tres decouragee a mon travail. Je ne suis pas content. En outre, j'attends toujours un appel t駘駱honique ou un email d'une certaine personne. Quel dommage. Je vais assez bien, mais je m'ennuie toujours de lui.
Translation: I don't like my job. Where's my man?
Doubtful. But I'm getting ANOTHER (my third in a month) pelvic exam by yet another (my third) doctor in the morning. Exactly how I want to spend my day off. But I hope to be under the stars tomorrow night listening to Aimee Mann and Ben Folds in Central Park, so really, I can't complain.
Je suis tres decouragee a mon travail. Je ne suis pas content. En outre, j'attends toujours un appel t駘駱honique ou un email d'une certaine personne. Quel dommage. Je vais assez bien, mais je m'ennuie toujours de lui.
Translation: I don't like my job. Where's my man?
Monday, August 18, 2003
Sometimes when I知 on my bike, riding in the city, I can稚 breathe. I stand up, clipped into my pedals, and I start to run, leaning forward, but I知 running with my bike. I知 pulling and pulling and pushing and pushing the pedals and sometimes I have to stop because I feel that I値l come unclipped and leave my bike and fly straight up into the sky, my gloved hands stretched out like Superman. Instead, I sit back into my saddle, and try to catch up with my speed. There is a corny new-agey adage that says you should do something scary every day; I take care of that simply by being on my bike in this city. But, God, I love it. I love it.
When I知 on my bike, I知 strong, graceful, and stubborn. I stand up for myself, I admonish cars and pedestrians and other cyclists when they are being unsafe. I am larger than myself, I am hyper-alert, I知 a Goddess with wheels, I fly. In traffic, I pass the cars, my heart pumping, as they idle in freon and exhaust. I am more of me when I知 on my bike.
And then I'm off my bike, no longer a Goddess, but a lowly human who spends two hours cleaning her apartment. There is something very Zen and calming about cleaning, but I also did it in order to procrastinate. I can't seem to get excited about my French homework.
Another form of procrastination was to wander on my brother Steve's website to look at all of his pictures of the wedding. Probably not the best idea right now, but the thing that struck me most was the undeniable, effusive beauty of Tessa, my brother's new bride. Looking at pictures of the two of them, and seeing all the other people in the backround smiling as they watched the newlyweds, reminded me of what it was like to be there. So much joy, happiness and love. I'm still sad it's over. I'm hoping Ian and Tess will have yet another gathering over Labor Day weekend, or at least in the near future, though they may be gatheringed-out.
Yeesh. Blogging is procrastination as well. It's just hard to get excited about something specific when you don't know even in general terms what you are going to do. With your life, I mean. Ah well. I best make some tea and get on with it.
When I知 on my bike, I知 strong, graceful, and stubborn. I stand up for myself, I admonish cars and pedestrians and other cyclists when they are being unsafe. I am larger than myself, I am hyper-alert, I知 a Goddess with wheels, I fly. In traffic, I pass the cars, my heart pumping, as they idle in freon and exhaust. I am more of me when I知 on my bike.
And then I'm off my bike, no longer a Goddess, but a lowly human who spends two hours cleaning her apartment. There is something very Zen and calming about cleaning, but I also did it in order to procrastinate. I can't seem to get excited about my French homework.
Another form of procrastination was to wander on my brother Steve's website to look at all of his pictures of the wedding. Probably not the best idea right now, but the thing that struck me most was the undeniable, effusive beauty of Tessa, my brother's new bride. Looking at pictures of the two of them, and seeing all the other people in the backround smiling as they watched the newlyweds, reminded me of what it was like to be there. So much joy, happiness and love. I'm still sad it's over. I'm hoping Ian and Tess will have yet another gathering over Labor Day weekend, or at least in the near future, though they may be gatheringed-out.
Yeesh. Blogging is procrastination as well. It's just hard to get excited about something specific when you don't know even in general terms what you are going to do. With your life, I mean. Ah well. I best make some tea and get on with it.
Sunday, August 17, 2003
My return to work was not nearly as difficult as I thought it might be. At one point in the night, I went to the Micros station and held out my hand, palm up, to my fellow servers. "What's that?" asked one. "What my customers are eating out of," I replied. When the people at the tables wax rhapsodic about my restaurant, and exclaim our greatness, I always butt in and say, "Right? Aren't we great?" And when they tell me how good I am, I say, "Right? I know! Aren't I great?" And then they laugh, and I laugh, and then I usually make some stock restaurant joke, and then I realize I've been thinking about something else entirely during the whole conversation. I am capable of saying things with such conviction and enthusiasm when all I'm really doing is daydreaming. I don't really think about other stuff when I'm at work. Mostly I'm singing a song in my head or just letting my mind wander while explaining in detail exactly how the tuna is marinated. It is the rare guest who takes me out of myself for a real conversation. I have stock answers to the usual questions: Where are you from? How long have you worked here? You're an actress, right? (My favorite white lie response: no, I'm an EMT.) But I would say only once a month does one of the several hundred people I meet actually affect me. Last night I was filling water in my partner's station, and these two incredibly high-maintenace older folks exclaimed, "HELLO! Hello, hi, how are you?" Turns out I waited on them last month. They said I was the best "waiter" they'd ever had. Not for one million dollars could I have recalled one moment of their previous dining experience. I guess there is something to be said about being an expert on something that doesn't thrill you.