novimnet

03:06 pm: twister!
Before she left my former roommate planted a Pixwell gooseberry bush in the garden, months ago it began producing hard, sour little green berries; tasting them was not completely unlike licking a spatula covered with melted unsweetened chocolate (shut up). Only recently have they begun to soften and develop a reddish blush, a Google search turns up conflicting opinions as to when veiny little bastards actually become ripe enough to stop tasting like floor. At the moment they taste like sort of disappointing grapes.



A lot of the medical buildings I deliver to for Gourmet look exactly alike, and even if I've been there before I frequently have to ask the receptionist to point me in the direction of the kitchen or conference room so I can set up the food. There are a few, however, that stand out- the one with a hallway painted with a mural of dogs seated at a Parisian cafe, the one with wood panelling and vinyl furniture from the 70's, waiting rooms with particularly spectacular aquariums, and oh yeah the one in Johnston with the scary steampunk stair-chair...



Unfortunately it looks like you need a key to use it, but I would really like to know how old it is. And possibly have a scandalous picture taken while riding in it.

I was talking to someone about phases and decided that at the moment I am calling my aesthetic "horny 4H girl". This of course involves a lot of plaid, vintage prints, braids, clovers, baking and phallic vegetables. Inspirations include the Lost Girls, family photo albums and the Topsfield Fair.

04:43 pm: violence now!


I got new sunglasses and Aimee has me hooked on this sketchy grape soda. School's out, forever.

01:05 pm: ovulatin' and gesticulatin'
Pictures from the past couple of weeks...



lousy picture of individual peach upside-down cakes. I used my Le Creuset ramekins for this and an Alton Brown recipe. I made my own crystallized ginger specifically for this recipe and then left it out of the first batch; they are heavenly with or without. I should point out here that while I like spicy food, I am a complete masochist for ginger. I love it and I want it to hurt me. I made four or five batches of dough in an attempt to get perfectly painful ginger linzers (sugar cookies with very strong ginger flavor added with absolutely no cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice or companion flavors around to reassure you; with simple vanilla icing in the middle) and gave up after awhile. After finding that candying one's own ginger is like discovering how to synthesize heroin out of onion peels and those chunks of the floor I keep sweeping up, however, I may try again- when it comes to ginger, I'm a glutton for punishment...

robust summer squash plants, in a week we can have grilled squash skewers


I grew these and gave them to my friend


Snakey lunchtime: Ricky stole the mouse away when I was getting Little Belt out of his tank; snake in hand, I had to pry a totally traumatized mouse out of kittymouth and of course the goddamn thing went and bit me. Sorry your life is only worth $3, dude.



"thx for the condo, fuck off pls"




Chocolate Crinkle Cookies: first attempt, very happy with this recipe. They are light, soft, and almost cakey, with an intense chocolate flavor. Recipe from Betty Crocker.



Popovers: I discovered a crack in the screw-on ring holding the bottom of my blender together halfway through mixing and half of the batter leaked out onto the counter and made a big fucking mess. They didn't rise properly, but still had a nice crunchy crust and a soft, eggy interior. Once again, thank you, Alton Brown.

Like I said, every Friday we have people over for a chicken. Chris roasts a chicken and makes mashed potatoes, I make a couple of veggie sides and a dessert. The food is simple and sometimes experimental but it's always good and it always happens so, if you feel like eating some chicken, you should come over. Or just post your favorite veggie side dish recipes in the comments so we can keep it fresh...

Aimee visited on Friday and did what we do; drink, stitch + bitch, go to Saver's. It makes me happy that she wants to hang out and get crafty, when I was little my friends and I would sit around and sew or make shit out of cardboard for like, eight hours straight, and then leave this ocean of scissors, needles and garbage in the middle of the floor for my mom to step on. Aimee is faster and neater and can come up with ideas more quickly, but it's a good time anyway. This is what we made, I gave mine balls, put catnip in his head and stuffed him with plastic bags:



Aimee brought a loaf of bread in a plastic bag, she left it in a tote bag in my room where I thought it would be safe, but Ricky and Julian chewed through the plastic and took a bite out of every slice! Later on they got into a butter/scallions mixture that Chris had prepped for the mashed potatoes. Needless to say, I had a date with the antibacterial wipes that night... the next morning Julian made such a mess of himself I had to toss him in the tub:



Oh the indignity!

We went to Anntastic's 4th of July shindig yesterday. I realized that even if it's a decent party with real food and nice people, I have a limited party life of 1 1/2-2 hours. Then I need to be by myself for awhile, look at your magazines and fall asleep on your couch. Sometimes people don't realize I'm there and sit on me. That's cool. Then when it's dark out and the party is in full swing, I will wake up and have another two or three drinks and some cold leftovers. I will party for another half an hour and listen to people joke about what a narcoleptic I am and then leave, possibly without saying goodbye to anybody. In other words, don't invite me to parties.

blurry meat, the way it looks


James


Eligible bachelor Frank Difficult!


Pretty dresses + plastic cups


the elusive Chris Sadlers


I want to plan a trip to Nova Scotia for us, maybe for in a year or two. It's only a twelve hour drive.

kittiesnuggle









kitties love airplane!

09:11 am: bitter leafies and asshole kitties

I grew some arugula





We've been watching lots of Good Eats and roasting a whole chicken every Friday. I'm considering CNA training, for some reason. Little to report. I'm still a hateful bitch.

10:32 pm: the shit-apple doesn't fall far from the shit tree
Ricky and Julian are getting to be too much! Ricky is mostly good, but he'll go along with Julian when he decides to be a dick and eat garbage or hang out in the kitchen sink and lick dirty dishes. Julian is especially a pain, he'll steal food right off your plate and then give himself the shits eating something stupid like a tomato. Look at this little asshole! He took my goddamn broccoli!



I think I have done permanent damage to my wrist from lifting heavy trays at Tamarisk. There are some moderately heavy items I can't lift with my left hand anymore, and it hurts when I do random things like stir food or scrub a pan or pick up kitties. I am so pissed, there was so much pressure to feed all your tables in like 10 minutes so of course you pile 50 pounds of food on one tray! And then after they switched dinner over to two seatings it was even worse, because you had to rush off to your second seating. And working short 80% of the time didn't help either. I thought I was done being pissed about what a stupid job that was, but now that my wrist doesn't work right I'm pissed off all over again.

I checked out the Pawtuxet river today, I launched from the Pontiac Ave/Knight street ramp, which the Pawtuxet River Authority & Watershed Coucil does refer to as ramp but is in fact a set of stone stairs leading into the water. My only thought here is that I missed the actual ramp and instead parked and launched at... a set of stone stairs leading inexplicably into the water? The water was a little fast for me and I wore myself out going downstream first. It wasn't without its garbagey bits, but it's one of the more attractive places I've paddled in Rhode Island. I helped myself to a half a dozen yellow irises I found growing on the banks, which Julian decided I had picked just for him and proceeded to make himself sick on.

08:57 pm: down
Today Chris took us to see Up in 3D! Mostly I liked the movie, I thought the talking dogs part was stupid though. It was so fucking sad, and I will totally admit to crying like a bitch during basically the entire movie because I am bleeding and hormonal and like eight goddamn things have made me cry today, including a dream I had about Minou and the sight of my old broken down station wagon in the driveway. Mostly though, I am completely obsessed with the idea of getting married right now, which only means I'm feeling horribly insecure. I barely even care who I get hitched to, I just want it to be more difficult for the poor sucker to leave me. I don't feel like much of a catch right now. Pom + vodka, goodnight.

06:16 pm: rhode island craigslist > household services > create posting
"Banish blemishes the old-fashioned way! Safe, sanitary, and satisfying; I wear gloves and apply antibiotic cream afterwards for faster healing.

zits: $2 each
blackheads: $3 each
summer combo special: any 5 blemishes for $10

Conveniently located near downtown Providence. Housecalls available for a small fee.

You know you want to."

01:53 pm: no more sailin'
Patni and I went camping! We randomly picked Miles Standish State Forest in Carver/Plymouth, Massachusetts, because it was about an hour from Boston and it was a state park and therefore relatively cheap. Here's some of the stuff what we did:

- drank blue mondays and martinis
- ate an entire bag of marshmallows
- rescued a baby turtle the size of a dollar coin
- visited three beaches and three Walmarts
- drove to Cape Cod
- made guacamole and ate pie in a cemetary

On Saturday we walked all around the pond near our campsite, then drove out to New Bedford and visited a thrift store. On the way we ended up driving all around this impossibly idyllic town called Marion. We stopped at their town beach and were like "That building probably has a bathroom in it" but then when we walked around the back of it there were just a bunch of shirtless 15-17 year olds playing basketball. Uhhhhhm! The South Baptist thrift store in New Bedford rocks, Patni bought a giant pink Barbie cruise ship for $4 and I bought a godawful teen novel for Aimee.

We had great weather for most of the trip, and since it was so early in the season the campground was practically empty, but it wasn't a place I'd go back to, it was nice but nothing special. The sites had very little privacy and in peak season it probably sucks there! There were these two obnoxious dudes a couple sites over who kept trying to talk to us. They didn't even have a tent, they slept in their stupid Mustang together and revved their engine at 3 in the morning and hollered "YEAH BREAK IT!" from 200 feet away when Patni and I were trying to team-break a large branch for our fire. We have seitan and a travel bar, screw off!

there were flowers everywhere we went, which doesn't happen in peak-season camping





fried plantains


I <3 wading, Patni hates it.


Barbie crime scene


gnome oven!


Marion cemetery irreverence




blueberry pies


sunbathing banana


Marion town beach


I think this might have actually just been a sewer


Patni makes drinks, Sandra makes seitan skewers




"This is what going to the beach in Ireland is like"


Chris came back today and I realized that forcing myself not to cry over his absence for two weeks was probably a shitty idea. "Should I sit down and have a good cry about this and then drink a diet coke? Will it actually make me feel any better?" I opted to spend hours cleaning the refrigerator with q-tips instead, it seemed more productive. I cried over other things, like some mashgiach I had the hots for over Passover not emailing me back or my boss at Gourmet telling me I wasn't a people person and therefore was incapable of typing a menu.

I looked out the living room window about 78 times this afternoon while drinking and vacuuming, hoping to see the shitty green van that had taken my boyfriend away, when he called to inform me he'd been held up I threw my phone at a wall. I still completely lose my shit once in awhile and I'm not proud. Fewer things get broken as time goes on, but I'm still kind of a lame person. Ok.

While I'm at my lowest low I should probably point out that I downloaded a Lady Gaga record and I sing along with it in the car...

06:00 pm: snikt
I took myself on a hotdate last night and saw the Wolverine movie. The reviews weren't terrific, but Xmen movies don't have to be all that good for me to enjoy them a lot, and I rarely expect anything from a movie other than to distract me for two hours. Plus, Wolverine is my man. I like the story. I still have the posable Wolverine doll my highschool sweetheart gave me.

I have been prepping food for two days for my camping trip with Patni this weekend... I have also eaten maybe 5 repeats of the empanada/swiss chard meal I posted a couple days ago because I'm boring and obsessive, and it's a pain in the ass to buy less than two pounds of ground beef at Stop n Shop. I listed a couple things on etsy recently, here are a couple of the hilarious resulting photographs:



good stuff cheap

03:46 pm: a completely different person
my boys




I have been smoking tons of pot and watching Fox news.

04:23 pm: Since you're gone
the moonlight ain't so great

08:55 pm: chilin with my boyzzz
Bob Carroll came to visit!

We visited the drawbridge, it was more nerve-wracking than I remember.





We made these beef empanadas I've been thinking about from some magazine:


(they were mighty tasty)

and of course, we played with kitties.


I am boring, goodnight.

01:20 pm: let's just get drunk and eat chicken fingers
My mom brought over two kittens from the Billerica Cat Care Coalition last Thursday. I made a late mother's day lunch; jambalaya, cornbread and blueberry pie. I know he hadn't been thrilled at the prospect of having two, but my roommate waited until this day to tell me that he simply "didn't like cats" and that his ideal long-term living situation did not include cats at all. Chris and I both like having Brendon here very much, and although I am very concerned with him being happy and comfortable, a house just doesn't seem like a home without a cat! The awkward part is I would have been fine with just one, and I could have waited until the BCCC had a single kitten to adopt, but my mom made everything happen within twelve hours of me seeing their picture and saying "Those guys are cool" so it would have been shitty to send them back.

I'm trying to train them with a spray bottle to stay out of the third of the apartment that includes the kitchen and his bedroom, which unfortunately means I have to keep them shut in one room at night and when I go out during the day. It's a perfectly nice room with their litter, food, comfy chair, window and a bunk bed for them to climb up on, but I still feel totally evil when I hear their squeaky little mews at night.



Their names are Ricky and Julian, brothers, born in January.

I buried Minou in the garden and planted sweet corn over her.

Chris left for a two week tour with Death Vessel on Sunday. I am pretty much so goddamn pissed that I never want to see Joel Thibedeaou or hear his stupid girly voice in my house ever again. It's easier if you have someone to blame. I did five loads of laundry and took myself to see Adventureland at the $2 theater.



Yesterday Patni took the train down and visited. We planned a camping trip soon which coincides with the boys' "big snip", since they will have to be dropped off at my mom's house anyway. We're staying in South Carver, Massachusetts, any travel advice for the Southern Mass/Cape Cod area? Tomorrow hopefully Senor Bob Carroll will join me for a Gay Ass Picnic, and I'm spending this weekend in Boston and bringing my bike, so hit me up for a visit bitches!

12:03 am: Do not pass go...
do not come to bed, do not sit on the couch, go directly to the bathroom and remove all clothing for quarrantine! Chris came home early last Thursday morning and we had only a few hours together before I had to leave for the airport, we spent part of this time shampooing each other and watching the episode of South Park about lice. He drove me to Forest Hills station while I halfassed trying to stay composed. We embraced in the station just like in a movie, I walked away and burst into tears just about as soon as I got onto the train.

I made it to Logan in one piece, visibly terrified, with the assistance of the shuttle bus driver and a Cambodian man on his way to Virginia. I got on the plane and kicked a four year old out of the window seat I had paid an extra $6 to reserve. She spent the next twenty minutes bawling her eyes out over it while I ate cookies I'd brought from home. Get a job, kid.

I took a couple xanax and everybody fucked off. I'd spent most of the night at the animal emergency room in Acton, Mass; when I went to collect Minou to bring her up to stay with my mom, I couldn't find her anywhere in the apartment. Brendon had opened the kitchen window after cooking some fish, she apparently got curious and while walking the narrow roof around the second floor apartment, slipped and fell. I found her outside under a bush. She trotted over to me and I scooped her up, she made a strange noise and then was quiet for the entire car ride to Massachusetts. "Who's my tough lady?" I cooed hopefully.

She began recovery from bruised lungs at my mom's house after several thousand dollars worth of tests, exrays, enemas and observation. "She's an old lady, you know..." my mom kept saying. "Yeah, but she's my old lady..."

A few hours after I arrived in Atlanta, we went out for beer and sandwiches at the Earl with Scott, Carrie's former beau and bandmate. We crashed out early while watching Dr. Strangelove. The next day:

- bagels at Joe's in Atlanta
- visits to Family Dollar and Kroger for supplies
- Road trip!

We checked in to the Port Wentworth Super 8, total for two nights came to $100 with tax and we got two beds, a fridge, wifi and a pool. We made guacamole in a styrofoam cup and looked at brochures. Then we drove into Savannah: beers at Corleone's, pralines at River Street Candy Company, a visit to the synagogue, dinner at Tapas by Anna and a shitload of walking in between. Savannah is so beautiful! Everything is green and pretty and there are oyster shells embedded in the sidewalk, there are all these little squares with fountains and magnolia trees and flowering bushes and benches. It makes me wonder if anybody from out of town ever thinks Providence is an attractive city... probably not.

The Super 8 motel is in a cluster with about six other motels, and after visiting the continental breakfast in our lobby, we decided to see what the Ramada behind us was offering. Waffle station! Biscuits and gravy! Hurray for chutzpah! We stopped by the highly recommended Back in the Day bakery in Savannah which was very vintagey and pretty but like every other goddamn thing to eat in this city, obscenely expensive. If you bake as often as I do it seems asinine to spend $1.25 on two tablespoons of cupcake, but I suppose in this case it's more about the fact that one has Been And Done. We walked around the Bonaventure cemetery and took some disrespectful pictures (one is only twenty-three once) and discussed how being dead is like, so lame.

We visited Tybee island, also highly recommended, but it being a hot and sunny Saturday, traffic was frustrating and parking was close to impossible. We spackled each other with 85 spf and parked our asses on the beach until the booze ran out. When we got bored of the guacamole we'd packed in our bento, we started hurling it at each other.

On Sunday we left town early and visited Vidalia on the way home- where the onions come from! I was desperately hoping to be the asshole on the plane holding a giant stinky bag of onions, but absolutely everything was closed! It was a total ghost town, even the gas stations were closed. Onions to be labelled and sold as authentic Vidalia onions may only be grown in one of thirteen counties in Georgia! Just like champagne.

Per Jason's recommendation, we went to Daddy D's BBQ in Atlanta so that I get some proper Southern BBQ. Luckily they had plenty of veggie dishes so I could bring Carrie. We started with fried green tomatoes (mine are better), Carrie had fried zucchini, mac n cheese, texas toast, collard greens and broccoli casserole, I got a big pile of meat with a side of cornbread (mine's better) and fried okra. I got BBQ wraps, which is little bits of pork deep fried in a wonton skin the size of your pinky, some pulled pork, some sliced white meat of some kind and two of the most perfectly fall-off-the-bone tender ribs I have ever eaten.


( Pictures! )

07:15 pm: YOU HAVE HEADLICE
Chris is coming home early, because someone in the band has discovered that they have headlice. While the band member in question is not my boyfriend, and while I do miss him very much, I am still somewhat wary of letting him in the house. I mean, EWW, HEADLICE. I decided that in my mind they will be playing their final show of the tour in shower caps.

I nagged Frank Difficult to come out to Julian's with me last night, after being turned down by this guy:



I am making myself ill in anticipation of air travel and listening to Lady Sovereign.

03:01 pm: five leaf clover
What's up sluts? Just chilin with my disembodied deer head pal at the RISD nature lab. Aimee came down to Providence the other day and we tried to ID my bird bones, no luck. Then we ate falafel and glared at people on Thayer street. We went to the giant Saver's in East Providence and got all kinds of lost in the best way.



We went up to Boston to watch Patni ride a mechanical bull at some goofy club called the Liquor Store, spent 45 minutes looking for parking and missed the show, soon departed for fried tentacles down the street at which point I drunkenly handed off three dollars and one of my spare car keys to Aimee as payment for the food. Patni overdid it and had to be propped up for the six block schlep back to the parking garage. If not on your birthday, then when?

Something is living in the wall in our apartment, several times a day I hear strange squeaking noises coming from over there. I am totally fed up with the kitchen floor, shit's so ugly it could win a contest. When Chris is gone this month on tour #2 I will probably do something about it, one does give up certain rights when one decides to leave town for weeks at a time. Berry bushes are blooming auspiciously, it may be the perfect summer yet.

My flight leaves Thursday, BOS to the ATL, BITCHEZ. I want to do two things: visit Savannah, and eat some dirty Southern BBQ. Advice?

11:05 pm: justice is blind-drunk
A couple nights ago at around two in the morning my car got broken into. The only thing that was taken was my ipod, but it left me feeling severely creeped out. I started looking on craigslist for a replacement while repeatedly trying to Teleserve my unemployment for the week. I went back to bed and hadn't been there half an hour when the doorbell rang- they found the thief and would I like to take a ride in a police car in my pajamas to fill out a report at the station? We stopped by the scene where the guy was being arrested and I got a look at him- it was just some dumb chubby kid in an orange t shirt, surrounded by three or four police cars, with the unmistakeable look of GAME OVER on his face.

I got my ipod back, library intact, with a bonus pair of headphones the kid had plugged into it. I got off easy. My car hadn't even been damaged. Something's up. I'm never this lucky.

Last night Chris played at TT's so I hitched a ride with the band up to Boston so I could visit Bob Carroll. We walked to Sav-More Discount Liquors and I bought the last bottle of this sketchy tequila called Cactus Jack's. It's oddly smoky and costs $10 and has a picture of some dude on the bottle and I can't find it anywhere else but at Sav-More. I looked it up and it's about a two mile hike if you go the right way, which we didn't because we were yammering at each other. We collapsed into some General Gau's at Mary Chung's and then checked in at TT's.



As you can see from these photos, I have stopped wearing piles of eyeliner on a daily basis and I am trying to let my cowlick do its thing. TT's is lame and a plastic cup of Blue Moon costs $5.50. The Seizures' attempts to load out before Beat Circus failed. The floor is like magnets when I drink so I didn't try to stand up too much. We made fun of one of the bartenders ("Oh look it's Kelly Osbourne") and Bob's requests for a beer were subsequently ignored for ten minutes. "Oooh, cold shoulder!" I heckled. Bob and I are trouble when we're together.

=

P.S. Today my mom bought a t shirt with a bedazzled Kiss logo on it, unaware that they are a band. That is all.

07:01 pm: Hilarity ensues.
Shit's getting real. As you know, I was hired last week at Cuban Revolution. In case you don't know, Cuban Revolution is a restaurant in Providence that was designed for yuppies to go to in order for them to feel as if they are "doing something fun", "branching out", or "eating at one of those funky little cafes" Giant pop-art prints of Marilyn Monroe and Che Guevara hang on the walls, Frank Sinatra and the Beatles play on the stereo. The menu is kitschy and the appetizers are hard to pronounce (at least for French Canadians), but for entrees you may order such items as the JFK Burger or the Bay of Pigs platter.

I trained for two days- about three hours each, the second of which was this Monday- not with the woman who hired me, Mary, but with a girl named Ksenia with a cute Russian accent. Things seemed to be going alright, until Monday night I noticed a phone message from Mary- "So, judging by your performance during these couple of days, we have decided that you do not have the skills we are looking for and unfortunately we are not able to offer you a position at Cuban Revolution."

I was slightly offended, but mostly amused. "Judging by the completely retarded way you choose to run a company, I have decided that you are a jackass," I mumbled to myself, and poured a glass of Yellowtail. I spent the rest of the evening straining my wrists playing Little Big Planet.

Adventures in plumbing: I woke up at six in the morning to pee to discover that the shitter had finally shit the bed. Realizing that it would be quite awhile before anybody got around to doing anything about it, I decided to be proactive and break into the unoccupied downstairs apartment so we that we could use their toilet while our useless landlord took his time in having ours repaired. Surprisingly, the situation wrapped up within twelve hours, leaving us with a brand new toilet and, if we choose to be extra-proactive, a brand new apartment on the second floor...

Oh, but it doesn't stop there. Today I drove down to Warwick to apply for a job at the porno store, and I figured while I was at it I'd swing by Tamarisk to collect my check for vacation pay and return Tom's copy of Professional Baking. I got my check, bigger than expected, and went to visit Mel, a resident with dementia who had been my date for the Christmas party. I gave him the valentine I'd made for him when he was in the hospital, squeezed him and told him I loved him and that he needed to eat more. I brought my sunglasses, completely expecting to burst into tears, but when I walked into the kitchen I received a warm reception. The first thing they told me- my boss got fired. The executive chef, a man I didn't necessarily dislike but didn't get along with particularly well, the person who fired me- got canned himself. The dining room coordinator fumbled with his tie. "We were uh, thinking about maybe asking you to come back..." Tom gave me a satisfying fat-guy hug and I said "Only as a baker..."

Chris and I have been putting up with each other for two years now, today. We drove to Nikki's Liquors and I bought him the custom six-pack he picked out, later we're going out for dinner at the Red Fez and then over to Julian's for drinks and to watch Twin Peaks. The reasons we enjoy each other's company are for the most part largely intangible or not entirely legitimate (laziness, hatred of other people, appreciation of lunch specials), but here are a few of the logical reasons I love my boyfriend:

- he lets me pop his zits
- he can always find a parking spot downtown
- he does not own a single baseball cap or pair of jeans
- even though he takes up three quarters of the bed, I sleep better when he's in it

So, here's to being too lazy to do anything about the things we hate about each other, for another year, and another and another until we get married and finally acquire all the Kitchenaid attachments we've been dreaming of. Salut.

03:58 pm: I dreamed I was kicking your ass in my Maidenform bra
I quit my bathroom job last night! 1 and 1/2 days into a job, that must be my new record. If a job fucking blows from the getgo, get out early before you get sucked in and end up wasting years of your life there. The longer you stay, the more miserable you become and the more convinced you will be that you can't do any better- which even in these supposedly economically shitty times, is simply not true.

What happened? The water from the (nonadjustable) faucets was scalding people all night, causing almost every patron to my restroom to leave irritated and confused, and causing me to earn only $15 in tips by midnight. I demanded something be done- surely the club has maintenance people? My boss's solution: join the attendant in the already quite crowded downstairs bathroom and split her tips.

Obviously, Ms. Downstairs Bathroom Lady wasn't having any of this. They were her tips, and of course it wasn't right to ask her to share. She didn't even believe that I was supposed to be there until I coerced my boss into texting her to explain what had happened, but it didn't make her any less prickly. I decided that I was not going to spend the rest of the night in a bathroom with an angry fat chick, went back upstairs, packed up my perfumes, hairspray, and mints, and without telling anyone, called it a night.

I tried my hand at the club scene. I danced a little to the doof doof doof and looked around. "WOO BATHROOM LADY!" some girls screamed. I told them I had actually quit five minutes ago, and therefore was no longer the bathroom lady. "Bathroom lady needs a drink!" I had been adopted. They invited me to their $1200 table in the VIP section and made sure my glass was never empty. "You're going to be my new hair model! I'm gonna even out those bangs." said my new friend Deborah. I did shots with a chubby bedazzled dude named Alexander. "You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. But you'd be prettier without your glasses..." I smirked, gave him a fake phone number, and let him buy me a tequila sunrise.

I met up with my boss for the ride back to Johnston, of course, although I didn't escape without him trying to get a lecture in. "Drinking on the job, that was very unprofessional," he said.

I smiled and stared him down. I towered a good six inches over him. He looked so pathetic, slouching in his little suit and bow tie. For about fifteen seconds I felt genuinely sorry for him, earning a living kissing ass and performing a completely superfluous service.

"But by the time I started drinking, I had already quit. You just didn't know it yet."

08:08 am: spring brought nothing but loss
This year isn't going so hot. This past week has been particularly awful, and here is why: I hate change. Even if it's obviously necessary, I hate change so much that I will avoid quitting shitty jobs, stay together with shitty boyfriends, drive the same shitty car until it completely falls apart and I am finally forced to do something about it. I still wear dresses that I bought when I was sixteen. I've been eating variations on basically the same breakfast for seven or eight years. In my ideal life, I get up at the same time every day, drink a diet coke with breakfast and after lunch, work the same hours every week, drink wine on Fridays, go to lunch once a week with a boy, the same boy, on the same day each week. This not having been the case during the past week and a half, I lost my shit.

I left the house that was closing in on me last night and went for a walk. Down Broadway to the highway, and across back up to Westminster. On the service road adjoining these two streets, there is a series of stone pillars, a bit larger than an LP cover across the top, several feet high and across:



Feeling like one cocky motherfucker after winding up with a total of three jobs after being canned from the Kosher Corral, I decided to climb up on one of these pillars and jump from pillar to pillar, and that was how I was going to walk down that particular street.



Yeah, so, that was fucking dumb.

Today was my first day at Cuban, I was only there for a couple hours in the afternoon and it was very slow so I didn't learn much. The first day at a new job is possibly one of the things I fear most, especially when your duties extend beyond standing up and smiling politely. But, I was a fucking good waitress at Tamarisk, and I will eventually learn to be a fucking good waitress here too, only this time maybe I will be appropriately compensated for my hard work? If I can handle the Annette Pearlmans and the Melba Kaplans of this world, perhaps I can handle the lunch rush at the downtown location.