I'm Starting to Feel Like a Person Again

which is, you know, a plus. For a bit there I was feeling a little picassoed. New word! New word! Instead of abstract... Picassoed! Well I think it is exciting.

I'm currently at the Coffeehouse in DOWNTOWN (any normalites will know why I put that in caps--"uptown" my ass) Normal, eating their vegan "coffeehouse hash." It's actually rather scrumptious. I love this place. It's so quaint, but in every good aspect. Not quaint like ignorant and negatively homespun... oh my. I think I just ate a rotten piece of watermelon. Well, phooey, Coffeehouse. (That's not in my hash, it's in my fruit cup.) Also, they're apparently *not* hiring, so my dreams of working at both the coolest place in Peoria and the coolest place in Normal have been violently dashed. On the upside, I'm serving at One World now, which has proven to be rather fulfilling, exhausting, and exciting. Hopefully it will also prove to be lucrative. I have a feeling there will definitely be days when I hate it, and I'm starting to fully understand how hard it is to NOT feel personally affronted when people either leave poor tips or stiff you COMPLETELY. For instance.

(Disclaimer: this is hardly a server horror story, it's benign. But it was my first head-on collision with bitter resentment and insult, so I'm sharing it.)

Three rather snooty girls came in, and they sat in my section. I was still in training, but they needed another server that day, so they just put me on as a server... cool, right? It was the small bar section (one worldians will understand) so it wasn't terribly stressful... and it was a Sunday night, so, I handled everything pretty damn well, I feel. It was slow. We'll see how I do this weekend when it's, you know, not. ANYWAY.
These three girls came in, and yes, it was my first table by myself, but I didn't do anything wrong. Really--I was friendly but not overbearing, their food came out on time, I got their drinks out etc, etc, etc. Two out of three girls tipped me 2 dollars each on their 17 dollar meals (that's not really that bad, not great, but whatever, I didn't care about that) but the other girl completely STIFFED me on a 23 dollar bill. What? What I hate the most is when people draw a line in the tip section on the bill, as if to say "Don't even think about it." Which of course, makes me do just that. You find yourself racking your brain, trying to discover what you could possibly have messed up, when in fact, you know (as does everyone else who works in food service) that it 99% chance was not you, and was in fact, her being a snotty cheap ass yuppie with too many facial piercings. (I'm all for piercings, but it didn't fit her look. And picking on her makes me feel better about myself, of course.)

So, the above PLUS the fact that Friday night I had an actual "server nightmare" where I couldn't seem to handle anything, my section was GINORMOUS, and all I could do was get drinks and even that didn't really happen (it was sort of funny. I couldn't even put the orders in for food. I kept mixing up my little pads of paper in my book, and people got really really angry with me. So at one point, I made all of my tables stand together near the back wall and I made an announcement to all of them. I said "LISTEN UP. I'm. In. TRAINING. That means I'M GOING TO SUCK." And that helped a little bit.) so when I woke up I thought... huh.

I think I'm officially initiated into being a server now. Being stiffed + a server nightmare (oh yeah I almost forgot!) + a lady who I SWEAR was on valium or something telling me how awesome I was in really slow druggie sounding speech.

So I'm back home. This is actually the FIRST summer I've lived at home entirelyl since... um, 7th grade. And I can't lie, I'm weirded. Picassoed. Topsy tipsy turvy. Not tipsy tipsy. I'm sober. Topsy sober turvy... eh, forget it.

It's good to be home for many reasons, but I feel like an air balloon just dropped me off dead center memory lane--but this memory lane is rather dark and cobwebby--it just feels like forever since I've even thought about this or that memory, this or that belonging, picture, etc. It's jolting. And it's a little lonely... but I'm not afraid to be lonely. I actually think that's my problem.

Am I some sort of anti-social freak? Don't answer that. I don't know if I actually want to answer it myself. I think I idealize solitude, singleness, the go it alone mentality. I always identify with those neurotic career driven women in television shows who are too busy and too used to isolation to let anyone in romantically, and then of course by the end of such and such they've fallen for so and so and ta dah! But I usually like them when they're edgy and lonely and sort of in love with their own bitterness.

Maybe that's it. Maybe I sort of love being jaded and bitter in a really twisted way. That's probably at least partially true. I guess I'm just trying to figure out why I graduated college without ever having a sustained functional romantic relationship. I know, I know, it's "peoria." I get that.

But maybe it's... me.

These are the thoughts...

On a brighter note. I biked today. I biked to the coffeehouse. And I am here to tell you THAT I AM OUT OF SHAPE. I was huffing and puffing like hurrican katrina. (too soon? I'm terrible.) But really, I looked ridiculous. Also, I wore a skirt because apparently I thought that was an appropriate thing to wear while biking.

It's not.

So that's was amusing. I also hit a curb at one point and a part of the handlebars jabbed my abdominen. Good thing I never actually wanted to have children.

Well this is getting kind of long. People don't read these anyway... Benassi, how do you get so many readers? Besides being amazing, I mean.

I remember my Xanga days, I was queen of the comments... okay, getting pathetic and embarrassing myself. Gotta go.