This week finds me dancing with my first response from the literary world. I got my first rejection letter.
I know, of course, my work isn't going to be the next big thing tomorrow. I'm not in the least bit sad about this rejection--it almost makes me satisfied that I've sent anything out at all, and someone actually read it. This was my very first step into Big People Adult Land, and first steps usually result in SuperFail anyway. At least there wasn't an entry fee for this one.
I submitted something to thetangledbank and they'll get back to me in October I think. That one was $15. Crossin' fangers.
I've got the title for my next short story, but not much outside of that. "Invisible Toes". Wish me luck.
31 July 2009
22 July 2009
Terminal - short short
We passed Southern University, the historically black college in Baton Rouge, with the amazing marching band. I was hungover, my passenger knew it. He was angry, but too passive-aggressive to tell me.
It was a bright, hot, August afternoon. I had to drop him off at the Baton Rouge Metro Airport for his flight back to Connecticut. We'd had an early lunch at Pinetta's--the concept of food horrified my churning stomach so we took it to go.
My mind was elsewhere. He was supposedly my boyfriend at the time, long-distance, but I didn't broadcast it. He wanted to marry me, and steal me away to Connecticut. If I had admitted to myself that we were dating, I would have also had to admit that I had cheated on him four or five times by that point. And I wasn't a cheater, so that was out of the question.
The party I'd been to the night before was not the one he went to. I'd ditched him after work and said I was tired, before I got rowdy drunk elsewhere--a place with less responsibility. We said nothing as I turned down the long entrance to the terminal parking lot. I didn't think to drop him off at the taxi-lane in front--doing so would have saved him the trouble of carrying his luggage all the way from the parking lot. I parked on the top level; I let him carry his bags.
The terminal was speckled with a few travelers, and the coffee shop I'd hoped for was closed. I looked away from the giant windows looking out onto Southern University, the place was too bright for my throbbing head. I looked at him, and he looked ahead. The illuminated Terminal sign reminded me of a cancer ward in a hospital.
He hugged me, hard, and I tried to give him one of those hugs that tells a person without a doubt that they are loved and will be missed--one of those reserved for family members and people in love.
I didn't have it in me. He left the lobby early.
I stayed there for a while, long after his flight had been scheduled for departure. I bought a newspaper and tried to do the crossword, but my headache prevented me from thinking too hard. I don't know why I felt like lingering when my hangover kept reminding me that I should have slept in.
• When I left the lobby, his plane was probably landing in Chicago for a flight change. I'd always wanted to go to Chicago. I could have gone with him, and he would have paid any last-minute fees if I'd only asked. But I had a headache, and all I wanted to do was go home and sleep, and dream of that hug I wanted to give him--that one that tells a person without a doubt that they are loved and will be missed, reserved for family members and people in love.
It was a bright, hot, August afternoon. I had to drop him off at the Baton Rouge Metro Airport for his flight back to Connecticut. We'd had an early lunch at Pinetta's--the concept of food horrified my churning stomach so we took it to go.
My mind was elsewhere. He was supposedly my boyfriend at the time, long-distance, but I didn't broadcast it. He wanted to marry me, and steal me away to Connecticut. If I had admitted to myself that we were dating, I would have also had to admit that I had cheated on him four or five times by that point. And I wasn't a cheater, so that was out of the question.
The party I'd been to the night before was not the one he went to. I'd ditched him after work and said I was tired, before I got rowdy drunk elsewhere--a place with less responsibility. We said nothing as I turned down the long entrance to the terminal parking lot. I didn't think to drop him off at the taxi-lane in front--doing so would have saved him the trouble of carrying his luggage all the way from the parking lot. I parked on the top level; I let him carry his bags.
The terminal was speckled with a few travelers, and the coffee shop I'd hoped for was closed. I looked away from the giant windows looking out onto Southern University, the place was too bright for my throbbing head. I looked at him, and he looked ahead. The illuminated Terminal sign reminded me of a cancer ward in a hospital.
He hugged me, hard, and I tried to give him one of those hugs that tells a person without a doubt that they are loved and will be missed--one of those reserved for family members and people in love.
I didn't have it in me. He left the lobby early.
I stayed there for a while, long after his flight had been scheduled for departure. I bought a newspaper and tried to do the crossword, but my headache prevented me from thinking too hard. I don't know why I felt like lingering when my hangover kept reminding me that I should have slept in.
• When I left the lobby, his plane was probably landing in Chicago for a flight change. I'd always wanted to go to Chicago. I could have gone with him, and he would have paid any last-minute fees if I'd only asked. But I had a headache, and all I wanted to do was go home and sleep, and dream of that hug I wanted to give him--that one that tells a person without a doubt that they are loved and will be missed, reserved for family members and people in love.
19 July 2009
Cigarettes
I didn't quit smoking.
Cigarette breaks--the allure of many a non-smoker--brought me back.
Smokers: Tell me you've had those breaks. The ones that happen outside of parties and gatherings, when a new type of conversation emerges and everyone is so engaged they don't want to go back in. Those when you end up smoking your lucky to the last nasty filtered drag, and still hang around outside hoping someone will give you another.
Of course, you wake up and your mouth tastes like ass-ash, but it was worth that awesome conversation. I've met some of my best friends on smoke breaks.
So what is it about smoke breaks? To me, they're exceptionally good times that just happen to involve cigarettes. Cigarettes aren't exactly necessary; they're just the excuse to get out of the clogged interior.
Cigarette breaks--the allure of many a non-smoker--brought me back.
Smokers: Tell me you've had those breaks. The ones that happen outside of parties and gatherings, when a new type of conversation emerges and everyone is so engaged they don't want to go back in. Those when you end up smoking your lucky to the last nasty filtered drag, and still hang around outside hoping someone will give you another.
Of course, you wake up and your mouth tastes like ass-ash, but it was worth that awesome conversation. I've met some of my best friends on smoke breaks.
So what is it about smoke breaks? To me, they're exceptionally good times that just happen to involve cigarettes. Cigarettes aren't exactly necessary; they're just the excuse to get out of the clogged interior.
The Joys of the Workforce
Last night at my place of employment--let's call it "Pino's"--I was reminded that I needed to make a post about the joys of waiting tables.
Pino's is a little European restaurant by the garden district of Baton Rouge. Established in 1963, this place is one of the older dining institutions still in business; others were run off by chains like Chili's and DeAngelo's. The majority of our customers are people who have been eating at Pino's since the sixties.
Last night, a lady came in with her boyfriend. I immediately recognized her as the woman who came in by herself two years ago to booze up and have an eggplant parmigiana. On that occasion, she got so drunk that she proceeded to talk to me for an hour about how wonderful the South Beach Diet was. I even tried to sit at the table next to her to fold napkins with my co-worker--she kept talking, leaning over so she could see me around the corner. By the time she left, she had been keeping us there past closing time for two hours, because of the goddamn South Beach Diet.
The serious issue here is that I do not understand how anyone could think--drunk or not--that their server, at most a brief acquaintance, would be interested in the intricacies of the South Beach Diet for over an hour. When that starts happening, I start wishing I were a therapist so I could charge $50 an hour. Pay me $50 and I will listen with the greatest of attention.
But she didn't tip me $50. She tipped $7. SEVEN.
Another hilarity struck me last night as well. I had a four-top of sophisticated-looking adults, who were rather wonderful people. It was probably the best table I had all night. Teh Funny happened when I handed them the check. The two CEO-looking husbands each grabbed a side of the payment book and started pulling.
"No, it's MY treat!"
"I assure you, it's mine."
Their wives looked on in amusement. I ran away so I could giggle. The guy I thought would tip the best ended up winning the battle, and he did tip well.
We servers always have a designated person to whom we give the bill to, because we've already judged each and every one of you and decided who is most likely to tip 20%. I guess you could call it being judgmental or greedy, but the gratuity industry is, indeed, a business. It's how we pay rent. You get up at 6AM to crunch numbers or file papers; I get up at noon and lay around until 4 and make money from your excess income. Sometimes this makes me feel like a big cheat, every shift for a year after I first started waiting.
Four years later, I rarely feel like I'm cheating people. I think we get defensive sometimes when people treat us like shit--we run our asses off with no health insurance or 401K, and if we happen to break our leg, we're fucked out of a job and stuck with an insane hospital bill. So I've come to believe that my time is worth just as much as the CEOs I wait on, and I have absolutely no trouble living with myself when I auto-gratuity a big table and they tip on top. Their mistake, right? Technically that's wrong to try for, and I'm glad to say I never take steps to hide the gratuity (I've seen people do it before), but a server's situation is precarious. We're employed in a risky, Stazi-like business.
We get defensive about our worth because deep, deep down, we know we have a long way to go before we're CEOs. We might never ascend to some of our customers' financial levels. Having to wonder whether you'll make rent every month solely on other peoples' generosity gives one a complex. It makes us more ambitious, and at the same time a little defeated every time we only make 20% of your enormous pleasure expense, because we know we couldn't drop that much money in one night at a restaurant.
So we think, "I can make more, more more here," we get greedy, judgmental. Restaurant Samsara develops in the best of us. Caught in that cycle of cash every night, bar tabs, huge tips and living beyond our means because we want to be able to drop $200 in one place. But we can't. And every time the white-collars and soccer moms come in, no matter how much we despise them and their lifestyles, we're faced with the reality that their lives are so much more comfortable than ours.
And we're busting our asses to make it that way.
Pino's is a little European restaurant by the garden district of Baton Rouge. Established in 1963, this place is one of the older dining institutions still in business; others were run off by chains like Chili's and DeAngelo's. The majority of our customers are people who have been eating at Pino's since the sixties.
Last night, a lady came in with her boyfriend. I immediately recognized her as the woman who came in by herself two years ago to booze up and have an eggplant parmigiana. On that occasion, she got so drunk that she proceeded to talk to me for an hour about how wonderful the South Beach Diet was. I even tried to sit at the table next to her to fold napkins with my co-worker--she kept talking, leaning over so she could see me around the corner. By the time she left, she had been keeping us there past closing time for two hours, because of the goddamn South Beach Diet.
The serious issue here is that I do not understand how anyone could think--drunk or not--that their server, at most a brief acquaintance, would be interested in the intricacies of the South Beach Diet for over an hour. When that starts happening, I start wishing I were a therapist so I could charge $50 an hour. Pay me $50 and I will listen with the greatest of attention.
But she didn't tip me $50. She tipped $7. SEVEN.
Another hilarity struck me last night as well. I had a four-top of sophisticated-looking adults, who were rather wonderful people. It was probably the best table I had all night. Teh Funny happened when I handed them the check. The two CEO-looking husbands each grabbed a side of the payment book and started pulling.
"No, it's MY treat!"
"I assure you, it's mine."
Their wives looked on in amusement. I ran away so I could giggle. The guy I thought would tip the best ended up winning the battle, and he did tip well.
We servers always have a designated person to whom we give the bill to, because we've already judged each and every one of you and decided who is most likely to tip 20%. I guess you could call it being judgmental or greedy, but the gratuity industry is, indeed, a business. It's how we pay rent. You get up at 6AM to crunch numbers or file papers; I get up at noon and lay around until 4 and make money from your excess income. Sometimes this makes me feel like a big cheat, every shift for a year after I first started waiting.
Four years later, I rarely feel like I'm cheating people. I think we get defensive sometimes when people treat us like shit--we run our asses off with no health insurance or 401K, and if we happen to break our leg, we're fucked out of a job and stuck with an insane hospital bill. So I've come to believe that my time is worth just as much as the CEOs I wait on, and I have absolutely no trouble living with myself when I auto-gratuity a big table and they tip on top. Their mistake, right? Technically that's wrong to try for, and I'm glad to say I never take steps to hide the gratuity (I've seen people do it before), but a server's situation is precarious. We're employed in a risky, Stazi-like business.
We get defensive about our worth because deep, deep down, we know we have a long way to go before we're CEOs. We might never ascend to some of our customers' financial levels. Having to wonder whether you'll make rent every month solely on other peoples' generosity gives one a complex. It makes us more ambitious, and at the same time a little defeated every time we only make 20% of your enormous pleasure expense, because we know we couldn't drop that much money in one night at a restaurant.
So we think, "I can make more, more more here," we get greedy, judgmental. Restaurant Samsara develops in the best of us. Caught in that cycle of cash every night, bar tabs, huge tips and living beyond our means because we want to be able to drop $200 in one place. But we can't. And every time the white-collars and soccer moms come in, no matter how much we despise them and their lifestyles, we're faced with the reality that their lives are so much more comfortable than ours.
And we're busting our asses to make it that way.
17 July 2009
Morning
Back to seriosity. I write stuff. Rarely poetry, but this time I did.
WHAT HAPPENED
if I still had all the pictures on her wall
I could reassemble the order they hung
a collage of
what happened
in the hours she lay on her bed
staring, loving, reminding her self
she still exists
now, up in my closet somewhere
in decorated shoeboxes is
what happened
love notes, dead flowers and candy wrappers
junk that looks like trash
old bottles of perfume she stole from
her mother with one single
drop
left
at
the
Bottom
and I’d prefer not to think about her end or
the point that she left and I began, I
don’t remember when
even if I did
that last drop would never come out
WHAT HAPPENED
if I still had all the pictures on her wall
I could reassemble the order they hung
a collage of
what happened
in the hours she lay on her bed
staring, loving, reminding her self
she still exists
now, up in my closet somewhere
in decorated shoeboxes is
what happened
love notes, dead flowers and candy wrappers
junk that looks like trash
old bottles of perfume she stole from
her mother with one single
drop
left
at
the
Bottom
and I’d prefer not to think about her end or
the point that she left and I began, I
don’t remember when
even if I did
that last drop would never come out
13 July 2009
About an hour ago, I remembered that I had a cache of writing uploaded to my LSU file space--wittily named FilesToGeaux--and I found my ridiculous attempts at poetry under the gentle care of Professor Andrei Codrescu. Check this out.
A Dialogue Concerning Why Prayers Are Never Answered
God,
Where is the mercy
in having faith
in my lover's bed, lying
drunk with my eyes gutted,
bits of me scattered atop
the residue of the other girls
hiding on his sheets?
Your Child,
Christie
Child,
I’m a big fan of irony.
Suck it up, kiddo, I rule the universe.
God
BWAHAHA
A Dialogue Concerning Why Prayers Are Never Answered
God,
Where is the mercy
in having faith
in my lover's bed, lying
drunk with my eyes gutted,
bits of me scattered atop
the residue of the other girls
hiding on his sheets?
Your Child,
Christie
Child,
I’m a big fan of irony.
Suck it up, kiddo, I rule the universe.
God
BWAHAHA
Fumigation '09
I just finished reformatting my week-old laptop. Why, you ask?
Because I made the unfortunate mistake of letting my boyfriend download Bruno via BitTorrent. The file included one (1) protected WMV copy of Bruno and bazillion (3424879823749) Malware/spyware/trojans.
Instead of making chili relleno as planned, I sat for four hours trying to track those aggressive little shits down. I've had various spyware/malware before, but this was different. In addition to redirecting my search results to insurance websites, this shit hid out in the temp folder and fucked with my registry. I McAffee'd in vain--nothing was found after an excruciatingly long scan. Letting it sit overnight was the worst idea ever--I woke up and could not boot Vista due to the BSoD.
Bruno isn't worth that mess. Since I only had one week's worth of ripped CDs, free programs and configurations, at the end of four hours it became easier to say "fuck it" and fumigate my lappy.
Then I made tacos, and Tommy and Flobes rejoiced.
The End
Because I made the unfortunate mistake of letting my boyfriend download Bruno via BitTorrent. The file included one (1) protected WMV copy of Bruno and bazillion (3424879823749) Malware/spyware/trojans.
Instead of making chili relleno as planned, I sat for four hours trying to track those aggressive little shits down. I've had various spyware/malware before, but this was different. In addition to redirecting my search results to insurance websites, this shit hid out in the temp folder and fucked with my registry. I McAffee'd in vain--nothing was found after an excruciatingly long scan. Letting it sit overnight was the worst idea ever--I woke up and could not boot Vista due to the BSoD.
Bruno isn't worth that mess. Since I only had one week's worth of ripped CDs, free programs and configurations, at the end of four hours it became easier to say "fuck it" and fumigate my lappy.
Then I made tacos, and Tommy and Flobes rejoiced.
The End
11 July 2009
Ticket to Ride
Throughout my life, probably a bazillion times, I've thought I should have been born when my mother was. Not because I wanted to grow up with my mother, but to grow up in the 1970s. A month ago, I decided my dream was to be a flight attendant. I told my mother, and she told me it was her own dream 25 years ago. In the 70s, being a flight attendant was glamorous, and it came with a certain badge of attitude and independence for a woman.
Of course, nowadays, men can also be attendants and there aren't as many weight/appearance restrictions. Yet if I walk into a room full of lawyers tomorrow and they ask me what I do, and I say "I'm a flight attendant", everyone will pounce on me with amorous eyes and interested questions, because the occupation still carries that mysterious allure of the 1970s. It's what every awesome woman wanted to become, and who every man wanted to hook up with. An all-American geisha (not a prostitute, go look it up).
Upon this fabulous realization that I wanted to become a flight attendant, I began vigorously researching the road to my destination. Do you just apply? Where's the best place to put your foot in the door?
I found all sorts of advice, and absolutely no job openings. I think this is why flight attendants are historically mysterious--it's so goddamn hard to even get the job, and if you do, there's a waiting period of at least a year before you get more than one flight a month; you're basically a fill-in for sick or injured employees.
I still want to be a flight attendant. It's the perfect job--get paid for traveling, and it's normal to have another job or profession outside of your 3-4 flights a month. And free flights anywhere in space available, when you're not on board as cabin crew. This is my dream.
They've always told me I had my head in the clouds. I might as well get paid for it.
Of course, nowadays, men can also be attendants and there aren't as many weight/appearance restrictions. Yet if I walk into a room full of lawyers tomorrow and they ask me what I do, and I say "I'm a flight attendant", everyone will pounce on me with amorous eyes and interested questions, because the occupation still carries that mysterious allure of the 1970s. It's what every awesome woman wanted to become, and who every man wanted to hook up with. An all-American geisha (not a prostitute, go look it up).
Upon this fabulous realization that I wanted to become a flight attendant, I began vigorously researching the road to my destination. Do you just apply? Where's the best place to put your foot in the door?
I found all sorts of advice, and absolutely no job openings. I think this is why flight attendants are historically mysterious--it's so goddamn hard to even get the job, and if you do, there's a waiting period of at least a year before you get more than one flight a month; you're basically a fill-in for sick or injured employees.
I still want to be a flight attendant. It's the perfect job--get paid for traveling, and it's normal to have another job or profession outside of your 3-4 flights a month. And free flights anywhere in space available, when you're not on board as cabin crew. This is my dream.
They've always told me I had my head in the clouds. I might as well get paid for it.
10 July 2009
Tiddlywinks
As promised, here is tiddlywinks.
I didn't write the Great American Novel yet today, but I have a fragment of a story. Well, one page. I tried really hard to finish it, but Tommy kept making sad faces and my cat (Flowbie) began to nom my face after a bit. Good ole' Flobes. Flobe.
a Flowbee in her natural habitat
I didn't write the Great American Novel yet today, but I have a fragment of a story. Well, one page. I tried really hard to finish it, but Tommy kept making sad faces and my cat (Flowbie) began to nom my face after a bit. Good ole' Flobes. Flobe.
a Flowbee in her natural habitat
09 July 2009
Five
Five cigarettes today. Not so bad compared to yesterday's 30, and it's already 6:35pm.
I had a really great idea after I wrote at 4am last night-- I'm going to buy a large box of straws, trim them all down so that 20 fit in an empty box of cigarettes, and when I want a cigarette, I'll take out one of the mini-straws and chew on it.
Actually that sounds kind of nasty, especially if I do it in public. Spit strings are sick. I suppose 4am only feels really significant and meaningful at 4am. Sobriety is overrated.
To get my mind off of smoking, I decided I'd clean my kitchen. As in, hands-and-knees-with-a-toothbrush clean my kitchen. It was relatively clean before this, dishes done, etc. but I wanted to get the baseboards, the greasy crud on the wall by the stove, the dust that covers my empty wine bottle collection. I'm not domestic or anything.
I make my pine-sol solution and dump out the cups that catch my leaky faucet water, scrub the shit off the countertop... and then I look at my wine bottles, catching the sunset in my window with different colors. My favorite is the blue one. See the picture--it's a Bawls energy drink bottle. Then I decide to make a soap container out of it, to put hand soap in. So I do that, and then I decide I want to change out some of the bottles on the windowsill to different colored ones, to catch the sun better.
All in all, I spent two hours in the kitchen, filling up clear bottles with sanitizer water and food coloring. Some now have glittery things in them. The only thing I managed to clean was the tiny spot behind the sink, and I messed up the kitchen with the dye. The baseboards still have cat hair and crud on them, and the grease by the stove continues to fester.
This is why I can't get anything done.
Might have a lil' story or some lil' tiddlywinks to post later.
I had a really great idea after I wrote at 4am last night-- I'm going to buy a large box of straws, trim them all down so that 20 fit in an empty box of cigarettes, and when I want a cigarette, I'll take out one of the mini-straws and chew on it.
Actually that sounds kind of nasty, especially if I do it in public. Spit strings are sick. I suppose 4am only feels really significant and meaningful at 4am. Sobriety is overrated.
To get my mind off of smoking, I decided I'd clean my kitchen. As in, hands-and-knees-with-a-toothbrush clean my kitchen. It was relatively clean before this, dishes done, etc. but I wanted to get the baseboards, the greasy crud on the wall by the stove, the dust that covers my empty wine bottle collection. I'm not domestic or anything.
I make my pine-sol solution and dump out the cups that catch my leaky faucet water, scrub the shit off the countertop... and then I look at my wine bottles, catching the sunset in my window with different colors. My favorite is the blue one. See the picture--it's a Bawls energy drink bottle. Then I decide to make a soap container out of it, to put hand soap in. So I do that, and then I decide I want to change out some of the bottles on the windowsill to different colored ones, to catch the sun better.
All in all, I spent two hours in the kitchen, filling up clear bottles with sanitizer water and food coloring. Some now have glittery things in them. The only thing I managed to clean was the tiny spot behind the sink, and I messed up the kitchen with the dye. The baseboards still have cat hair and crud on them, and the grease by the stove continues to fester.
This is why I can't get anything done.
Might have a lil' story or some lil' tiddlywinks to post later.
I'm not really sending it back.
I've come to the conclusion that laptops with wireless cards do several things to a bored, drunken individual.
But seriously, let's see how well I can quit.
- Sobriety - I can't seem to stop stumbling the blogosphere long enough to get up and make a drink.
- Insomnia - Going to sleep without the aid of a glass of wine is not as easy as I remember it.
- Very Clear Thoughts - I've done it again. I'm awake after sleeping for an hour, it's four AM, and immediately upon consciousness I decide I need to quit smoking. Not just an "edging towards quitting" or "I'll finish this pack", but an I'm quitting now. It was as if everything negative I've ever known or been told about smoking finally culminated in the instant I woke up, and it sounded like sick whales and starving children screaming, "THIS WILL KILL YOU." And this all leads up to
- Becoming Re-Acquainted with the Beauty of Living. After my body told me I will quit smoking, it proceeded to fill my head with images of how much fun it would be to paint my apartment with a snazzy color scheme, and re-tile my linoleum kitchen with black and white checkered ceramic. Maybe possibly build some furniture out of old crap I find in people's garbage [why do other people always throw away shit you think is really neat?].
But seriously, let's see how well I can quit.
08 July 2009
Clarity?
Have you ever woken from dreamless sleep at four in the morning to have a thought so rational about your own life that it prevents further sleeping?
That happened to me this morning. The thought itself was nothing life-changing, and not very important in the long run, yet it was something I failed to notice for years. I realized why a relatively obscure acquaintance five years in my past never became my friend.
We got along very well, we had enough in common to build a lifelong friendship, I think. There's no real reason why, after meeting her, we never connected again. At least, I didn't think there was a reason.
I got way drunk at her friend's house, and I didn't black out or anything, but I remember it being a wonderful apartment. And then, I remember smoking a clove inside (this was before I became a chain-smoker). And then she and her friend left me and my friend for a little while, I don't remember why.
I smoked in her friend's apartment and got all Louisiana-drunk on their outside-of-Louisiana drinking rules. I swear, drinking is not the same outside of Louisiana. Cultural differences.
...I guess I can go ahead and say that LA is a state of drunks. We might be on par with Russia. Anywhere else, they'd put me and most people I know in a program or something.
And at that point in my past, I was very much a lush.
She and her friend probably left because I was acting an ass and filling the living room with clove smoke, which, as I've noticed lately, can be the most annoying thing on the planet to share a room with. Later, we all went to this IHOP-type place for some food, and I vaguely remember saying to the server in a loud voice, "I'M DRUNK, I'M SORRY YOU HAVE TO BE HERE" (it was 2am on New Year's Day). Jesus Christ. She probably ate my food and crapped it back out on the plate before handing it to me.
It seriously never occurred to me that we're not friends because of that. And usually when I wake up, I'm groggy and my dreams stay with me for a second, and I don't really think about anything clearly. So to wake up and think about a single obscure night five years ago and the consequences of my actions was a bit irregular.
That happened to me this morning. The thought itself was nothing life-changing, and not very important in the long run, yet it was something I failed to notice for years. I realized why a relatively obscure acquaintance five years in my past never became my friend.
We got along very well, we had enough in common to build a lifelong friendship, I think. There's no real reason why, after meeting her, we never connected again. At least, I didn't think there was a reason.
I got way drunk at her friend's house, and I didn't black out or anything, but I remember it being a wonderful apartment. And then, I remember smoking a clove inside (this was before I became a chain-smoker). And then she and her friend left me and my friend for a little while, I don't remember why.
I smoked in her friend's apartment and got all Louisiana-drunk on their outside-of-Louisiana drinking rules. I swear, drinking is not the same outside of Louisiana. Cultural differences.
...I guess I can go ahead and say that LA is a state of drunks. We might be on par with Russia. Anywhere else, they'd put me and most people I know in a program or something.
And at that point in my past, I was very much a lush.
She and her friend probably left because I was acting an ass and filling the living room with clove smoke, which, as I've noticed lately, can be the most annoying thing on the planet to share a room with. Later, we all went to this IHOP-type place for some food, and I vaguely remember saying to the server in a loud voice, "I'M DRUNK, I'M SORRY YOU HAVE TO BE HERE" (it was 2am on New Year's Day). Jesus Christ. She probably ate my food and crapped it back out on the plate before handing it to me.
It seriously never occurred to me that we're not friends because of that. And usually when I wake up, I'm groggy and my dreams stay with me for a second, and I don't really think about anything clearly. So to wake up and think about a single obscure night five years ago and the consequences of my actions was a bit irregular.
07 July 2009
Generation WTF
Hello!
I'm a resident of Baton Rouge, in the swampy state of Louisiana, which is still operating partly under the Napoleonic Code. In May, I completed my BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in History.
I woke up today and I realized that July is here, and I am still waiting tables. Something feels wrong. I had big dreams! I wanted to travel the world and revolutionize the print industry, write bestsellers with little effort, and give commencement speeches and whatnot. Instead, I'm refilling iced tea with specified amounts of ice and serving dressing on the side.
What's more depressing is that many of my friends from my graduating class are in the same boat: scanning through Craigslist scams and hoping for the best.
Now, it very well could be that my major is composed of lazy, pretentious faux-writers, and the ones who aren't, aren't my friends. It's definitely within the realm of possibilities. Yet, I've known these people for six years now, and the lot of them aren't lazy. In fact, there's a high level of talent in the Creative Writing program at LSU.
I'd like to talk about my generation a little bit, comparatively.
The baby boomers were cautious Spock children who quickly learned the order of things after the 1960s: without much protest, most of them cut their hair, stopped dropping out and started blending in. I suppose the large-scale disruptions of the 60s allowed many of these delinquents to get all the unrest out of their systems in one decade. How lucky they were.
Their children composed Generation X--the question mark of an equation that hadn't yet been composed--were expected to be the laziest of the lazy. Their Spock-raised, ex-hippy parents had decided that Spock was a damaging approach to parenting, and they noticed their kids listening to music that seemed to have no soul or cause. What interests me about Gen-X is that they grew up in a time without a cause. No clear social injustice, no world war. A little touch of recession here and there, but nothing major that would influence an American teenager. Those kids went to college and lots of them caught the dot-com wave, buying up domain names and learning HTML and programming languages. This generation had the perfect storm of technological advancements and solid parenting, and if one had a degree in Computer Science, they were a shoe-in for a high-paying job right out of college, regardless of if they caught the dot-com bubble while it was growing.
The wildly successful of Gen-X didn't have to cut their hair, yet so many of them did when it came time to sell their websites to huge corporations. I imagine it was quite a shock to their parents to see their children making bank with a machine filled with zeroes and ones, that was only beginning to advance at the time of their birth. The rift between ex-hippies and Gen-X gets bigger every year. The values held by the Age of Aquarius aren't relevant anymore, it seems. America never has been a country for old men. Spock's cold shoulder still chills my grandmother, to the point where she and I cannot relate, on any level. I suppose I can't expect her to; she braved a World War and the biggest economic downturn the United States had ever seen. It's given her an undiminishing optimism that totally escapes me. It's easy to understand though--she's been through it all, and it was so much worse. At least they had the Cleaver family to look up to.
And that leaves us: Generation WTF.
As I hold my shiny new English degree, I wonder where our generation's Cleaver family is. Can they be found in the Osbournes? On Newlyweds? In a brave new world of mixed signals, we have no shining, solid example. It took me six years to figure out that I wanted an English degree, and it happened as I was walking across the stage at LSU's PMAC. Now the student loan bills are coming in, and I'm still waiting tables (which, by the way, destroys even the most holy of souls). Why did it take me so long to decide? Am I lazy?
These are my skills: I can manage money, I can write a short story, I can chain smoke, I can BS a paper that fooled my Harvard-taught, Medieval specialist Chaucer professor. I can make a deadline, I can sort of speak German, and I can beat anyone at Solitaire. Even though my loan bills amount to $22,131.70, I may as well have spent six years banging my head against some bricks. I have no idea what I'm going to do.
However, I do know what I don't want to do: Sit in cubicle. Watch the clock. Anything involving more than simple math is out of the question. Eight to five. Early nights and/or mornings. Teaching--those kids are getting smarter and more stupid by the hour.
And my parents--thank God they didn't foot my college bills--do all of those things, every day. At first glance I'd point at laziness. I wish it were that simple.
I'm not lazy. I work my ass off, and I still find time to write, clean, grocery shop, mop, and do laundry at the ghetto laundromat on Government Street. I even clean my A.C. filter once a month.
I meet up with my college friends often--some of them wait tables with me--and none of us can find a nice, parent-approved job with our fancy English degrees. We're still writing, but no one is publishing.
What has happened? The dot-com bubble has burst, and I only know qBasic and a little VB, if that ever mattered. There are no more frontiers to front in that area. For some reason, I always thought I'd become an AP journalist, but the print news industry has one foot in the glue factory. The internet is lovely, and I've been addicted to it since seventh grade, but every ad I've answered on Craigslist is a scam--even the ones I didn't want to apply to.
I am one of thousands, millions of a BA-holding generation who was told to go to college; and that's all. In a recession, the jobs are down, pressure is up, and our parents are perpetually disappointed in their crotchfruit because a degree actually meant something in the 60s. A degree means nothing in a jobless job market. There was the Great Depression--before national schism was ever thought of, then the great counter culture of the 60s and 70s, followed by Google and eBay and Yahoo. We're the follow-ups. WTF.
Our first instinct is to blame someone, but there's no one to blame. Even if we could blame the dot-com entrepreneurs, what are we going to do? Sue them? For writing the paths to their own success? Hardly.
All blames and politics set aside, these are our times, fellow Gen-WTFuckers. This is what we've been given. We're used to being given things, but we've graduated college in the middle of an economic nervous breakdown. We can't reinvent Google, and although the urge is great, we can't sign up for welfare. We're educated; let's not forget that. We're not satisfied with the cubicles of our parents, or our cousins' search engines. We have to invent a whole new flavor of Kool-aid and stop waiting around for someone to pay us to keep making that gross yellow kind.
We're not different, we're not special. No one's going to call us that right out of college, no matter how much it cost us. I'm not being idealistic here, but we can be different and special. We just have to get off our asses and start thinking first. Maybe we haven't because no one told us we'd have to figure this out after college. It's a horrible excuse.
That's why I'm here. I'm finished with waiting for someone to hire me to perform a job that I'll hate every day of my life. And I hope you're reading this because you're finished with it too.
I'm a resident of Baton Rouge, in the swampy state of Louisiana, which is still operating partly under the Napoleonic Code. In May, I completed my BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in History.
I woke up today and I realized that July is here, and I am still waiting tables. Something feels wrong. I had big dreams! I wanted to travel the world and revolutionize the print industry, write bestsellers with little effort, and give commencement speeches and whatnot. Instead, I'm refilling iced tea with specified amounts of ice and serving dressing on the side.
What's more depressing is that many of my friends from my graduating class are in the same boat: scanning through Craigslist scams and hoping for the best.
Now, it very well could be that my major is composed of lazy, pretentious faux-writers, and the ones who aren't, aren't my friends. It's definitely within the realm of possibilities. Yet, I've known these people for six years now, and the lot of them aren't lazy. In fact, there's a high level of talent in the Creative Writing program at LSU.
I'd like to talk about my generation a little bit, comparatively.
The baby boomers were cautious Spock children who quickly learned the order of things after the 1960s: without much protest, most of them cut their hair, stopped dropping out and started blending in. I suppose the large-scale disruptions of the 60s allowed many of these delinquents to get all the unrest out of their systems in one decade. How lucky they were.
Their children composed Generation X--the question mark of an equation that hadn't yet been composed--were expected to be the laziest of the lazy. Their Spock-raised, ex-hippy parents had decided that Spock was a damaging approach to parenting, and they noticed their kids listening to music that seemed to have no soul or cause. What interests me about Gen-X is that they grew up in a time without a cause. No clear social injustice, no world war. A little touch of recession here and there, but nothing major that would influence an American teenager. Those kids went to college and lots of them caught the dot-com wave, buying up domain names and learning HTML and programming languages. This generation had the perfect storm of technological advancements and solid parenting, and if one had a degree in Computer Science, they were a shoe-in for a high-paying job right out of college, regardless of if they caught the dot-com bubble while it was growing.
The wildly successful of Gen-X didn't have to cut their hair, yet so many of them did when it came time to sell their websites to huge corporations. I imagine it was quite a shock to their parents to see their children making bank with a machine filled with zeroes and ones, that was only beginning to advance at the time of their birth. The rift between ex-hippies and Gen-X gets bigger every year. The values held by the Age of Aquarius aren't relevant anymore, it seems. America never has been a country for old men. Spock's cold shoulder still chills my grandmother, to the point where she and I cannot relate, on any level. I suppose I can't expect her to; she braved a World War and the biggest economic downturn the United States had ever seen. It's given her an undiminishing optimism that totally escapes me. It's easy to understand though--she's been through it all, and it was so much worse. At least they had the Cleaver family to look up to.
And that leaves us: Generation WTF.
As I hold my shiny new English degree, I wonder where our generation's Cleaver family is. Can they be found in the Osbournes? On Newlyweds? In a brave new world of mixed signals, we have no shining, solid example. It took me six years to figure out that I wanted an English degree, and it happened as I was walking across the stage at LSU's PMAC. Now the student loan bills are coming in, and I'm still waiting tables (which, by the way, destroys even the most holy of souls). Why did it take me so long to decide? Am I lazy?
These are my skills: I can manage money, I can write a short story, I can chain smoke, I can BS a paper that fooled my Harvard-taught, Medieval specialist Chaucer professor. I can make a deadline, I can sort of speak German, and I can beat anyone at Solitaire. Even though my loan bills amount to $22,131.70, I may as well have spent six years banging my head against some bricks. I have no idea what I'm going to do.
However, I do know what I don't want to do: Sit in cubicle. Watch the clock. Anything involving more than simple math is out of the question. Eight to five. Early nights and/or mornings. Teaching--those kids are getting smarter and more stupid by the hour.
And my parents--thank God they didn't foot my college bills--do all of those things, every day. At first glance I'd point at laziness. I wish it were that simple.
I'm not lazy. I work my ass off, and I still find time to write, clean, grocery shop, mop, and do laundry at the ghetto laundromat on Government Street. I even clean my A.C. filter once a month.
I meet up with my college friends often--some of them wait tables with me--and none of us can find a nice, parent-approved job with our fancy English degrees. We're still writing, but no one is publishing.
What has happened? The dot-com bubble has burst, and I only know qBasic and a little VB, if that ever mattered. There are no more frontiers to front in that area. For some reason, I always thought I'd become an AP journalist, but the print news industry has one foot in the glue factory. The internet is lovely, and I've been addicted to it since seventh grade, but every ad I've answered on Craigslist is a scam--even the ones I didn't want to apply to.
I am one of thousands, millions of a BA-holding generation who was told to go to college; and that's all. In a recession, the jobs are down, pressure is up, and our parents are perpetually disappointed in their crotchfruit because a degree actually meant something in the 60s. A degree means nothing in a jobless job market. There was the Great Depression--before national schism was ever thought of, then the great counter culture of the 60s and 70s, followed by Google and eBay and Yahoo. We're the follow-ups. WTF.
Our first instinct is to blame someone, but there's no one to blame. Even if we could blame the dot-com entrepreneurs, what are we going to do? Sue them? For writing the paths to their own success? Hardly.
All blames and politics set aside, these are our times, fellow Gen-WTFuckers. This is what we've been given. We're used to being given things, but we've graduated college in the middle of an economic nervous breakdown. We can't reinvent Google, and although the urge is great, we can't sign up for welfare. We're educated; let's not forget that. We're not satisfied with the cubicles of our parents, or our cousins' search engines. We have to invent a whole new flavor of Kool-aid and stop waiting around for someone to pay us to keep making that gross yellow kind.
We're not different, we're not special. No one's going to call us that right out of college, no matter how much it cost us. I'm not being idealistic here, but we can be different and special. We just have to get off our asses and start thinking first. Maybe we haven't because no one told us we'd have to figure this out after college. It's a horrible excuse.
That's why I'm here. I'm finished with waiting for someone to hire me to perform a job that I'll hate every day of my life. And I hope you're reading this because you're finished with it too.
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