38 Days, But Whose Counting? April 22, 2008

Graduation has crept up on me.  I only have four Mondays left to go at this place, and then I’m free, paper in hand, to go out and make good use of the skills they’ve ground, beaten, stamped into me.  I have every confidence that I’m going to have a long, happy, lucrative career, but this Graduation Thing, it just…snuck up when I wasn’t looking closely.  All the studying and the planning and the practice have led to this moment, and perhaps I’m just struggling with how to handle success after years of figuring out how to handle failure.  One is just as scary as the other, I’m quickly realizing.  

Of course, hand in hand with the fear of What I’m Going To Do Next, With Who, And Where, is an overwhelming sense of elation at the accomplishment of managing to survive it all, let alone painting 28 shows in the process, and learning lots of fantastically unique and interesting skills along the way.  I am happy that I made the decision to attend a conservatory, but I’ll be damned if I know how people do it straight out of high school.  The schedule has been so demanding for so long, now that I have some ‘free time’ (since my last college show is up and running!), I don’t actually know what to do with myself.  My homework is getting done and there are hours left in the day to use however I may choose.  Lately, that has meant naps and movies, mostly, and lemme tell ya, nothing could be sweeter.  

Someone asked me today how I was doing and I replied, without thinking, “I’ve never been better”.  All evening, since that encounter, I’ve marveled at the thought that I’ve never used that phrase before, because I’ve never been this happy with the shape my life has taken.  I still have Plenty of Issues, for sure, but I think I must be learning how to cope with them in healthy, mature ways.  Or something.

Or maybe I’ve gone and grown up.  I’m too old to feel like a kid and too young to be comfortable with the phrase Middle Aged.  I still don’t have the hang of this responsibility thing.  Maybe I should go to grad school, and postpone the inevitable three more years.  

In other news, I love my new job.  It’s frickin awesome…exactly the cooking job I’ve always wanted, the people are tres cool, the food is fresh and delicious and organic and unprocessed, just high brow enough to satisfy a gourmet palate but simple enough to delight the timid eater, the schedule is perfect, and there is a true sense of community involved with being a member of the staff.   Conversation overheard, between a waitress and a busboy:

Busboy: Why don’t any normal looking people eat here?

Waitress:  Cuz no normal looking people work here.  

I feel right at home.  And I feel like a baller.  Landing this job was the equivalent to scoring a spot on the line at Tupelo Honey in Asheville; this restaurant is a local treasure, and I feel so thankful that I’m a part of that now.  The steady paychecks don’t hurt, either.  

I hate to say it but I almost feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I’m so happy, things are going so well…the pessimist in me says it won’t hold.  Just so long as it holds for another 38 days, I can handle the rest.  

 

Shakespeare and Omelets April 13, 2008

My last show of my undergraduate education is in tech, which means my job is almost Officially Over.  I am so overjoyed and relieved and excited, I don’t really have words to describe how much lighter I feel now that this task is nearly complete.  I can paint a marble now, that’s for sure.  It was my one real weak spot so far as faux-finishing is concerned, but I have taken care of that, rather neatly, and developed a style of marble treatments that is both unique and effective.  Now I can go earn $150 an hour to make some rich persons bathroom look like marble instead of plaster.  

I got a summer job yesterday.  I will be the omelet chef at the pre-eminent brunch place in town.  My job interview was pretty hilarious; I met with the owner, and her first (and only) question was: “Are you a badass.  Because you have to be a badass to work in this kitchen.”  My response: “Check.”  She liked my answer, apparently, and jumped immediately to the scheduling part of the interview.  The pay is clearly not exceptional, not what I was earning last summer, but I am So Effing Excited that someone has finally given me a job cooking.  This restaurant particularly rocks my world; it’s one of my favorites in town, and their food as well as their decor and atmosphere suit my style and flair perfectly.  I anticipate we will be a good match.  Best part is, I only have to work on Sundays until after graduation/vacations.  I expected her to laugh when I told her I needed the first three weeks of June off, but she just shrugged and said that she could work around that.  At the end of the interview, she told me her daughter (that I had called as a lesbo about a year ago) liked me, and that was good enough for her.  Also, there is a surprising amount of street cred people lend to working at this particular restaurant, and I have a feeling this is a perfect oppurtunity to expand my network to include people that I don’t go to school with.  I’m nervous about starting a new job (it’s been a while…) but I’m really stoked to be working a kitchen, albeit one that serves up low-brow gourmet, just like I’d cook for my friends if I had more money.  

In less than fifty days, I will be at the beach, Very Expensive Piece of Paper in hand, drinking fruity drinks in the sunshine, barely believing that I weigh less than I did when I was a senior in high school, basking in the radiance of hot sun and accomplishment.  I feel like, at this point, I’m just hanging on for the ride.  The emotions are definitely creeping towards the surface, but my sadness for leaving this school and these people and my house and my routine is tinged with the excitement for my new beginning.  Somewhere new and far-away and frightening and gorgeous, and I’ll be a stranger again, and I’ll have to get my game face out of the corner of my closet.  I can’t wait.  I’m terrified but I can’t wait.  

I had fill number 3 on Thursday…this time, the doctor only had to stick me once, but only because I requested we go straight to flouroscopy, so it could be a one shot deal.  I made the mistake of turning my head towards him when he asked me if i was okay (during the procedure) and I saw the needle sticking straight out of my abdomen, standing up of its own volition (the doctor was studying the x-ray with his hands on his hips) just like I was Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, but eight inches lower.  It was gross, and I had to will myself not to throw up for about a minute, but it was over quick, at the very least…and then I lost six pounds by the next day.  It’s blowing my mind, a little.  

Completely unrelated: I found myself driving behind an incredible asshole, who perfectly summed up what I believe to be wrong with the ignorant masses in this, our great country of America.  Picture if you will a 1988 Datsun truck, the paint stripped away to a flat gray, jacked up on tires taller than me.  Behind the wheel, a greasy redneck with a mullet that flapped in the breeze.  On the roof, the Papa Johns light-up pizza sign was almost invisible, it was so far out of the line of my sight.  His license plate told me his truck was heavy, it had earned a Weighted plate.  Can you imagine the nerve of this guy?  A passenger truck so heavy that it required the same plates an 18 wheeler sports?  And he’s driving pizzas!  I know they don’t pay him that much per mile; I’ve delivered pies before.  The icing on the cake, the real piece de resistance, was the one and only bumper sticker attached to the truck.  It was small, maybe 3″x5″, positioned directly above the Weighted tag, below the 7′ tall tail gate.  It read, “If you are close enough to read this sticker, you will be shot.”  And then it was translated into sanskrit.  

I won’t miss the rednecks when I go.  

Does Not Compute April 4, 2008

First of all, it’s really driving me crazy that the new formatting for this blog won’t allow me to use the return key.  I need to be able to make paragraphs.  Otherwise, the five paragraphs turn into one, unappealing jumble of words, lacking the emphasis and grammatically correct usage of The Paragraph.  Seriously driving me crazy.  I know I’m a technological invalid, but come on.  Let me push enter and create my paragraphs.  Please.  Re-entry into scholastic life was rocky, going from Paradise to The Final Push.  My tan is still holding strong, and therefore I have a daily reminder that I had a lot of fun recently; this is good, as it keeps me from pulling my hair out at the roots and walking out of class(es).  The notion of a speedy eight and half weeks until my graduation is a little bit crazy.  I can feel the Emotional Trainwreck inside of me gearing up for a really world class temper tantrum.  On the one hand, I am about to crawl out of my skin the need to move out of NC is so strong.  I love my home.  I’ll always return.  But 30 years in a row is enough for now.   I dream about my departure to L.A. every day, five times at least.  It’s scary and feels very far away right now, but there’s a sense of satisfaction, knowing I have finally come far enough in my life to pursue my dreams with the confidence that I will achieve all of my goals.  L.A. is where 8 year old me wanted to live, and now, 22 years later, it still sparkles just as bright.  On the other hand, I hate leaving this lush, gorgeous place full of so many people that I adore and cherish and need.   I’m not worried about friendships falling away, I have a pretty good track record of keeping in touch; its my brother, and my parents, and real barbeque sandwiches and the mountains and the beach and all the green green trees, all the hicks and the lazy rivers and the cheap beer I used to enjoy.  Mostly, I think I’m scared because this move signifies such a change, that of everything I’m letting go of.  I’ve held on to too many old habits and buried fears that just Aren’t Who I Am Anymore, and I feel (hope) that this move will be just the thing to help me really air out the corners and put things back in, organized and tidy.  Mind you, I’m a bit petrified to walk away from this enviroment, these people, my perfect, delightful, lovely dream kitchen, and the ability to worry about my grades instead of worrying about student loan payments.  It is the right decision, though.  I can tell something grand is waiting for me out there, I just have to show up and find it.   In other news, my last student theater experience is nearly over.  One and a half more weeks of Paint Frenzy, and then what essentially amounts to my thesis show, is complete.  And oh my gosh, it’s gonna be memorable.  Unorthodox, too abstracted, and way too fuckin’ long at 4 hours with only one intermission, but people will think about it.  That’s why I like my job, I suppose.  It would seem people think far too little, of late.