Going camping for the weekend with the karate club. My vacation time was supposed to be four days - given that I haven't had more than one consequitive day off since June - but it was cut down to two when one of the girls called in with pinkeye last night at the ice cream shop / tea room and they were pretty desperate. And I agreed to work Sunday night, because I'm a sucker like that.

Last night. Oy. I'm not going to write much, because I'm supposed to be sipping pina coladas and letting all my stress melt away, but. We were out of chocolate, strawberry AND vanilla, AND we had to move a few dozen buckets of ice cream up three flights of stairs to make room for today's order. And the dishwasher blew. And one of the tills. And there was a certain power-trip issue that I won't get into now.

Anyways. Camping. I expect there to be some scandal when M. and I share a tent tonight, and I'm kinda sorta masochistically looking forward to it. I'm aloof like that, ya know - people can say and think what they want.

(Total lie. I'm worried sick.)

what doesn't kill you...

might kill your customers. Oy. I had quite the stellar moment today. I daresay I impressed the boss my first day at the bakery - but, to be honest, it had more to do with three espressos and a good night's sleep than anything else. A hangover paired with an old donut and half a glass of orange juice? Not so much.

The single dumbest work moment of my life came today when, in a moment of true brilliance, I placed my beautifully packaged to-go meal right in front of the cash drawer (you can see where this is going). I even managed to ring the man up without doing anything dumb. Then I opened the till.

Cha-CHING! went the cash.
CRASH went the meal. All over the floor. Smooth. Thankfully, the guy was cool about it and just laughed. Don't think I didn't buy his coffee.

My boss, who is also pretty nice and easy going, laughed as well. She told me she might give me shit if she didn't think the embarassment were punishment enough. And oh, it was.

I was out with the tea house gang the other night to celebrate one of my coworker's birthday. A few Long Island iced tea's later (what the hell is IN those to make them so sweet?) I was feeling no pain and thought myself rather invincible.

I was sitting with a coworker who I'd until then gotten along with very well - she was easily my favourite supervisor - when we spied two girls kissing at once of the tables. Apparently Katy Perry has that effect. Anyways, she leans over and says to me, "God, that's so gross!

Me: "Why, that two girls are kissing?"
Her: "Yeah! That's nasty!"
Me: "So I guess this wouldn't be a great time to come out."

She didn't even answer, just got suddenly tired and 'had' to leave. I sat in a pout for awhile before leaving, too. Seriously. If you don't like it, which is ridiculous enough to start, don't look! I really liked this girl, too. I've always sensed some homophobia at work, but it was never anything more than a few jokes before this. Ya think you know someone.

Took M. out to my parents' cabin last night, which was a coming-out of sorts. I really had trouble figured out what they thought of it, but hey, at least the secret's out now.

nerdyjamie pirouettes onto blogger...

...or rather, trips and stumbles into it, knocking over a few glass vases, which is really more her style.

Hi.

Now is a good time to start a blog. I`m a writer, ya know, and fish gotta fly. Or something. I figured this is a good time because I just started my new job yesterday, which will turn into a full-time endevour in a few weeks. I`ll be serving tables at an authentic French café-bakery; a job I got by drastically embellishing my experience in my current job, at a ice cream scoopery-tea house, where I do much more of the former and very little of the latter. I actually know very little about serving, baking, or French cuisine at all, but goddamn, I know a lot about pretending like I do.

How I wound up here requires a little back story. I won`t write much about it; it`s boring, and besides, I`m all about mystique, ya know.

In February, things were very different. I was with my then-live-in-boyfriend, M., and attending school full time in a variety of writing and sociology classes. Very few people knew that M. and I were desperately unhappy. I started dating M. at the young age of fifteen, which everybody knows is too damn young to date anybody, let alone somebody you plan to spend the next four years with. But we lived together anyways. Talk about having all your eggs in one grenade.

One day, a trivial argument was the end of it.

I lived with my best friend, S., for a few monthes while I got used to this whole `single` thing. And once I got the hang of it, boy, did I run with it. There was a brief but passionate affair with an unemployed actor; then, afterwards, there was an unnoficial affair with his (female) roommate. There was (and is) a whole lot `o the feminism. There was beer. Egads, the beer.

I`m living now with my Sister, her husband Brother, their son Munchkin and second-trimester fetus Babytoo. I`m not going back to school, at least not yet, which leads me back to the bakery.

I know what you`re thinking: art student dropout waiting tables smells like a whole lot of nihilism. But not at all. I`m all about optimism. I`m trying to think of this as a different kind of school, with more tests but less homework, which sounds OK except I heard a rumour that it`s not fair. And I`m trying to think of `croissant or baguette?' as more of a cute catchphrase than a death sentence. I haven't been able to find existentialism in ice cream - yet - unless carpal tunnel counts.

Oh, and M. and I are back together. Secretely, of course.