jerbs

So apparently it's Monday. The phone, calendar and M. all tell me this. I have no idea. My schedule (or lack of scheds) means I just don't know. Time has also ceased to have meaning. Sometimes I'm hungry and I eat food, but at no set hour. I've never had a job that began at 11 a.m. It's shattering (in a good way). It's so decadent. I have whole mornings to myself. I've been eating breakfast, stretching, walking, reading, playing guitar, writing, going out to breakfast -- a whole bunch of untold of, unheard of.

My first day at the restaurant was a blur. I trained in a whirlwind with three different people and confused all the table numbers. However, I can fold napkins -- small victories. Then a friend met me as I got off shift and we ate dinner together then took a dog with us to the beach and played in the fog, hunting for treasures in the driftwood. She found two bird skulls and a collection of warped plastic. I found a stick and a one-legged plastic horse. Both of us found multiple toothbrushes and slippers. A great disturbance in the Force. It was like a world made entirely of bathrooms had exploded and washed up on the beach. (as if a million voices crowd out in pain and then... silence -- reference anyone?)

Anyway. The point is, I was tired (brain-tired from newness) but I had so much energy otherwise and I felt fresh and bright and ready to give. Yayayayayayay. Each day I'm kind of amazed that I don't have to go back to the paper. It's... odd. This work is so easy even though I'm still incompetent and new to it all.

So, for the people out there who still read this (MRS. PAYNE), I'm doing quite well and catching up on sleep.

Goals for today:

1) Get through my double shift without pouring water onto a customer when I'm refilling glasses (very deep-seated fear)

2) Learn how to play and sing "The Devil's Right Hand" by Johnny Cash, which shouldn't be too hard since I think the man could only sing five different notes and usually stuck with two. Simple melodies resulting.

3) CASH CHECKS and so have the monies for to pay rents (I'm really really really bad about cashing checks. A mental block perhaps)

4) Find another black shirt for work since the uniform shirt is making me crazy (and, more importantly, sweaty. Bleh)

day two: new job

I have acquired a knife. I like the word "acquired" because whenever I use it it makes me think of some barren woman in the Bible who has just given birth ("Behold! I have acquired a son for the Lord") and then she sends her child/son off to be a priest or a prophet and he in turn utters dire commandments against the reprobate children of Israel. So, lo! I have acquired a knife for the Lord. Also, I acquired two utterly white coffee mugs after Mom pointed out that I don't own any or the ones I used to own have disappeared.

The new job is overwhelming and exciting. I've already run about 100 complete scenarios where I a) fail spectacularly due to mistakes I will probably never make or b) succeed spectacularly by being someone I'm not nor will ever be, i.e. a hard nosed, intense-eyed, not-afraid-of-authority-figures journalist. Today I felt very young. To ground myself, I'm going to read the copy of the Constitution that I found in my desk. It's a better way of falling asleep than drinking a shot of whiskey and hitting myself over the head with a chair.

The morning was spent in paperwork and the afternoon in going through my predecessor's desk. I have inherited 80+ manila folders full of official looking papers, handwritten notes and all sorts of documents. I trotted some of them home so I can read them whenever I want. And I will.

I have one assignment so far and it's not at all connected to my beat, but it will get me started.

In the meantime, in preparation for a second assignment at the end of this month, I've reconnected with a summer source. I've decided to name her the Best Source of All Time. Because she is, indeed, the best source of all time.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is another day. I haven't wandered around Astoria very much yet, been too busy, been too tired and it is dark by 4 pm. Plenty of time for wandering later.