Best of..part 2

I forgot how good it really felt to lose this job. Originally posted on March 18, 2007. & still just as funny:

Well as those of you that I see regularly know, I've been having some issues lately @ M----- B---- AKA Mozambique. My drunk manageress, Potato Face, (who routinely comes in to work an hour to 2 1/2 hours late & drunk for Sunday Brunch) has been saying really tacky unprofessional things about me behind my back to my friend & co-worker, Steven. Well yesterday he & I were working a double shift that lasted WAY longer than it should have. The in time for the evening shift is 4:30 & it was 4:15 when he & I got off & we told her we'd be back @ 5:00 if possible while we went to get some lunch. Well we went to Superior Grill & it was packed (PS the St Patty's day parade was passing like a block away) & by the time our food came we had to box it str8 up & head back to Mozabique. She had 3 other servers show up @ 4:30 & yet when Steven & I arrrived @ 10 after five she was so mad at us that she was shaking & she yelled at us that we could not both be so late in front of the rest of the staff, who had apparently only folded napkins while we were gone as none of the tables on the patio were re-set. I had to hustle to re-set the 8 tables outside & then she sent one of the other servers home bc this other server had a St Patrick's Day party to go to. Well guess what?? we got hit like a ton of bricks & had one of the most stressful nights EVER. Steven told me that way early in the 2nd shift after I walked out of the kitchen Potato Face told him & the remaining server, "Any day now, I'm gonna fire him." Well he told me this after the shift was over or else I'd have walked out on the spot. Well today I was working another double and naturally Madame La Pomme De Terre came in 5 mins b4 we opened and had the bold-faced nerve to wreck poor Steven bc we were out of lemons telling him that he shoulda called her (like her triflin ass was gonna answer her phone) and it was a VERY busy brunch. She scarcely talked to me (except to yell at me for seating a 2-top @ a four person table....PS This 2-top comes in every Sunday specifically to see me & naturally they are gonna get the best table I can offer them) & I got a late 5 top that ran up a $400 bill & tipped $100 bc of my gracious service. However they didn't leave till 4:45. Steven's bf came to pick him up & he asked if it was OK if we came back @ 6. She said, "Sam still has a table he can't leave & you 2 both can't come back that late." So I told Steven to go ahead & I'd just go to WOW & get a drink & a bite to eat. As I was walking to WOW, Steven called me up & let me know that after all the stress this ho has been putting him thru (I'm leaving out alot of Steven's story bc it's his story to tell)his nose started bleeding the second he walked out of the door. I got over to WOW had a drink, & ordered some chips & salsa. My friend Julie happened to pull up right at that moment & so she sat down & had a cocktail with me & then Steven was driving past & came to join too. Next thing you know it was 5:45 & so he & I walked over to Mozambique & the instant I walked in, Miss Ugly says "Sam, you can go home!"  So I'm like, "OK grrl where's my cash from this morning?" & I headed to the back to grab my jacket & sunglasses. She kept on doing what she was doing & when I went back to the front of the restaurant to punch out I said, "do you have something u wanna tell me?" & she handed me my cash & was like "well I told u to be back here @ 5:30 & it's quarter of 6" Well at this point Steven interjected & said "Look how upset u made me, you have wrecked me this whole shift, & it's not gonna happen any more" & pulled out a bloody napkin he'd used to staunch his nosebleed. Alla sudden she flipped the script & apologized to him like crazy but he said, "If Sam goes, I'm outta here too, Peace." As he & I were walking out I had to let her have it one good time. So in front of the whole kitchen (& this poor new grrl) I turned around & said, "Look I know who you are, I know how you operate. You love to talk shit behind every1's back & then play all nice in their face. It's completely unprofessional, to say nothing of unacceptable. Well I've heard alot of shit you've said about me & up to this point I've sucked it up like a soldier & done my best with it bc this is alot of money for me to walk away from, but I don't know who you think you are telling Steven & another server that any day now you're gonna fire me." She tried to soft-pedal it & say that I'd just been upset about something & stormed off & she just said it in a joking way & Steven (who at this point was almost out the door) said, "It's still unprofessional." & I finished off with, "I'm not putting up with this bullshit out of you---bye"
Well not even 4 minutes later the nightmare had called the owner of the restaurant (Cristiano) who proceeded to call Steven & beg him to go back to work. Steven told Cris that he'd be back if he could manage it. After he hung up the phone, Steven looked at me & said, "grrl if he isn't callin u within the next 5 minutes I'm not going back." Guess what? Cris never called me so that's it & that's all for our careers @ Mozambique.
I still can't believe this stupid cow would think for a MICROSECOND that Steven was gonna stick around after she treated me that way. How ignorant can one bitch be? Oh I forgot--this is the bitch who got a law degree from Tulane & couldn't hack it as a lawyer so she's stuck managing a restaurant for the rest of her life to pay back her student loans. How tacky.
Well at least I have another job to fall back on & it's not like restaurant jobs are hard to find when you're as good as I am.
I feel really good about this. I feel like something better is right around the corner. Gosh I haven't felt this hopeful in ages.


This is the current me again. I was right to be hopeful. There were so many wonderful adventures ahead of me. & there still are....

Best of Blog...

Well, actually this is a repost from MySpace. What inspired me to re-post this is that a friend posted a pic of me all slung up in the hospital, doped up to the gills, with my arm in this weird bondage sock. I had almost forgotten this even happened to me, until I started looking around for the pic on FB & realized it must have been on Myspace. So here goes...(originally posted May 6, 2007)

So Tuesday I'd been having some probs with a painful red spot near where I'd skinned my elbow fighting with that fat bitch during French Quarter Fest a few weeks back, so I went 2 Student Health & they told me it was prolly some kind of staph infection & gave me some oral antibiotix & a cream to put on it. Well Guess What? The next day (May 2, 1 month b4 my next bday) my whole left 4arm was all swole up. I went to University Hospital & watched it get bigger & bigger as I went from one waiting rm to the next. Did I mention the hospital is still under construction & the workman had to come drill something into the door of one of these waiting rooms? Horrendous. I got dropped off around 8:30 am & didn't see an MD until about 12:30pm. The doc told me they'd have to admit me & give me IV antibiotix. I ended up spending 2 scary nites in there with these really mean nurses. They put my arm in this funny looking bondage sock to help the swelling go down, check out my comments to see how funny it looks. It worked tho. The swelling is almost all gone now but it's still draining (kinda ick but not too gross). I spent the weekend @ the Coyote Clinic in Hahnville, tryin to recuperate a lil b4 coming back to face Life in the Big City.
I'm not really lookin 4ward to going back to work 2morrow. These antibiotix I'm taking make me feel kinda icky & I really don't feel like slinging pizzas, but being that the electricity was recently disconnected I guess it's best that I make some $ (the lights are back on now but I still gots lotsa other unpaid bills)
Pray for me.

This is the current me talking now. It's like I read this & I feel like I remember these things happening to someone else. Like I was watching a TV show about some broke New Orleans Queen's latest bout of MRSA & hateful hospital staff.

Seriously?

I got this ridiculous email today:

I am contacting you because some one who used to live in New orleans gave me your information. I would have loved to call you on 504943XXXX which I have as your phone number but everything is a mess down here and the phone lines are not working. It is with a heavy heart that I’m writing you from a hospital here in Japan.

I am Edna Stecker, wife of Dr. Gordon Stecker, an American doctor and businessman who deals on oil products. We have been living in Japan for 20 years with our only daughter.

I am not happy to tell you that my family was heavily affected by the Tsunami which rocked our Japan recently. Too many lives and properties were washed away and my family lost everything. Up until now, I still cannot find my only daughter who was washed away by a very huge and scary mass of water. My husband is currently on admission in a hospital due to injuries sustained from the debris that crumbled upon us. He is currently in a coma and I was lucky to have escaped with no major injuries. I hope he survives. Please pray for us.

Before the disaster, my husband shipped a consignment to the United States via a courier company. My husband was supposed to travel to New York so as to retrieve the consignment from the delivery man from the courier company but because of our present condition, nothing could be done. According to the courier company, the delivery man will get to JFK Airport any moment from now.

My purpose of contacting you is to assist us in retrieving this consignment from the delivery man as soon as he gets the JFK Airport in New York. My husband has already settled the delivery charges for shipping the consignment to New York. The diplomatic courier will charge you a little fee for delivering the consignment from New York to your house in New orleans and you will be responsible for these charges.

The contents of the consignment are $18 million USD (in $100.00 USD bills), tax clearance documents, anti-drug certificate, my husband’s statement of account, company memorandum, and other necessary clearance documents which certifies the fund as legal. If you can retrieve the consignment and keep it safe for my husband until we can make it to the USA, we are willing to offer you $3 million USD out of the money in the consignment as compensation for your assistance.

Due to the nature of this delivery, we registered the contents of the consignment as medical books and journals and not cash. You are not to let anyone know the real contents of the consignment as it is being delivered by diplomatic means.

You are to reply this email if you accept this offer so that I will send you the contact phone number of the delivery man in USA so that you can call him and make arrangements for retrieving the box. I will also send you all other details which you need to claim the consignment on my husband’s behalf.

I await your urgent reply.

Thank you and God bless.

Do people really fall for this? This just seems so patently absurd that I can't imagine getting suckered in. I have even gotten phone calls with this sort of thing, like I have won a lottery I didn't buy a ticket for but I have to pay some percentage of it up front via Western Union to get it. This is just so absurd. If you have $18 million dollars or whatever, you can withhold the percentage, I said to one of these mouth breathers. He got all in a huff & told me no, I had to pay it. Bitch, Please.

So if you get this kinda email/call/etc just ignore & delete as spam or whatever. I am particularly galled by this one bc it tries to profiteer off this outrageous disaster. Sick.

Fascinated & Amazed & Unafraid

Crazy Things I Have Done. Pt. 1ish

            So when I was about 22 and a half, my Dad bought me a car. It was a mid-90s gray Nissan Sentra. The next day, my transgendered friend Alexxus Luv asked if I would drive her from New Orleans to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico to buy $1000 worth of liquid Ketamine (AKA Special K). We were working for a mystery man known only as Swervella. Also along for the ride were the Jesus Junkies, Danny and Mikey, a cute gay teen couple, and some straight guy named Robby. Did I mention the Sentra was a two-door car? The 10 hour drive out there was no problem for me. We’d been furnished with enough disposable cash to do a substantial amount of shopping so we would just blend in with the other tourists buying souvenirs. What I don’t think occurred to any of us is that 3 gay guys, a drag queen and a skinny sexually ambiguous looking guy all looked like what we were—kids out looking for trouble. We parked my car on the US side of the border in a mall parking lot & walked across the bridge. This was all long before 9/11. You just walked right across, no one checked your ID, you didn’t have to change your money over, nothing. Immediately when we crossed I noticed a lot of young kids running around trying to sell chiclets and other little candies (Mexican Now-and-Laters, from the looks of things) and several men of varying ages coming towards us asking if we need to see a doctor, they all knew one that could take care of us. We walked a few blocks and the one the stuck with us the longest got our fare & his fix. I think he was called Pedro. I knew enough Spanish to ask about a veterinario for some ketamina as well as the pill smorgasbord that the Jesus Junkies and their straight friend were looking for. Turns out Pedro drove a cab and he took us to this woman’s office. She had a football style hairdo that she had tried to bleach but only ended up with that weird coppery shade of red that Mexican girls get when they don’t use any toner on their bleach work. I wasn’t really involved in any of the purchasing, she knew enough English to let the boys know that Valiums were like $30 for 90, etc etc but the whole time I she really didn’t take her eyes off the TV screen that was playing some intense telenovela. I remember going to the restroom for a pee & noticing an industrial size pump bottle of KY Jelly. I was glad I wasn’t the one trying to cross all those pills. I think this woman wrote prescriptions so we wouldn’t get in trouble and then someone showed up with all these bottles of pills. The boys emptied all the pills into a few sandwich baggies and then headed into Miss Bleach Head’s bathroom. After we got done with her, we got into Pedro’s cab to head for the vet’s oficina. Just as he started driving, he had Alexxus hold the steering wheel for a second while he injected morphine into his arm at like 35 mph down streets with more potholes than the worst post-Katrina street in all of New Orleans. Somehow we made it to the vet’s place and his English was not as strong as Miss Bleach Head’s so I had to make him understand that we were trying to get 40 vials for $25 each. He kept trying to make us pay 30 per vial but we held fast. We told him $1000 for 40 vials or nothing. Please understand that each vial would yield 5 bags of pure K that retailed for $30 each. Once the vet came up with the vials of K, we had to open all the vials and pour the contents into an empty bottle of water we had purchased when we’d first arrived. The bottles were sealed with little metal circles around the top of them and the vet furnished us with X-acto knives to pry them off with. This led to a certain amount of finger cuts and absorption of K through those membranes as the 5 of us transferred the liquid of our salvation/damnation from a bunch of small glass bottles into one liter sized water bottle that we all knew better than to drink out of. Especially after we walked out of the vet’s office & went shopping in the many flea markets to be had in Nuevo Laredo. We shopped like crazy people in those markets. We bought clear quartz pyramids, Aztec calendars, carved weed pipes of varied shapes and sizes, a riding crop, a whip, oh I don’t know what all. I was feeling wondrous and disconnected from the Special K I’d absorbed through my fingertips when all 5 of us noticed that the loudspeaker for the radio that had been playing mariachi sounding stuff til then was playing “What’s Going On” by 4 Non-Blondes. Then the singing began and it was in Spanish. We were like, “Wow” in the way the only K-heads can be. Fascinated and amazed and unafraid. If I had to pick 3 words to characterize this time in my life, those would be the ones. Before long we realized it was about to get dark and since we didn’t have a room in Laredo, we crossed the border with a minimum of fuss. I suppose we had to show our ID cards but I think that was it. They may have looked at our shopping bags but all our drugs were either up those guys’ buts or in one of the many water bottles we were carrying (we each had one) and we just played it as cool as we could. We got into the car and about 20 miles from the border it began to rain like crazy. Little did I realize this torrential rainstorm was our salvation. As we approached the checkpoint at the 50-mile from the border mark, the guards or cops or whoever mans those things just waved us on through because of how heavy the rain was. Pretty soon after this point everyone started clucking for drugs. We hadn’t done any drugs since we’d smoked our last joint when we’d gotten on the road around midnight the previous night. We stopped in some town and Alexxus went to a pharmacy and even though she couldn’t get the pharmacist to sell her a 10-pack of needles, she at least got one fresh needle, some bleach, and a gallon of distilled water. As I drove, she administered the shots in a very specific order: Bleach once, spray out, fill & spray out with water, fill with K then inject intramuscularly. Everyone got their fix but I was just buzzing out on these IF-Anorex diet pills Daniel had scored for me for the drive back. I let everyone enjoy their moment but eventually I was like, OK hoes, someone else has to drive. There was a water bottle cap full of liquid K on my console when we pulled into this gas station parking lot where I opened the car door and proceeded to fall out of the car into s very Ab-Fab style pose. I pulled myself back together and Michael got behind the wheel while I got into the passenger seat. My boom-box was on the floorboards and while Robert got my shot together I put in Keoki’s Disco Death Race 2000 CD. I watched him prepare it in the correct order, then I unbuttoned my pants so I could give myself the shot in the ass I was craving. Just as I pressed the plunger down and pulled the needle out and the first wave of lovely K-ness washed over me, I hear this dude say “Did I just give him a shot of bleach?” but as I was trying to tell him “No” everything just seemed to fall away and I found myself again in Nuevo Laredo, with Cuatro Non Rubias singing again. These were the moments I loved. Just letting go of it all. The pain, the memories, the guilt. I could feel those things loosen their grip on me and I became something malleable, something that didn’t hurt all the time or have to remember every time someone spit in my face and called me a fag or a queer or a smartass or punched or kicked or berated me under their breath mostly just because they knew they could.

If this were a movie or some cautionary tale about the dangers of drugs, the needle would have been full of bleach. Or the car would have been crashed while I was in that K-hole. But no. The needle was only full of what I was looking for and Michael somehow got us back to the House of Luv on Annunciation St (just a block from the St. Thomas Project). The sun was coming up. This was the first road trip I took to Mexico for Special K, but not the last. Like I said, in a movie, we’d have died or killed someone else or something suitably grim but not this time. We all lived through this one, and many more besides.

God looks after Fools and Little Children, I suppose, could be the moral if you insist on having one.

Why I love this poem:

The Key to Everything 
     by May Swenson 

Is there anything I can do 
or has everything been done 
or do 
you prefer somebody else to do 
it or don't 
you trust me to do 
it right or is it hopeless and no one can do 
a thing or do 
you suppose I don't 
really want to do 
it and am just saying that or don't 
you hear me at all or what? 
You're 
waiting for 
the right person the doctor or 
the nurse the father or 
the mother or 
the person with the name you keep 
mumbling in your sleep 
that no one ever heard of there's no one 
named that really 
except yourself maybe 
If I knew what your 
name was I'd 
prove it's your 
name spelled backwards or 
twisted in some way the one you 
keep mumbling but you 
won't tell me your 
name or 
don't you know it 
yourself that's it 
of course you've 
forgotten or 
never quite knew it or 
weren't willing to believe it 
 
Then there is something I 
can do I 
can find your name for you 
that's the key to everything once you'd 
repeat it clearly you'd 
come awake you'd 
get up and walk knowing where you're 
going where you 
came from 
And you'd 
love me 
after that or would you 
hate me? 
no once you'd 
get there you'd 
remember and love me 
of course I'd 
be gone by then I'd 
be far away. 
From Another Animal by May Swenson. Published by Scribner. Copyright © 1954 the Literary Estate of May Swenson

I remember reading this when I was in my early 20s or so & just being absolutely taken with it. Even now, a decade & a half later, the sentiment here still resonates with me. This poem pretty much encapsulates the way I operated with my friends for the longest time (and still do to some extent.) The 1st stanza is just really one long sentence, increasingly frantic in tone as it progresses. You can almost hear the poet's voice reaching almost a ranting tone as the series of questions continue. The poet seems to be trying to define her place in the subject's reality based on the subject's apparent needs. As we move into the second stanza (which is lacking punctuation, another sign of the poet's increased frenzy), we see that the poet has identified what the subject is "waiting for," i.e. what the subject needs that the poet is not providing. By the 3rd stanza, the poet admits a lack of knowledge of the subject ("If I knew what your/name was I'd/prove it's your/name spelled backwards...") but affirms her desire to make herself useful, valuable to the subject. In the penultimate stanza, the poet has identified her perception of the subject's need ("that's the key to everything") as well as the results of her help (you'd/ come awake you'd/ get up and walk knowing where you're/ going where you/came from). This implies that at the time the poem is written, the subject doesn't know where he/she is going nor where he/she came from, but that the poet's identification of the subject's true self will will put the subject on the path to greatness. The closing stanza deals with the repurcussions to the poet herself, which are initially in question ("you'd/ love me/ after that or would you/ hate me?") As the poet reassures herself that the results of her help would actually make the subject love her, she also reassures herself that no matter the result, she will be safe ("of course I'd/ be gone by then I'd/ be far away.")--thus protecting herself from being abandoned by abandoning the person she loves. The length of the lines and the tendency to distance the subject pronouns from the verbs ("you'd/ love me/ after that or would you/ hate me?") emphasizes not only the isolation of the poet but the subject from not just each other but from themselves--after all, the poet doesn't know the subject's name, yet she is intimate enough with the subject to know that he/she calls out a name in his/her sleep.

I remember thinking that this poem was the key to everything. That if I could just identify what people need & give it to them, they'd love me, but by the time they realized it, I would be safe & busy with giving someone else what he/she needed. But I never asked the question, but when do I start doing that for myself???

http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/reading/swenson/swen-bang.html

One of my students seriously sent me this:

Hola Sr. Ray
I missed class yesterday and I was wondering about a make up test I could take. I have no valid excuse other than I had problems with my girlfriend. To be honest the while thing seemed like a guiding light story, if you'd like to hear it I wouldn't mine if it means I get to make up the test I missed. Lol

Is it just my imagination, or is this the most asinine thing you have ever read?

I have not responded yet, although I have composed several scathing emails, which I am pretty sure I deleted instead of sending. That part was not easy. I do try to remember that if an email contains the phrase "You dumb motherhumper" it will only cause me trouble in the future. What seems like devastating wit can quickly become evidence if there are any troubles later on....

Now I feel better.

Are YOU Ignorant, Mean-Spirited & Hateful???

Do YOU enjoy lying to clients/students about when they will be able to pay their bills?

HEAD ON DOWN TO THE UNO FINANCIAL AID DEPARTMENT!!! WE HAVE A POSITION FOR YOU AS A COUNSELOR!!!

Revel in the tears of clients/students when you rattle off a completely incomprehensible answer to their questions regarding their loans!!

Laugh Out Loud when you discover that they can’t pay their rent because YOU told them they’d have their money on a certain date!!

Gasp with Delight as you completely contradict any and all previous statements regarding the timeliness of a disbursement!!

AND REMEMBER!!!

No Matter what the problem is, ALWAYS BLAME IT ON THE BURSAR’S OFFICE!!!