...or, More Crazy Hoes I used to Know....
I recently ran into a former...roommate? Partner in Crime? Fag Hag? All these words, and many more could describe who she was to me, but let's just call her Biddy. We first met back in the Fall of 1992, right after I'd graduated from High School. We met at the 1st university I attended (yes, the one where I got a 0.5 cuz I was out drinking and playing cards all the time); she was the manager of the radio station where I volunteered, a senior about to graduate with a BA in theatre. We became friends, she was about 7 years older than I was but we had a lot in common, at least musically. OK we both loved Sinead O'Connor & often stayed up late on the phone doing Sinead sing-a-longs. She moved to NOLA right after the University placed me on Academic Suspension & my parents and I were fussing all the time & I ended up staying with her for a while. I was going thru a pretty self-destructive phase & I pushed her (and alot of other people I cared about) away.
Things got really crucial for me for awhile, and I had to spend some time in rehab. When I got out, I moved back in with my family & stayed sober but the problems we had weren't resolved & it was still just as much fussing, I was just sober the whole time. Not to mention unemployed & slung up in Hahnville with no car. Which sucked.
One day, she & I were on the phone & she heard how my Dad was talking to me & she just said, grrl enough is enough. Pack what you need to take with you. You can stay with me. We will work it out.
She had just graduated from UNO with an MA in Film Direction & I thought she was going places. What I did not realize was that despite her education, she didn't really have much in the way of Ambition, and the best thing she could come up with to make ends meet was selling handmade jewelry at the French Market, and that wasn't cutting it. I was sleeping on her couch, and grateful that she let me stay there, so when someone she knew offered to let her sell pot for them, I was all on board about it. Neither one of us had jobs & we both knew lots of people that smoked so it just seemed like a good idea. (It just sounds so stupid now) At first, she was getting daily phone calls from Sallie Mae, Discover Card, Mastercard, Entergy, you name it, people wanted their money. So I helped her out, the only way I knew how. On top of the bizz I was helping her with, I also got two jobs (Catering & working at a local magazine) while she mostly just sat on the couch, bitching, freaking out about money, and not taking her psych meds.
She let me drive her car around to do "errands" and she would let me have $20 per day "walking around money" as she called it. I would have to pay for parking, get cigarettes & food & keep gas in the car on this amount of money, despite all the hundreds of dollars at a time that I was bringing her. Anyway, I moved in around Halloween & by Christmas, Sallie Mae & all them other hoes had stopped calling & we were doing well enough that we moved into another, two-bedroom place down the street.
I thought things would be different, like now that we were in "our house" & not "hers" things would be split more 50-50. But no. She still wanted to take all the money, pay our joint bills and her personal ones (and my fines for getting busted with her stuff) and give me a $20 per diem, all the time ready to flip on me if I brought her the wrong fast food, or God Forbid, that the food should be cold.
She was so lazy that she couldn't even be bothered to go out & do sales. She had all sorts of ppl in & out of that place & our landlord lived like 2 blocks away. He got wind of what was going on up in there, and in June of 1999, right after I turned 25, he came by the place & basically told us he knew what we were up to & that he wasn't calling the police, but that he wanted us to leave. I was grateful he wasn't calling the cops but Miss Biddy was OUTRAGED. Instead of just admitting fault, she blew up on him. He never did call the police on us, even when she withheld the last month's rent & told him to keep the deposit to cover it.
During that last month, she was even more mean & unreasonable than I remembered. I was just as sick in this Nightmare of Co-depency that I had gotten myself entangled with, like one night I was driving back from getting her some fast food thru City Park, in the really cruisy part & this hot man pulled up alongside me in his car, flashing his piece at me. Well damn if I didn't end up poking this man in the woods. Naturally when I got home, Biddy's food was cold & she completely blew a gasket. She also threw her sandwich and fries at my head when I told her why I was late. She made me go back out & get her more fast food. This time, I went thru the park first & spent like 40 minutes fooling around with various dudes BEFORE I went and got her Number 11 from Burger King. Talk about passive-aggressive.
Anyway, we were both looking for a new place together but it was getting harder & harder for me to take her yelling at me for spending money or not letting her use my money to pay for drugs or whatever it was that day. She went camping with some friends of hers & left me the car & the night she got back, she paged me (lord, who remembers pagers any more?) and I stopped at the store to pick up some cigarettes for both of us on the way home. My backpack was in the front seat of her car & I must have forgotten to lock the car properly, because by the time I got home, I realized that my smiley-face backpack was gone. Snatched. With all my ID plus $$$ & pot. Miss Biddy carried on yelling at me about how she couldn't afford my fuckups for a solid 2 hours. Eventually she tired her self out & I just sat in the living room, crying in silent devastation.
.I thought about it. Prayed about it. & then I made my choice. I went to the stash box & took half the money & product, packed enough clothes for a few days, & headed over to stay with my friend Swervella, leaving a note that basically said, "This is all over between us. I can't take this any more. You are mean and greedy and I'm tired of paying for everything and it never being good enough. I'm taking half of what was in the box & I don't expect to hear from you again."
Swervella let me stay there, and of course old girl showed up on his front porch the following morning, at the crack of 11, crying and begging me to talk to her, to not abandon her, to keep being her roommate, etc etc etc. I went to the house with her and I explained how I felt. How I had been paying bills that weren't mine to pay and constantly being demeaned & yelled at (often in front of our friends) and she tried to justify this or that and I think she must have realized that she wasn't going to get what she wanted & she finally just said, "Sam, I need you to tell me that it's over, that I'm just too much of a nightmare to live with."
The fact is that not only was she a nightmare, she was giving me nightmares, I often woke up screaming at her to stop yelling at me already, so I told her what she asked me to say.
Within a month, I had legally earned enough $$ with a little help from Swervella to get my own place and I tried to be civil with Miss Biddy, at least civil enough to get her to front me one last bit of pot & then tell her that I wasn't paying later on because I had paid more than enough of her bills. She was living on someone else's couch & really didn't appreciate what I had to say about the situation, but there you have it. This would have been in the late summer/early fall of 1999. Last I heard, she had moved back to Larose or Cutoff or some place like that with this guy who liked fat girls around early 2000.
Well, you'll never guess who showed up working at the drinks booth at the Freret Market last month. Yep, Big Bad Biddy, looking bad. All haggard in the face & fat in the waist & I wasn't sure it was her at first, but I called her name as she passed by my stall, she stopped, we talked...civilly. There was no hugging. Just a sort of mutual "How've you been" "Good" sort of a thing. She asked if my scarves were knit or crochet. I told her knit, and gave her one of my Witty Knitter business cards. She never came into my booth. She said, "well, I wish you luck with it." I said, "Likewise." and that was all we had to say to each other.
A part of me rejoiced at how bad she looks. I admit it. To say Miss Biddy is in her mid-40s now, she looks closer to her late 50s-early 60s. Bad highlights on her already stringy hair. But I don't know, the joy has kind of gone out of it. It's just sad. She was never going to be Angelina Jolie or some other sex symbol but Wow. It makes me even gladder that I didn't follow her down that twisted path she was guiding me on.
I learned a lot of things from living with her & every day since I got my MA, I try to do things to avoid the Biddy-ness. Like I feel it creep up on me if I'm inactive for too long, I'm very wary of days when I just wanna sit around on the couch and bitch, or if I start to feel like I'm the victim of circumstances and not a participant in my own life. It's not easy though. Sometimes it just seems so much easier just to sit around and wish for better things and justify bad behavior but really it's not. Really it just leads to regrets and recriminations and who has the energy for all that?
I have been thinking a lot about this lately, as I find myself at (yet another) crossroads. Since this thing at IHSNO doesn't seem to be working out, I made some phone calls yesterday & found out that I am able to go back to working at the med skool as a Standardized Patient and that the restaurant where I have been doing my guest-star stuff is looking for actual staff, so that is how I will spend this semester, and probably the summer. I have also decided to apply to Tulane's PhD in French program for the Fall. Hopefully I will be able to do some tutoring to make a little extra $$ as well. I am trying not to look at this as doing more of the same, but rather as doing things I don't neccessarily want to do now so I can do what I want to do later.
Wish me Luck!!
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
How I became the Bitter Knitter....
I was going to write this great blog about how so many people came to the market & how I made this amazing fortune. Unfortunately, only 4 people came to see me at the market, & only 1 of them actually purchased anything. Of the remaining 3, one was my ride home, Matty Whips. Thanks so much to my fave straight couple (insofar as my heterophobia will permit), Paul von Munchausen & Sassy Kelsey for keeping my spirits up!
I made one other sale & that (plus the previous sale) covered the cost of my new tent, if not the booth rental fee, so by the time I was riding home, the bitterness pretty much grabbed hold. I couldn't even make it out of the house for a free Katey Redd show at the Healing Center! Now you know that is bad.
The bitterness kinda had me by the throat thru the weekend. I was angry & resentful & depressed & just feeling all crossed up until I finally let it just explode all over the blog.
Working with kids is bringing up all sorts of stuff from my tragic childhood & it is dangerous to combine this with 2 dismal Art Market failures...
Today, however, a NORTA mishap brought back my joy. I missed 1 Magazine bus & so didn't arrive at Canal St until 4:10 (leaving me 4 minutes to get from Magazine St to N. Rampart to catch the Franklin bus home. Needless to say, I saw the bus from about 2 blocks away & when I made it to N. Rampart, it was long gone. Ever resourceful, I took the Canal Streetcar to catch the Broad St Bus. Well, after I got off the streetcar I sat down at the bench at the Broad bus stop & struck up a conversation with an older black lady sitting next to me, the way you do. Well, the way I do. We shared stories of NORTA glam, frustration with dealing with City Hall, and realized we were both going the same way, for the same reason. We just had a lovely chat. Then the bus came. It was PACKED. Someone was kind enough to give up their seat to my newfound friend & she offered to hold my bag while I was standing. Right after that, some1 got off & offered me their seat, so I sat behind Miss Lady and we chatted a bit more & then she started to walk up to the front of the bus (we were in the back) & I realized that we were both getting off at the same stop. Well, lo & behold, my new friend, Miss Lorraine, lives right at the corner of Painters St & Gentilly Blvd (AKA less that 1.5 blox from my house). We chatted a bit more as I walked her to her door, that's when we introduced ourselves.
I couldn't stop smiling as I walked away. Writing this makes me realize that life is like this sometimes, even though you think you are having to take a big detour & go out of your way, along the way you find treasures that have been at your feet the whole time.
I hope that sounds profound...I feel profoundly grateful. Hopeful once more. Glad I just paid the entry fees for the Bayou Road Brewhaha this weekend & feeling confident that things will turn up, just as long as I keep moving & finding new ways to solve problems.
Thanks for reading!
I made one other sale & that (plus the previous sale) covered the cost of my new tent, if not the booth rental fee, so by the time I was riding home, the bitterness pretty much grabbed hold. I couldn't even make it out of the house for a free Katey Redd show at the Healing Center! Now you know that is bad.
The bitterness kinda had me by the throat thru the weekend. I was angry & resentful & depressed & just feeling all crossed up until I finally let it just explode all over the blog.
Working with kids is bringing up all sorts of stuff from my tragic childhood & it is dangerous to combine this with 2 dismal Art Market failures...
Today, however, a NORTA mishap brought back my joy. I missed 1 Magazine bus & so didn't arrive at Canal St until 4:10 (leaving me 4 minutes to get from Magazine St to N. Rampart to catch the Franklin bus home. Needless to say, I saw the bus from about 2 blocks away & when I made it to N. Rampart, it was long gone. Ever resourceful, I took the Canal Streetcar to catch the Broad St Bus. Well, after I got off the streetcar I sat down at the bench at the Broad bus stop & struck up a conversation with an older black lady sitting next to me, the way you do. Well, the way I do. We shared stories of NORTA glam, frustration with dealing with City Hall, and realized we were both going the same way, for the same reason. We just had a lovely chat. Then the bus came. It was PACKED. Someone was kind enough to give up their seat to my newfound friend & she offered to hold my bag while I was standing. Right after that, some1 got off & offered me their seat, so I sat behind Miss Lady and we chatted a bit more & then she started to walk up to the front of the bus (we were in the back) & I realized that we were both getting off at the same stop. Well, lo & behold, my new friend, Miss Lorraine, lives right at the corner of Painters St & Gentilly Blvd (AKA less that 1.5 blox from my house). We chatted a bit more as I walked her to her door, that's when we introduced ourselves.
I couldn't stop smiling as I walked away. Writing this makes me realize that life is like this sometimes, even though you think you are having to take a big detour & go out of your way, along the way you find treasures that have been at your feet the whole time.
I hope that sounds profound...I feel profoundly grateful. Hopeful once more. Glad I just paid the entry fees for the Bayou Road Brewhaha this weekend & feeling confident that things will turn up, just as long as I keep moving & finding new ways to solve problems.
Thanks for reading!
Monday, November 14, 2011
I hope none of the kids at my school ever has to write something like this.
My Glossary of Curse Words
by: sAm RaY, age 8
by: sAm RaY, age 8
Ass: is where he hits you, with the belt or his hands, if you are lucky & he is not too mad.
Asshole: the taste of coke cans with cigarette butts inside of them on the morning after their friends come by.
Bitch: the light from the living room shining in your eye & the sound of a slap & a sob from your mother.
Cocksucker: a punch in the guts while blood runs in your eye, the smoke curling off the end of the inevitable roach clip laying in the ashtray.
Cunt: his workmen, telling you to save the smell of the secretaries if they let them put your fingers in there, as they laugh and take off on some job or another with him.
Dick: the feel of his hands around your red raw aching throat, as he spits the word and his own spit all over your teary face and he bangs the wall behind you with your own head.
Faggot: the feel of Dana Gair’s slap on the back of your neck as it turns red at the same time as your cheeks and you burst out crying in front of the entire second grade class.
Fairy: your mother’s face all screwed up, talking about an elementary school teacher of hers and how mean all the kids were to him.
Goddammit: the pillow over your face, him screaming “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP” until you can’t get enough air in to scream, the smell and taste of head sweat clogging up your throat until you pass out.
Motherfucker: the feel of the car swerving around in those few seconds’ right before the glass breaks and the whole world is thrown around for a loop, and you bite your tongue and just for a second everything goes slow & you can just see, just for a second, a perfect round bubble of spit and blood hover in the air of the backseat of the Karmen Ghia before everything speeds up again and the bubble bursts all over your face.
Nigger-lover: running thru the house as he chases you around when he finds out your imaginary friend is named “Lakeida” before you change it into something more acceptable & gender neutral like “Akka & Bock”
Puss, Puss, Pusssssy: sitting around the dinner table with your aunt saying she can’t hear him saying it over & over again under his breath as he sits between you and her and her calling you a liar.
Son of a bitch: waiting for the train to pass at the second set of railroad tracks on Paul Mallard Road, coming from the river; the feel of his rough calloused hands grabbing your hair from the front seat of the car and just popping your head off the back of your mother’s head rest.
Friday, October 28, 2011
I told you it wasn't over...
So just after I blogged last night I got a text from Mo Gumbo:
"JESUS! I hope nothing is terribly wrong with you!"
& this morning I got an e-mail:
"Maybe you are out of town
Sent messages and texts. Don't understand how thus is going.
So your pissed? Hung up on you while upset. Ok.
That has nothing to do with my daughter or my grandmother. I am willing to pay you for what was my grandmothers. If I am irrational or whatever you think, fine.
That does not excuse your inability to respond.
Martha can stop by.
If I don't hear from you, I think it would be sad to have to have help with this.
200.00?
Please."
OK this is me again. I guess this foolishness has gone on long enough. I am not interested in holding this ugly ass bag hostage & frankly I have more knitting needles than I can possibly ever use. I am thinking of texting her something along these lines:
"My address has not changed. Send the return post box & I will send you the bag & some needles in exchange for not having to communicate with you any more. I am not angry & I do forgive you, but I am not participating in your madness any further."
"JESUS! I hope nothing is terribly wrong with you!"
& this morning I got an e-mail:
"Maybe you are out of town
Sent messages and texts. Don't understand how thus is going.
So your pissed? Hung up on you while upset. Ok.
That has nothing to do with my daughter or my grandmother. I am willing to pay you for what was my grandmothers. If I am irrational or whatever you think, fine.
That does not excuse your inability to respond.
Martha can stop by.
If I don't hear from you, I think it would be sad to have to have help with this.
200.00?
Please."
OK this is me again. I guess this foolishness has gone on long enough. I am not interested in holding this ugly ass bag hostage & frankly I have more knitting needles than I can possibly ever use. I am thinking of texting her something along these lines:
"My address has not changed. Send the return post box & I will send you the bag & some needles in exchange for not having to communicate with you any more. I am not angry & I do forgive you, but I am not participating in your madness any further."
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Some hoes can't take a hint...
....or Crazy Hoes I have known, the Unfolding Saga.
Last night while I was sleeping, I received 5 pages worth of text messages & a voicemail from "Do Not Answer" AKA the one & only Mo Gumbo (whom you will surely remember from August's blog "Saying Goodbye").
"Sent u email. No response. Please. If there is something you need, let me take care of something for you in exchange for my grandma's bag and some needles. My daughter, Mini Gumbo is learning to knit and we are goint to take a class together. I get ya about 60 and again when I get paid next Friday. Could wire. Or visit or wishlist. If you no longer have them it's ok. Not trying to Indian give (Bitch, Please. This is the definition of Indian giving.) Just thought if you don't care it would be nice for us to use them and it should have nothing to do with you being mad at me for hanging up on you in the midst of my worst point."
I am really glad I didn't get woken up by this madness. The fact that she cannot conceptualise that I am not mad, I just don't care tells me that she & I do not inhabit the same reality & we do not need to be communicating.
"I sent you an email & didn't get a response & I sent you some texts & you didn't respond & I looked for you on Facebook but you're not on there any more...I don't know, I can't imagine this is all because I hung up on you when I was going thru some shit. I just don't get it...But I sent you text messages...I think I already talked to you about my grandma's knitting needles. I'll send you a hundred bucks & a return priority postage paid box to send the bag and some needles in. & if not, you'll have a hundred bucks, I don't know if you'll send them to me..call me back"
You will notice that at no time do I see or hear the word sorry any place in here. & I don't know what email she has been using but it is clearly not one of the ones I have checked daily for the last 5 years or so.
12 hours later, while I am at work I get another phone call from Do Not Answer & a voicemail & then around 1 PM I get another phone call from a number that's not in my phone book but has the same area code as Do Not Answer.I got a text that said: "Please get back to me" followed but not 1 but 2 txts with phone numbers in them.
After I got out of work, I listened to her voicemail. Desperately unhappy at not getting her way.
"Hi. I'm sorry if you think I've dropped the ball...I've sent you emails, you don't respond.I don't know what to do, if do you have a bill or something I can pay, I'll pay your cell phone bill for the next few months, in exchange for the needles & the bag if you're not attached to it, I'm not trying to be a bitch about this but I thought I talked to you about this already. & I'm sick & lots is going but I can't believe you're bitching...or not bitching, but being non-responsive because I hung up on you when I've seen you forgive people for shitloads worse sins...but just let me do something really huge for you in exchange for something really small. I don't even know if you're at the same address, so I kinda don't wanna send a hundred dollar bill, but just please text me or call me or something. Please!"
I think this is some kind of a test from God. Lord knows getting the bills paid is my #1 priority but the price tag is too high. I know this ho too well to be getting up into something like this with her. As my friend Agnes says, "How can she be so ignorant?"
I keep asking myself the same thing. But I have the feeling like Mo Gumbo is not gonna let go of this. I just do not wanna have any more interactions with her. I'm not angry at her for hanging up on me, it made my decision that much easier. I'm tired of riding the crazy train & I'm not interested in another ride.
Last night while I was sleeping, I received 5 pages worth of text messages & a voicemail from "Do Not Answer" AKA the one & only Mo Gumbo (whom you will surely remember from August's blog "Saying Goodbye").
"Sent u email. No response. Please. If there is something you need, let me take care of something for you in exchange for my grandma's bag and some needles. My daughter, Mini Gumbo is learning to knit and we are goint to take a class together. I get ya about 60 and again when I get paid next Friday. Could wire. Or visit or wishlist. If you no longer have them it's ok. Not trying to Indian give (Bitch, Please. This is the definition of Indian giving.) Just thought if you don't care it would be nice for us to use them and it should have nothing to do with you being mad at me for hanging up on you in the midst of my worst point."
I am really glad I didn't get woken up by this madness. The fact that she cannot conceptualise that I am not mad, I just don't care tells me that she & I do not inhabit the same reality & we do not need to be communicating.
"I sent you an email & didn't get a response & I sent you some texts & you didn't respond & I looked for you on Facebook but you're not on there any more...I don't know, I can't imagine this is all because I hung up on you when I was going thru some shit. I just don't get it...But I sent you text messages...I think I already talked to you about my grandma's knitting needles. I'll send you a hundred bucks & a return priority postage paid box to send the bag and some needles in. & if not, you'll have a hundred bucks, I don't know if you'll send them to me..call me back"
You will notice that at no time do I see or hear the word sorry any place in here. & I don't know what email she has been using but it is clearly not one of the ones I have checked daily for the last 5 years or so.
12 hours later, while I am at work I get another phone call from Do Not Answer & a voicemail & then around 1 PM I get another phone call from a number that's not in my phone book but has the same area code as Do Not Answer.I got a text that said: "Please get back to me" followed but not 1 but 2 txts with phone numbers in them.
After I got out of work, I listened to her voicemail. Desperately unhappy at not getting her way.
"Hi. I'm sorry if you think I've dropped the ball...I've sent you emails, you don't respond.I don't know what to do, if do you have a bill or something I can pay, I'll pay your cell phone bill for the next few months, in exchange for the needles & the bag if you're not attached to it, I'm not trying to be a bitch about this but I thought I talked to you about this already. & I'm sick & lots is going but I can't believe you're bitching...or not bitching, but being non-responsive because I hung up on you when I've seen you forgive people for shitloads worse sins...but just let me do something really huge for you in exchange for something really small. I don't even know if you're at the same address, so I kinda don't wanna send a hundred dollar bill, but just please text me or call me or something. Please!"
I think this is some kind of a test from God. Lord knows getting the bills paid is my #1 priority but the price tag is too high. I know this ho too well to be getting up into something like this with her. As my friend Agnes says, "How can she be so ignorant?"
I keep asking myself the same thing. But I have the feeling like Mo Gumbo is not gonna let go of this. I just do not wanna have any more interactions with her. I'm not angry at her for hanging up on me, it made my decision that much easier. I'm tired of riding the crazy train & I'm not interested in another ride.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Weird & Wacky LRW Week-end!
This past week was a blessed time of knitting & serenity out in the Ville with my grrl Sandi. Even though there were mishaps galore for those around us, we had our own little island of calm during my Fall Break from ISL.
I came home a day early (Thursday) & spent the time knitting & getting prepared for the Oleg Cassini (actually Oretha Castle Haley, but I like Oleg Cassini better) Art Market on Saturday & planning to attend the Coliseum Square Neighborhood Association Art Market on Sunday.
Prior to all of this, I had asked around amongst friends if anyone had a pop-up fest-style tent that I could borrow for the weekend. My fave Black Dyke LRW, Kris, said that her mom had one & that they would give me a ride to the Art Market on the day of the event. I confirmed our plans via text on Friday evening plans were set for her mom & her to pick me up at 8AM. Around that time, I hadn't heard from them, so I txted Kris "Hello?" & she txted back that they were running late & that her mom is not one for timeliness. They showed up a few minutes later & after we get all my stuff into the SUV & meet her mom (grrrl she is AWESOME, btw, laughs & cutting up galore--an LRW from way back, I promise) & I said, "Thank you for the ride & the tent"
Then Miss Baby is like "About the tent...." Oh Lawd. Here we go. She had a tent & her cousin had a tent & they exchanged tents & then the cousin retrieved her tent some kinda way without returning Miss Baby's tent but she needs another tent anyway so....
"So does this story end with me getting out of this car with a tent? Cuz that was kinda the whole point."
Miss Baby say they have tents at Winn Dixie. I say, We just passed it up grrl, make a u-turn.
Kris & I power-walk up into the WD on Chef Menteur Hwy & spot a $20 gazebo style tent.
What neither of us LRWs realized is that this is NOT a pop-up tent. This is, in fact, a tent with about 30 or so metal rods that have to be either fitted into each other OR into one of 5 plastic hubs. There are also feet that have to be attached. So before you know it, there I am with 2 generations of LRWs on Oleg Cassini Blvd, trying to assemble this madness. I don't think that I mentioned that Kris's mother is not wearing shoes (I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS WOMAN!!) Once we have it up, they take off to a funeral & the tent looks good. I hang my scarves from the supports just like I always do. Unfortunately, there is no way to stabilize the feet of this tent (kinda hard to put tent pegs into sidewalks, by the way) so it keeps weebling & wobbling around. Good thing I had my knitting to occupy me or I would have had a nervous breakdown. Any time I actually looked at the tent I got a major case of anxiety, just imagining my poor little babies being blown away by a freak gust of wind. I met a few interesting ppl but made only 1 sad little $15 sale. Not even enough to cover cab fare, much less the booth rental.
When it was all over, I learned that if an item requires at least 3 (preferably 4) to assemble it, it will probably be an ordeal for 1 ho to dis-assemble it. But dis-assemble it I did, packed up my brightly-colored delights & called a cab, completely flummoxed as to how I was gonna pull it off for another market today.
So I was feeling kinda down about it all last night when I told a friend of mine from the gay site about what had happened in a very general way & he sent me a flurry of messages, offering to take some of my work up to Wisconsin, where he is from, next weekend, and eventually we ended up on the phone, talking business. I told him, I don't usually trust my work to people I haven't met in person, so I really must insist we get together for a meal. So we made brunch plans for today.
I cancelled my attendance at the Coliseum Square based on a combination of factors, including tent drama, poor sales & the prospect of a brunch date.
So when he gets here, he's just how he looks in the pictures, ruggedly handsome, bright blue eyes & a little older than me, early 50s. He comes in, we talk a bit, I show him some of my babies. There is definitely a lot of chemistry between us, some huggin & things & then he says, well here's something about me that you didn't see on the website, I have a prosthetic foot.
At this point, I figure I have 3 options. Acknowledge him & accept it, freak out & reject him or ignore it & just go to brunch and then blow him off afterwards.
I'm glad I chose the 1st one. He's had a fascinating life, done a lot of travelling, lived in really cool places. I had made reservations for us at Café Degas, but this is how the conversation went with them:
--Café Degas?
--I'd like to make a reservation, please.
--Hold on.
clunk, click, clatter
people talking to each other
I hear the man who answered the phone's voice
--Can you take this reservation?
indistinct murmuring
click clunk clatter
Woman's Voice
--Hello?
(I'm thinking, bitch you are not on your cell phone, you are at work, where are your manners??)
--I'd like to make a reservation, please.
--OK What time?
--11:45 AM tomorr--
--We don't serve that late.
--Tomorrow, at 11:45 AM.
--Oh.
(audible page flicking)
--What time?
--11:45AM.
--How many?
--2
--What's the name?
--Sam
--What?
--Sam
--Can you spell that?
--Ess Ay Em, grrl
--Oh, Sam!
--Yes, that's it.
--OK.
--OK?
--See you tomorrow.
You can see why I felt like maybe if the people who answer the phone are that inept, maybe it would be better to find brunch elsewhere.
So I cancelled our reservations there & we went over to The Ruby Slipper, but there was a huge crowd of ppl waiting to be seated. So we went to Martinique Bistro & were one of the 1st tables there.
He had the Oyster Chowder, followed by the Rolled Omelet with Roasted Potatoes & I had the Sautéed Escargot followed by the Pork Tenderloin "Grillades" with Stone Ground Chèvre Grits. The food was delicious & the service was reasonable, although I did find the staff a tad, shall we say, under-dressed. I don't care what anyone says, a Saints Jersey is not an appropriate work uniform if you work in a restaurant where 2 courses without alcohol totals up to $52, I'm Just Saying.... The kitchen moved awfully slowly to say that we were only the 2nd table, but when our food did arrive, it was certainly worth the wait. The under-dressed waiter seated us in a particularly sunny spot, so we skipped dessert & headed back here for a little, shall we say, dessert of our own.
During lunch, he had disclosed to me that he takes blood thinners to avoid clots in the veins near his prosthesis & this sometimes has a particular side effect common to many men. I am willing to work around this. But we got back up over here, he's crazy bout my body hair, I'm having fun, he's having fun, we're having fun, so I think. But eventually he got frustrated and decided to leave. I tried to talk him out of it but he was clearly self-conscious and there was no talking him out of it. After he put his foot back on & got dressed, we talked a bit more business & I gave him a few items to take up to this Craft Show that his mother attends in Wisconsin. He says he think they will sell just bc they are from NOLA. I hope so.
We will see each other again in November. Let's see where this adventure takes me...
Meanwhile, tomorrow is back to work at multi-lengual behavior disorder central elementary.
I am not having anxiety about it yet. That will come soon enough, I feel sure.
I have been meaning to blog about so many things but sometimes I don't feel like I should for fear of being sued by some parent or something & other times I wanna blog about Crazy Hoes I have known, but again, static from the parents & also lately I'm just so damn tired all the time I can't stand it. I am not bad in the AM, but getting up at 5:45 every day sucks. You can keep all those damn sunrises, I'll take a sunset instead. But I really don't appreciate having to see both of them.
Sorry bout that last part. Rant over.
Blog over.
Resuming my knitting & Peter Davison as Dr Who Years Marathon to assuage my troubled soul...
I came home a day early (Thursday) & spent the time knitting & getting prepared for the Oleg Cassini (actually Oretha Castle Haley, but I like Oleg Cassini better) Art Market on Saturday & planning to attend the Coliseum Square Neighborhood Association Art Market on Sunday.
Prior to all of this, I had asked around amongst friends if anyone had a pop-up fest-style tent that I could borrow for the weekend. My fave Black Dyke LRW, Kris, said that her mom had one & that they would give me a ride to the Art Market on the day of the event. I confirmed our plans via text on Friday evening plans were set for her mom & her to pick me up at 8AM. Around that time, I hadn't heard from them, so I txted Kris "Hello?" & she txted back that they were running late & that her mom is not one for timeliness. They showed up a few minutes later & after we get all my stuff into the SUV & meet her mom (grrrl she is AWESOME, btw, laughs & cutting up galore--an LRW from way back, I promise) & I said, "Thank you for the ride & the tent"
Then Miss Baby is like "About the tent...." Oh Lawd. Here we go. She had a tent & her cousin had a tent & they exchanged tents & then the cousin retrieved her tent some kinda way without returning Miss Baby's tent but she needs another tent anyway so....
"So does this story end with me getting out of this car with a tent? Cuz that was kinda the whole point."
Miss Baby say they have tents at Winn Dixie. I say, We just passed it up grrl, make a u-turn.
Kris & I power-walk up into the WD on Chef Menteur Hwy & spot a $20 gazebo style tent.
What neither of us LRWs realized is that this is NOT a pop-up tent. This is, in fact, a tent with about 30 or so metal rods that have to be either fitted into each other OR into one of 5 plastic hubs. There are also feet that have to be attached. So before you know it, there I am with 2 generations of LRWs on Oleg Cassini Blvd, trying to assemble this madness. I don't think that I mentioned that Kris's mother is not wearing shoes (I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS WOMAN!!) Once we have it up, they take off to a funeral & the tent looks good. I hang my scarves from the supports just like I always do. Unfortunately, there is no way to stabilize the feet of this tent (kinda hard to put tent pegs into sidewalks, by the way) so it keeps weebling & wobbling around. Good thing I had my knitting to occupy me or I would have had a nervous breakdown. Any time I actually looked at the tent I got a major case of anxiety, just imagining my poor little babies being blown away by a freak gust of wind. I met a few interesting ppl but made only 1 sad little $15 sale. Not even enough to cover cab fare, much less the booth rental.
When it was all over, I learned that if an item requires at least 3 (preferably 4) to assemble it, it will probably be an ordeal for 1 ho to dis-assemble it. But dis-assemble it I did, packed up my brightly-colored delights & called a cab, completely flummoxed as to how I was gonna pull it off for another market today.
So I was feeling kinda down about it all last night when I told a friend of mine from the gay site about what had happened in a very general way & he sent me a flurry of messages, offering to take some of my work up to Wisconsin, where he is from, next weekend, and eventually we ended up on the phone, talking business. I told him, I don't usually trust my work to people I haven't met in person, so I really must insist we get together for a meal. So we made brunch plans for today.
I cancelled my attendance at the Coliseum Square based on a combination of factors, including tent drama, poor sales & the prospect of a brunch date.
So when he gets here, he's just how he looks in the pictures, ruggedly handsome, bright blue eyes & a little older than me, early 50s. He comes in, we talk a bit, I show him some of my babies. There is definitely a lot of chemistry between us, some huggin & things & then he says, well here's something about me that you didn't see on the website, I have a prosthetic foot.
At this point, I figure I have 3 options. Acknowledge him & accept it, freak out & reject him or ignore it & just go to brunch and then blow him off afterwards.
I'm glad I chose the 1st one. He's had a fascinating life, done a lot of travelling, lived in really cool places. I had made reservations for us at Café Degas, but this is how the conversation went with them:
--Café Degas?
--I'd like to make a reservation, please.
--Hold on.
clunk, click, clatter
people talking to each other
I hear the man who answered the phone's voice
--Can you take this reservation?
indistinct murmuring
click clunk clatter
Woman's Voice
--Hello?
(I'm thinking, bitch you are not on your cell phone, you are at work, where are your manners??)
--I'd like to make a reservation, please.
--OK What time?
--11:45 AM tomorr--
--We don't serve that late.
--Tomorrow, at 11:45 AM.
--Oh.
(audible page flicking)
--What time?
--11:45AM.
--How many?
--2
--What's the name?
--Sam
--What?
--Sam
--Can you spell that?
--Ess Ay Em, grrl
--Oh, Sam!
--Yes, that's it.
--OK.
--OK?
--See you tomorrow.
You can see why I felt like maybe if the people who answer the phone are that inept, maybe it would be better to find brunch elsewhere.
So I cancelled our reservations there & we went over to The Ruby Slipper, but there was a huge crowd of ppl waiting to be seated. So we went to Martinique Bistro & were one of the 1st tables there.
He had the Oyster Chowder, followed by the Rolled Omelet with Roasted Potatoes & I had the Sautéed Escargot followed by the Pork Tenderloin "Grillades" with Stone Ground Chèvre Grits. The food was delicious & the service was reasonable, although I did find the staff a tad, shall we say, under-dressed. I don't care what anyone says, a Saints Jersey is not an appropriate work uniform if you work in a restaurant where 2 courses without alcohol totals up to $52, I'm Just Saying.... The kitchen moved awfully slowly to say that we were only the 2nd table, but when our food did arrive, it was certainly worth the wait. The under-dressed waiter seated us in a particularly sunny spot, so we skipped dessert & headed back here for a little, shall we say, dessert of our own.
During lunch, he had disclosed to me that he takes blood thinners to avoid clots in the veins near his prosthesis & this sometimes has a particular side effect common to many men. I am willing to work around this. But we got back up over here, he's crazy bout my body hair, I'm having fun, he's having fun, we're having fun, so I think. But eventually he got frustrated and decided to leave. I tried to talk him out of it but he was clearly self-conscious and there was no talking him out of it. After he put his foot back on & got dressed, we talked a bit more business & I gave him a few items to take up to this Craft Show that his mother attends in Wisconsin. He says he think they will sell just bc they are from NOLA. I hope so.
We will see each other again in November. Let's see where this adventure takes me...
Meanwhile, tomorrow is back to work at multi-lengual behavior disorder central elementary.
I am not having anxiety about it yet. That will come soon enough, I feel sure.
I have been meaning to blog about so many things but sometimes I don't feel like I should for fear of being sued by some parent or something & other times I wanna blog about Crazy Hoes I have known, but again, static from the parents & also lately I'm just so damn tired all the time I can't stand it. I am not bad in the AM, but getting up at 5:45 every day sucks. You can keep all those damn sunrises, I'll take a sunset instead. But I really don't appreciate having to see both of them.
Sorry bout that last part. Rant over.
Blog over.
Resuming my knitting & Peter Davison as Dr Who Years Marathon to assuage my troubled soul...
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Ambushed.....
So this last week at work was a toughie, to say the least. As you will remember from previous posts, I am a teacher's assistant for 2 classes of 3rd graders in a French Immersion school. The teachers are a French man & a Senegalese woman. The Frenchman's class is like behavior disorder central, with one of the students in particular being the butterfly whose wings cause hurricanes. Her whole day is a series of freak-outs, to the point where having to deal with this girl gives me anxiety. I seriously dread dealing with this girl. Miss Senegal's class is well-behaved as she is strict and yells at them a lot.
Anyway, I got an email from the Principal a few days ago, asking me to shadow another assistant in another class for the 1st two hours of the last couple of days. After the 1st day of that, the Lead Teacher (aka not either of the teachers I work for) of 3rd grade pulled me aside & wanted to talk to me about how things were going. I was very direct with her. I told her that I have had more training to wait tables and that I find the Frenchman dismissive & uncommunicative, while Miss Senegal the Tooth-Sucker at least has tasks for me when I arrive in class, little piles of paper with Post-Its on them. We talked about the situation overall, about cultural differences and expectations and clarification of my role, and I definitely got the impression that there had been some discussion about my job performance amongst the staff and at the end of it, I felt good that I had finally received some sort of feedback. Some of it was negative, to be sure, but at the very least, I felt like Miss Lead Teacher heard what I said.
So yesterday after we dismissed the kids, I found out that that I had a meeting with Miss Senegal, the Frenchman & Miss Lead. Right then. About me. Miss Lead came in with a feedback form, (various criteria on a scale of 1-4 I think, such as "Speaks the Target Language with Students" and "Fosters learning environment") and Miss Senegal had the class & good taste to point out the imperfections in my French, such as switching up masculine/feminine nouns and sometimes just approximating a word in French from either of the other languages I speak. She had a laugh about my saying "calculation" instead of "calcul," for example. The Frenchman, on the other hand, said that my "register" with the kids is not right & I say "bad words" like "dégueulasse" for "disgusting" or "gamin" instead of "enfant" for "kid."
This was starting to get hard to take & I was hoping we could just stick to the criteria, and go on to the next checklist item. But no. Miss Senegal seized the occasion to enumerate every misstep I've made since August 29th.
--From the very first day, you walked into class, you didn't know what the students were doing, they might have been taking a test & you said "Bonjour les enfants" with enthusiasm in your voice, and you perturbed the whole class. The next week, you were too nice to the kids & always sucking your teeth & then you bragged to me about having 2 Master's degrees and said you didn't like making photocopies...
This is where I had to break in. "No, you misunderstand. I never said that. I don't have 2 Masters, and what I didn't like was being sent to make double-sided photocopies without being given a code for the machine & every other person in the teachers' lounge just watching me have a problem & ignoring my requests for help so they could keep eating and talking about their vacation plans."
This didn't slow down Miss Senegal though, she didn't miss a beat and continued to present her skewed POV on the last few weeks, telling me that I help the kids too much when they are supposed to be doing individual work & the 1st time she asked me to do remedial work 1-on-1 with the kids, I refused (a flat lie--she had taken me by surprise once by asking me to tutor a kid in a subject I wasn't familiar with) and when I did, "my attitude" showed her that I didn't want to do it, and the one time she let me lead the class in a subject, I went too far explaining rounding numbers, and the other time she left me alone with the kids, she came back in and they were talking too much. She seemed really put out that I asked to be shown how to do things, evidently I should be able to figure out how to grade tests without answer keys or use a completely unfamiliar grading scale just by observing, so "in all frankness" she asked, "How can I use you?"
This is one of those places where that split-second translation delay (we were having the whole conversation in French) probably saved me from getting an assault charge. I just cannot tell you how insulted I was by her straying from the task at hand and turning a feedback session into an occasion to annihilate me. I was absolutely "bouche-bé" as the French say (like mouth hanging open in surprise) and Miss Lead Teacher tried to intervene a bit and make Miss Senegal understand my good intentions & divert the conversation & here came the 2nd part of the 1-2 punch when Mr Frenchman hit me with a few anecdotes of how distracting I am for the kids but at least he had some advice to offer about how to keep calm & get better results out of them.
But it really didn't matter what he said. The blood was all rushing up in my ears and I felt like Miss Senegal had taken every positive feeling I had about the job and pissed all over them. By the time the meeting was over, I couldn't look anyone in the room in the face. Then Miss Senegal went over to the table where she had made a big mess from making fruit smoothies with the kids, so guess who had to grab the bowls & the blender carafes & took them & washed them in the sink of the girls bathroom?
Miss Lead Teacher could tell I was upset and came into the bathroom and asked if I wanted to come talk to her. I said "Non, on a tout dit" (No, everything was said). It was rude of me, especially when she was reaching out, but I kept my back turned and my eyes down and just looked at the carafe I was rinsing. She asked if I was OK. I just said "Oui." She asked if she would see me Monday, I just shrugged & said "On verra," (We will see.") But just now, as I'm thinking of it, maybe I said "Tu verras" (You will see)...at any rate, I meant the other.
Obviously, I will be back at work Monday. I wish I didn't have to be though. It sucks that I get along (I think) with every other member of the staff there, but these two....ugh.
I can't tell you how angry I still am about the way this whole thing went. Oh well, it is only until December 20th. Mercifully our Fall Break starts a week from yesterday & I can start looking for new job leads.....
PS. Damn the DA's office for not giving me that translator's job.
Anyway, I got an email from the Principal a few days ago, asking me to shadow another assistant in another class for the 1st two hours of the last couple of days. After the 1st day of that, the Lead Teacher (aka not either of the teachers I work for) of 3rd grade pulled me aside & wanted to talk to me about how things were going. I was very direct with her. I told her that I have had more training to wait tables and that I find the Frenchman dismissive & uncommunicative, while Miss Senegal the Tooth-Sucker at least has tasks for me when I arrive in class, little piles of paper with Post-Its on them. We talked about the situation overall, about cultural differences and expectations and clarification of my role, and I definitely got the impression that there had been some discussion about my job performance amongst the staff and at the end of it, I felt good that I had finally received some sort of feedback. Some of it was negative, to be sure, but at the very least, I felt like Miss Lead Teacher heard what I said.
So yesterday after we dismissed the kids, I found out that that I had a meeting with Miss Senegal, the Frenchman & Miss Lead. Right then. About me. Miss Lead came in with a feedback form, (various criteria on a scale of 1-4 I think, such as "Speaks the Target Language with Students" and "Fosters learning environment") and Miss Senegal had the class & good taste to point out the imperfections in my French, such as switching up masculine/feminine nouns and sometimes just approximating a word in French from either of the other languages I speak. She had a laugh about my saying "calculation" instead of "calcul," for example. The Frenchman, on the other hand, said that my "register" with the kids is not right & I say "bad words" like "dégueulasse" for "disgusting" or "gamin" instead of "enfant" for "kid."
This was starting to get hard to take & I was hoping we could just stick to the criteria, and go on to the next checklist item. But no. Miss Senegal seized the occasion to enumerate every misstep I've made since August 29th.
--From the very first day, you walked into class, you didn't know what the students were doing, they might have been taking a test & you said "Bonjour les enfants" with enthusiasm in your voice, and you perturbed the whole class. The next week, you were too nice to the kids & always sucking your teeth & then you bragged to me about having 2 Master's degrees and said you didn't like making photocopies...
This is where I had to break in. "No, you misunderstand. I never said that. I don't have 2 Masters, and what I didn't like was being sent to make double-sided photocopies without being given a code for the machine & every other person in the teachers' lounge just watching me have a problem & ignoring my requests for help so they could keep eating and talking about their vacation plans."
This didn't slow down Miss Senegal though, she didn't miss a beat and continued to present her skewed POV on the last few weeks, telling me that I help the kids too much when they are supposed to be doing individual work & the 1st time she asked me to do remedial work 1-on-1 with the kids, I refused (a flat lie--she had taken me by surprise once by asking me to tutor a kid in a subject I wasn't familiar with) and when I did, "my attitude" showed her that I didn't want to do it, and the one time she let me lead the class in a subject, I went too far explaining rounding numbers, and the other time she left me alone with the kids, she came back in and they were talking too much. She seemed really put out that I asked to be shown how to do things, evidently I should be able to figure out how to grade tests without answer keys or use a completely unfamiliar grading scale just by observing, so "in all frankness" she asked, "How can I use you?"
This is one of those places where that split-second translation delay (we were having the whole conversation in French) probably saved me from getting an assault charge. I just cannot tell you how insulted I was by her straying from the task at hand and turning a feedback session into an occasion to annihilate me. I was absolutely "bouche-bé" as the French say (like mouth hanging open in surprise) and Miss Lead Teacher tried to intervene a bit and make Miss Senegal understand my good intentions & divert the conversation & here came the 2nd part of the 1-2 punch when Mr Frenchman hit me with a few anecdotes of how distracting I am for the kids but at least he had some advice to offer about how to keep calm & get better results out of them.
But it really didn't matter what he said. The blood was all rushing up in my ears and I felt like Miss Senegal had taken every positive feeling I had about the job and pissed all over them. By the time the meeting was over, I couldn't look anyone in the room in the face. Then Miss Senegal went over to the table where she had made a big mess from making fruit smoothies with the kids, so guess who had to grab the bowls & the blender carafes & took them & washed them in the sink of the girls bathroom?
Miss Lead Teacher could tell I was upset and came into the bathroom and asked if I wanted to come talk to her. I said "Non, on a tout dit" (No, everything was said). It was rude of me, especially when she was reaching out, but I kept my back turned and my eyes down and just looked at the carafe I was rinsing. She asked if I was OK. I just said "Oui." She asked if she would see me Monday, I just shrugged & said "On verra," (We will see.") But just now, as I'm thinking of it, maybe I said "Tu verras" (You will see)...at any rate, I meant the other.
Obviously, I will be back at work Monday. I wish I didn't have to be though. It sucks that I get along (I think) with every other member of the staff there, but these two....ugh.
I can't tell you how angry I still am about the way this whole thing went. Oh well, it is only until December 20th. Mercifully our Fall Break starts a week from yesterday & I can start looking for new job leads.....
PS. Damn the DA's office for not giving me that translator's job.
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