it's very hot: in the 90's and humid with a whole ton of smog to compliment that whole "live earth" thing they did over the weekend. incidentally, south park ran it's al gore episode, with manbearpig, just the other day and i haven't been able to stop saying "guys! i'm so serial!" and "oh my god, it's manbearpig" in my al gore voice, which is probably my favorite next to my sean connery voice. anyhow, what was i saying? oh yeah. it's hot.
i don't really go in for all this heat stuff. right about now is when i shut down, as far as motivation to do anything but sit around and think about how little motivation i have. yesterday i did get the overwhelming impetus to ride the cyclone at coney island and eat cheese fries, but i had to work. and i was totally unmotivated to do that. the cyclone and my upcoming interview for the nyc teaching fellows are really the only two things i have felt at all excited about lately. and the teaching fellows thing is less an excitement and more of a repetative nausea, combined with a strong desire for it to be 10:05 pm on tuesday july 17th, the time that the whole thing will officially be over. and that's no fun.
i wish i didn't have such a paralyzing fear of this whole thing, but i can't stop thinking about how likely i am to blow it on the basis of sheer nervousness, which will translate into a babbling incoherent mess of an interview and whatnot. i surely wish i were one of those blessed people who thrive under pressure and in the clutch, one of those people who you can be nearly certain will perform to the greatest of their ability when they have the most on the line. the tom bradys. the tiger woods. the roger federers. the derek jeters. instead, i am in the other category. the chris webbers. the scott norwoods. the tony romos. the losers.
sorry tony romo. but you are just gonna have to suck up that distinction until you can do something next season to erase our memories.
anyhow. i am trying really hard to relax and coach myself on how to stay calm and not fall apart in the clutch, and while i am pretty certain that it has everything to do with staying calm, and forgetting exactly how big of a moment one is supposedly having, even the act of trying to make myself calm is having the opposite effect.
the only thing i can keep repeating to myself in my crazy screwed up brain is that one way or another, i am going to go to that interview next week, and stuff is going to happen and i am either going to be selected or not selected and that is all there is to it.
so far it is half-working, i'd say. i am sleeping, astonishingly. but we are still a week away.
i think some of my desperation to not fuck this up is directly related to my desperation to call my waitressing life quits. i have run out of steam on that front, in all regards. i can tell because even a "good" job like the one i have now is not cutting it. i simply can't deal with the public anymore, not on this level. i will continue to deal(because it's virtually impossible to avoid) with getting elbowed, stepped on and pushed out of the way by douchebag commuters in business suits who consider themselves in the upper eschelon of society but have no problem acting as if we have all been let out of a cage at the zoo when the train doors open. i can no longer find it in my soul(even deep down, where i must go lately to even walk into work) to not flip out when someone has a totally inappropriate outburst because they haven't received a basket of fucking chips and salsa fast enough to appease their inner asshole. i guarantee that these people have eaten at least once today. and that they will not suffer any adverse effects from another two minutes without their snack. but yet the nastiness and derision that these morons are ready to level at me or anyone who they happen to flag down at the time is astounding. i feel like pulling up a chair and asking what, if anything, else they might be able to get that worked up about. certainly nothing that doesn't have a firm connection to their own personal desires and demands for what they want placed in front of their gluttonous faces at the time they have decided it must appear. think nothing of what goes on around you, oh righteous consumers of chips y salsa! do not for one beat consider that perhaps there is a logical and worthy explanation for why your request has not been fulfilled within seconds of your making it. just rise up and strike wrath down upon the idiot waitress or lowly foreign busperson who happens by. show your friends and family how powerful and proactive you are! how you fear nothing in your attempt to procure your free chips and salsa immediately, and how you will not be denied the spoils that are rightfully yours. and then make sure to leave a crappy tip, just to make sure the waitress knows that her inability to do her job properly will not go unnoticed or unpunished by you.
basically, the only thing better about this job is that i don't have to deal with the corporate overlords and their ridiculousness, or with wearing a self-esteem crushing uniform, which, i assure you, is much appreciated on my part. but being a waitress means having to suck it up and be nice even when you have the worst people in the world acting out their emotional issues on you. and there was a time when i could do it, but that time has passed. the trendite brooklyn heads are just the hedgehogs in less formal attire. and in some ways, their attitudes are worse, because they have deluded themselves into thinking that they are the most enlightened people in the whole fucking universe. and that, me friends, simply ain't true
for the last fifteen years i have taken the ill-advised path of continually putting myself in situations to not only deal with these people, in all their incarnations, but also to be a part of various flawed establishments who's shortcomings cause my inablility to do my job to a level that would ensure even moderate success: in short, to get these fuckheads to shut the fuck up even most of the time would require that the places i work in function at anything resembling a successful fashion, which they NEVER do. ever. i have never worked in a restaurant that didn't have critical flaws that caused major problems in customer service. and so i am doomed. if i don't get out, i will spend my life catching hell for things i cannot control. and if i am going to do that, i would at least like the "customers" to be children who need a friendly face and a caring heart to lead them in their lessons every day. maybe the success rate will be nearly the same, but at least i will feel like i am helping someone get something other than a basket of chips and salsa for my struggle. you know?
oh blog, thank you for letting me lash out yet again. better, and cheaper, than therapy!
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