Body Beat

The economic crash has had a petrifying effect on my body. I'm not sure how much wick I have left in my candle. I burned it down to soot in the early aughts when I earned my BA and MA as a single mom working two jobs. At the end of it I remember my hands shaking so badly that I had difficulty holding a cup to my mouth. I wondered how many years I'd taken off my life with too much coffee and not enough sleep. I remember thinking that it would be worth it when I landed that great job and started my career.

Enter the crash. I'm still feeding my son but I don't know how long my body will last. My days off are filled with sleep and naps and numbness. I feel my creativity seeping into the sand. I've started three novels finished none.

Weird things keep me going. Mike Ditka with his no bullshit attitude. Anthony Munoz with his broken warped pinkie.

I spend hours a week punching bags and doing knuckle down push-ups. It's as if I'm daring my body to grit on through.

I limp gimpy through my days as I try to make the best of my fallback career. I didn't train for this race. I gave it all in the marathon of my five year no sleep gigging it. I beat my body with the fists of my ambition.

And here I am serving up Manhattan's and plates of snake river trout to retirees.

The right hipbone and left shoulder are going-going-gone. And the jaw-don't ask. The feet are desperate and falling down at the arches.

The medicine is Knarly Head pinot gris and Luksusowa potato vodka. That plus Bicycle Pinot Noir. I gullet down bottles fish style like the Pelican's off Olde Naples Pier.

Still. In those moments of still I dream my dreams. I write poetic fragments. I noodle myself into a meal full of belly.

tales from hell's kitchen

And by Hell's Kitchen I mean any place where servers attempt to satisfy asshole customers who are more anal and choosy about their food than they are about the people they fuck.

And let me say here that my fellow intelligentsia-my academic peers-those who've studied with me in the halls of undergrad and graduate school are often some of the worse offenders.

Last night I waited on a table of lawyers and MA type folk. Night starts off ok. They order rounds of drinks and apps. Then another table offers to buy them a round because he knows them. They happily accept. I tell the other server so he can ring up their order on the other guy's check. Meantime as I'm back in the kitchen making a cappuchino for another table the magnanimous guy's table leaves without paying for the round for the other table. I explain this to the table and tell them I haven't had a chance to speak to my manager to see what he'd like to do. I don't want to force the drinks on them. They giggle and say oh that's funny bring the drinks we'll pay for them. Drinks come to table. Suddenly the passionate overly educated chick in seat two lets me know that her lawyer boyfriend and she think this is the restaurant's fault and that they want the drinks but don't want to pay.

(OK so obviously not successful lawyers if they can't afford a round of Jack and Cokes. But whatever.)

End result manager buys them the drinks. Table sits and argues with one another all night about the injustice of how "american's" tread the lower classes and african american's and other unfortunates.

The girl is so passionate about helping the "other-lower class folk" that she winds up leaving the table with her crying boyfriend.

Meanwhile she had absolutely no qualms about throwing the single mother server who was waiting on her under the bus so she could get a free raspberry martini.

Frankly, I'm embarrassed by my fellow middle class peers.

At our establishment most servers have BA's with a sprinkling of MA's. We are waiting tables for a variety of reasons and all are astonished at the way we are treated.

It's not the super rich that tend to treat us like shit but that educated snotty middle class that think they have to prove something. It's sick. It's humbling. It makes me not want to associate.

I've seen women make servers cry as they sneer over their cosmo's.

I've seen men call waitress' dumb servers.

Where is the class?

Where is the decency?

Charity begins at home. How do you treat the people who serve you in any capacity?

buckets of rain

I've been replaying two of my favorite Dylan songs lately. Over and over and over.

Buckets of Rain and Idiot Wind. I listen to them on my playlist like some kind of treadmill track in my head.

They speak to me and drive me in that poetic-this is what it is kind of lyrical mish mash that is Dylan. They are matching up to things in my life-things that are changing-things that are constant. And despite all of Dylan's semi lucidic (is that a word) blabberings he is one of a few poets who speak to me about life and things being what they are.

Buckets of rain buckets of tears got all them buckets coming out of my ears buckets of moonbeams in my hand... i aint no monkey but i know what i like... life is sad life is a bust all you can do is do what you must... you do what you must do and you do it well...

I feel like this song. I wake up every morning and I'm dying for that love of my life that thing I may never find again. I miss it so bad I could literally drink whiskey instead of hazelnut coffee for breakfast. I miss it so bad my teeth hurt. Buckets of tears. I get up. I make Chai tea for my son. We talk Steelers and Colts and linebackers. We talk about pushups and sprints and football training camps. We talk about the house he'll buy me when he makes the NFL. We talk about the car I'll buy him when I make my first million. We talk about surfing and our first real vacation to Hawaii. Buckets of moonbeams. I drop him off at school. Call my sister. Not going to make Thanksgiving. I can't deal with my parents right now. I won't. They are such a negative force that I find myself making choices. Sad choices. Choices that put me and my children first. Life is sad life is a bust all you can do is to what you must...I head to the gym and pound out all my frustrations on the smith machine. I do sit ups until I'm shaking. It's the best workout I've had in awhile. Now I'm home. I'm going to run and make calls and work on my Novel. And after that I'm going to waitress to pay the bills and be the best damn waitress you've ever seen. You do what you must do and you do it well.

And I do everything in my life well except for one place. Organizaion. I suck at this. In my life I've at times worked two jobs with 19 college credits as a single mom-got on the deans list made lots of tips. Couldn't pay a bill on time to save my life. Missed so many yearly inspections because I forgot that the town cop Rufas threatened to throw me in jail if I did it again. Yeah. It's bad.

Idiot Wind Someone's got it in for me... murgblurbmmmph... (can't understand that bit) their minds are filled with big ideas images and distorted facts... blowing down the back roads headin' south... you're an idiot wind... you're an idiot babe it's a wonder you still know how to breathe...

So I've accepted the cold ugly facts that I have to do this. I'm going to organize my office-my home. Did I just say that outloud? May lightning strike me now! Let me paint this picture. Yesterday my son and his father and I were in truancy court. Why were we in truancy court? Because mom-me forgot to turn in doctor's excuses for a broken clavacle and then later an allergic reaction to the pain meds. Idiot wind someone's got it in for me. And that someone is me! This was a wake up call that came just on the heels of reading a chapter in a book called making your first million in network marketing. Everything in there made sense till I saw the bit on getting organized. Shit. Hell no. Their minds are filled with big ideas images and distorted facts. My mind has been distorted in the idea that I can continue to be this mess that is me at home. I can't. How did I ever survive myself?

Arrested during finals for unpaid parking tickets... bouncing checks because I lost the deposit... missing soccer sign ups yet again... reffing a soccer game drunk because I forgot I was on the roster and it was my birthday... losing the football raffel tickets... again... having all five coaches on Pat's team call to remind me the time of the championship game because I got it wrong last time...You're an idiot babe it's a wonder you still know how to breathe.

So this morning I made a change to my morning routine. One hour for organizing household and paperwork. This is about all I can stand but I accomplished a great deal in that hour. Of course I no longer know who's doing what on facebook. I also don't know if Victor from the Young and Restless is still banging Ashley or if he's run away again. But it feels good. This change. Blowing down the back roads headin' south...

help.... I have ADHD!! No seriously...where's my sock?

Ok so I'm walking around with one sock on looking for my Nikes so I can run the Lab. If I don't run her it will be impossible to do ANYTHING. She's hell. Barking, chewing underwear-shoes-furniture. As I write this she's simultaneously jerking at the sliding glass door for her tennis ball and scratching the floor out of sheer hyperactivity. She flaps her ears, runs to the bathroom where she jumps in and out of the tub several times. Knocks over the toilet paper. Drops her ball in my hazelnut coffee. Bumps my leg three times. And so on.

Dallas is the incarnation of what my brain is like. Constantly on overdrive. Rounding corners of things I have to do in pursuit of the dreams in my head.

Market my second book as a movie-I'm thinking Brad Pitt's company because well you know....remember him in Snatch.

Write a book about life and dying. What's that character Lae going to do today. Smoke naked in a tree. Paint mangos.

Publish my sex-food poetry chapbook (don't ask).

My ass feels fat. Get to the gym what is today? Leg day or biceps.

Pack a lunch. Wash football uniform.

Shit the dog just ate the lunch...

I should have run the dog in the first place.

Oh but I have just one sock...

I am my own worst enemy. And there is only one way this business will work. I have to structure my day full of habits.

And this is the only thing that will work for me.

I got into shape by making daily runs and trips to the gym part of my day. I no longer really think about them. I get up drink my Jo run. Drop Pat at school and then hit the gym. After that I go to the Bayshore coffee shoppe where I write for exactly two hours on my novel Natche.

After that I come home and the hours are open and I prettty much fall back into the crazed mouse in the maze. I half wash some clothes. Half make a business call. Half wash the dishes. And so today is the day where I begin to make my chocolate biz a habit. After this becomes a part of my day and no longer is an issue I will add in time for marketing my writing.

For now though, the network marketing is going to start with call making time from 1:00-3:00 every day. While this is certainly going to change some days as do my runs and writing times I will work towards sitting down for two hours to call every day. And while this is only a two hour bit I know from completing a two novels and a four hundred page thesis that it is the every day stuff that adds up over time to become something huge and amazing.

In other words I've finally learned that my weekend warrior style doesn't get me far. It's the daily habits that get me where I need to be.

Let me go find that sock and get on with the race!