See Up And Look The Stars
Oct. 18th, 2008 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
exhilarationSo... I am supposed to be at work right now.
I'm not. I'm at home.
I worked last night and I worked this morning/afternoon, but finally I asked around to see if anyone would stay and work my shift tonight - Kimmy, my faithful non-stupid hostess buddy, eventually agreed. She really didn't want to, but something along the line changed her mind.
Me and B work together, see. And, to put it clearly and concisely, neither of us is dealing with the other very well right now. The awkwardness... I can feel it... suffocating me...
Ok ok I admit it, I am overdramatizing here. I'm not suffocating. But it's like I don't even want to look at him, I just want to do my job and not think about him, but he's right there, and he's not looking at me either, and when we have to talk to each other it's just like... nails on a chalkboard or something.
But I had a nice time in Philly with Krissy and D. We went out to dinner with D and his friend, but he went home right after because he was having trouble breathing. Krissy and I were not at each other's throats nor were we particularly awful to each other in any way. It was actually pretty nice spending time with her. I mean, I like her. I've always liked her. We get along. And she's known me for years - she's been around (if not flat out there for me) through a lot of shit. Even if we're a terrible couple, even if sometimes I don't want to talk to her or have anything to do with her, she's still a good friend.
I didn't tell Krissy a single thing about me and B, though, because I just don't want to hear what she has to say about any of that.
Which is kinda funny because she's one person who's opinion I really trust.
I just didn't want to hear it.
Instead we had a big long discussion about me coming back to Philadelphia. Not about us getting back together, or ever dating ever again - I kind of got the impression that she's involved with someone anyway. It was more like... big sister advice or something (Krissy is four years older than I am, so that's kind of fair...)
Regardless of how much I do or don't like it here (although I still really don't like it here) one thing I never figured into the equation was not driving. I knew that by moving here I was giving up all possibility of public transportation - that's why I bought a car.
My mom gave me a car a few years ago, because she said she couldn't stand thinking about me in the big bad city walking back from a bus stop late at night and stuff. My mom generally doesn't give me anything without a huge guilt trip attached (apparently I ruined her life - she's never going to let me forget that. It sounds stupid but it's very true) but since it was a car... I took it. Because I had a car, I was able to get a really awesome job in a private art studio doing extracurricular classes for elementary school kids. I worked with two other girls, and there was one woman who managed it all, and then there was the owner. It was really, really great.
That's the job I left to go back home when my mom was sick... and that's the car I totaled on the highway... that's the accident that led to my getting the x-ray I had been demanding for over a year... and that's the x-ray that led to my finally getting the messed up hardware removed from my back... WHICH DIDN'T DO SHIT TO FIX THE PROBLEM THAT I WAS ALREADY COMPLETELY DEPENDENT ON PAINKILLERS... and the rest, of course, is history...
Anyway, I assumed that I'd never, ever own another car or ever worry about driving ever again. How would I afford to buy a car anyway? If my mom hadn't given me one, I never would have had one to begin with. I lived in Camden right then, and then I moved back to Philly, and a car would have been nice but I had taken the bus/train/sub for years and survived fine, so I figured I'd just deal.
When I moved here, though, I needed a car, no buts about it. I didn't know anyone and there is no public transportation. So I bought a car. Then I got my license suspended (DUI, but I wasn't actually UI, it's a long and stupid story and believe it or not, this is the SECOND time something this absurd has happened to me) and now that I have my license back I still have points on my license and a DUI on my driving record and besides, this is New Jersey where insurance is brutal. I can't afford the insurance. I've gone over it again and again and again - it just isn't possible.
And I wasn't counting on not being able to drive. I never worked that into my plan when I was deciding whether or not I really wanted to do this.
I was really venting to Krissy about work, you see. And Krissy was really understanding - Krissy waitressed and bartended all through college and med school. Krissy is the one who got me my first restaurant job. And Krissy agrees with me whole heartedly that being a hostess is the worst job in the whole restaurant business. She firmly stated that she would never be able to do it day after day after day. It's just so frustrating and people treat you like shit - the customers, managers, AND the servers - she said she coudln't take it. She could be a bartender forever, she said, but she could never be a hostess.
And she gave me this big lecture about how she knows me and she knows I'm smart even if I tell people I'm not (and this is true, I DO tell people I'm not smart, because I don't want them questioning why I'm not in college/why I don't have a degree/why I'm not planning something bigger for my life) and just because I don't like school or school didn't work out for me doesn't mean I have to work a minimum wage job. Hostessing at my particular restaurant is not minimum wage, and I told her that, but she said it didn't matter. It was still a mindnumbingly stupid job and I'm better than that. I have more knowledge than that and more ability and more experience.
And it's true that I'm sure having a criminal record would make it hard to find a different kind of job, because I'm sure places do background checks and all that, but the real problem is that I can't really even look for a different job because I can't get to the place, whatever it is, to begin with.
I know there aren't a lot of jobs here, but it's not that there are NONE. It's that there are none HERE, on the island, within walking distance, and even if they were, the two mile walk to the Coffee Co was pretty trying every day and I'd hate to commit to doing THAT every day. I'm sure there are other jobs within DRIVING distance.
And in Philly I'm sure there are plenty of different kinds of jobs. Krissy said the hospital is hiring registers at fifteen dollars an hour. Simple stuff like that. Nothing glamourous, nothing I'd need a degree for, but nothing so intolerable as showing people to their seats all day long.
"Party of two? Right this way!"
*customer gestures towards the booths along the windows, all of which are occupied* "You don't have a booth?"
"Not that are available right now, do you want to wait?"
"We don't want a table, we're paying to eat here, we'll wait for a booth. You should always take the patrons to a booth" *said in a very patronizing manner*
Five minutes pass...
"Excuse me, we've been waiting here for an hour and you still haven't called us" *snatches list from my hands* "you skipped us, all these people are coming in after us and sitting down before us, I want somebody competent up here..."
"Well I have plenty of tables available, but you requested a booth, and I do not have any at this moment."
"You didn't SAY we had to WAIT, I want to talk to a manager, you need to learn how to do your JOB."
Every day. Multiple times a day. Every time. I can count on one hand the number of times I've shown someone to a table and they actually just sat down and looked at their menu with no further incident.
And I hate people. I always have. It's counter to my personality to be nice to stupid people! I understand it's my job, but that's why I don't like my job!
And I went on and on about this to Krissy and at the end of it all she was like, "well, if you just moved back here, you wouldn't need to drive, and you'd have your pick of jobs!"
I used to assume that if I were to go back to Philly, I would need to sell the houses, because what could I do with them if I weren't here? They would just be falling down abandoned properties like they were before, AND I'd have to pay property taxes on them besides. So, I figured... I could sell them (although right now I'm not sure I could... considering the market...) and I even thought hey, I could sell the houses, take whatever I could get for them, hide the money somewhere, and then, because I don't have any money or assets, I could collect social security until I found a job, and I'd do all right I suppose.
But the houses aren't falling down anymore. This one is perfectly livable - it's just about perfectly rentable, too - it would be really easy to finish it up. And the other one is... coming along. I don't really need to be here to deal with the other house either.
So... I could go back to Philly and keep the houses, and the income from renting them, and then I'd live somewhere with public transportation, so I woudln't have to either mooch rides off people or just stay home, and I'd be near my friends (or kinda-friends, whatever, they still ask about me, so I guess maybe they've noticed I haven't been around...) and I could find a better job, and, and, and...
I don't think this is just Krissy wanting me around anymore. I think enough time has passed between us that it's not that. I think she's just genuinely offering advice. I vented to her about hating my life - she offered a solution that I'd kind of pushed aside in the past.
And I tried really, really hard not to hate my life here. I mean, I've got my house all set up with my sound system and my media files and my TV shows and computers and everything... everything I could want to entertain me, I didn't skimp on anything. Yeah, I don't own a TV, but I woudln't watch it anyway, I've always downloaded stuff cause who schedules their life around making sure they're home to see their EIGHT TV SHOWS? I try to go out, I try to have fun - but "out" and "fun" are not really the same here. I don't mean to pass judgment on the entire state of NJ, but the only people I'm around are the people I work with, and the only things they do are go to the bars after work.
And I don't find drinking all that fun anyway.
When I went on that blind date with that girl Kirsten, the art history grad student, and I couldn't seem to say anything intelligent to her - I can't help but think my brain is shriveling up and rotting away here. There's nothing stimulating going on. Bars get boring after a while. Maybe bars with my friends, but, again - I don't feel like these people are really my friends. Krissy is definitely a friend. My friend Matt is a real friend. Erica... is a weird circumstantial friend... I have a feeling that if I left she wouldn't even try to keep in touch with me. Bevan is... well, not really my friend right now, anyway.
I used to go sit in the bookstore and read the books. Now I sit at home and read the internet. Something as simple as the act of getting dressed and leaving the house, seeing other people even if I don't interact with them, being seen by other people even if they don't even notice me... picking up a physical book and finishing it in one afternoon... not really the same, even when it's a book online. Yes, I could order books and have them come to me, but... again with the actual leaving the house.
And of course the only coffee shop is... the one I got fired from...
I don't know, I'm just feeling totally stuck here. The plan was always that I'd just stick it out. It wouldn't be fun and I wouldn't enjoy it, but in the end, it would be worth it, because I'd have two income properties to show for it. Now I think I'm at the point where I don't have to choose between the two. And one of the main reasons I couldn't stay in Philly to begin with was that it cost too much to live there. I wouldn't have that problem now because... right, I have the income from upstairs, and by next summer, I'll have at least the income from upstairs and down here, even if the other house isn't ready.
So... I don't have to stay... do I?
I'm not. I'm at home.
I worked last night and I worked this morning/afternoon, but finally I asked around to see if anyone would stay and work my shift tonight - Kimmy, my faithful non-stupid hostess buddy, eventually agreed. She really didn't want to, but something along the line changed her mind.
Me and B work together, see. And, to put it clearly and concisely, neither of us is dealing with the other very well right now. The awkwardness... I can feel it... suffocating me...
Ok ok I admit it, I am overdramatizing here. I'm not suffocating. But it's like I don't even want to look at him, I just want to do my job and not think about him, but he's right there, and he's not looking at me either, and when we have to talk to each other it's just like... nails on a chalkboard or something.
But I had a nice time in Philly with Krissy and D. We went out to dinner with D and his friend, but he went home right after because he was having trouble breathing. Krissy and I were not at each other's throats nor were we particularly awful to each other in any way. It was actually pretty nice spending time with her. I mean, I like her. I've always liked her. We get along. And she's known me for years - she's been around (if not flat out there for me) through a lot of shit. Even if we're a terrible couple, even if sometimes I don't want to talk to her or have anything to do with her, she's still a good friend.
I didn't tell Krissy a single thing about me and B, though, because I just don't want to hear what she has to say about any of that.
Which is kinda funny because she's one person who's opinion I really trust.
I just didn't want to hear it.
Instead we had a big long discussion about me coming back to Philadelphia. Not about us getting back together, or ever dating ever again - I kind of got the impression that she's involved with someone anyway. It was more like... big sister advice or something (Krissy is four years older than I am, so that's kind of fair...)
Regardless of how much I do or don't like it here (although I still really don't like it here) one thing I never figured into the equation was not driving. I knew that by moving here I was giving up all possibility of public transportation - that's why I bought a car.
My mom gave me a car a few years ago, because she said she couldn't stand thinking about me in the big bad city walking back from a bus stop late at night and stuff. My mom generally doesn't give me anything without a huge guilt trip attached (apparently I ruined her life - she's never going to let me forget that. It sounds stupid but it's very true) but since it was a car... I took it. Because I had a car, I was able to get a really awesome job in a private art studio doing extracurricular classes for elementary school kids. I worked with two other girls, and there was one woman who managed it all, and then there was the owner. It was really, really great.
That's the job I left to go back home when my mom was sick... and that's the car I totaled on the highway... that's the accident that led to my getting the x-ray I had been demanding for over a year... and that's the x-ray that led to my finally getting the messed up hardware removed from my back... WHICH DIDN'T DO SHIT TO FIX THE PROBLEM THAT I WAS ALREADY COMPLETELY DEPENDENT ON PAINKILLERS... and the rest, of course, is history...
Anyway, I assumed that I'd never, ever own another car or ever worry about driving ever again. How would I afford to buy a car anyway? If my mom hadn't given me one, I never would have had one to begin with. I lived in Camden right then, and then I moved back to Philly, and a car would have been nice but I had taken the bus/train/sub for years and survived fine, so I figured I'd just deal.
When I moved here, though, I needed a car, no buts about it. I didn't know anyone and there is no public transportation. So I bought a car. Then I got my license suspended (DUI, but I wasn't actually UI, it's a long and stupid story and believe it or not, this is the SECOND time something this absurd has happened to me) and now that I have my license back I still have points on my license and a DUI on my driving record and besides, this is New Jersey where insurance is brutal. I can't afford the insurance. I've gone over it again and again and again - it just isn't possible.
And I wasn't counting on not being able to drive. I never worked that into my plan when I was deciding whether or not I really wanted to do this.
I was really venting to Krissy about work, you see. And Krissy was really understanding - Krissy waitressed and bartended all through college and med school. Krissy is the one who got me my first restaurant job. And Krissy agrees with me whole heartedly that being a hostess is the worst job in the whole restaurant business. She firmly stated that she would never be able to do it day after day after day. It's just so frustrating and people treat you like shit - the customers, managers, AND the servers - she said she coudln't take it. She could be a bartender forever, she said, but she could never be a hostess.
And she gave me this big lecture about how she knows me and she knows I'm smart even if I tell people I'm not (and this is true, I DO tell people I'm not smart, because I don't want them questioning why I'm not in college/why I don't have a degree/why I'm not planning something bigger for my life) and just because I don't like school or school didn't work out for me doesn't mean I have to work a minimum wage job. Hostessing at my particular restaurant is not minimum wage, and I told her that, but she said it didn't matter. It was still a mindnumbingly stupid job and I'm better than that. I have more knowledge than that and more ability and more experience.
And it's true that I'm sure having a criminal record would make it hard to find a different kind of job, because I'm sure places do background checks and all that, but the real problem is that I can't really even look for a different job because I can't get to the place, whatever it is, to begin with.
I know there aren't a lot of jobs here, but it's not that there are NONE. It's that there are none HERE, on the island, within walking distance, and even if they were, the two mile walk to the Coffee Co was pretty trying every day and I'd hate to commit to doing THAT every day. I'm sure there are other jobs within DRIVING distance.
And in Philly I'm sure there are plenty of different kinds of jobs. Krissy said the hospital is hiring registers at fifteen dollars an hour. Simple stuff like that. Nothing glamourous, nothing I'd need a degree for, but nothing so intolerable as showing people to their seats all day long.
"Party of two? Right this way!"
*customer gestures towards the booths along the windows, all of which are occupied* "You don't have a booth?"
"Not that are available right now, do you want to wait?"
"We don't want a table, we're paying to eat here, we'll wait for a booth. You should always take the patrons to a booth" *said in a very patronizing manner*
Five minutes pass...
"Excuse me, we've been waiting here for an hour and you still haven't called us" *snatches list from my hands* "you skipped us, all these people are coming in after us and sitting down before us, I want somebody competent up here..."
"Well I have plenty of tables available, but you requested a booth, and I do not have any at this moment."
"You didn't SAY we had to WAIT, I want to talk to a manager, you need to learn how to do your JOB."
Every day. Multiple times a day. Every time. I can count on one hand the number of times I've shown someone to a table and they actually just sat down and looked at their menu with no further incident.
And I hate people. I always have. It's counter to my personality to be nice to stupid people! I understand it's my job, but that's why I don't like my job!
And I went on and on about this to Krissy and at the end of it all she was like, "well, if you just moved back here, you wouldn't need to drive, and you'd have your pick of jobs!"
I used to assume that if I were to go back to Philly, I would need to sell the houses, because what could I do with them if I weren't here? They would just be falling down abandoned properties like they were before, AND I'd have to pay property taxes on them besides. So, I figured... I could sell them (although right now I'm not sure I could... considering the market...) and I even thought hey, I could sell the houses, take whatever I could get for them, hide the money somewhere, and then, because I don't have any money or assets, I could collect social security until I found a job, and I'd do all right I suppose.
But the houses aren't falling down anymore. This one is perfectly livable - it's just about perfectly rentable, too - it would be really easy to finish it up. And the other one is... coming along. I don't really need to be here to deal with the other house either.
So... I could go back to Philly and keep the houses, and the income from renting them, and then I'd live somewhere with public transportation, so I woudln't have to either mooch rides off people or just stay home, and I'd be near my friends (or kinda-friends, whatever, they still ask about me, so I guess maybe they've noticed I haven't been around...) and I could find a better job, and, and, and...
I don't think this is just Krissy wanting me around anymore. I think enough time has passed between us that it's not that. I think she's just genuinely offering advice. I vented to her about hating my life - she offered a solution that I'd kind of pushed aside in the past.
And I tried really, really hard not to hate my life here. I mean, I've got my house all set up with my sound system and my media files and my TV shows and computers and everything... everything I could want to entertain me, I didn't skimp on anything. Yeah, I don't own a TV, but I woudln't watch it anyway, I've always downloaded stuff cause who schedules their life around making sure they're home to see their EIGHT TV SHOWS? I try to go out, I try to have fun - but "out" and "fun" are not really the same here. I don't mean to pass judgment on the entire state of NJ, but the only people I'm around are the people I work with, and the only things they do are go to the bars after work.
And I don't find drinking all that fun anyway.
When I went on that blind date with that girl Kirsten, the art history grad student, and I couldn't seem to say anything intelligent to her - I can't help but think my brain is shriveling up and rotting away here. There's nothing stimulating going on. Bars get boring after a while. Maybe bars with my friends, but, again - I don't feel like these people are really my friends. Krissy is definitely a friend. My friend Matt is a real friend. Erica... is a weird circumstantial friend... I have a feeling that if I left she wouldn't even try to keep in touch with me. Bevan is... well, not really my friend right now, anyway.
I used to go sit in the bookstore and read the books. Now I sit at home and read the internet. Something as simple as the act of getting dressed and leaving the house, seeing other people even if I don't interact with them, being seen by other people even if they don't even notice me... picking up a physical book and finishing it in one afternoon... not really the same, even when it's a book online. Yes, I could order books and have them come to me, but... again with the actual leaving the house.
And of course the only coffee shop is... the one I got fired from...
I don't know, I'm just feeling totally stuck here. The plan was always that I'd just stick it out. It wouldn't be fun and I wouldn't enjoy it, but in the end, it would be worth it, because I'd have two income properties to show for it. Now I think I'm at the point where I don't have to choose between the two. And one of the main reasons I couldn't stay in Philly to begin with was that it cost too much to live there. I wouldn't have that problem now because... right, I have the income from upstairs, and by next summer, I'll have at least the income from upstairs and down here, even if the other house isn't ready.
So... I don't have to stay... do I?
