Lara I.

Well, here's how it goes:

Friday I worked at the restaurant all day, both shifts. Got off around eight and went to a strip club. And for the record, no, this is not what I usually do, I haven't been there in at least a month. B likes to go with his friends and at this point, it's more that I'd rather go with them than stay home by myself. And there's a girl there named Ariel who yes I understand that she is working is really very friendly to me and is usually good for some interesting conversation. She always remembers my name, too :P

Then Saturday I worked during lunch and came home and slept for a bit, and was woken up by a phonecall from Erica, who, just kinda nonchalantly wanted to know if she could come over. I was like, where are you? And she was like, 9th street, lol. So I just explained to her how to get to this house from the old house, and over she came. I got dressed and we went out for dinner at this little place on the island (my town is dry so none of the restaurants serve alcohol) and then crossed the bridge so we could go somewhere else for some drinks, and she called a bunch of her friends and it was kind of like a "girls night out" or whatever.

She slept on my couch, I went to work at Wawa, then went to work at the restaurant (but only for like four hours) and came home and went to sleep, and then woke up and tried to catch up on some of my TV shows. I got through all my back episodes of Sarah Conner Chronicles and watched one episode of House, but I'm still behind on that one.

And now that I've kind of wound down from the excitement of seeing Erica again and knowing that she's obviously okay, I'm kinda pissed. Not so much at her but at me, I mean, I could have been like, "yeah, way to return my phonecalls and let me know you're not dead in a ditch somewhere" but I wasn't, I didn't even bring it up.

I guess I didn't want to start a fight. I know I can be a bitch sometimes but she's pretty hot-headed too, and I was so glad to see her I just didn't even want to go there. I feel like I should have, though.

So I dunno if she was just passing through or what. I didn't even ask.

Ok so, first off, today it's been snowing all day long. I mentioned I suck at driving? I suck at driving. But driving is, ultimately, a good thing, so, I'll just have to keep doing it until I get better at it. Driving in the snow is... not really that intimidating to me. I have had no issues whatsoever thus far.

I went to the store and bought a pair of cheap non-slip black sneakers with black laces. At least I could try them on... but they're gonna come apart inside, I can totally tell. What a waste of 25 bucks, seriously. I ordered real leather lace-up shoes, too, in like four different sizes, and I'll send back the ones that don't fit, but they take three days to ship. Whatever, at least I could go to work today without getting written up again and sent right back home.

Those shoes though... I guess it sounds kind of silly but they're weird to walk in because I'm so used to my other shoes. My other shoes are really heavy, and these sneakers are really light, and it threw me off for like an hour before I really got a feel for them. Go me. I really wanted to make a case for not having to wear non-slip shoes - like I said, I don't go in the kitchen, so I'm never on tile anyway and can't slip on the carpets, so what's the point? But I know what the answer to that would be - I knew when I got hired what the uniform was, and blah blah blah. I could have gotten black shoes then, and probably no one would ever have known if they were non-slip or not, and all would have been fine. I was just being stubborn I guess.

And anyway today my manager just asked me if they were non-slip and I said yes. I've seen him make other people show him the bottoms of their shoes, but, I mean, seriously, he's got to know that I can't pick my foot up to show him anyway. But really, I was only at work for two hours anyway, because I ended up getting sent home early because of the weather. So - TOTALLY POINTLESS of me to buy those sneakers.

Whatever, I'm over that.

I've been sleeping at B's a whole lot lately. I try not to leave my stuff over there, cause I don't want to be that girl, but I've kind of been doing it anyway. He said it's okay, but I still feel kinda bad.

I guess because of the election my work was really busy. It was a really hectic day all day and didn't let up until the very end of the night. I spent almost nine hours taking names and calling names, being the coordinator. It's kind of monotonous - I just stand behind the podium and tell people how long the wait is (and they argue with me nine out of ten times. It's rare that I say a time and they just say, okay) and I listen over the headset for what tables are open and call names accordingly, and then call for other hosts over the headset to come take people to their seats.

And I get so much shit - like I said, people argue with me non-stop. I say the wait is forty-five minutes, and sure enough the person I'm talking to says to me "oh it's not really that long, it'll be shorter than that, won't it?" Well, no, it won't, or I would have said so, but, see, they're trying to trick me, they're trying to get me to say, well, maybe it will be shorter, so then they can say that it took too long for them to be seated and they want to eat for free. Or I get people who say, well, what about the smoking section? Is that a shorter wait? (There is no smoking in the whole building...) Well, we'll take a table, what's the wait for a table? (As opposed to what, exactly? The floor?) Well, I have children. (Okay, here are some crayons... seriously, you think because you're out with your kids and they're hard to control, you don't have to wait in line?) Well, I'm here with my elderly parents, they don't really have to wait, do they? My father can't stand here in the lobby, he's old, blah blah blah - SORRY, BUT, you STILL HAVE TO WAIT. I don't CARE what your story is. I cannot just snap my fingers and produce a vacant table for you, and I certainly am not bumping you in front of every other person who has been sitting here staring me down from the minute I told THEM how long the wait is.

( And I get shit from my coworkers, too. )

And I'm so sick of that job anyway I just want to scream.

So... 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...)

( I took a great big gamble and I'm still not sure if I'm winning or not )

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?

(2 Points) What work do I do?: I am a hostess in a very busy restaurant that serves somewhat substandard food and has a bar that stays open for late night drinking and snacking and such. It's probably the worst job I've ever had - doesn't pay terrible - I'd say it's about fifteen dollars an hour, really, because I make an hourly rate and then get a percentage of the sales for the evening as well. Also, usually I will roll silverware and fill sugars for the servers and they each give me a few dollars, and so I take home a little bit of cash as well. When I worked for the Coffee Co. I made minimum wage - but I liked that job better.

When I lived in Philly I worked in a print gallery and frame shop. I made about the same amount of money and that was a really, really great job. I wish I hadn't have had to leave it because I liked it so much, and I wish I could be more confident that coming here was the right thing to do. I've run out of money - I don't have any in the bank and I've maxed out my credit cards. Soon summer will be over and I won't have the income of renting my upstairs every week - I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make my bills every month on just this one job, and I still have repairs to do on the first floor of this house, not to mention furniture and stuff to buy if I want to rent both floors out next summer. It's got me pretty nervous and pretty on edge here, but I guess I just have to wait. I have to wait until the other house is zoned, and then I have to wait to be approved for another loan. If anything goes wrong with those two things, then I guess that would be the time to start panicking.

I've had other jobs - I worked in another restaurant that was more of a fine dining type place. I was a hostess there as well. I worked for an inventory company and would go to stores and count stuff in the middle of the night while they were closed. I worked in another art gallery, and I worked at the front desk of a hotel. When I was in college I worked in the dean's office for like one semester. In Philly I worked for a coffee shop too. I worked for an after school program at an art studio for a while - I really liked that job too but I had to leave because my parents needed me at home. Sometimes I didn't work. When I was a teenager I worked at a drugstore first as a cashier and then putting UPC codes into the computer system in the warehouse. My first job was working at the drive-thru at McDonald's.

Of all these jobs, the one I have now is the most trying and the most frustrating. You think I drink a lot? My job drives me to it.

I don't really drink a lot - I really am not supposed to and honestly, I don't even like to. It's more of a social thing - it just seems weird to me to be writing about how often I go out drinking when I'm not doing all that much drinking to begin with. I just like to unwind at the end of the night with other people, that's all.

I still can't believe I went to a strip club and I still can't believe how much I enjoyed it, despite being uncomfortable with being there...

That's not the source of my dissatisfaction.

So today I came home from work (I took the trolley, cause Erica did not come pick me up, cause 'we're fighting.' We have spoken since last week - it just didn't go well. Whatever. She is under no obligation to come pick me up from work every week anyway.) and went upstairs to clean up after the weekend's renters. The new ones are up there already right now. I've been really, really lucky at how well people have been keeping the place. I'm kinda scared every time I go up there that I'm going to find something missing or trashed or otherwise horrible. Basically the worst think I've encountered has been food left in the fridge. I think people leave stuff in there cause they think they're doing the next occupants a favor (or they rationalize not wanting to throw stuff out that way) but really, I can't leave it in there - you wanna rent a shore house for the week and find stuff already in the fridge? That's just nasty. But I hate throwing food away.

Strangely, beer never seems to get left behind :P

With the exception of that mystery Guinness, that is.

I was planning on then coming back down here and cleaning my own house - I really need to do that. I've been telling myself that I can live however I want, I live alone, it's not like I have a room mate who's desires for cleanliness need to be respected. It's not like it's so filthy down here that the board of heath is going to stamp and "unlivable" notice on my front door (kinda like what's posted on the door of my other house, the one I'm still stalled on fixing up because of local county BS...). If I don't mind the mess, then what's the big deal, right?

At first it was kinda relaxing not having to worry about making a mess and picking stuff up. Daniel used to be literally psycho about that kind of thing. He would throw my stuff out if I left it out. He'd do stuff like, if I left dishes in the sink he'd wake me up and make me go wash them RIGHT THEN or omg the world was going to end. I don't need to be that extreme. But seriously, people have been coming to my house a whole lot more than I ever expected, and I'm starting to understand why: one, I live right next to the beach. Two, I live alone, so there's no parents or room mates to wake up or annoy. Once people realized that I live alone and that I own this house, they seem to be really into coming over. I still don't know what to think about the percentage of people I know around here who live with their parents. My opinion on that is still pending.

I didn't clean up down here. I went to sleep instead - I just woke up.

( And the complete dissatisfaction I'm feeling is in reference to my job. My jobS. Both of them. )

Ok, I'm about ranted out now, sorry for that.

What does it say about me that I intend to spend my evening reading SPN fanfic while watching SPN?

So work last night was just... weird. I was in a kind of space-y mood, I guess, since my mind was definitely still in Philly with Krissy. I was sitting at the employee table waiting for my shift to start (I was kind of early) and Bevan sat down next to me to count his money from lunch, and he was like, "So, how was the booty call?"

I had told him, see, about how I was going to visit my ex, and how I was kind of unsure why exactly she wanted to see me so badly, and he said it sounded like a booty call. I said it didn't sound like that to me, but if that's all it was, I was game for that too.

It was not a booty call. And I told him that. So I got to be right. He asked me a little more about how it went, but as much as I wanted to talk about it with somebody, I was afraid that if I started talking about it I would just start unloading all of it right then and there, and I don't want to dump all that shit on him. So I just said that love sucks and so does breaking up, even a year after the fact, and that I really should have just stayed here and told her I didn't see the point in us seeing each other.

And then to keep him from asking me anything else I asked him how him and Jury are doing, and he said something about her turning down a summer internship thing up at Penn State because she wanted to spend the summer here, and I was like, oh shit, thats... stupid... isn't it?

Isn't it, though? She was offered an internship and turned it down so she could spend the summer with her boyfriend? And of course I can't really think about her without thinking how her boyfriend cheated on her while she was away - that didn't really bother me at all at first (although the whole situation did, and still does) but now that she's around, yeah, it does bother me. He cheated on her, and that's pretty dirty, and I like him, he's an awesome person, but at the same time, how awesome can he be if he'd cheat on his girlfriend...

This is why I don't support long distance relationships, you see. Or any relationships at all, come to think of it.

Anyway. Bevan didn't think it was stupid of her to turn down the internship.

( More work stuff, some ranting, and some of me getting all offended by stuff )

I've got some other rant-worthy shit going on at that job, and I've got some lovely "but isn't this Starbuck?" stories from my other job, too, but I'll save all that for another time, I think I've worked myself into a tizzy enough here.

Erica invited me over to "lay out" with her sometime this weekend - I am dubious about that, for several reasons. It's not that I don't want to hang out with Erica - clearly she does not find me "annoying" being that she has called me several times since we last hung out, which was only Monday anyway. I am not opposed to trying to get a suntan or anything, but I don't own a bathing suit and I have no intentions of wearing one anyway, so it might be pretty miserable and hot and sticky and nasty sitting out in the sun all day wearing... clothes. Even if I'm wearing some spiffy skimpy top, I'd say I'd probably get intolerably hot anyway. And knowing me, probably not drink enough water and get dehydrated too, or something stupid like that.

I dunno, just laying around in the sun trying to get a tan is not really something it has ever occurred to me to do, although I know people do it all the time. I'll have to think about this one a bit.

I'm not much good at hanging out with girls... I know, it sounds horrible, because I am a girl, but all the things I can think of that I might suggest we do instead are either sounding to me like a date, like "hey lets get dinner and see a movie" or are totally cliche "girl time" things, like "oh let's go to the mall and go shopping!"

...but I would definitely enjoy a trip to the mall. I've been trying to get to the mall for, like, months and months and months. But maybe she doesn't want to shop. She has no job, maybe she has no money, and that's why she wants to lay around outside, cause it's free. Hey, I don't have any extra money either, and here I am getting all excited at the prospect of spending what I don't really have. GO ME!

Girly stuff like... we could play with each other's hair - girls do that together, right?

Ok I'm stopping this, this is just getting too bizarre. Maybe she would like to watch Doctor Who with me, I'll put some eps on my laptop and bring it with me, or see if she wants to come over here. She doesn't seem to be much into sci-fi but a lot of people have been grabbed by New Who cause it's just that good, even if they're not really the sci-fi type.

Hm. I'll have to think on that one too.

Ok, well, time to assess what just may have been a poor decision on my part:

Two jobs, Lara? Really, two?

Well, yeah, two. I've got expenses, you know. I've got a huge-ass loan I'm making payments on - the way I try to justify this to myself is I've got to think of it like paying a mortgage: that is a loan, is it not? Well, I own this house, but the loan was necessary to make it possible to actually live in this house. I have credit card debt - I'm not exactly trying to pay it off, per se, because a good portion of it is all house-related things that I put on the credit card with the theory of "needing to have money to make money." I have... unpaid medical bills, too, of course - I owe money all over the damn place, and it's expensive to keep up with it all.

I have to pay the electric bill and the internet bill and the phone bill, and you know, besides that, I do buy groceries and stuff, too. I'm really bad at eating, but really, I do try to do that too. It's good for you. I have to pay people to drive me around, too - and honestly, I'm paying less than I'd be paying for gas and insurance and registration anyway. Especially for insurance. I'm expensive to insure, because I'm such a shitty driver to begin with.

SO YES. TWO JOBS.

( I babble. I don't know why I even posted all this crap )

Is it "turd" or is it "terd?" My spell check doesn't seem to recognize either one.

Whatever.

I've been sitting here staring at the wall and thinking really intently. It's that kind of night, yes it is.

So there's this girl I work with (restaurant) and I like her.

I don't mean I have a crush on her or anything. She's just a nice person. I have nothing against her, in fact, I rather like her.

She's one of those very, very, almost-sickeningly-sweet types, and I used to despise her because she seemed so fake. But it's not fake. And yeah, she might be annoying sometimes, but I gotta give her credit where credit's due: at least she's genuine. And most people aren't

She can be kind of clueless at times. I try to clue her in on things when I can. She usually doesn't listen to me. I try to pull the "older, wiser, let me explain life to you" thing with her once in a while, but it never seems to stick. She talks about her life all the time, and the boys she likes, and not getting along with her mom, whatever, the girl's a teenager. She's just being a regular teenage girl.

Of all the other idiots I have to work with, I'd take her any day.

( So I've got a whole lot to say tonight. It's not all about her, but I think I'm going to start with her. Well, really I'm going to start with me. This is MY journal, after all. )

Hmmm. I could drunk dial my ex right now... bet she would think that was fab.

But I won't, because that would be pathetic. I wonder if she thinks I'm mean, though.

Well, she probably does. Well, she thinks I'm incredibly selfish and I can't really argue with that.

That's kinda like mean, isn't it?

I totally lied about the serious business part, of course. But all my bitching and moaning about being bored out here has been satiated, for now, I think.

First and foremost, my upstairs looks a thousand times better with painted walls. Yes, they were all ugly and patch-y all winter. Now every room is a different color. I am a big fan of colored walls. It wouldn't have occurred to me, ever, except for Daniel used to paint houses as his job and he always talked about what color rooms did what kinds of things to your brain and stuff, and I guess it rubbed off on me or something, because I was determined, from the very beginning, not to have a white wall in the whole place. And I don't. It looks so great. I'm so impressed with myself. Lol yeah right. I'm impressed with my painters. I didn't do much - I hardly did anything, really. And I spent... oh, I spent about a thousand dollars. But that includes the paint, too. And really, that ain't bad.

But you see... I can see myself preparing to spend another chunk of money on something totally unnecessary. It's a piece of electronics and I WANT IT.

Not buying it, though. Not this week, anyway.

So not buying it.

( So I have neighbors, by the way )

...I can't believe there is a boy sleeping over at my house. That isn't Matt.

Does this mean that we're actually friends now?