Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Heh ebo
ebo ebonettes
"You need the key. Behind you on the shelf. Take it with you so no one walks in on you." I say that now almost as much as I say "Will that be black, or pinto? Do you want guacamole with that? No, it's extra, 50 cents." It's been a week, and as the take-out space at the restaurant is being lost due to skyrocketing rents, we are all now stuffed into smaller quarters, and us take-out counter people stand near the bathroom. The teeny tiny space I work in is about the size of my bathtub, and there are two of us, one gets a chair, the other stands all night; right behind us is the counter for packaging the to-go bags, including the deliveries. The TV blasts, the stereo blasts, the kitchen guys have their own radio, restaurant customers get confused, trying to pay me instead of their waitresses, walk-ins who can't find their way over to us without knocking over a few babies, and then there's the challenge of actually hearing the folks on their shitty cell-phones calling up for delivery. (And they never know what they want before calling, it's always yelling into some other room - "Honey, do we want salsa? Honey, do you want black of pinto?" Doesn't the guacamole come with it already?). Ugh.

During all this last night, I sunk into a depression. It stinks. I mean, not just the specifics of the job at the moment, but that overwhelming feeling that my life is just rotten, and all my life choices have been wrong wrong wrong and I am just too damn old and inert to do much about it. So as I get ready for work, and try to put on my 'happy face,' I try to stick to the short-term hope that after work, if I haven't killed or been killed, I will have a couple of beers, and maybe see a couple of familiar faces, and possibly a new friendly face or two. I'm tired of settling for sex, and it hasn't been all that good lately anyway - I would like some serious companionship, and it's tough. But the music last week was surprisingly good, which makes me cynical about tonight's possibilities. Heaven 17, Big Audio Dynamite, a tune from Malcolm McLaren's first album.... it was right out of my album collection, but better yet, amongst some nice faces and hopeful possibilities. But I must set my sights low (no, not crotch-level); just be content to make it thru another night's work, have a beer, watch the crowd, and hope they don't play too many HEART tunes.