Day 11 (music: Odd Hours)

Day 11: Something people seem to compliment me the most on.

Most of my compliments tend to be on specific abilities - I'm a good writer, a rock star in the kitchen, good with my kids, etc. More general compliments range from my hair and eyes to my tattoos to my creativity at coming up with insults to my taste in music. My cousin Ross suggested writing this entry about my vocabulary and knowing when to use it. I think I'm going to generalize that a little more and go with intelligence.

My dad gets a lot of credit for me being smart. He had me reading the newspaper by the time I was three. He let me read every book I could get my hands on - I read Lonesome Dove in third grade, in its entirety, only pausing once to ask Dad what a whore was (wish I could remember his answer, lol) - and thoroughly encouraged my love of reading. I read the encyclopedias we had at home. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I'd read the labels on soaps and shampoos and shaving creams while I was using the toilet.

Sadly, I didn't manage to apply what I knew about protective coloration, and thus helped make life hell for myself during grade school, like I blogged about before. As a result, by the time I hit puberty (early, which really didn't help me any), I hated being smart. I hated that I got A's without even trying at that school. I just wanted to be like everyone else, just another anonymous face in the crowd.

Concord helped me lighten up on myself a little bit. It was okay to be smart there, and my love of reading and writing was definitely encouraged. Something else too - none of my standard public school teachers had understood why I had such a hard time with math when I was so good at English. Math was the only subject I struggled with. At Concord, they didn't question it or imply that I was faking it like they did at HSMS. They just helped. Of course, I had to take beginner's algebra four years in a row to finally pass it, but I passed it, and passed geometry on my first try. That school was great for me. It let me shine, any way that I wanted to. I did drama and loved it. I wrote papers so long that a maximum word limit was actually imposed for me at one point. They let me be a smart ass and use all my vocabulary words (twenty) in two or three very long but grammatically correct compound sentences. When I hit high school, got moody and depressed, and decided to be a dark star rather than a bright one, they let me do that too. The phrase "expressing him/herself" gets a bad rap a lot of the time, because of crappy parents that use it as an excuse not to discipline their children. I'm saying it needs to be taken back. Concord let me - indeed, it let every student - express myself/ourselves in whatever way we could.

Now that I'm pushing 30, I've developed protective coloring. I can adapt my vocabulary to my surroundings quite easily, and I will admit to taking a devilish glee in allowing people to underestimate me at first, then smoking them with my intelligence, just for the reaction.

So yeah, that's all I've got.

Day 10 (music: The Dissension)

Day 10: Someone I need to let go, or wish I didn't know.

UPDATED: The balance on the debt has been squared and this person hopefully will refrain from attempting to contact me or further attempts to smear my character.

I'm pretty good at cutting toxic people out of my life, so that excludes the first part of this topic. Anyone I need to let go has already been excised from my life. So that leaves someone I wish I didn't know. And I know just who that is.

I went on a mini-rant earlier today on Facebook. Here's the text, copied and pasted:

"You judgmental chickenshit little jerk. Next time you want to run your mouth around town about me about shit that isn't true just to make yourself look better, to one of MY friends, have the huevos to speak it to my face when I see you in town and not pretend like you're all engrossed in your phone call. Kiss my ass...oh wait, it's been so long for you you probably wouldn't have the vaguest idea of how to pucker. Here's a protip - purse your lips like you're sucking the life out of another "friendship" like the one you pretended we had while you ripped me off. And don't think for one second that I'm gonna let your comment about one of my brothers slide. That shit still pisses me off. Get off your ass and make things right, you whiny lying little bitch."

Here's the filled-in details. I've blogged before about this guy. Since then, it's come to my attention from a few unnamed sources that he's been saying that he loaned me all that change, not that it's payment on a two year old debt. Seriously? So insecure that  he couldn't admit that he not only owed me money, but paid in pennies? And to run around telling that to people I'm friends with too? Honestly, I'd be laughing if I wasn't so irritated. Give it a year, and I will be.

Anyway, that back history in mind, I head up to the grocery store today, fairly neutral mood, you know, keeping my mind off the fact that it's Sunday and Sundays will always suck for me, just looking to get stuff to make tacos for dinner and check the price on cut flowers for my next visit to the cemetery. I went by the gas station afterward for smokes and was talking to my favorite cashier there, Devin. We were talking tattoos, I was talking Nigel up, had my phone out to show him some examples of Ni's work, when douchebag walks in. We locked eyes. He rushed out real quick after he paid. It got me pissed off all over again.

I wish I'd never met him. I don't see where his presence has added anything to my life, save reinforcing my already virulent loathing of hypocrites and people who claim to be Christian while spouting hate rhetoric and lying. And honestly, that didn't need reinforcing. Had it not been for him, I wouldn't be sitting here steaming about how he still owes me well over $100, how I was dumb enough to let myself get suckered into believing his hyperbole, spend Jeremy's entire vacation working for what looks like for free now, etc. I wouldn't have to realize the fact that there is one hypocritical lying sack of shit in my acquaintance who will gladly tell people all about how his god sends gays to hell. His life tends to balance more towards "fail" than "win." And I really think karma's starting to do its thing - his store's out of business, he's working at the dollar store now, and he couldn't even stand and try to explain why he's spouting lies to my friends when I saw him today. What's the matter, dude? Scared of a little five foot tall girl? Or scared of what I'll say? Do you have any idea how close I was to making you look like an ass at the gas station? The only thing that stopped my mouth before it could blurt out everything I've posted about you is that I'm an adult now, and I'd hate for poor Devin to feel massively uncomfortable because that girl who's always in there buying Camel Menthols just went off on another customer like a crazy person.

I hope your car breaks down. I hope you get evicted. I hope when you die you get a great lecture from whatever entity is waiting for you, one that's all about how your place in hell or heaven or wherever is determined by your character and not by whom you've been fucking.

Every asshole I've ever met and had in my life has taught me something. I try to take the bad shit and make a lesson out of it, let it somehow shape my character in a good way. But you? You're a void. There's nothing minutely redeeming about you. You've done nothing to make me a better person. Every time I remember your offhanded comment about how my brother was going to hell for being gay, I see red, I wish you emotional suffering ten times worse than what my family and Scotty's friends have gone through since we lost him. I'd punch you in the face if you weren't smaller than me - it just doesn't seem fair to hit someone who's shorter than I am. I fucking hate moral high horses, but in this case I think mine's legs are a little longer than yours.

And like I said earlier, kiss my ass.

Day 9 (music: Silverchair - Neon Ballroom)

Day 9: Somebody you didn't want to let go, but just drifted.

My friend Buddy. This is a no-brainer.

Budz and I met back in eighth grade. He was one of my mom's students - dyslexic. He had this gorgeous singing voice that made me want to shut up everyone else in choir so I could listen. Listening to him sing Brahms' Lullaby gave me chills.

I think I've mentioned before about how I had my core group of friends during high school. Two of them were guys - my friend J down in Texas. The other was Buddy. My parents liked him. He'd come over after school for Mom and I to help him with his homework. After a couple years, he even started spending the night at our house.

When my brother Trav was in a coma in the hospital following a car accident, Buddy told me to page him every day with any updates, no matter what. And to page him if I needed anything. He was at the hospital visiting Trav every day. He'd scrape one of his car keys on the soul of little brother's foot, point at Trav's toes curling, and say "Look, I think they curled even more!" He came out, spent the night, and brought his guitar one of the nights both my parents spent at the hospital, and played and sang for me. We even sang together - "Hotel California" if I remember correctly - as his last ditch effort to get my mind off the fact that my brother was in PICU in a coma and had been for days.

We both fell into the underage party scene during what would have been our junior and senior years of high school. One party comes to mind in particular. I had had way too much to drink, ran for the bathroom, started puking, and passed out with my head in the toilet. Budz came to check on me, saw me there, carried me to a bedroom, and sat there all night holding me just to make sure no one tried to mess with me while I was unconscious.

We lost track of each other around the time I hit 18. He'd pop up at random every six months or so, and it would be like we'd just seen each other the other day. And then, a four year silence.

When I was 23, he called me out of the blue one day, said he needed to talk to me. I lit a cigarette and settled in for a good long chat. What I heard made me feel both extremely upset and extremely flattered at the same time, if you can imagine that dichotomy.

Budz had had some issues with depression. He finally couldn't handle it any more. He began a suicide attempt - I didn't inquire as to the method, but judging from what he said, it was either cuts or pills - and then stopped and called 911. Why?

"I'd done it, I was ready to be done with all this shit. Life sucked. And then, all of a sudden, I saw you there, standing in front of me, telling me if I did this you were gonna be so pissed you'd kick my ass. It was so clear - like you were actually there."

He went on to tell me that he had a "thing" for me, and to inquire if I would want to go out on a date sometime. He's a friend, a good one. I had to tell him the truth, that I was in love with Jeremy, couldn't date anyone else, didn't want to go on a date out of friendship and sympathy's sake and hurt him worse in the long run. He accepted it well, but told me, "you know no matter what, you'll always be my girl, my little sweetheart, right?"

Coming from anyone else, I would have either verbally or physically laid them out for calling me "little sweetheart." But Budz...there was no condescension present. It's just how he talks. I agreed. I'll always love him, though in a big brother way. And I miss him.

He turned up again a few months later, after Jeremy and I had been together for three months, and about two weeks after I'd found out I was pregnant with Matthew. He stopped by the house and visited, and then we went out for coffee the next day. After that....

I've seen him a few times, all when he worked at Subway.

I miss him. He was my friend at a time when I was massively insecure and didn't have very many friends. He was my adopted big brother. We used to tell people we were twins born eleven months apart. He was always there for me, no matter what kind of existential bullshit teenage crap ego drama I was going through.

Buddy, I know you're not reading this. But I still love you. You're my big brother, and you always will be.

Day 8 (music: Harry Nilssen - The Point!)

Day 8: Someone who has made your life hell, or treated you like shit.

As a general rule, anyone who makes my life hell gets cut out of it pretty quick. However, in the interests of truth and in the spirit of this challenge, time to rip open another old scar. Here goes....


This guy I worked with at City Park. Let's call him E. Douchebag.

He seemed pretty cool when I hired in. Complimented me on my clear handwriting and accuracy on labeling everything. Also made a point out of hitting on me and using some of the cheesiest pick up lines known to mankind. Example:
me: (working on some sort of prep. Well-known at that point that there is no man in my life at that moment in time. Also well known to anyone with half a brain that I've got a massive crush on Jeremy)
E: So, uh, let me know if you ever feel the fire...
me: huh wha??
E: Cuz I always wanted to be a fireman...
me: (eyebrow raised in slight confusion)
E: And put the fire out, heh heh.
me: (shudder)

Was he joking? Maybe. I don't know. It didn't seem like it. And in any case, he obviously isn't, wasn't, and would never be my type. I'm not a big fan of super scrawny dudes that tend to look like praying mantises when they're working, just not my thing. I'm also not a fan of afros on white guys. But that's just me. And a major turn off for me is condescension. Even when he was trying to be nice, he was still condescending.

I got sick of the condescension and the godawful attempts at flirting, the sob stories about how he was "deprived," and called his bluff. Not the most political move, but a classic one for me: I offered to talk to his wife and see what the trouble was, why he felt the need to hit on girls at work. Then I left for the day. I'd been home for about five minutes when the sous chef called and started bitching me out for "picking on E." What. the. hell. Really?

Things went downhill after that. They got even worse when I started dating Jeremy. Then I got pregnant with Matthew and he turned into mega-dick. Bullying, yelling, telling me I "smelled pregnant" - dude, I smell like mint-basil shampoo and deodorant, and quit sniffing me, you creeper. Telling me I needed to not run around the kitchen because I would "give that baby brain damage." Making me haul fifty pound bags of water-softener salt down the basement stairs. Telling me to do something one way, then when I did it, change his mind on how he wanted it done and ask me if I was "fucking stupid or something." Screw you, I did it your way in the first place.

It got worse while I was pregnant with Jonah. He'd come in in a foul mood and throw the whole kitchen off, especially after he made kitchen manager. I was eight or nine months along when he ordered me to clean up the raspberry coulis that had spilled in the dessert reach-in. I was pulling the racks out so I could give it a good scrub when he looked in, looked me dead in the eyes, and said "Yeah, it looks like an abortion in there."

After I came back from recovering from my c-section and tubal ligation, I'd put in repeatedly for a transfer back from prep and occasional line to full-time line. Especially for the lunch line position that opened every summer. I never got it. Come to find out he blocked me repeatedly. Chef felt bad for me, so he made sure that I only had to do prep and occasional line and not help the dishwashers unless I wanted to.

E was pissy one night, shortly after he MADE ME WORK ON JONAH'S FIRST BIRTHDAY RAGE RAGE RAGE, and decided to pull the dishwasher out of the tank and pull me off prep and punish me by making me do dishes. Why? There were supposed to be two guys in the tank that night because we were going to be busy, and one of them didn't show. My buddy Steve was working salads that night. We broke $8000 in sales. I was swamped. I was so pissed though that I kept up. Steve still kept trying to come over and help me when he had time, but every time, E would yell at him to get back on the line. I was livid by the end of the night. Never mind the fact that he'd gone against what Chef wanted. Never mind the condescension, the verbal abuse, the fact that he made me haul salt while I was pregnant - I had to get a note from my obstetrician to make him stop with that, after I started bleeding from the heavy lifting, and he made a point of calling the doctor's office in front of me to make sure it was a real note - he screwed up big this time. I was over it. I was already working at Ill-Lusion. I didn't need Shitty Park.

I went in the next morning and told Chef I quit. When he asked why, I didn't pull any punches. "Because E's a dick and I can't handle the way he treats me."

I had multiple sitdowns with managers while I was employed there. Jeremy tried setting the douchenozzle straight. Nothing worked. I had to walk. He had me so stressed I was grinding my teeth in my sleep. And how dare he say shit about my kids being born brain-damaged? It was a well-known fact that he never wanted kids, and he'd loudly talk about how people who chose to have children were stupid around me and the other pregnant employees.

Fuck him.

Day 7 (music: The Dublin City Ramblers)

Day 7: Someone who has made my life worth living.

There's a few people. My support system - my parents, Jeremy, Betina, my sister, Trav, Diddy...the people I feel comfortable texting no matter what kind of crazy shit goes down. My kids, because they're smart, loving, happy, hyper little boys that seem to know exactly when I'm down and need a hug or a kiss, and because watching them grow and learn is just way too cool. Makes me want to be around longer, so I can watch them do the same with their kids.

Sorry, this is another short entry...Michael Collins is on, and even though it's not St. Patrick's Day anymore, thanks to the blessing of birth I'm Irish all year round. :D Much love, and don't drink the green beer. Try Jameson's.

Day 6 (music: McDermott's 2 Hours vs. the Levellers)

Day 6: Something I hope I never have to do

Call me superstitious, but I won't go into great lengths on this one. I don't want to draw any bad luck, and I don't even like speaking of these things, so I'll just make a list.

*stay in a homeless shelter
*see my kids in the hospital
*bury my children
*lose another sibling
*go deaf
*become braindead

Sorry for the short post. That's all for tonight.

Day 5 (music: P!nk)

Day 5: Something I hope to do in my life.


This one's a no-brainer. There's a few answers to this.

I hope to see my children and their children graduate from college. Especially because I didn't go, and while I don't think I would have done things any differently if I went back in time, I want my boys to have a better life. No public assistance, higher earning potential right off the bat, etc.

And, I hope to be a sous chef in a high-end restaurant. Somewhere between Sage and Le Bernadin, quality-wise.

Why not an executive chef or chef de cuisine? Easy.

I don't mind having some responsibility on the job. I've trained several people over the course of my career thus far, and it's fun, provided they aren't giving me attitude for being a small, young-looking female, and provided they aren't being deliberately dense or slow in order to make me do all the work (you'd be surprised how many people pull that one). I can make a game plan, I'm great at delegating tasks, etc. But, I'm also being realistic. Most places of the caliber I want to work at will not have a boss chef without a culinary degree, and most of them prefer some sort of classic European training. I have neither. I have a steady hand, decent knife skills and speed, focus like a laser, loyalty to my kitchen, and a big heart which I can also harden when absolutely necessary. I can come up with ideas for specials and such, but a whole menu? Probably not. At least not at this point in the game, and to be honest, cooks start getting slow and physically burnt-out once they hit their 40's. The heart is there but the physical strain wears your body down. I'm close to 29. I've only been doing this since I was 18, 16 if you want to count the deli. So, not even fifteen years in. I have very little sensation in my fingertips (as discussed in a prior post). I have back issues at times - the muscles that run along the right side of my spine are more heavily developed than the ones on the left, which causes some back pain when I need to exert both of them. Also, my spine is curved a little more than natural toward my lower back, but not enough to be scoliosis. Throw in the severely flat feet and that's a recipe for a lower back ache. I have ruptured veins on the sides of my feet and the backs of my calves. I have enough burn and knife scars that I've had a few different doctors try to put me on antidepressants, thinking that I was self-mutilating. (Note: My current doctor worked back of the house restaurant jobs - meaning cooks, dishwashers, porters, etc - while he was in college, so when he saw my arms, in particular one scar running partially down my forearm from a hot saute pan, and my hands, he checked my file again and said, "Oh, a cook, huh?" and proceeded to tell me about the night he was allowed to fill in on grill. Great guy. Awesome doctor. I would have loved him for that alone, lol.)

With that in mind, the other reason I'd rather be a sous chef is to stay closer to the heart of what it is that drew me to this crazy business in the first place: the cooking. Saute or grill, pantry, apps, desserts, even expediting or garnishing. As long as I have something to do with those plates before they go out the door, I'll feel happy. Food is my art. I'm not much of a dancer, I can't draw or paint or sculpt, and you really don't want to hear me sing a capella (although if there's music to sing along with I'm all right), and I don't play any instruments anymore, but I can plate. I can draw your pretty, intricate designs with a toothpick, dabbing miniscule droplets of raspberry coulis onto a backdrop of creme anglaise, pulling the pick through to create hearts or Victorian-looking swirls and curlicues, even something resembling lace if I have the free time. That's my way of creating beauty, and it's a little more precious to me because I know it won't end up in a museum on display. I make it, I survey it with a critical eye, I place it on the pass gently - and then it's whisked onto a tray and carried out to you, the customer, where it will be devoured. And whether you realize that food presented in an aesthetically-pleasing manner actually tastes better (you eat with the eyes first), or whether you don't buy it, it's true.

At heart, I'm a cook. Give me a place on the line, my knives, and access to the coffee pot when I have time. That's all I want. That's all it takes to make me come home satisfied with my day's work.