New horizons

I have a babysitting job this Saturday night! The parents are going to a Halloween party, the children will be in bed, and I'll be getting paid to read.

And it could turn into something regular.

And I am meeting another mom on Thursday to see about a potential job as well. Another mom told me she'd call last night, and hasn't, so I'm not holding out too much hope there. But.. people want me!

In other news, I open tomorrow.
Can you feel the drastic mood change?

And a change

I've come to realize in my life, based on past evidence, that when I come to a decision, I move quickly. That said, I've decided to look for another job.

Lina and I have talked about it a lot, and we've come to realize that a lot of my general unhappiness, my abounding stress, and my overall jumpy mood can be attributed to my job. It's just not a good fit for me. Not only does my bartending job not fulfill the part of me that desires to help people and be an influence in someone's life, I don't feel valued or appreciated.

I will admit, I have a horrible syndrome that causes me to believe I am capable of much more than I am, and this has caused me to do a half-assed job on things that were very important. However, I haven't done this here. I have worked and worked and worked. Training kicked my ass, but I kept at it. And the job is still kicking my ass. It's not that I can't do it. I just that I don't understand why I should continue to do it.

Of course, this decision has come after a ton of talking with Lina. Obviously I'm not going to put in my two weeks before I have something else to fall back on. But doesn't this make me look like a flighty person who can't keep down a job? Well.. maybe to some people. Lina said I would drive her crazy if she didn't know that the force behind this is my personality.

I'm looking into tutoring, nannying, and babysitting. A venue where I believe I will be appreciated for the work I do, where I'm not working forty hours a week over four days, and where I have a lot more of a say in the work I do. We'll see what happens. The current bartending situation is: today and tomorrow off. Wednesday starts a new "code," whatever that is (another reason to leave now--a lot of shit has hit the fan in the past week and no one is happy), and Saturday is an early morning mandatory meeting for all employees.

I'm sick of corporations. I need to stop trying to work for them.

And I actually think I'm going to do something about that.

Jobs jobs jobs

I am sitting curled up on the bed, eating ice cream straight out of the tub. People may rag on the Midwest, but you have to admit, it has damn good ice cream.

I don't have to leave for work for another half an hour, which is nice. But being a bartender has its drawbacks. I don't have weekends anymore. My days run together until I realize it's Friday because the restaurant is packed and people are praising the coming weekend. I smile and nod, and try to forget that I have to be there are 9am on Sunday to open. I do like the varying schedule though; sometimes I get to sleep in, sometimes I get to stay up late. The only annoying thing about that is it changes from week to week.

The other sometimes annoying thing is that I have to remind myself to like my job. These times don't happen often, usually it's after I've worked a full week and need a couple days off, but they come nonetheless.

Last week was a particularly trying week, as I had to work more hours to cover for a bartender who went on vacation, and I found myself thinking that my job was pointless. Sure, a lot of people love bartenders (Lina and I went to a newcomer's welcoming reception at the Episcopalian church we now are trying to call home, and it seemed everyone wanted to talk to me after they found out I was "tending bar" as the older men put it). And well, the people who come in to have their whiskey manhattans on the rocks no cherry don't think my job is pointless either. And I'm bringing home an income, right? So, I went on a research kick.

I am in love with the Meyers-Briggs typology indicator, so I turned to that first. I found out back when I was in high school that I am an INFJ, and I've periodically retaken the test to see if I still fall in that category. After digging around online a little, I discovered that my personality type is not driven by monetary success, and is drawn to careers that allow for creativity and interaction with other people, and INFJs enjoy analyzing relationships and working with people to develop their full potential.

There's a whole lot more to that, but basically, I discovered, I felt like my job was pointless because I wasn't helping anyone. I'm kind of back on the "right" track now though (you know, rent), and I'm looking into many possible career choices. After of course, being stable at this job for a while.

The small things

It's fall. And it's lovely.

This autumn is starting off magnificently, and I am trying to keep it as such. I haven't had a good fall since 2006 when I was just starting my undergrad degree.

A person I loved left my life, a person I would come to love entered it, and a person I probably should never have loved but did anyway would continue to complicate matters for then and for many years to come.

Fall is a complicated time for me. But there is currently a kitty curled up on my lap, and I can fully enjoy that.

Purse strings and heart strings

I've decided something: I love having an income.

I had an on-campus job when I was a student, but with the time to work only about 10-15 hours a week, if that, there wasn't a lot of money pouring in that didn't go toward rent and ramen.

When I put in my application to be a bartender, I specified that I only wanted to work 20-30 hours a week. I didn't think I could handle much more than that, at least to begin with. Well, the bar has been short-staffed for a while, so my 20-30 hours magically multiplied to full time. Some weeks it's a little more, and some a little less, but overall, I've been working a ton.

Lina, who nannies regularly for two families and picks up odd nannying jobs for another two, has also been pulling in a fairly decent amount. Now, I'm not saying that we're rich. I'm just saying that we have an income.

It's wonderful.

We can afford milk and butter that come from cows that haven't been treated with hormones; we realize over a week before rent is due that we actually have that in the bank, and that we'd already paid our other bills, and we still have some to put in saving; we don't feel guilty if we splurge a little at our favorite thrift store.

I also hadn't noticed how being a college student had made me stingy.

It's hard to share your plenty when the plenty is scarce, when "abundance" means you can buy Shredded Wheat cereal in the box and not the knock-off in the bag. I hadn't noticed how accustomed I'd become to a look out for yourself first mentality.

But now I find myself with an income. And for the first time in a long time, I find myself wanting to give. This past Sunday Lina and I visited an Episcopal church that we both fell in love with, and they have lots of ministries. And I want to be a part. I want to fill the little plastic wagon in the narthex to the brim with juice boxes. I want to pour out because I can.

Because I have an abundance.

And the party goes on and on...

"Hey, Tori, how was your birthday?"

I pulled up short, looked around the bar, and spotted the friendly regular who had bought me and my two friends shots of Patron for my "birthday" a few days previously.

"It was great!" I said, stammering in my head. I busied myself and walked away quickly. I'm a horrible liar.

But, the bar is set up in a circular form, and it wasn't long before I was back in front of him again, still holding the bar rag that I was cleaning with.

"Was your Patron good?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah, it was great. Thank you so much." I neglected to tell him that the bartender I work with poured us all rather large shots of Patron, and I definitely had a hard time finishing mine. I also neglected to tell him that I didn't finish it, but rather poured the last little bit into my water glass (I hear that Patron is amazing tequila, but I like my tequila in a margarita).

"I was gonna keep them coming for you."

"Oh yeah, sorry about that, we had to leave."

"Really? Where did you guys go afterward?"

"Home."

"Home?"

Oops. Bad answer.

"Oh yeah, home. We hadn't seen each other in months so we caught up. And made more drinks, of course!"

See? Bad liar. I walked away quickly again and was met by a couple on the other side of the bar who said they were playing a game about guessing how much I weigh. What is it with these people?

Party like it's your birthday

Creepy comment of the week award goes to a stringy-haired man likely aged in his mid fifties who told me I was cute, and that if given the chance he would adopt me as his daughter because he "doesn't have a daughter, just two sons."

Thank you creepy man, for creeping me out.

I am curious though, are people in the midwest heftier? Maybe it's all the German blood and bratwurst they consume, but I haven't really noticed any additional heft here that isn't present in any other communities. The reason I bring this up, is that since moving, I have received an unremarkable number of comments about my size. I am tall, and fairly slender, but I'm not gaunt or anything that I feel would warrant a comment. But an unprecedented number of patrons comment on my size at work.

This just leads me to say that a regular was in yesterday (on a particularly windy day), and he commented that he wasn't sure if I would make it in to work because of all the wind. I'm assuming he meant because I'm so small I would get blown away.

The evening was fairly busy, and even with four bartenders, we were all running around. Life didn't start to calm down until well after happy hour ended. Then, Lina and one of our really good friends we haven't seen since May showed up to at the restaurant to surprise me. I was a middle shift last night, so when they showed up and we got slow, they went ahead and cut me so I could eat and hang out with them.

After chilling out over dinner, we decided to order a kids dessert, and when one of the bartenders I was working with that night brought it out, he had rounded up the rest of the servers in the restaurant and, gathering around me clapping, they began singing our restaurant's version of Happy Birthday. He cut in and began singing "Hey, Shorty, it's your birthday, party like it's your birthday."

The great part is that it was not my birthday, and earlier that night I'd won points with this bartender for telling him that he should pretend to be a tie fighter for the night. He asked the only other female bartender who works there if she knew what a tie fighter was, and he received a blank, confused stare. Thank you, previous boyfriend of mine, for making me learn the Star Wars fighter crafts.

Due to the eight people surrounding me singing Happy Birthday, the rest of the bar was efficiently clued in to the fact that it was my "birthday." Next thing we know, a semi-regular at the bar bought all three of us shots of Patron.

This is after one of the other bartenders accidentally began making a drink that he didn't realize had already been made, so he brought the extra over to our table. The drink was pink and fruity, and tasted great. For the rest of this story, it should be noted that this bartender is gay:

The visiting friend commented when the bartender came over to the table, "This tastes like girl in a drink."
"I shall call the drink 'Vagina,' then," he replied.
"Well, you do Vagina's very well."
"I don't do Vagina's often, but when I do, I do them right," he said.