Accepting. For Better or Worse.

As children we're taught the adults are always right. 

I was the sort of child no one wanted: energetic, inquisitive, always pushing limits and boundaries and always questioning and always a step ahead. I had a hard time deciphering right from wrong. Doesn't every child? I quickly learned that I didn't fit in, and lost interest in trying. I was never right. I was never, ever, ever right. 

And it's made all the difference.

As a child I was taught to OBEY, and that adults were always right. It's for this reason that I was 19 before I ever told my parents how my second grade teacher abused me. Even as we went to the doctor to find out why my 50 pound body's tail bone couldn't hold up my own weight, it literally never occurred to me until 20 years alter that my tail bone had probably been fractured by my teacher, who had graduated from a ping-pong paddle to adorning my backside with the thicken, solid wood big boys' paddle, filled with holes for maximum effect (they were Amish, and Mennonites, and didn't make crap paddles). I can even remember thinking how strangely lacquered it was. 

I remember that after paddling, she would always hug me and give me "this hurts me more than it hurts you nonsense," and I would stand there rejecting the hug as much as possible, my arms rigid by my sides, I was determined not to cry. 

When you're taught from a young age that you're bad, it might take a million years to discover that your teachers aren't suppose to abuse you.

One day my father told me that adults aren't always right. That I should question things. To this day I don't know what caused him to say that to me. 

Miss Mary was just a bully, of course. A horrible woman who grew to be so old and mean that, when she was a patient in nursing care, orderlies dropped her, accidentally on purpose, and broker her legs. I was shocked when my mother sent to me Miss Mary's obituary, clipped from the newspaper and tucked into a card with a note in her so familiar handwriting "thought you'd be interested to see this," to discover she was only 54 years old when she had died. As a child she seemed hideously wrinkled and ugly, and several times I look at myself in the mirror, pressing my cheeks to see if I could ever scare children the way Miss Mary scared me. I couldn't see it, but of course I was 23 years old then, and there were no wrinkles to be found. I was surprised to discover Miss Mary had been so young, because by then she'd been in the carelessly staffed nursing home for at least 5 years. She had developed a particularly nasty strain of MS and deteriorated rather quickly.

What a sad life she'd had, Miss Mary. Sad enough to be a legendary torturer of children? I'm not sure. Do I hold her memory in a sort of Dickensian wet dream where I have things as bad as some kid working in the mines?

In a culture where the highest calling was wife and mother, quilt-maker and nurturer, Miss Mary was a stout and ugly pig with nightmare breath. No one had loved her, and she'd had no children. She wore black polyester skirts with see-through knee-high stockings, a vest covering her untouched breasts. She wore a black veil over her black hair and her permanently groused unibrow. Miss Mary died a virgin, never loved by everyone, she never kissed a boy in the back seat of a school bus, never smoked weed in the woods behind school, giggling as we returned to class as though we were actually getting away with something.

She'd done everything right, and as a result her life was nothing. She hated the carefree fantasies of youth, and now she terrified children. She might have grown to caricature status in my memories but that's fine: she represents everything we love to hate. Without Miss Mary, there would be no The Wall. There'd be no rock music at all. There'd be no fun or rebellion or stories in our heads. There'd be no Professor Umbridge or Alice Cooper. There'd be none of those dreams where you forgot something stupid, and suddenly realized that your degree is a fraud, and you have to go back and you're not prepared; there'd be no panic.

Miss Mary is the hero of this story. I'm just a girl who brings your cocktails and opens the wine. At least Miss Mary had the balls to be terrible. I choose to be mediocre; I do my best, (I clean my mouth, when froth comes out I come when called) I do my best to FIT IN, I do my best to be boring. Miss Mary had a humorless fetish to terrify children. I go out of my way to smile at cashiers

because i have no balls

and i just like Miss Mary  i still care what everyone thinks. 

The Real Love of God.

I am a bleeding heart liberal. I am a heretic, and a heathen. I wasn't raised this way, and it breaks my parents' hearts. I know that, and I'm sorry it disappoints you, but it's just the way I am. 

Anyone who knows me, probably knows that I am pretty bitter about organized religion. This is another thing that breaks my parents' hearts. To be honest, I've always been rather angry with Paul for saying we had to have fellowship and therefore, go to church.

Unless a boy I was crushing on was in church, I have hated every minute of church to which I have ever been subjected. that's just how it is. I never want to go again, and it has nothing to do with God. I am actually pretty cool with God, even if I don't think he's purely logical or rational; I'm still cool with his existence. I just feel closer to him when I'm in nature,  inspecting the intricacies of a discarded walnut shell, thrown on my head by a squirrel in a park.

I just don't get organized religion, and it doesn't get me.

Recently I had a bit of a political row with my Mom, and it's been weighing heavily on my heart. I've been trying a million ways from Sunday to figure out how to try to explain my viewpoints to my mother, how I came to the beliefs I hold. I stayed up all night thinking about it. Trying to make sound arguments. Trying to explain and justify and WIN. 

And then tonight I was sitting in the quiet of my office, doing my hour or so of writing before bed, and it hit me. 

I have a memory. I have a memory of unconditional love. Of what God's love must feel like. Whether you believe in God or not, you can't deny that there are rare moments in your life when you feel unconditional love, and you know it has to come from an...ineffable place (I've always wanted to use that word, ever since reading Good Omens, and now I finally have.)

The biggest--and truly, the only--regret I have with the fact that I have chosen to remain free of the confines of organized religion is that it makes my parents feel as though they failed in some way, rearing me. And that hurts because my parents are really and truly good people. They are among the few people in my life who have never, ever seemed hypocritical in any way. 

I was saving this for my mother for Mother's Day. I will admit something right here and now: I didn't get my mother anything for her birthday. Not even a card. Merely because I am a lazy daughter. I am not saying that to get anyone to say otherwise::it's simply the truth. In my guilt I have been thinking of a way to recover my status as decent daughter for Mother's Day.

There is a moment in my life with my mother that no one knows about, except the 2 of us. I'm not even sure she remembers it. But I do. As a weird, awkward, socially deficient child, I had all kinds of problems. I was a nightmare. From kindergarten, my teachers hated me: they just didn't know what to do with me. I am pretty sure my mother gave up her career as a nurse so that she could stay home with me, and try to figure out what was wrong. I might be misremembering; that happened when I was like 6, so who knows.

Suffice it to say, I was a difficult child. I was strong willed in the way stainless steel was strong willed. I was insatiably curious, always getting into trouble, and to be sure, I had a pinch of the devil himself in me from day one.

My junior high school years were pure torment. I didn't have friends, I was an awkward mess of knees and long and skinny limbs, a pimply mess with braces and enormous red glasses. The boys in school barked when I walked by; they would spit on their fingers and rub them over my glasses. By the time I was in 8th or 9th grade, I was a dark, angry, hateful, rage-filled mess. This makes me sympathetic with school shooters. That's how angry I was. I get it. 

I don't even remember what the particular trauma of the day was, but I had been in all sorts of trouble at school and I was a knot of anxiety and anger and I was just, so, ANGRY. I couldn't understand why a god who supposedly loved me had created me to be a creature whose instincts were to to live a life floating in the clouds, daydreaming and not caring about anything, listen to Satan's music, wanting nothing but to sit in my little bathroom at home, with its dressing-room lights, trying to seriously figure out how many slices it would take for me to slowly bleed out.

I was probably 13 or 14, but I can still remember the feeling of standing in an abyss, knowing I would never measure up. I didn't care anymore. I was already weary. I couldn't make friends and boys barked at me when I walked by. I had done something at school for which I was supposed to BE IN A LOT OF TROUBLE. I don't even remember what it was, but my mom wanted to have a talk on the sofa in the living room.

I was dreading it. At 13, I had a history of ulcers and had a constant feeling of dread that lived over my head like a guardian angel at all times. I sat down on the sofa to receive my lecture and my punishment.

But that didn't happen. Instead, my mother put her arms around me, and pulled me over until my head was on her shoulder. I was too old and awkward to be coddled, and I resisted, but she held me tight in her arms. I was rigid. My mother wrapped her arms tight around me and began singing. She began singing hymns. I don't even remember what hymns. Amazing Grace sounds too cliche, but I'm sure it was in there. I don't know how long we sat there, my mother with her arms around me, singing hymns, and rocking back and forth with my head on her shoulder, like I was a baby, and singing about redemption and God's love. I remember the Grandfather clock in the foyer next to us chimed again and again. I seem to recall it was about 2 hours. At some point, my mother just singing and singing and singing, and crying, I finally felt myself relax. I finally let go. We cried forever, my mother and I, and I finally let go and allowed myself to be loved. Because of my mother's unconditional love.

That moment didn't end all of our problems. I was still a nightmare. My mother and I fought like two hyenas. I was a terrible and ungrateful child. I still am.

But I have always remembered that moment. I remember how my mother, to whom I had been so hateful and difficult, one day showed mercy and unconditional love to me. It's been 20 years, and I still remember it, but I have never told anyone, and my mother and I have never spoken of it. But I remember.

And so, Mom, please know this::the best things I am today come from you, and from Dad. When we disagree, it's all the other stuff--the people who couldn't love a difficult child, who woudlnt' take the time to look beyond a strong will. It's a million other things, but it's not you. 

I truly see my world view as coming from the love you instilled in me as a child. We're just different in how we interpret that. The best things that happened to me growing up came from you. Please believe it. 

some fiction.

It’s time to unveil everyone’s gift to Mama Lucy. It has been sitting in the middle of the lower patio: an enormous crate, like a real and true crate. A wooden one, standing about 8 feet tall, and 8 feet wide. It’s an actual wooden cube, 8 feet all around.

Ryuji is laughing. He is trying to tell Lucy she has to put a scarf over her eyes. Finally we turn her around and around and around and cover her eyes and face her away from Ryuji as he actually takes a crowbar to the crate. Until this very moment, taking a crowbar to a wooden crate is something I thought only happened in Merry Melodies cartoons. Like ACME should be stenciled on the side of this 8 foot wooden cube crate in red paint.

Ryuji moves around the boxed deftly, and Lucy has stopped struggling now. She’s quiet, barely breathing; she’s listening for the slightest clue. 

Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack, the sound of Ryuji winding the giant key at the back of the sculpture and the rest is like slow motion as I turn Lucy around and we all turn around to look and Ryuji has finished winding and he steps back, smiling and smiling and smiling, folding his hands in front of his stomach, across his sweater vest. I think he might even have a sparkly tear-like glisten in his eye.

In slow motion, the notes begin, and the dancers start, and the gears begin to turn.

Everything is stopped. No one is breathing. No one is thinking or planning or scheming. No one feels jealous or angry or confused. Everything is silent because in Ryuji’s sculpture, the notes have begun, and the dancers have started dancing, and the gears are turning, and the metal clanking and singing and striking up and around the 

The bizarre conflictions of being an introvert

You are too terrified to call someone for brunch, who already called you last week and would probably be happy to hear from you. That's just how it goes. Better to be alone, right? 

so. there's something i've never been able to explain fully to anyone. I don't know if I ever will. 

There's something really and truly creepy about writing fiction, and every time I bring it up people act like I'm crazy but the truth is when you give in to a fictional character there are things which are wildly out of your control.

for years, i was a fearful person. I was afraid of everything - flying and walking at night and being home alone and then I began writing about a girl who was fearful and suddenly she became fearlesss. 

The crazy thing is that this girl knew things i didn't know. She went places I was afraid to go. She was fearless. Mocking, even.  this girl knows every statistic. she know how to get what she wants out of any situation, and because she knows she can get something fron any situation, she isn't afraid to exploit it. 

How could I have even know there was such a thing to be learned?

re-learning

One of the proudest moments in my life came when I was about 9 years old. 

As a child, I was a pretty serious piano player. My piano teacher was one of about 3 adults (the other 2 were parents) in my formative years who believed in me - I mean, really believed in me. Really thought I had talent and skill.

I remember playing Mozart one day in lessons. We started lessons by playing something I had recently mastered, and then I suffered through all the pieces I was supposed to be learning.

I was halfway through the song and I was really playing, and Mrs. Jones looked over to my mom and quietly said 

"Wow. She can really make that piano sing, can't she?"

That is the first time I remember a non-parental adult telling me I was doing a good job.

I don't know if I'll ever get back to the skill I had 20 years ago. But...I am learning how to play again. 

How Restaurant Work Ruins Perfectly Good Waitresses for Work in the Real World

I'm sitting with my graphic designer one afternoon during my advertising agency internship and we're talking about a project we're working on when I spot an apple across the surface of his desk.

"Ooh! A honeycrisp! I'm pretty sure it's a honeycrisp, right? You have very good taste in apples. They're the best. Oh, they are so good. Five years ago you couldn't find a honeycrisp anywhere. My only disappointment lately is that - do you mind if I smell it? it's just that lately I find many apples are tainted by-"

at this point Designer is handing me the apple, his eyes wide, but he's listening. he might have mumbled "yeah, it's a honeycrisp, they are good..."

"Cork taint. That's a chemical thing, it's called TCA, I can't remember and no matter how many times I hear it I'll never remember what that stands for but anyway, it's a reaction that happens, well a mold really, something that happens when a certain mold meets chlorine. It grows in cork and ruins wine all the time. It has a smell" (and I'm sniffing the apple ferociously, at each end, and throughout the round cheeks of the apple), "(sniff) it smells like (sniff) well, (sniff), I think it smells like (sniff) I think it smells like a musty attic or (sniff) basement, but wine professionals usually call it wet cardboard.

Anyway I've been finding lately that apples are increasingly smitten with and ruined by TCA taint. People really need to stop using bleach in their processing plants. It's horrible. It's an abomination! Poor apples. They're ruined now. Unless you buy them from a farm. It's really the only way these days. Your apple though (sniff), it really seems clean. Where did you buy it? I rarely find clean apples these days, I'm always standing in the grocery sniffing all the apples trying to find the one crate that isn't infected. Well, congratulations, I think you have a clean apple!" I hand the apple back to him and he reaches his arm out to retrieve it, looking at me with a glazed sort of stare and suddenly realized that I had just demanded that someone hand their raw afternoon snack to me so that I might stick my nose all over it and put myself in his shoes and that is really horrifying.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry. My god. How gross. I can't believe I just did that. I'm so sorry. Would you like it if I bought you a new apple?"

And then I scoot my chair and push up to walk away from his desk. 

I picture him relaying this story to the other writer on our team, imagine his soft brown eyes showing the horror he had withheld from me, miming dropping the apple into his garbage bin in disgust, telling her how I put my nose all over his apple. 

In a restaurant kitchen, snatching produce from someone and holding it to your nose is completely normal. In the office, however, it's something else. Something Else Altogether.

new kitten!

you have a white tip at the end of

your long, black tail and it follows you around, telling your

mood and

everything else we need to know.

Fungus

Fungus-covered tree trunk in the Secret Garden.

Sunset over Italian Village

Walking to work.

contemplating reincarnation

I have come to the conclusion that, if reincarnation were true, the reward for a well-lived life, for an introvert, is being a cat. A spoiled house cat. A spoiled house cat who still gets to go outside sometimes and chase birdies.

I mean come on, they spend 20 hours a day napping. Sometimes they get to watch TV with you or interupt your reading and computer work, sometimes we even let them overtake our laptops and we stop working to accommodate them.

Aside from not being able to read, it's the perfect life.

this is one of those things no one will believe.

nonetheless.

last night I had a shooting pain through the left side of my head. That made me think of my mom's good friend who died of an annyuerism when I was in high school and then I laughed at myself for being a hypochodriac. 

And at that same time, my aunt was having an annyuerism and dying. 

Goodbye Aunt. I know we haven't been close lately, because of distance and growing up and all of that, but I remember you so fondly, your log cabin in Plain City, with the big fireplace in the kitchen and the curved wooden steps in front. I remember being very little and going to your baby Chistopher's funeral, I was young enough to pass by his tiny casket in my father's arms, I must have been only three. I think I reached out and touched his little baby lips. you've waited all these years missing him in your arms.

I remember visiting you and the family in Oregon, all of us cousins packed into cousin Tony's chevette - he was the only one old enough to drive. I remember how we listened to Like a Prayer nonstop. That seems a hundred years ago.

We went to the coast of Oregon and it was so amazing for my morose being - it was so cold and wet and lovely and gray with all those black lava boulders covered in mussels.

You were always so young and smiling and your family was lucky to have had you as long as they did.

I hope you are holding your baby Christopher again. I hope your family is okay without you.

the things people never want to hear.

I enjoy constructive criticism. 

As a writer, it's one of the best ways to get better. In college, I took lots and lots of writing classes. In each one, we submitted copies of our work, sent them home with our professors and classmates, and the next class we all went around in a circle and gave feedback to the writer. The process is exhilarating, especially when you are in a class with good writers.

Hearing how others would have said something a million times better, how you needlessly explained something, or made an assumption about what the reader might now about the subject, how this dialogue was great but that was lacking - these are the "a-ha" moments in the life of a reader. 

All writers know that it is incredibly difficult to self-edit. It's quite the same as cooking, really. Sometimes when you slave over a dish, you want it to be delicious so you think it is, or you try to convince yourself it's wonderful, but you aren't sure, because you worked so hard on it, it's hard to be objective.

This is why constructive criticism from intelligent peers is so important.

Is this skill still taught in the world?

I am asking, because I have found lately that people rarely want to hear constructive criticism, and they don't enjoy giving it, either. Instead, they would rather gossip about you, tearing you down until you're nothing, while never having the balls to say any of it to your face. 

I don't understand this, because criticism makes us better. I ask for criticism. I beg for it, and people don't take me seriously. Why is that? I don't have an answer. I know you love your work, and you put a lot into it, but what is the point if we don't strive to be better?

How will we ever be better and move forward if we don't have the courage to receive feedback?

Although I'm not talking about food here, I will apply it to food and chefs. Recently I have eaten in several places where there was potential - good potential - but various things had been overlooked which would have turned something mediocre into something wonderful. But chefs never want to hear the constructive criticism: their immediate reaction is that whomever is speaking doesn't know what the hell she's talking about because she hasn't been to culinary school.

No one wants to point out the nudity of the emperor. But if we continue that way, we'll never get better. We'll just keep producing the same crap over and over, and we'll go from being successful to yet another crap-generating machine.

It's this outlook on life which makes me a very tricky employee. People always think I'm trying to stir the pot when really, I just want things to be better. 

I think people get so used to playing games and trying to out-manoeuvre people that they lose their grasp on reality, and how it appears to outsiders. 

We need to learn to listen. When someone gives criticism, perhaps instead of immediately becoming defensive we should stop and pause. What are their motivations? If they are a friend who isn't a hateful, manipulative asshole, then they are probably just trying to make you better. If they love you, they want you to be as good as they think you are. We need to stop taking everything as an insult and stop being so easily offended. If I say you should double-fry your French fries, it's not because I'm being mean or hateful, it's because your fries are soggy and gross, when, if you learn to make them properly, they could be light and crispy and a thing of majesty. I do know what I'm talking about, and all of your hurt feelings won't change that. 

It's hard to decipher motives. I tend to not trust people, I'll admit it (I would change if people ever gave me reason to, but they rarely do). But if someone comes to you and sincerely offers suggestions, for once just stop and think "maybe they're just trying to make me better." Why else would they offer a suggestion? If I hate you, why would I offer a suggestion to make you better?

We all need to stop and listen to what others are saying. Just stop, slow down, and listen. Make sure you understand. Don't get offended: if they really are just being hateful, it will come out in the wash. Thank them for talking to you instead of whining about you behind your back: that takes balls; it's the grownup thing to do, and yet most people choose not to do it. Sometimes they really are just trying to tear you down so they can feel better about themselves, but stop, slow down, listen, and understand. Perhaps they really are doing it out of love. 

Maybe they really just want you to be better.

Things that are lost.

my debit card, somewhere in the detritus on my desk.
one baby bootie, with the word "dream" embroidered upon, which was in a puddle being rained on as I was walking to work.
one pair of work gloves, on top of a tanker train car, which I spied from Nationwide Blvd whilst watching said train pass from the bridge. 

Update on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 5:17PM by Lisa the Waitress

things that are found: my debit card, excavated from the wreckage of my desk. whew. not that there's any money in my checking account. but still.

The Thing About Restaurant Work is...

one always knows where one stands.

i once worked with a line cook who refused to speak to me for three years. On a staff of about 14 people, 10 of us full time, that's some serious stubbornness. 

Before The Incident, we were pretty cool with each other. we both had a wicked and dirty sense of humor and mouths like sailors (having been in the Navy, he was a sailor; I was just a Waitress). We he fell in love with the sous chef, I was the first person he told. I've always been that person - when one of our servers (who had always been a lesbian as far as everyone at work had known her) began seeing a man, I was the first to know. I can keep a secret like nobody's business - this line cook and I were friends. He was even a fan of my food blog. He read it all the time. And he was a tough guy.

But then came the night of Important Restaurant Industry Function, and Chef needed someone to take with him to help cook. I had the night off, and the kitchen was short staffed, so Chef asked if I would come. This was before I had worked in a kitchen - I couldn't work the line, but I could make duck breast all night and drink with the other chefs and smile at the guests who had paid $150 to sample food and wine. I was expendable. That's what I could never understand - I went with Chef because I was the only expendable employee that night.

But my friend the Line Cook wanted to go. He really wanted to go. Because I went as Chef's commis, Line Cook never spoke to me again. Ever. Well, maybe one time, when he was really drunk at the employee Christmas party, and I bought him beers and shots and begged him to be friends again - i think he even clinked beers with me. 

Wow. I just realized that at least 2 people at that party are dead now. It wasn't that long ago. Creepy.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make here is that this guy didn't speak to me for three years. It was a little weird, and after awhile we became very adept at communicating through others in the kitchen, and I think we enjoyed the hatred after awhile, but there was no doubt where we stood: he hated me from The Incident forward.

He didn't smile to my face and then talk trash behind my back. There was none of that. He openly and unabashedly hated me, and everyone knew it. 

You get used to that sort of thing after awhile. You get used to the passions of other people. I don't mean the things they love, I mean the drama. Fights spring out of nowhere and there are rages which flash up huge and giant and are forgotten in 48 hours.

And no one fights like restaurant people.

What most people don't realize is that most of us restaurant workers are pretty bright. There are usually more {equally worthless} degrees than servers in restaurants. The fights I used to have with Chef Chef were glorious. We were both English majors and writers, after all, and it made me sick that he was a million times smarter than I was. I was used to being right, but around him there was no winning. He was like the dad that always weirdly had to win, and yet we all loved him. 

It was usually our fault that we pushed him to win - we would never stop arguing, even though we knew we could never win. Oy vey, I still remember the night I told him to please stop talking to me RIGHT NOW, PLEASE! Oh. I was in trouble. Across the presentation counter our other Sous Chef was cringing at me over Chef's shoulder. 

That fight was a thing of beauty. 

We might fight and go through bouts of ridiculous passive-aggression but everything always sifts out in the end. You love the person you hate, because it's always fun to hate someone when you work in a restaurant. You might hide around the corner, waiting to peck their schmeckel with the giant tongs, or put the blowtorch to their ass to see how long until it starts burning. You might hate each other and still go drinking after work. You might hate each other and still go drinking after work and buy each other beers while trading barbs, because the passion of the fight is a release. It's fun to hate people. it's much more fun when everyone's involved. Hating someone to their face really isn't so bad.

It shows you at least have the balls to hate someone right out in the open. You can't avoid coworkers in a restaurant. You'll have to work together. No matter the personal feelings, you usually have to get along for the better of the whole. A nicely run restaurant is like a house of cards, and you really don't want to be the one card that blows the house down. Unless...unless you can absolutely, without a doubt, frame that asshole who hates you.