Sunday, May 29, 2005

I am an oppressed cocktail waitress

I work in an oppressive fascist bar. I wasn't trained, I was put through a two week program that borrows its philosophy from correction institutes. This place breaks you down and does a really shitty job of building you back up. I have nicknamed each of the owners already... Hitler, Stalin, Dr. Phil and Bono. (Sorry, I'm not a fan of Bono. Rockstar turned politician tool. Hence the nickname for the prettyboy waiter turned bratty co-owner. Neither of them do a whole hell of alot in the grand scheme of things, but they are damn good at being as cool as they possibly can.)

New Girl Bootcamp Schedule

Day one
:
You are nothing. You are the new girl. You don't know how to make drinks. You have no clue how to serve tables. You don't even know how to hold a tray. This is how you have to hold a tray. This is how you greet people. This is where you stand. This is where you walk. This is how you kiss the owners' asses.

And everything I am telling you, you won't remember because you are the new girl.

Day two: You are not the new girl, you are a new girl. You are the sixth girl I have trained this week. It's sink or swim in this bar and some of you will drown. Serve a table and I will follow you and watch you fuck up. Now, serve another table New Girl, and I will smoke this pack of cigarettes, flirt with my boss and collect the tips you earned for me.

Because I am a higher being and you, lowly cretin, are nothing but a New Girl.

Day three: No more sympathy New Girl. This is your last chance to watch me, the Goddess of Waitressing, and learn as much as you can. You are not permitted to touch anything, but watch and learn. Tomorrow you will be on your own and you must know everything by then. You must strive to be as perfect as me, the Goddess of Waitressing. I can see that you have potential, New Girl. If you are lucky, I will tell you some of my Waitress Goddess secrets to help you rise above the other peons.

New Girl, until you attain perfection, I will treat you like a punching bag.

Day four: You are on your own now. If you have questions, you will get in my way. If you fuck up, the owner will shoot you and carve out your heart and put it with the rest of them in the beer room. I will yell at you and degrade you in front of as many people as possible. At the end of the night, I will compliment you. But that's rare. Remember that.

You still are not worthy.

Day five: I will glare at you. I won't say anything, but I will glare at you.

Learn to fear the Goddesses and the Holy Owners, New Girl.

Day six: This is New Girl Night. I bet you all will lose money tonight. I bet you all will fuck up the credit cards. I bet you all will piss off customers and all I will do is say "I told you so". At the end of the night, a Holy Owner will give you a review of your performance.

You, New Girl, come here. You, unlike the other ones are a competent server and you made good tips. However, you must learn to not ask questions, you must figure it out for yourself. If you ask a question, ask a Waitress Goddess and then she won't tell you the answer and then tell me, Holy Owner #4, how dumb you are. I don't care if the question is about something we haven't told you yet, but have a specific protocol for how it must be done.

We, as the Holy Owners, don't want you to succeed. You are nothing and you will learn to understand that.

Day seven: You will cry. You will be told how dumb you are, how useless you are, and then you will cry. The bartender will tell you that he wants to cry after work. The bartender will tell you that you didn't fuck up too badly, that you will be fine. The bartender will defend you when a Waitress Goddess attacks you.

A Holy Owner will soften slightly and admit that he is hard to work for. Then he will tell you to come in tomorrow, absolutely perfect, and all will be right.

--

For the first time in my 5 years of work experience, I like the customers far more than the staff. How sad. If I last at this bar, I will never treat a new girl like shit. Ever.

Friday, May 27, 2005

i said to my friend yesterday
i wished i never met someone
not out of bitterness
but because i realized that everything i learned from him
i already knew

i said to my friend today
i didn't know what i was talking about
hind sight is always 20/20
an old ex told me that years ago
i already knew that too.

rent a flat above a shop
cut your hair and get a job
smoke some fags and play some pool
pretend you never went to school
'cuz when you're laid in bed at night
watching roaches climb the wall
if you called your dad he could stop it all

yeah.

Friday, May 20, 2005

Meet a Reader! Volume 3.

The freshest and spankiest edition of Meet a Reader! is here, featuring a reader from the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia!

This reader was increasing his or her knowledge at an institution for higher learning by Googling "pictures of wedgies". Not thwarted by Google's helpful suggestion to use Google Image Search, this reader scrolled down and discovered the fabulous I Plead Sanity, complete with a picture of a skirt with a picture of a wedgie. We can only hope that I Plead Sanity will continue to further more students' university level educations.

Editor's note:

Scanning the university's website, I quickly learned why someone would google wedgies at a university. The Thomas Jefferson Unversity is polluted by crazy American philosophies, leaving no room for real learning. An example of real learning is what I get at the Concordia Theatre Department. Real learning at the university level can be attained by flopping around on the floor wearing sweatpants trying to "really feel" what it is like being a platapus.

The following quote is from the "Emergency Preparedness" section of the university's website.


"In reaction to our nation’s alert status, and current world events, Thomas Jefferson University and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital have taken steps to support you and our campus community during these times of heightened concern. When government officials raise the national alert status, they are telling us to be more aware and vigilant. Information is the key to awareness, and increased information enhances our vigilance. Therefore we encourage you to visit and read the sites we have provided on this page. Each site is designed to help us cope with our present situation, and to support us, should our community experience a hostile act. Bookmark this page now, and refer to it often as you prepare to protect yourself and loved ones."

What a load of shit.

Meet a Reader! is made possible by
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Monday, May 16, 2005

Lions and Cats and Kittens... OH MY!

Retarded cats are mating in my living room. Rather, the male is trying to rape his sister. The gene pool is already pretty pathetic for these two beasts and their litter is going to be even worse.


mating11

Yes, Bob Barker, I will get my cats neutered and spayed but the job I just acquired is not paying me for training. So as soon as I make some tips, I will dutifully follow your famous instructions. Until then, my days will be spent peeling a horny cat off his traumatized sister who clearly has not sexually matured yet. Or maybe she just views fucking her brother as morally wrong.

Either way, I feel bad for her... if I had a brother I would have a huge problem with him constantly trying to jump me.

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Seven... or Hungover and Feeling Philosophical

My problem is that I have been persecuted by an integer. For seven years this number has followed me around, has intruded in my most private data, and has assaulted me from the pages of our most public journals. This number assumes a variety of disguises, being sometimes a little larger and sometimes a little smaller than usual, but never changing so much as to be unrecognizable. The persistence with which this number plagues me is far more than a random accident. There is, to quote a famous senator, a design behind it, some pattern governing its appearances. Either there really is something unusual about the number or else I am suffering from delusions of persecution.
-George A. Miller

The doctors told my mother that I was supposed to be born on September the 7th. I was born on September the 17th at 12:47 pm. I am my maternal grandmother's seventh grandchild. My middle name is Septima. Septima has 7 letters.

The seventh chakra is located at the top of the cranium and it is supposed to be *my* chakra, according to Mayan astrology and a pagan tarot card deck.

Seven intrigues me, and I see it everywhere. This makes me wonder if letters, words, numbers and other images humans have created, might have a deeper significance. We have created so many symbols to express ourselves and to describe our experiences. What if these symbols choose us, rather than us choosing them. I am in love with so many words, I am haunted by a number and I know many people who have similar experiences.

Or maybe this just a vain attempt to make sense of the world. Maybe it's just a little coincidence that the seventh song on my cds are always my favorites.

---

Today I went for a walk and I ended up under a beautiful, old tree. Standing there I did two really wonderful things. First, I apologized to myself. I apologized for accumulating piles and piles of shit for two full decades. Then I listened to the silence around me, building up the courage to break it. I needed to scream. I opened my mouth a few times and nothing came out. It was close. Then something finally switched on and I screamed. The silence that came after my little release was so gratifying. It was silence that had somehow been changed after listening to my scream.

I don't scream enough. So it's no wonder I find myself where I am today. I feel that the only thing I have done so far in my life is collect as much bullshit as possible and then keep it all bottled up inside. So, the best thing to do right now, is to start letting it all out.

Screaming today was great. I freed a bit of myself. I got a bit lighter today under that tree. I think everyone should scream a little more often. Go outside, find a magical spot and scream at the space around you. If your scream releases anything, I bet you will find that the space you just yelled at has listened to you.

When you say the right words at the right time or when your voice manages to express the right emotion, it is a really fulfilling experience. Today, I chose a scream to make myself heard.

---

Those two stories seem entirely unrelated but I think I can link them in a really profound yet simple way: We can choose a language to express ourselves and a language can choose us in return. I'm really fascinated with words and letters and numbers and how and why we choose the ones we do. But I also think that some of them choose us. That makes communication and expression all the more significant.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Meet a Reader! Volume 2.

The first volume was never called as such. Besides, I think it creates that special shroud of mystery if you just start at a number other than 1. Maybe there will be some clammering over who knows about the elusive first edition of Meet a Reader!. This could be the stuff of a legacy. Or just the kind of stuff that drowns in the world wide web.

Our featured reader is somebody from Concordia's Department of Fine Arts. I had a nightmare last night that my TA read my blog and added me to his MSN and tried to be friends with me in a really creepy way. "If you won't be my friend, I will lower your grade." It might be my TA, it might not. Either way, I find it odd that someone sitting at a Concordia fine arts computer was reading my blog at 11pm on a Monday night.

Meet a Reader! is made possible by

Statcounter.com
More addictive than heroin.
(to the folks at statcounter: if you wish to use the slogan "more addictive than heroin" just send me an email at queenprocrastinate at hotmail dot com and we can work out a deal.)

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Waiter Rant

I posted a link a while back to Edwin Decker's Sordid Tales of a Bartender in Heat. In the midst of my unemployed frenzy, I came across another equally, if not more, exciting website that educates the common folk of what it really means to work in a restaurant. Waiter Rant is hilarious. And awe inspiring. God, I sound like a bartender groupie. How sad.

Montreal permitting, I will soon have my own bar stories to tell. Actually, who am I kidding... I just need to get off my ass and hand out the stack of resumes I have sitting in my bedroom.

Astral Projection

I was supposed to go out last night but I forgot. I went home after rehearsal, ate some dinner and then went to bed. I woke up at five in the morning with a killer hangover. I have had more than my share of hangovers and I can safely say that I felt very hungover. Disoriented state, swelled head, heavy body, pounding skull, slight nausea... you know.

My only explanation is that while sleeping, I astral projected myself to a bar and got hammered.

Then I got out of bed and stole my neighbour's newspaper.

My horoscope says "Things look darkest before the dawn".

I think my life is really cool.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Super Cool Radical Something

I want. I want. I want.

Ferret

Screw the kittens. I want a drumming rockstar ferret.

Summer '05 Chronicles Issue 1: Franco-Dragon Ruled Mutant Land

I went all the way to the eastern end of the island... Bout de L'ile or some such unoriginal name for the end of the island. It is the land of the mutants. Fire spouts into the sky. Whole towns teeter on edges of quarries. Noone stepped past 1999 fashion. The mutants just said NON! to the new millenium.

I will elaborate. I went to the end of the island because my friend made me. Apparently if you go as far as you can to the edge of the island (so close you can smell Trois-Rivieres) you will be enlightened. So we played on the traintracks for a bit and I made him really nervous by lying down smack in the middle. Then we almost hopped a freight train to god-only-knows-where-land. But I was wearing Birkenstocks, so we didn't. I had a feeling that my hippie-tofu shoes are not the type of shoes for a train adventure. Then we got back on a bus and I was home about 2 hours later.

About the fire spouting into the sky. That is true. There is a massive amount of land marked off by barbed wire fences and within that area lies a scary mass of metal and towers and light. And smell. It smells really really bad. Every so often there is a super skinny tower that reaches higher than all the others and it spews fire into the sky above. To enhance your reading experience, imagine a "bulemic over-acheiver". I went to high school with one of those. I am sure you did too.

The eve I was there, I saw about 5 different fire-breathing towers. Before I saw those mythical towers, I believed in the legend about the francophone dragon who dwells in that region. A dragon that breathes flame upon anything with an English influence. A dragon that would eat an Anglo but would let a tiny, plastic mini-golf "course" live beside the highway remain. Stupid Franco-Dragon.

Now I accept that it is not a Franco-Dragon, but something straight out of Lord of the Rings. I even saw a hobbit on the bus dressed in a teal blue tracksuit. No velour, just splashy-pants material. It was horrifying.

I am never ever going there again unless I have a gas-mask, some Mutant-Spray and a pair of running shoes. And I will only go there to hop a train that is going really really fast out of that hellish Franco-Dragon Ruled Mutant Land.