hello, blog

I'll skip the excuses for being a poor blogger and just get right to business....

1. The United States just elected its first black president, and I feel that I should at least say something about it, so bear with me:

I will not say who I voted for or what I believe, in an attempt to avoid random angry comments from people. I will say, however, that for the first time in a long while, I have hope. I am so tired of hearing how horrible our government is, and hearing that things need to change, and I am just happy to finally hear that change is coming. Even bad change is change, and anything that changes has a chance to make something better. I wish The future President all the best, and I hope that he may be numbered among the great in our History.

2. I have a job. after what seems like ages of joblessness and searching and interviewing, I have landed the perfect job as a Graphic Designer. I am so excited to have finally reached the point in life where I will no longer have to wait on tables or hold temporary jobs just to make money for gas. This job comes with an arsenal of fantastic benefits and perks, and I could not be happier.

3. Troy bought me a flickr pro account today. randomly. So that means that I have something to keep me occupied until I start my new job, and I will be scanning in my moleskine paintings. I also no longer have to delete pictures just to add more. so keep an eye out for flickr updates.

4. Troy and I have been re-thinking the marriage thing. I mean, the marriage is still on, its just the Wedding that is up in the air. There is alot to consider, but I think that, once we make the big decisions (venue, food, day) things will be fun, and much more easy. and, FYI, i do not want to hear wedding horror stories. I wont say that mine will be different, because I know it wont, but I refuse to allow fear to run my wedding.

Now, if I could just afford the dress I want. Believe it or not, it is part of the Disney's Princess collection. It is beautiful, but I am afraid of the price tag.

5. We have begun working on our future home. Its a complicated narrative, so I'll save it for a later day.

6. I have finished my first moleskine book. I'm addicted, and I'm glad. The motivation and creative outlet is good for me.

7. Maryland might get its first snow flurries this weekend. Not sure how I feel about it yet. I'm not really ready for it.

8. "If All Goes Wrong" just came out, and of course Troy bought it that day. If you are a Smashing Pumpkins fan, or just a fan of music and the artistic struggle behind good music, you should see the interview with Pete Townshend and the documentary. Genius. BIlly Corgan always has a way of taking my own personal beliefs and putting them into words.

9. The Pour House closed down. The Pour House is a local coffee shop in my town, and, while it was always packed with obnoxious teens and the prices were pretty high, it was still a local business beloved by the community. I spent the better part of my highschool and early college years there, and now I cannot believe it is gone. I have been going less and less in the past few years, but it felt good to know that the place would be there if ever I needed it. NOt to mention, now, that is one less local business. some person's savings and dreams, devoured by the economy. As much as I love starbucks coffee, I would rather see the local starbcks shut its doors, at least starbucks has a chance to come back. a local business, however, cannot just bounce back, it sucks up every resourse the owner has, and then thats it. I try my best to patronize local business as often as possible because they have more integrity and sincerity toward customers than a giant corporate chain. But, alas, the pour house is no more.

10. Gas is currently 1.97 in my home town. How crazy is that? I do not even know what else to say about it. lets just leave it at this: I hope it stays that way.

11. finally, a word about football: HURRAY RAVENS. lets just keep moving forward and I'll be happy.

thats it for now. good day to you, my random reader.

Pasta, of all things

I have been developing a deep disgust for my fellow humans. Perhaps "countrymen" would fit better than "humans" as I am sure that the people for whom I feel the most disdain are primarily Americans.

Americans love to eat. But we dont just eat the way other people from other countries do: we eat in excess! we cant just order one meal and be happy, we have to get as much as we possibly can for our dollar. How dare we stereotype other nationalities and call them cheap or swindlers when we try to cram as much in our wallets and mouths as we possibly can.

a direct representation of this is the "Never Ending Pasta Bowl" at the Olive Garden. disgusting. for $8.95, a single person can get endless pasta, bread, and choice of endless soup or salad. thats fine, especially since the price is so low, but it just is not enough for the Americans.

Endless pasta: people literally sit and eat bowl after bowl after bowl of pasta. I am surprised that people dont regularly die of carb-shock! and as if bowl after bowl of penne, or linguine, or angelhair is not enough, add the sauce: alfredo, meat sauce, five cheese marinara! did you know that eating one portion of Olive Garden alfredo sauce is like drinking a pint of heavy cream? its true. but dont tell the corporate office I told you.

so we have the endless pasta. that should be plenty to fill up any person. It is endless.

but, that obviously isnt enough, so first they have to cram themselves with endless soup or salad. So many people ask me: "the never ending pasta comes with endless salad, right?" as if, if the salad was not included, they would not order the pasta. is it that important to have endless salad with endless pasta? and god forbid the garlic bread does not come out constantly.

how do these people eat so much?

and then complain about McDonalds having such calorie loaded food!!!

You can probably eat five Big Macs for the caloric intake of the five cheese ziti at Olive Garden. I'm serious.

so my new complex is this: I cannot watch people eat without feeling queasy. It is fine if i am sitting down in the resturant and eating and am able to ignore the people around me, but as a server, watching the guests mindlessly stuff themeselves into a food-induced coma disgusts me.

Have you ever seen Casper, the one with Christina Ricci? the scene where the three ghosts are eating breakfast and all of the food is just falling on the floor...thats what i imagine when i am at work and serve people their food. it literally makes me sick.

and the bicker over the smallest price change. the Never Ending Pasta Bowl, like i said, costs 8.95. that is almost $1 more than a lunch portion of pasta. yet people complain that it is expensive! how, i ask you, is endless amounts of pasta, 75 bowls of pasta, if you wish, expensive at $9? how can people take themselves that seriously?

and then there is the lack of manners. We consider ourselves advanced, ahead of other countries, yet we have no table manners. NONE. we shout at the table, answer cell phones in the middle of dinner, allow our children to literally throw food in resturants, much less run around the resturant and then get upset when the server trips on the little brat and spills hot food on them.

and we chew with our mouth open, stuff our mouths till food is over flowing down our chin. then we speak to the server (who we treat like a dog and snap our fingers at) with full mouths. heres a news flash, america: most servers are college students, or college graduates trying to get a new job. I.E. they probably have a higher degree than you do and are usually smarter than you. dont treat them like infants.

i need to get out of the resturant industry. hopefully I'll get a call back from one of my applications soon. the food service industry depresses me.

adventures in serving italian food

As a server, I find that the strangest things make my day. For example, I was ecstatic that two tables left an extra pen on my table. Two completely different tables, back to back! That might sound trivial, but when you find a good pen and get used to using it, and then have to let a guest use it to sign a credit card receipt and they take it…well, its just devastating. We usually carry three pens at a time, so if two tables steal a pen each, youre down to one. And it is only a matter of time before someone steals the last one. How do you write a complicated food order for a party of 12 without a pen? You don’t.

But today the restaurant gods smiled upon me, and was given two beautiful pens. Clicky Pens!!

But pens are nothing compared to genuine manners and pleasant attitude from your table. A smile, a wave, or even something as simple as answers to your questions:

“how are you today?”
“Yeah, I’ll take the minestrone.”

Is not acceptable

“ma’am, would you prefer soup or salad?”
“I thought it already came with that big bowl of salad!”
“yes, ma’am, but you have a choice between the salad or a bowl of soup.”
“so you’re not going to bring my salad? I thought you brought salad!”

and so on.

But sometimes you find people who actually listen, who actually care about what you have to say, and do not cut you off in mid sentence.

Personally, I am perfectly happy with any table that does not look down its nose at me or snap at me or clap its hands at me or try to tell me how to do my job.

I especially LOOOOOVE middle aged women. I will deal with any grouchy, smelly, pain in the butt table of 30 toddlers before I will volunteer for a table of over-dressed, control freak middle aged women.

I honestly do not understand what is happening in this world. All white women between the age of 29 and 60 seem inclined to bad temper, bad manners, bossiness, controlling attitude, too much bad perfume, god complex, stupid over-the-top laughter, and prissy snotty flat out rudeness. They shop at kohl’s and all wear the same thing, have the same interest in basket bingo, coach bags, competing against each other’s kids, too much makeup and jewelry, laziness, and just a general bad attitude. Theyre the type that will sit and take up a table for 4 hours without a tip, or have to order for their husband, friend, kid, elderly parent, or the person at the table next to them. No, he doesn’t want peach tea, regular will do just fine. Or honey, you don’t like alfredo sauce. Or I want the capellini pomodor (literally tomatoes and angel hair pasta) but with no tomatoes. Or with Alfred sauce instead of the tomatos.

I swear, that dish is the most complicated I have ever seen. It is literally diced roma tomatoes and angel hair pasta, but at least once a week I have a conversation like this one:

“Can I get fettuccini Alfredo instead of the tomato sauce on the pomodoro?”
“do you mean fettuccini or alfredo?”
“fettuccine alfredo”
“so you don’t want capillini pomodoro at all?”
“yes, I just don’t like the sauce”
“ma’am, the dish is literally angel hair pasta with tomatoes. Do you want alfredo sauce in place of the tomatoes?”
“yes, that’s what I said”
“oh, I’m sorry, I thought you wanted fettuccini alfredo. Fettuccine is a pasta, and alfredo is a white sauce.”
“yes, the white sauce”
“but you still want the angel hair, right?”
“it comes with angel hair?”
“yes ma’am.”
“no, just give me the thick flat noodles, what are they called?”
“Fettuccini”
“yeah, them”
“so you want fettuccini with alfredo sauce?”
“yes, but made like this capilini pomodoro.”
“ma’am. That dish is completely different. Capalini is a type of pasta that we call angel hair. Pomodoro is the sauce. Its literally diced tomatoes. it is angel hair with tomatoes. fettuccine alfredo is the flat noodles with a white sauce.”
“well cant they substitute it?”
“theyre two different dishes. Look, lets do it this way: do you want angel hair or fettuccine?”
“fettuccine”
“and red or white sauce?”
“white”
“okay, I’ll bring you fettuccine alfredo.”
“well doesn’t that cost more?”
“yes. The alfredo sauce is more expensive than the pomodoro sauce.”
“well, just bring me the cheaper one.”
“If I bring the cheaper one, it will be the tomato sauce with angel hair pasta.”
“It doesn’t matter. Oh, and no olives, croutons, tomatoes, onions, or peppers on my salad. But can you throw a few extra cucumbers on there?”
“we don’t have cucumbers”
“are you sure? They did it for me last week.”
“ma’am, ive worked here for three years. We have never, in the history of the restaurant had cucumbers.”
“I swear they had them last week. Are you sure?”
“positive.”
“alright, just put some French dressing on it then.”
“ we do not have French dressing either.”
“can I speak to yoru manager? You’re getting a little bit of an attitude and I’m not sure I like it.”
“gladly.”


I swear, this is the type of conversation I have with people allllllllll the time. And when they don’t understand because they aren’t listening, they think I’m either rude or stupid.


I love my job.

Serving Chat Book Idea

I work at the Olive Garden. I admit it. This hateful place has become the fuel for my writing fire. My memoir class was the most inspiring and useful writing class I have ever taken, and I learned that creative writing does not have to be fiction.

By the second week of the class, I decided that I would begin constructing personal essays based on my experiences in serving and food service. Most people think it has been done before, but few people have written about the restaurant industry in an unbiased and constructive manner. Movies and books on this topic are written by bitter servers who want to 'get back' at restaurant patrons.

I want to tell the truth. The unbiased truth from a fly-on-the-wall point of view. I want to leave m opinions and feelings in the kitchen, so to speak, and write in the same way that I serve.

Serving tables takes quite a bit of patience, creativity, and the ability to put your own feelings and opinions aside long enough to feed a group of people and get them out of the restaurant quickly with a smile on their face and as much food as possible in their belly. Servers are self-less, servile actors and actresses. We really don't care about your day or your problems, or the weather, or even what you thought of the food. we care about the wallet that you usually do not open wide enough to pay us. An objective view of this 'caring to not care' phenomenon would be much more important than a personal essay about how servers hate their jobs.


I strongly believe that I must follow through with this idea. I have to publish it, if only because no one else can. Though, as a student with no previous publication experience, I'm just a bit intimidated by the idea that i might not be good enough to do it.


If I'm not good enough to have my work published, perhaps I should chose a new career path.

The Wait

“You told us it would be about 45 minutes and we have already been here for an hour,” a broad woman with a rigid grin says to the hostess, her teeth clicking together, annunciating each syllable carefully.
“I’m sorry ma’am. Your name is up next.” The short hostess looks up at the massive shoulders and forces a smile.
“How long will it be?”
“As soon as a table for eight clears, we’ll clean it and seat you.”
“Are we talking hours or minutes?”
“Probably only minutes.” She turns her smile on again, larger this time, showing her bright teeth.
The woman walks sour-faced back to her husband, four kids, and in-laws.
“She says we’re next.”
She returns to her spot against a wooden table where she places the round pager down and continues watching her youngest daughter twirl in circles around the center of the lobby, knocking into passersby and forcing the people gathered on the perimeter of the room to push their backs against the walls to avoid being hit. She doesn’t even notice when the pager lights up in a pattern of alternating red lights. People near her watch as the pager reflects in a wine bottle. No one calls her attention to it. They want her table.
“Is there a Parker party of eight?”
The woman snaps out of her reverie. “It’s about time!”
“Do you have your pager?”
“Little good it has done me.” She gropes around the table and picks up the disk. She narrows her eyes and clenches her jaw at the flashing lights.
“Ma’am, we’ve been paging you for five minutes. We almost gave your table up.”
It is nearing 6p.m. on a Friday night , and the lobby at this popular Italian restaurant is overflowing with people. Children are running in circles, babies crying, parents talking, the front door is opening and closing as those coming and going maneuver among people standing or sitting on benches and chairs, all hunkering down to sit out the hour wait for a table and dinner.
As soon as “Parker party of eight” is swooped away, an older woman with silver hair and matching earrings steals a glance at the chair where the older Mr. Parker had been sitting. She makes a lady-like dash for the chair and is narrowly beaten by two teenage girls who plop into the bench as if the music had just stopped in a particularly competitive game of musical chairs. The silver-haired lady redirects herself past the chair, pretending that she has no interest in it, and leans against a wall near the dimly lit bar where a little boy with freckles is pulling leaves from a plant on the floor and counting them.
“One, three, eight, severnneen, twenny, fives, three, six” He counts each one as he stacks them on top off one another. He smiles up at the silver-haired woman, who smiles back an angry, forced sort of smile before looking for an excuse to ignore him. Not affected, the little boy starts his counting game over, taking each leaf from the pile, folding it neatly, and dropping it in the woman’s purse that hangs conveniently at his eye level.
Meanwhile, a little girl in orange crocs and a purple dress is staring at the freckled boy between adult legs from across the room. She breaks away from her mom and clunks over to him, upsetting a new mother and her baby carrier.
“Hannah, be careful. Come back here,” a voice calls from the other end of the lobby. “Frank, go get Hannah, please!”
A hand reaches down from the sky and grabs Hannah by the back of her lilac dress. She is yanked up from the floor, and just in time; a man swollen with pasta and bread and sporting a marinara stain on his crisp blue shirt has almost stepped on her fingers. He smiles a big toothy grin at Hannah who starts bawling back at him from over her father’s shoulder. She inspects the pager in her father’s hand before snatching it away and putting it in her mouth.
Pasta Man holds the door for three women peacocking in from outside. They form a line by the hostess’ stand.
“Hello, how are you tonight?” the hostess asks.
The woman with the largest hair answers, “Three, non-smoking.”
“Can I have a name please?”
“Sherman.”
“It’ll be about 50 minutes. This will blink when we page you.”
“An hour? Are you serious? I’m not waiting an hour.”
The three women tromp out the door, but are immediately replaced by two elderly gentlemen in suits and ties. The first, a slightly balding, skinny man in a too-big suit makes a dash for the hostess.
“How long a wait for two?” he asks, out of breath
“50 minutes or so.”
“That’s not bad.”
Again, the exchange of pager and instructions, and the men survey the lobby in search of a place where two men might sit or stand comfortably together. The people who have already been sitting in the lobby for 40 or so minutes understand the surveying look and spread their legs, move their purses, and lean at a wider angle.
The men eventually find a small nook by a window just in time to hear two old women with penciled eyebrows complain about the wait. “You know, Barry and I were at Texas Road House two days ago, and the wait wasn’t this long. We got in and got sat real quick. I don’t know why this place takes so long,” the first woman wheezes to her friend who nods in agreement.
“They’re always slow here.”
“Maybe it has to do with the fact that the tables have people sitting at them. They can’t kick people out,” the oldest and biggest of the two men interjects good-naturedly.
“Well,” one of the women huffs. Both arch their indignant eyebrows and turn their backs to the man, unable to argue with common sense.