You've Gotta Ask Yourself, "Do I Feel Lucky?" Well Do You, Punk?

So..... there's been a change of plans this summer. My bartending gig at the place I worked last summer has a .000000001% chance of existing at any point this summer. I was sad about it for like an hour, pissed off for like a day or two... then guess what? Totally over it. Too bad really, since I loved that gig... BUT... like with almost all things we loved once, going back to them isn't always as fun.

THOUGH, I will say that the person I was working with last summer, who just about every customer complained about because she was always in a bad mood, is back there this summer. I found it interesting (and totally flattering & smile inducing) that so many different people had individually come up to me, before the bar reopened, to tell me they had asked about me/requested that I be there again... but the person hired back (who I'll totally admit is quite a good bartender, at least at making drinks properly, she's been doing it for years) is the one everyone complained to me about.

Yes, that's her...& no, I did not take that picture

I would have shrugged that off too, but on opening night it was my best friend's birthday... and a group of mutual friends were out with a bunch of girls at a bachelorette party that had decided to go dancing at my old bar... so, seeing as how it was my best friend's birthday, and I was the designated driver that night (someone had to get us home safe, and the birthday girl could barely sit on a bar stool safely halfway through the night)... I went down there. It was like going to your ex's place after a shitty break up. I didn't like it, but what made me just walk out of there without a word was looking behind the bar and seeing the moody bartender in a short pink wig. Yeah, I found it mildly pathetic, and left.

you've seen MY hair, right?

When I went back upstairs to the other bar I sat down to talk to one of the bartenders I totally think the world of and we laughed about it. THEN some random guy goes and sits right next to me (mind you, the bar itself was rather empty, he had a wide range of bar stools to pick from) and while my initial instinct was to just ignore him and continue my conversation with the bartender, the guy engages me in conversation, has some funny stuff to say, and then asks me "where are you from?" When I told him I lived here on the island, and "in fact I used to be a bartender downstairs", he laughs and says "well why the hell aren't you still down there? You're fun as hell, and way nicer than that grumpy wig wearin' bitch they've got there now." Oh man, I laughed my ass off! He proceeded to tell me how he and his friends had stopped in there at the beginning of the night and she was HORRIBLE to them. Totally cold and unfriendly. To the point that a bunch of guys, after a long day at work, chugged their drinks so they could get out of there ASAP. I laughed harder, THEN I witnessed him complain to the bar staff about her. Yeah, I enjoyed myself immensely from that moment forward. The guy was a lot of fun, and from my home town of Chicago (♥!!!). At the end of the night we exchanged emails and promised to get in touch so we could hang out again when he came back to the island (he and his work crew come out here once or twice a year to do work for a wealthy family from back home that has a 2nd house here) and I took Drunky McBirthdayGirl (and some others) home safely.

I loved that the next day I got a txt from her that said "thank you for driving last night!"
So I sent one back that just said "Thank you for NOT driving!"... and I also got a good laugh via facebook:

*click to enlarge*....this has been deleted in the past day or so, probably by her.

As far as jobs go....I ended up scoring a great job for the summer, full time (& started a few weeks ago... hence the sparse blog posts & comments on yours (sorry 'bout that!!!).... with FREE HEALTH CARE! What? Who woulda thought I'd land one of those, eh? Every day I spend the majority of my day sitting on a lovely wooden deck staring at the ocean... since the deck hangs OVER it.. again... WHAT?! The people I work with are fun, and very nice... and the customers, while mostly fairly stupid tourists, are at least nice. Sounds rather perfect doesn't it?
Yeah, I thought so. I was ready to stick with this job for the long haul all summer, and when the season ended... come back to it next summer.


What changed?

Well, the other day (about a week back, in fact the day after I saw the @#$%* in the pink wig) a friend of mine stopped into the office of my current job and we were talking about the shop he was opening with a few others (it's a motorcycle repair shop & retail store). I sorta half jokingly asked him if he was looking for any help, thinking (at the time) that having 3 jobs for the summer just wasn't enough... I didn't really expect his lit up facial reaction!

A day or two later I stopped by the shop, we talked, and I suddenly not only WANTED to work there, but felt like I NEEDED to.

(I love that we look like a 2 headed freak)

I discussed all this with one of my co-workers (who happens to be a good great friend) and it turned out she wanted to quit one of her jobs and work more hours at the job she & I shared... so you know what we did? We switched!

Today we finalized things, and the switcheroos will take place over the next few weeks.

I still have the awesome job overlooking the ocean, but no more free health care though, 'cause I won't be over 40hrs a week there any longer. It'll be in the evenings (& one 10 hr day) each week now, AND I will be working full time, all day, everyday at the bike shop... and doing a ton of graphic design for a business here on the island that has hired me to crank out a bunch of stuff for pretty good money. FINALLY! Life is good!


Throw in the fact that I stopped at the post office today to check my PO Box and there was a fat check from the state. Guess some taxes got overpaid. Um... again... WHAT?! This kind of thing NEVER happens to me! Way to take it up a notch 2011! You've scored yourself one hell of a fightin' chance at awesomeness!!

Anyone else havin' a strange, yet epically excellent bunch of stuff happen lately? I know the saying goes "misery loves company"... but sometimes (most times) I really enjoy hearing other people's good news instead. So, please, do tell!!

When I See You Smile

My day started with a scream ... my own.
Stupid alarm didn't go off. (!@#$%^&*!@!!!)
I missed an appointment with one of my new bosses (I have two jobs now), which means I didn't make the ferry boat to the mainland, which means I did not get the job training I needed today.
Did I lose my job?
No.
Did I find out that my new boss, whom I have technically yet to work for, is the greatest?
Behold the following text message exchange:

(yes, this is word for word what was said early this morning)
Me: I am vastly aware of what a shithead  I am, and would be out back with a log of wood beating my alarm clock with it, if it weren't for the fact that I need it to tell you how much I suck at life right now. I doubt I could apologize enought, but... I will try. I AM SO SORRY! Truly, from the bottom of my heart.

(1 min later)
Me: Oh... and Brandi says you are not allowed to hate my guts... not for long anyway.

Him: I don't. No biggie. I can send you over another day

Me: I feel so horrible about this. Really. This is not a good impression, nor is it "who I am"...but I just feel like the biggest loser... and now you go and play Capt. Awesome Boss and fogive me?! Crap, I better get back into the habit of baking cookies. Thank you for not hating me. Still super sorry.

Him: Cookies!!!!! Who doesn't love cookies? The new system is super easy you could learn it in 5 mins but I'll send you to NB to learn it so you get to see it

Me: Cookie baking will commence in 5...4...3...2...and I'm off to the grocery store!

As soon as I hit "send" I left immediately for the grocery store to go get stuff to make cookies.

I'm wondering now if this was one of those oddly perfect examples of "everything happens for a reason"?

You see, after I sent that first text message (mind you I had first contacted my friend Brandi because I didn't have my bosses cell phone number, and she works for him too) I sat down with a cup of coffee in front of my laptop, and I decided to multitask and flipped it on to check facebook.

I'd like to slightly sidetrack here and say I just recently (like over the past two weeks) learned something I was apparently clueless about. I've always had friends say to me that they thought I was on facebook a lot. Most of them say they love it though 'cause I tend to live my life out loud. It's a learned thing from previous years, and quite honestly totally calculated, since  I discovered that people were often bound to want to talk about certain things I had ZERO interest in discussing. So, I figured if I just sorta put it all out there, then even if I go weeks without seeing someone, they rarely ask me questions about topics that I am really not wantin' to discuss. It honestly works. Obviously I keep the super personal stuff 100% to myself, but the truth is, there is no one that can read what I post that I don't trust anyway. (Ok, there are like 3 or 4, but I just block them from seeing certain things... Hooray! for facebook privacy controls!) The thing that shocked ME though was this: I happened to mention to a friend that I needed to check facebook each morning. They teased me and said "you're always on there!" (not true, I use my phone for it mostly) I looked at them like they were nuts and said "how the hell do you keep up with all the messages?" and they were all "what messages?!" I told them "I know there's only like 15 or 20 a day, but I feel so bad when I don't write someone back or miss one of the letters in the mix."

I'm not going to go into much more detail than that, needless to say I was quickly informed that getting actual messages from friends was kinda rare, and most people got like 2 or 3 a week at most. Color me shocked. Here I always thought I had the most awesome friends on the planet.... NOW I am totally certain of it.

Now, in regards to facebook, and friends... and what I had previously mentioned about "things happening for a reason" (i.e the alarm not going off)... today I noticed something my friend David had posted about a mutual friend. A friend that was at the same fucked up reform school (seriously folks the place was what horror movies strive to copycat) that we went to. A whole bunch of "us" (i.e former students, runaways, even graduates) are on facebook and in contact with each other. The school may have sucked, but the bonds it formed... well, let's just say I'd do just about anything for my closest friends from there.... and quite honestly just knowing someone went there, even during a different "era" is enough to form a strong bond. Obvioulsy not EVERYONE gets along, but... it's kind of amazing the way everyone is sorta like extended family.

yes, that is an actual picture of the main building, "the mansion", from 1996 when I briefly snuck on campus and smoked an "illegal" ('cause smoking wasn't allowed) cigarette... the story of why I was even on that hell hole of a campus 6 years after I ran away is another story for another day.

That said, we (my friends from that school & I) lost one of our own over the weekend. The news hit today via my friend David. As I type this I am still fairly uncertain of the exact cause, but my friend Lauren is gone. Lauren who sent me messages that I was lax about replying to. Messages that are gonna haunt me for a while....

Are you noticing the date? 'Cause I sure as shit noticed it.... and proceeded to feel so craptastic that I actually vomited the coffee I was drinking. Taster's Choice® instant coffee is waaay worse coming out than going in, trust me on that. I know it's a fairly human reaction to run the gamut of thoughts and emotions. I know that a lot of people have those thoughts of "if only I had called!", "if only I answered my phone", "if only I bothered to reply to the email in a timely fashion".... if only what? I know it's normal to have these thoughts, but after losing so many people in my lifetime so far, I've learned that those thoughts, while totally human and normal, help NO ONE. They can become very unhealthy and, depending on how far one takes it, can start to look kind of egotistical and make the tragedy become more about them than who it's actually about. That said, I do still feel like crap about not writing her back. It's not that I wasn't going to, I just knew she never signed onto facebook, like EVER, so I didn't see it as something I needed to hurry up and do I guess. I still feel like shit about it though. I wish I had the chance to tell her she was welcome here, and that I'd totally make room for her at my place if she visited the island... but I can't do that now can I? David then told me "She wanted to walk into your bar & surprise you. I don't know what happened between you but she really wanted to do that, to see you." Yeah, that'll haunt me too, but the thought that I could have personally changed whatever happened to Lauren this past weekend would be lunacy on my part, agreed?

I can write about it here... 'cause, well... it's my blog. It's what I do. I write out my thoughts and feelings about things and share them with others. People have a choice to read them, or comment on them... or not. It just is what it is.

Now that all that has been said, let me explain the "everything happens for a reason" part....

I bake. I truly, really, honestly LOVE to bake. Not to the point that I'd want to do it for a living. I believe that would ruin it for me (but that's just me.) When I am making...baking... something in the kitchen I am able to clear my mind. Simple things like the measuring of flour, and cracking of eggs can lull me into a trance. I might find myself pondering what certain ingredients I've never tried before could do to the recipe (if I'm even following one.) I lose myself entirely. I feel like I'm conducting a symphony where I play the part of conductor and the sugars, powders, creams, and butters are my orchestra. We make beautiful music together... and 99.9% of the time I am baking something for someone, and doing it with love.  It's a very cathartic thing for me. I am solely focused on what I am doing and all other thoughts disappear for that time. I needed that today.

 After taking a long hot shower and crying my eyes out in the one place where no one would see me, nor would they even notice, I put myself together, sent that one final text message to my boss, and off I went to go get what was needed to clear my mind.

I did manage a brief walk on the beach before heading home, but it wasn't helping me the way it normally would. The sun was hiding behind the clouds by mid afternoon... and I realized that sometimes you really do have to make your own sunshine.

My sunshine just happened to look and smell like chocolate chip cookies. Which I, possibly ironically, hate to eat... but baking them ebbed the tears, and made it possible to grin as I remembered the beaming smile of my friend Lauren. Sure I baked them for my (very cool & kind) boss, but they will taste all that much better because of the ability to remember Lauren's smile.

♥ Lauren ♥

**********************************************

gray day by MsGoofyGirl