I heard my downstairs tenants sqeaky-squeaky friday afternoon while I ironed clothes below. They were pretty quiet otherwise, unlike Pat and Jess.
I guess there's not much you can cry out during sex when you don't take the lord's name in vain. Wonder what it would have been like for Jesus when he made love. Would he wonder if his lady was confusing him with his Dad?
I washed dishes last night after my last table. Poor Robert is all of fifteen years old. I think if I had to do the pile of dishes he has to face every night, I'd get old real fast. Dishwashing is hard work. It gives me new respect for the dishstation. And my own gastrointestinal system. Expurgating all the waste products produced in the business of eating is NO SMALL TASK. I remember Mary talking about how no one would help her teenage son his first night doing dishes. No I know why.
The cooks would offer encouragement when a pair of tongs or a pan would go through the automatic washer. "You're making a dent in it now. You're really getting it." Which I think would only make things worse. I'd think something was horribly, horribly wrong with ISO standards for dishwashing progress measures if I kept hearing that. Because he wasn't making a dent. Dishes just kept piling up. And the cooks hadn't even completely broken down their stations, which include large pieces of nearly molten metal from the grill.
Eric put one of those pieces down with the other crusted with food dating back to the dawn of fire pots and pans and said "This is, obviously, hot." "Obviously because water steams when it touches it?" Or obvious because of the ominous white hot glow?" I imagined myself like the SS officer in the Indiana Jones film, except with permanent grill marks on my hand. Leading me to some occult treasure of PAIN.
Other servers walked by me in the kitchen and asked me what or why. And sometimes both. But damn, man, when you see a pile of dishes, what else is there to do? Cheerleading doesn't get a whole lot done. Reminds me of the few times the spirit squad came to cheer at cross country meets in high school. Or swim meets. Futility. And in the case of actually being able to see them on the course during cross country meets, embarassing.
I worked from 6:30am to 11:00pm on a few hours sleep. And then went out for one drink before heading to Home Depot to buy a new thermostat for Tim and Heather's apartment. That drink became three and then 27 holes of Golden Tee, closing the 3am bar, and dropping a way drunken cook home and a 4am arrival at my own bed. Robin called at 7:15am to let me know it was raining in Des Peres and that she'd call me when it let up. I went back to sleep dreaming of rain torrents all day. But it passed by 45 minutes later. I heard the phone ring and let it go. She called back right away. What was I supposed to say? She and Mike have a newborn baby as their 3am bar, and they can't decide to skip the after work drinks that day. So I walked.
And examined the broken air conditioner as if I could decipher anything. My best guess was a broken thermostat, since nothing looked burnt or suspicious. But I thought if I was wrong and it got hot again, Tim and Heather would be out a day of comfort, and I'd be out the money for a thermostat. Turns out it was the thermostat. My $211 value from the service call was to trust my instincts. Diagnostics is process flow. And I'm Scottish, by god, combining ingenuity with cheapness.
I waited on Gwendolyn Allen, a waitress from Balaban's tonight. She is trouble. Even though I don't think she likes boys. She could, if she willed, have me quivering in her grasp in an instant. She just has an overwhelmingly sexy demeanor, in a film noir femme fatale way. Even being aware of her charm, I couldn't help being held in her sway. Damn. I'm still a little shaken.
I also, stupidly, in my sleep deprived stupor, thought it a good idea to give Stu my 14 top, since I'm taking his shift Tuesday and I couldn't switch with him since we were working the same nights. Only in this case I just got to make way less money, having passed over tables early in the evening because of the later 14 top seating, without actually getting the night off.
Last week I finally drafted the business plan. I feel pretty solid about it. I also read a book on the Rational Unified Process. I'm betting that remote procedure calls will really make software development from the unrealized assembly line potential that object based programming offered into a true manufacturing procurement model - like a GM, replete with what essentially is an EDI built into the medium itself. People could even sell computing time with routines so powerful programs could simply call the cheapest most efficient code at any given time. I really want to learn how to program.
I also, unable to sleep upon the realization that I could no longer do simple math story problems in my logic puzzle magazine, stayed up until 6am Friday morning taking IQ tests and reading a book on improving IQ test scores. Seems like I either hit 120 or 155-160 on online tests, and the book pretest was 120, post test was over 150. More if I consider all the answers I disagree with, validly.
I hope to get Syzygy cards and letterhead printed next week and get moving on jumping into the channel, now that I'm effectively greased up with the business plan draft. I keep waiting for something to happen that will make the company happen, but this isn't one of those magic moments of youth, where everything just turns out all right because you're smart and charming and invincible within an infrastructure that sets everything up for success. Everything here is set up for failure - you don't even have, without capital, any known water stops on the journey from England to France. Hell, I don't even know how long the swim, or whether anything worthwhile is on the other side.
Running is a lot better 20 pounds lighter. And I feel okay taking it slow. I ran three times last week. My first time out, I was already doing an 8 minute mile pace, thinking I was running a ten minute pace. I think I'll be down to sex weight by the time September rolls around, although I have my first match.com date August 27th. Will be an interesting road, this next couple years. But what years haven't been? What days aren't?
