Tuesday, February 04, 2003

Monkey Man I realized for the first time tonight that the Compton Heights Tower is actually a funny-hat monkey waving tower man. From Jefferson, on 44 west bound, I started making out his eyes. It took me few visual passes to get the nose and the mouth differentiated. The mouth is the granite ring. The nose in the center. And then the funny hat. Like some Byzantize influenced Fez. The arms I didn't get until I was amost to the Louisville(Which is a really evil exit to have on the highway, for anyone on their way to Kentucky) exit. And he was waving, raising his left hand in dignified salute, a happy Seig Heil. I laughed and waved and sang "Helloooooo Mr. Monkey Man. Helllloooooooo." Which is kind of infectious, a lyrical Krispey Creme glazed donut bakers dozen box - you can't just stop with one, until your mouth is covered in either sugar, or tiny saliva droplets, from your crazy mesmerizing chanting. It made me wish I had a digital camera so I could draw, like the markings around a constellation, the monkey hat man. And then I'm thinking about Thomas Eagleton, and how, if I ever ran for political office, there wouldn't need to be a Watergate to uncover my psychiatric files. Someone would just need a Web browser. I could imagine someone videotaping me from the highway, using a really, really powerful audio recording device, and playing that tape of the airwaves, posing, completely narrative free, the question of whether or not people want a Senator who waves and sings to reservoir towers. I met with Phillip today to discuss financial matters. Which I find really challenging sitting through, those financial assessments, where people say things like, "As an average 33 year old, you should have accumulated so many assets to be able to retire with such and such an income." And I'm always sitting there thinking to myself that those measures aren't the ones that matter. One of the things that he was concerned about is my getting disability insurance, which, if you have any diagnosis of BEIGNNNASDFLKASD FUCKING STRESSED OUT BY STUFF, or have some chronic disease, you are automatically dequalified. He was concerned by the fact that I had therapy as a budget item, and that I should apply for disability before I start going so I won't have suspicions arise about my emotional stability. And yes, the all caps joke was already done. Which makes me a little crazy, the idea that visiting a mental health professional is tantamount to declaring oneself unfit to function in normal society. I think of the possibility of working with Bill like finding a good massage therapist, or athletic coach. Is it impossible to do this stuff without some sort of diagnosis or referral? I can't be unique in seeking this stuff out deliberately, intentionally. Maybe I'll just put it under the health club category. After work, I sat around and talked with one of the bartenders, who's had some heartache (what bartender hasn't, right?) recently, and she said a few times how everyone perceives her as confident and put together when she isn't, and how she's looking for the glass slipper, real romance, and how she put herself out there for him, and is telling me how she never confides in anyone, shows how vulnerable she is (because she'd shed some tears earlier in front of me over a recently deceased friend) in front of anyone. And all I can think about is "Wow, you read Cosmo too." The drive home, after the monkey hat man realization, was like trying to find a rest stop when my bladder is about to burst, a couple exits before I challenged myself to make it without stopping, because I couldn't find a pen to write with and I was so afraid that my brain, especially a little addled, would forget my thoughts. The Bartender's Ball committee had their celebratory dinner at Sqwires tonight and Pablo, our Sous Chef, requested that Dan and Jon wait on them. Smart political move. As both are assistant managers. So Rick comes up to me when I get there and gives me one of his "I'm sending you in Ben" as if it may be the last battle I ever fight. SoI know something weird is up. He asks me if I know what the deal is. And I say, yes, the Bartender's Ball thing. And he says, "Well, here's the deal. There are 24, and they want both Jon and Dan to take care of them over in the bar." So I say, jokingly, "Got it. I'll just take the tens, the twenties and thirties," which make up the entire dining room." And he smiles, relieved, not realizing I'm joking, and says "Exactly. So we have to be focused." I still wasn't sure that they really meant it, until around 6:30. In fact, exactly 6:30, when they sat a deuce, a seven top, with a crying toddler, a four top, a nine top, and a five top, all in the dining room, all within 7 minutes of one another. While I was still taking care of Barb and Nathan at table 33. Serving parents of infants is like feeding someone who's just come back from Ecuador after seven months of eating nothing but rice, beans and grubworms, they are so sensually engaged with their food, their time together. It actually, not in an entirely unsexual way, turned me on the way Barb looked at me while I described the specials. I actually had a table of women show up one night and ask for me, telling me they had friends who came in the night before and said the way I describe the food makes it sound like sex. So it makes sense. Those rumblings in the tummy. And the rumblings just below the tummy parts. Everyone kept asking me if I was okay. Wide eyed. And I'd ask Beth if she could please get some water and bread setups. And thank her as she delivered them. And I'd tell the tables that I would be right back. Even that I would need to enter another order and then I'd be back. I felt implacably serene. I would calmly say when people asked that I was a little in the weeds, but okay. And that I'd be out of the weeds in about 15 minutes. Or that I was having  fun night. Easy. Apparently, it was the serenity born in the mayhem of a firefight, when the cacaphony of gunfire blurs into a calming background noise, as you find your focus among the flowers exploding their soft petals around your head. Because people kept talking about what it looked like out there. The bartender said she wished she could have seen what was going on back there. And I just had a great time. Wearing my secret yoga shoes, with the secret reverse heel technology, and literally rocking and rolling through the dining room. Because the way I talk about food. Makes it sound like sex.   Apparently, I need to get laid. 2:15:44 AM