Here We Go Again

As of next month, I will have been a bartender for half of my entire life and I'll only be 28. That is insane. Anyhow, some stuff happened over the last year to make me take a good look at the lifestyle. I'm a lot older and wiser than when I was previously posting here.

The best, and worst, of being a bartender is everything is 'easy come, easy go' - jobs, cash, friends, sex, relationships - it's all there at your fingertips just waiting to be plucked. This is of course awesome - for a time. You blew $500 on a night out? You'll make it back. Your management is crazy/you fucked up one time too many and lost your job? Whatevs, this is the big city baby, I'll get another tomorrow. Your other half is being a bit of a dick? Don't they know you have your fan club coming in every night hanging on your every word? Next! Everyone is made both hotter and cooler (you know what I mean!) by the simple act of stepping behind that bar, and feeling like a rockstar doesn't get old quickly.

The problem has only been a real problem for me lately. I guess I'm getting old. I'm ready for permanence, for the next step. Friendships easily forged easily fade, and no-one's worse at keeping in touch than the service industry. We all hop along to the next job, the next new bff, and before you know if some-one looking you up on FaceBook and you're wondering how/why you ever lost touch with them. You break your goddamn ribs and realise all those times you were thinking 'I'll make it back tomorrow' have accumulated into you living day to day, month to month, certain of that cash flow that is not there now. You need to talk something over with someone and realise nearly all of your friends are weirded out if it gets any deeper than last nights ballgame. Or you lose a potentially great relationship because it needs a little work, and it's easier to just go get blasted with those friends than face up to messy emotions and actually try to be a better person.

Bars are all surface flash and cash. Sure things get deep and emotional on a quiet Tuesday at 3am - and bar buddies are usually the first to know when somethings goes wrong. But you'll speak of these things once, both a little drunk, and never mention them again. They've made it easy for me to just move on when things get tough rather than riding it out, learning from it and becoming a wiser person. There is a perpetual sense of living the same day/week over again - we don't even see that much daylight to get a sense of time. And then before you know it it's five years later and you are in exactly the same place - different faces, different apartment, different specifics but exactly the same place.

The last year really kicked my ass. Broken ribs (no work for two months and not much saved going in). Then I had family member dependent on me for six months who I wanted to show a good time - Atlantic City! Gigs! Playoff tickets! No expense spared! When they were leaving, though sad to see them go I was a little relieved to be able to get back on track financially. Of course then I got fired in the worst hiring market in NY in years. Lost my apt as it was tied to work, NO money to get a new place - and of course it turned out that some of my best friends disappeared til all was good again, whilst some I would maybe not have counted on got me through. I would even probably had to move back to the UK without one person in particular, who is also the one who brought on this whole introspective phase. Or woke me up, I don't know. Either way it's been kind of deflating to see where I'm at, but better I suppose than careening blindly out of control down the same path. They also taught me to see the motives behind peoples actions - I guess I thought everyone acted like I did, with blind faith and good intentions. Really it's been sad to lose that innocence, but most people figure it out a lot younger than I do

So I know what I've got to do, which parts of my lifestyle need to change, and where I want to be two years from now when I'm thinking about turning thirty. I have not been good enough to my friends, family, employers over the last few years and that's another depressing realisation but one that can be turned around. Most of all I've let myself down, it's fucking embarrassing to end up broke and homeless and totally dependent on someone you've known for like six months. It sucks to lose someone great because you keep falling into the same pattern of letdown and apology. And it really fucking hurts to be told by the person you respect most 'I'm going places and you're not; so.... good luck, see you around kid!' And to have to acknowledge that they have a point. It's not a place I ever want to be in again.

So here's to the new me! Starting afresh again, but with purpose for a change. New job, new faces, new chances to make the opportunities I need, new mistakes I'm sure but as long as they're not the same old ones. I debated a new blog but it will be interesting to read this back over time and see where I started out from and where I end up. Hopefully this is the first step on the road to an awesome new way of being, and I can find the strength and the courage to get to where I need to be.

All the reasons I have moved since living in NY...

1) You were nuts. You were the kind of girl who bites the heads off kittens, regurgitates them, and the wears the results as earrings. You got your brother to hunt me down two years later and badmouth you, so if I agreed you'd have a reason to kick my ass. He was pretty good at it too.

2) I miss you guys, you were awesome. If only one of you hadn't decided to start banging my bf, who took over the room while I was relocated to Florida. She decided to...

3) Move us in with some ADD control freak chef from work, who as a housewarming gift bought us a hairless Siamese (ew, looks like an embryo!) cat ( I HATE cats. And worse, they despise me. And love to show it by puking in my bed). And to gild the creepy off-white baggy fleshed lily, painted the apartment an extremely attractive shade of turd brown. With accents of Lindsey Lohan Tan-a-rama Orange.

4) Let's live with eight guys! That'll be fun! (Actually it rocked) but...

5) Grew up. Moved to Queens. Nearer to work.

6)Actually, forget the rest. I have three more moves but they're boring. I don't even know why I'm thinking of this. I'm probably drunk.

Random stuff about me

I believe most people have good intentions but stupid actions - so I trust nobody including myself!

I cannot say philosophy, oreganato or horse.

I am friends with all my ex-boyfriends except the first.

I make friends easily but I am horrible at keeping in contact with old ones.

I hate talking on the phone and I haven't checked my voicemail in over six months.

I know at least one thing about each of my close friends that they haven't told anyone else. I am queen of the 3am confessional and sometimes that drives me nuts!

I have a tendency to romanticise self-destruction - I can think logically but can't for the life of me act that way, so I bring a lot of unnecessary drama my way.

I've moved house 12 times.

I have broken my leg on 3 separate occasions before I actually got out of bed that day.

Since I was a kid I've been sure I'm going to die when I'm 30, I don't know how or why I'm so sure but I am.

I have ZERO impulse control.

I don't think I believe in love.

I am growing more and more sure I do believe in God - in the Catholic sense - and that both reassures and scares me because if I embrace it I'll have to re-evaluate my life.

I don't think people listen to each other at all.

I am a little unnerved by silence. I am a lot shyer and much more guarded than people realise.

My favourite thing in the world is the beach or Staten Island Ferry in the rain.

Self pity and self doubt really annoy me in other people even though I'm often guilty of both.

I am getting dumber on a daily basis.

If I had three wishes I would wish for a great singing voice, to be able to speak any language, and to never have to think about money. Not to be rich but just never to have to deal with it.

I am a terrible dancer, I practice in front of my mirror so I know!

It truly upsets me if I think some-one doesn't like me.

I confuse friendship and romantic interest all the time.

I wish I was closer, in distance and relationship, to my family.

I always have an intense, embarrassing. teenagey crush on some-one but will usually lose interest after the first kiss.

I used to be a fairly mellow person but now I have no patience with anyone. But I will forgive people anything, we've all done things we regret so can't judge anyone more harshly than we judge ourselves.

I believe in karma and that positive thinking brings positive results, but I never admit to it because my official line is I hate all that self-help/new agey stuff.

I don't understand people who don't read.

I kept a diary every day from 5 to 15, until my parents read them and then I couldn't be honest with myself anymore. Starting again though.

I am horribly disorganised and chronically late.

Wow... Upperclass guilt

So I just moved into a GREAT, AMAZING building,and it's extremely unsettling. On one hand, I feel like I'm living in a movie - or even Sex and The City (I should explain, I'm not even a big fan, but lets just say I live in a Charlotte building in a Miranda neighbourhood, and you'll get it) - I get up, I go to my private bathroom, I feel like I should be taking fresh squeezed OJ (non-existent) on my terrace with an AWESOME view (okay, exists, and I luuuuuurve it) in my marabous (that's the British term for those feathery slippers, um, excitable housewives wear, I don't know if it translates) and then just lolling on my couch rejecting my multitudinious gentlemen callers with a languid wave of my lily-white hand. That is how f...... AMAZING my place is.

But I feel - well in all honesty I don't know. It is brand new, and like a movie. But I started this post 'cos as I came home at 5:15am, my doorman was asleep. I have a key, I used it; he woke up and RAN to the door, all 'I wasn't asleep, I wasn't asleep!' It's not like I'm going to tell anyone - before I moved in he surely had at least four hours uninterrupted from three til seven. SLEEP - I can open a door myself.

Having a doorman is so weird, it's almost like having a surrogate dad. They know what time and with who you come home... You get away with nothing.

So The one friend who has seen the place (Divorced Guy), when I spoke to him about my doorman thing, was like -'you are rich. it's a fact of life. you don't even see them'. I absolutely NEVER want to be that person.

I will make them my allies. And I will make George let me in myself so he can sleep.

I am SOOO not rich by the way. But I am living like a rockstar.

I'm gonna be a STAR!

Well, possibly. And not so much a 'star' as a member of the audience at 'Comedy Central Presents...'. But the camera guy was ALL UP IN MY FACE for the whole taping, I guess me and the new roomie make a very photogenic couple(!). It was so weird, in going to this thing I wanted nothing more than to get my ugly mug on screen, but trying laugh naturally when you know you're being taped is almost impossible. Well anyway fingers crossed I cam call my mum and tell her 'Look at me!'

We saw Brian Posehn, who was okay. He's so mopey and downbeat, it's hard to get caught up in the funny. And another guy, Nick Thune, who I've never heard of but who was hilarious.

The rest of my weekend was, I don't know, a little strange. I hung out with the new roomie Fri, we stumbled into Karaoke by mistake but we toughed it out. Saturday I went with him to his friends' friend's 30th birthday. I was so out of my element it wasn't even funny. That's good though, it made me realise how little I go to places where I'm not already a rockstar!I always go to the same bars with the same people, where I have a drink in my hand almost before I get through the door... It's not good for me. I need to get out of my comfort zone more often.

Alright that's it, was kind of an uneventful few days. Hopefully something interesting will happen tonight...

Karaokyurrrrgh

I just started working the karaoke shift at my bar and I must say. It sucks ass. Despite the pros (regular public nudity, some cuteness that doesn't come in on my other nights) it is, and legendarily has been, the most feared shift of the week. Here's why.

- Broadway babies mangling 'Suddenly Seymour'. I don't get it.
- Hordes of girls trolling for free drinks and taking up space nursing water
- It's loud as hell, dude. Especially when hearing 'Black Velvet' for the trillionth time.
- Why does some white-bread khaki slacks guy always have to do "Baby Got Back" at precisely 1:17am? (Although I secretly enjoy this part)
- Lots of underage/agressive/flat out nuts that we have to weed from the crowd.
- The pay doesn't match the hassle by a long long way.

Lets use tonight's nutbag as a stellar example. Some guy I hadn't seen before nursing beers at the bar, but you could just smell the crazy so neither of us working were really making conversation. Then I happened to wander out for a cig while he was out there. Now my outdoor smoking time is a cherished free moment, and you talk to me by invite only. I walked a couple of steps away, and he muttered at me 'Oh so I guess I'm nobody....again...'. OH-kay. He mustered up his courage and approached me.

- Hi, I'm Nikolai, Victor of the People
- Huh?
- Oh, that's the name on my birth certificate, I was named after a communist leader. You can just call me Nikolai though.
- Oh, thanks...
- Yeah, I'm from around {thank you for the super helpful information} but I live in Harlem now... you should check it out, I have a queen sized bed....

I don't even know what this meant. Did he grow up sleeping under bridges, so a bed is a matter of pride? Was it a come-on? WTF?

His credit card was declined in the end, and he tried to bargain his tab for a book of quotations on Buddhism. We took his guitar in lieu of payment, and he was pissed. So pissed that three hours later he was still sitting on the street across from the bar, waiting for a new bartender to start the morning shift so he could claim the guitar he 'forgot'. This dastardly plan he confided to my bouncer - who believe me looks exactly like a bouncer and nothing else.

Oh well, another night in karaoke hell is done.

Let's see if this sticks

I keep trying to catch up the last couple of months, but between apt. hunting and NOOOO INTERNET ACCESS this fell by the wayside. Settled now though so let's catch up.

FB - Wow, what a jerk. I had him dangling on the line a bit. But when he found out I stayed at The Ex's place a couple days when I had to move, he went nuts, calling me a slut. I couldn't even get mad 'cos it was at work, he's a semi-regular, and no=one knew we were hooking up; I had to tell him with a smile "I don't think you're in the right mood to be drinking". This was like 2 months ago, he kind of apologised and is back to being just another guy in the bar - albeit one who's seen me nekkid!

My Fake Boyf - Had to cut him off completely, and kind of cruelly. The text message declarations of love were out of control. I told him it would be kind of pathetic for his entire life to revolve around my bar, and it kind of calmed down a bit. However a possible new prospect just told me when he asked why I was off one night MFB said - Why, are you in love with her? and got all territorial - Oh holy crap he literally texted me right this minute saying 'I still luv you, do you still luv me?' We haven' had any outside work contact, I hardly speak to him at work anymore - I don't know what else to do.

Hot Teacher - My willpower lasted three days, and then we had lots and lots of awesome sex. However he is either an enormous asshole, or just the only guy I've ever dated who's been truly honest with me. More on him later.

So for the new stuff. I got ridiculously lucky on Craigslist. My sublet guy decided to come home early so I had to move mid-month and I hadn't even looked. I'm still unnerved by how well it came together. Everyone wanted like $900 to sleep in a closet, so I just posted an ad looking for a share. The first reply I got was the place I took. And it is AWESOME - doorman building with gym and sauna, washer dryer in the apt.!, private bathroom, walk-in closet, huge terrace with Manhattan/Triborough (I think; some bridge anyway) view - unbelievable. And the roommmate turned out to be one of my regulars' boss so she could give a glowing recommendation. And he's ahead chef at a Michelin starred restaurant - yum. (He's pretty cute too but there'll be no shenanigans, I love this place too too much.) I just moved in a week ago but everything's great so far. And it's weird, I feel like I have to act better to reflect my great living situation - dress better, better posture, less drunken idiocy? I don't know, it's all good anyhow.