I Am... A Channel. Tune In.

I have found myself starting blog posts and getting lost in what the heck my point was supposed to be and then not finishing them. Maybe also because a lot of the time, I'm writing this at work when I should be working or I am working and I get distracted by what I'm actually getting paid for. This small detail aside, I have thought several times in the past few months about shutting this blog down. I actually had a externally-tearful internal battle about it a little less than a month ago: staring down the behind-the-scenes interface like an ex-lover with whom I had a fat fucking dinosaur femur to pick. But here we are, still, and I'm still unsure I'm ready to deprive my three readers deeper insights into my psyche than my inevitable changeover to Twitter would provide. (By the way, I was on Twitter before all y'all - early 2007 when my friend Al introduced me to it. And then I deleted my account last summer, then re-joined as brashlionroars. And I've updated exactly 30 times in like 4 months. Over it.)

As per usual, I'm experiencing a lil' bit of an existential non-crisis and coming to love myself for the unfocused renaissance woman I am. Instead of beating myself with the question, "Why aren't you famous yet?" or "Why aren't you making money as a performer?", etc, etc, etc, I'm quieting down and enjoying each day as it comes. In reading the latest New Yorker, in an article about the late David Foster Wallace, the sentence about his perception that people with lower intelligence are happier, having the attitude of "one day at a time," jumped out at me. Because this is the attitude that I have been cultivating within the past few years: day by day, moment by moment. There is no future, there is no past. It is only right now. We are all waiting for Godot.

Now, I'm not as smart as some people and I'm a lot smarter than a lot more people, but I'm not going to debate the stupidity of someone that decides to relinquish a great deal of control and settle upon the fact that, hey, the past is gone. I did it, it's done, and all I can do is learn from my mistakes. And maybe I'll make the same mistakes over again. But one day - I'll get it right. And as for the future, it is unwritten. What I am living is the NOW and that is the only place wherein I can institute change.

That said, and since it's taken me over two hours to write this freakin' post (see beginning of post), I don't know how this will correlate, but I have been thinking and re-thinking a lot about what my destiny in life is. I have, for as long as I can remember, wanted to perform. I am good - no - fabulous at it. I have been blessed with a captivating stage presence. I don't think this is bragging; I have been told this by many, many people. And no one has ever had the balls to tell me I sucked, so either I surround myself with gutless scaredy-cats or I just don't suck. Even when "Super Glossy!" was lightly panned as an uninteresting script, each reviewer commented on my ability to sell it through a stunning performance.

I have tried many different paths to the stage, there has been something about every single path that hasn't totally clicked for me. I don't like the auditioning part of acting (and to be fair, I have never fully given it a shot; there is just so much fear around it for me that I have successfully talked myself into hating it), I don't like the memorization of good story-telling, and I don't like the pressure of coming up with new material that stand-up comedy demands (among many other things I hate about stand-up). However, with the radio show this weekend, something... just... clicked.

Now, I understand, I am a total amateur. And this makes me think of when my grandfather commended a youthful teen-aged me on my ability to move on to something new when something current wasn't working for me. I interpreted this to mean (I don't think my grandfather intended it like this) that I never let things ripen. I get discouraged and because I am lucky enough to have the talent to do a lot of different things, I just keep moving to the next thing that I think will hold me. The incoming of accolades and encouragement I have received from Sunday night's show (again, no one has had the balls to tell me I sucked, but would it matter anyway? I'm freaking high from what I believe I can do now) have me thinking that the life I've been meant to live is now right in front of me, if not shrouded by inexperience and the uncertainty of How.

I took the Myers' Briggs personality test a couple of weeks ago and discovered I am an ENFP. Now, one might take this to be a fancier kind of Zodiac, but it was all the sign I needed - I am the Inspirer. Ever since Mr. Moore's sociology class in high school when I drew what I wanted engraved on my tombstone, and I paraphrase, "An Influential Voice For All," I have known that I want to touch the hearts and minds of everyone I meet. Doing the show on Sunday rekindled my joy for listening to other people's endeavors and knowing that the world is a better place with their puzzle piece in it. And it made me realize that I just want to talk to people about how they're living their dreams and I want to do it in a public forum so that everyone can hear how simple it truly is. You just have to tune in, past all the stimuli we're inundated with; listen to your soul and jump.

So here I go. I discovered this past week (here's Providence working for you - BTW, my belief in a "higher power," has unexpectedly taken a handle on me... weird. 13-year-old Courtney would have not talked to me) that I have a couple of unrelated connections to the same local radio station. I have connections from the radio station I used to work at in San Diego. All of these people believe in my ability to do this. I believe in my ability to do this because it's just there. And - I get to do everything I'm good at: use my stage presence (which of course will be all vocal, but that's there), be funny off-the-cuff, talk to others, and inspire others. And go to work in a T-shirt and jeans.

This might be my new-fangled crazy idea, but I'm ready to go for it. Who's with me??

Stay tuned.

If this is what feminism means, count me out.

I have been really bitter at the waitressing job as of late. I have allowed the resentment of being an "older" waitress affect my inexistent relationship with the owners, i.e., I feel like the owner (despite his $10 tip on chocolate cake and glass of milk) and his cronies waltz in the restaurant with nothing more than a shifty glance in my direction. I take this personally because I am a hard worker with a good work ethic, not to mention a degree from a university, I am officially "in my thirties," and I still wait tables. Which means to me that many people assume I'm a loser? I don't know. The fact is I enjoy serving. It's easy, it's exercise, and it's my human need for socialization taken care of so I can go home and hole up to play banjo and write. Hence, when the "higher-ups" at my weekend job come in and can't bring themselves to introduce themselves to me or thank me for the job I do (except in the ultra-impersonal memo included with my paycheck this week - "I enjoy working with all of you" types a manager. When have you ever worked with me? I see you stand around watching me work sometimes. I say hi to you first - every time.), it kinda makes me feel unimportant and under-appreciated and affects my morale and makes me want to be an asshole to the customers - or your family - that patronize your shithole.

Which brings us to Sunday. The owner's family (not the owner, but his wife, kids, and assorted other women) came in to eat. They were demanding - in that offensively sickly sweet Minnesota way - of things that aren't on the menu, making their preteen daughter approach me from across the restaurant for things like pens or extra tomatoes, and didn't say a word to me about who they were. Now, I agree, it shouldn't matter who they are. I should give them excellent customer service no matter what. But the fact that the Manager On Duty (MOD) told me as an aside, "That's Gary's family," and they didn't bother to introduce themselves or ask my name, but just acted like they were the only table I had in the restaurant and because they literally owned the place it was their own personal kitchen - this is what made me angry. I am so spoiled from my old job, where the owner was on site and always had a smile and a hug for her employees. Corporate fucks have no idea what creates morale - they just send a memo with "it's so great to work with you." Ugh, Fuck you.

So, back to Sunday (yeah, I'm not even to the meat of this story): The owner's family is there. Another table comes in - two women and a man. They sit down, I greet them, all is good. I come back a minute or two later, "Hey guys, can I get you some grub?" or whatever cute thing I come up with. And the older woman, probably late 50s, early 60s, says to me, "We LADIES would like something and this GUY would like something else." I am baffled for a second, "okay, what'll it be?" She continues: "You said, 'Hey guys,' but we are ladies." But knowing me and my bitter, affected disposition, I was not having this bullshit conversation about semantics, so I engaged them in a short talk about words, context, and being on the receiving end of words and how that affects their meaning. I made the loose argument that words have no inherent meaning, it's the context and it depends on who is hearing the words. I almost made the argument to this woman and the man, who were black, that if someone called them the N-word, their reaction would be very different from mine if I was called that. Of course, I wasn't about to take it there. The woman brushed me off, "well, you're just a young Minnesota woman, you don't know what we went through," or something to that effect, implying that I didn't appreciate what the women of my mother's generation did for women of my generation around women's rights, etc (which, btw, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but, uh, the ERA never passed, girlfriend). So then I called her on her assumption that I was Minnesotan, correcting her that I was from New York City (which I think makes me sound like a bad-ass) and California before that. After a minute or two of this inappropriate conversation for which I will totally take responsibility of stoking, I just took their order and then went in the back near the dishwasher to complain to the MOD about this inane transaction. Apparently, she has given shit to other servers in the past about this "hey guys" bullshit. So, I finish my conversation with the MOD as I leave the back area, enter the dining area, and finishing my sentence with "it's semantics, it's a waste of energy."

Not a minute later did I need another clue that she had heard me, as she came up to the MOD and said something to him ("it's NOT semantics and it's NOT a waste of energy"), then gathered her party for departure from the restaurant. Don't forget, Gary's family had been there the whole time and so Gary's wife gets up to assuage the woman, who gets increasingly incensed. I see that there's a scene starting and I'm no dummy - I know what I did wrong. So I approach the table to offer my sincere apologies and take responsibility for my unprofessionalism. The woman does not take kindly to that at all, she is here to PROVE A POINT! And she says to me, "You would have never said that to the feminists in NEW YORK!" And I knee-jerk-ly retort, "I AM a feminist." And she screams "NO YOU'RE NOT! OR YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND WHY I DON'T WANT TO BE CALLED A GUY!!!" Etc, etc, she leaves the restaurant claiming she'll never come back (please?), etc, etc, the owner's family turns up the sickly sweetness with me for the rest of their stay, etc, etc, I cry in the back because I'm upset over a lot of other shit too, and I don't lose my job (mostly because the shithole can't afford to lose employees).

If feminism is about trying to set people straight about not being called a "guy," then I want no part of it. I admit it was super super unprofessional of me to talk about a customer within earshot - I know this from over a decade in customer service. Sunday was like a manifestation of all the bad energy in my life from all directions. I almost wished I was fired so that I didn't have to make the eventual, inevitable decision to quit (although I am happy I don't have to look for another "save $" job). But I think a lot of 2nd wave Feminists would agree that tackling the misnomer greeting "hey guys" is so low on the priority list of women's rights, especially in modern times when the slang has just become accepted as a unisex salutation. The MOD did point out that the woman had a bit of an androgynous look to her, so maybe she was just sensitive about being mistaken for a man, which is no fun no matter what your gender. I'm just saying, if she had chosen her battles correctly, none of this shit would have happened. Meh. I guess I could have not gone into work either. And could have kept my mouth shut. Lesson learned. NEXT!

The Incline

I was looking through my friend Erin's website and I found this picture from our 48-hour film project from two years ago:


That's me on the ground, dead.

Last night it occured to me that "Super Glossy" wasn't even finished a year ago. Things like this are a nice reminder of life's rollercoaster.

Picky Me.

I need a second job. I have to move out of the rent-free place in which I'm staying by the end of the month (have to, the house is apparently being forclosed on) and I simply do not have the funds to put down both a security deposit and rent. The job I'm at now is through my temp agency and I think they want to hire me permanently, but there's some hoops they have to jump through concerning a crazy former employee that serve as an obstacle to my obtaining gainful employment. So I'm looking at restaurants in the area at which I can make a cool $400 a week or something.

Trevor has told me about Manny's Steakhouse, so I went to check out their site. The FIRST thing I noticed were the bull's slouching testicles. Testicles which do not seem to hang correctly in the picture. I deduce that the artist, and I cannot blame her/him, was so uncomfortable painting bull's balls that they couldn't do it well. And what is up with that weird sheen? Ew!

I so do not want to work there.

No pressure, but I do have a paypal if you so choose to help.