Washing U

I was going to say, "The down side to Lole leaving . . .," but there isn't an up side, merely multiple down sides. The most notable one this week is that I'm back to doing somewhere around 90% of the croissant production. Mike, the new guy, has been helping me shape and put stuff on pans, and he's made the dough all week (and done a mighty fine job), and I think I'm going to get him going on the laminating next week, too. And he seems pretty okay on this stuff. He's not quite as entertaining as Lole, but, hey, just having good help is enough for me. As I've been doing all of the lifting again--because I've been doing all of the laminating again--I'm definitely noticing a difference. Turns out that lifting 17 pounds of dough plus sheetpan an additional 48 to 60 times a day makes a difference.

Phil, meanwhile, is quite tired of Woody, I think. Certainly I hear a fair number of complaints, and Phil's not a complainer, at all. Woody can't seem to make the dough well or consistently--as noted, I can tell from across the table who made the sourdough dough. And today Woody had his boxers in a bunch about our dishwasher. We've been inspected by the health department, is where this started. This has happened at least twice before since I've been there, and we've never had serious problems, but this last inspector seemed to think she was at a fine-dining restaurant. I'm sorry if I'm bursting anyone's bubbles here, but (a) we are a 24-hour-a-day operation, which means that any cleaning will become inundated with flour within minutes, (b) we are in an old building (the original bakery part was first used as a bakery in, oh, about 1930, I think?), so there's a certain cumulative effect, (c) we don't use raw meat--in fact, the only meat in the place is the processed ham I use for croissants--or fish or poultry, which is where a lot of contamination arises, and (d), we bake everything at around 400 to 500 degrees. (It's my firm opinion that anything that survives that deserves to live.) Do I think we could be cleaner? Yes, absolutely. Do I think we're going to make anyone sick or kill anyone? Nope, not even a little. But the inspector Was Not Pleased, and was even less pleased (though our score improved) the second time through. She's coming back yet again on Wednesday, so there's a certain amount of tizzy going on.

The reason Woody has his boxers so bunched is that Dishguy does not, let us say, observe every rule in the sanitation handbook. Hell, I doubt he could read it, even if it were in Spanish. And, really, he's not entirely understanding what's being asked of him, health-inspector-wise, but Woody's all het up about it. He informed me today that he's getting "so mad" at him, and I just didn't know what to say. Dishguy is friendly, cheerful, and hardworking--he puts the rest of us to shame. He cleans up after us, and, if you can communicate what you want, or get one of the Hispanic guys to translate, he'll do his best for you. Does he really understand about soaking cleaning cloths in bleach water/sanitizer? No fucking way. He also doesn't quite get why he can't use the usual sink he uses to wash stuff on some days. (We have a big pot sink in the back of the bakery, but you're supposed to use the three-compartment sink to wash dishes, not that one. One compartment is supposed to have hot soapy water, the second is supposed to have rinse water, and the third is supposed to have sanitizer and water. You've likely seen a variation on this arrangement behind every bar you've attended. We have the equipment for that arrangement, but we do not use it. Again, if I thought we were putting anyone in the least bit of danger, I'd be way more concerned.

Hmm. I had quite a bit more, but TextEdit just ate it, for some reason. Whatever.

There was some actual good news this week, too. On Tuesday, Bossman informed me that I have two weeks' vacation coming, and did I want to take off or just take the pay. I'm taking the pay--Friend is trying to convince me to take off and make them cope without me, but I'd rather have the money. I've got to pay for my fun somehow--and, indeed, much fun is scheduled for the coming week. Bruce on Sunday AND Monday--Monday with a general admission ticket, which means if I were motivated and lucky, I could end up in the first 16 rows--and then Mickey Hart and some drummers on Thursday, and then Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello the following Monday. And I'm hoping to file the divorce papers that day, too. And today I got in the mail both a check for some work I did and one of the Bruce tickets--how bad a day can it be when you get that kind of mail?

You'll notice I've made no mention of the job for which I interviewed. That's because (a) I haven't heard anything yet, which, given that they wanted to "move quickly" on this, doesn't bode well, at least not in my head, and (b) I have tried very hard to Not Think About It. I'm going to be crushed when I don't get it, as it is, and thinking about it will only increase the weight of the crushing. Thus, I'm sticking with the current plan--take on as much editing as I possibly can manage, find some additional clients somehow, and quit the bakery, perhaps even by the end of the year. I don't know if I can hold out much longer than that, and even holding out that long will be a struggle; I hate it, every day, even though I manage to maintain a pretty good mood and manage to be entertained most of the day. It's bad enough that I hate it; maintaining a bad mood would only escalate everything.

Pennies

How I wish--O! so fervently!--that I had an alternative to the Microsoft Office products. Yes, I know there are alternatives out there, but my clients use Office, so I must, too, and I hate it, with the white-hot heat of 10,000 suns. it is so very, very dysfunctional. I consider myself a reasonably expert user--I can use styles, for example, if there's noone else using that document who is going to fuck up the styles--but it just freezes and breaks and wtf. I suspect part of it is that I'm using a Mac, but I've lived in the Windows world, too, and it's just awful. Take yesterday's adventures: I went to mactopia and found the latest update (from January, but whatever) and installed it . . . and then all of my toolbars were broke, plus all of my macros--and I had, oh, 20 or so that I had developed for my copyediting--were gone. Just gone--unrecoverable. Apparently, the newest version of Office for Mac--the one coming out around now?--is changing the macros are handled such that there's no cross-platform compatibility. This isn't necessarily an issue for me, as I don't share, say, workbooks with macros in them, but what a pain in the ass. I'd give up on it entirely if I didn't need to track changes in documents that I'm editing.

The weather here has finally changed. The list of things I have to do when that happens grows a little each year--or, perhaps, it just seems like more. Switching my clothes out isn't that big a deal, not least because I now have an abundance of closet space. I also have to crank up the vaporizer (I woke up at 2:30 am Saturday night, barely able to breathe, so I filled it and I'm better now; it's a little amazing what a huge difference that makes). I have to start slathering my body with lotion after I shower, but, in part because of my job, my fingers still crack sometimes. Getting dressed takes longer--all those layers of clothing; back when I practiced yoga and played handball, that was even more of a pain, because it meant changing several times in a day. The bathroom doesn't have a radiator, so I have to run the shower for awhile so it's not cold in there when I get in the shower. But I can switch back to flannel sheets, which I adore, so it's not all bad. Still, I think I'd trade the flannel sheets for not having to stand on the train platform with cold, damp air swirling around my legs.

I already have a ticket (and a decent one) for the Sunday Bruce show--but now I'm trying to score a floor ticket for the Monday show, and may even have found one. That means I'm probably going to exceed my entertainment budget for the month, but what's the point of doing all the side work if I can't do things like that once in awhile? In fact, that's precisely why I've been willing to take on all the extra work I can get: so I don't have to count every damned penny. I still do that, insofar as I track what I'm spending, and on what, but it's not the anxiety of looking at the checkbook, and looking at the bills, and wondering how I'm going to get them on the same planet.

I've been in that situation--for more than 10 years, as a matter of fact, from about 1981 until, oh, about 1995--and, as J and I have discussed repeatedly, it wears you down. I can't even imagine what it's like when it's the only circumstance you know, or when you're trying to support your kids, too, or when, say, your kids get sick or hurt. I still have a certain amount of anxiety around it, as you all have seen displayed here, but it has lessened gradually over the past 18 months. I still get a little anxious (okay, more than a little) about what I'm going to do next, how I'm going to get out of the bakery, blah, blah, blah, but I have irons in various fires, and we'll just see what happens first. I think even if I got a day job that only required, say, 40 hours a week for a decent salary plus benefits I would continue to take on editing projects as offered; hell, if I can fit the work in when I'm working 50 to 60 hours a week, I can certainly fit it in when I'm working fewer hours, and that would mean paying off the student loan sooner and maybe increasing retirement savings while I'm at it.

Speaking of your kids getting sick or hurt, Paul Krugman got it exactly right: "I don’t know about you, but I think American children who need medical care should get it, period. Even if you think adults have made bad choices — a baseless smear in the case of the Frosts, but put that on one side — only a truly vicious political movement would respond by punishing their injured children." That's really at the heart of it all. Either we take care of each other, or we don't. Will there be some people who exploit whatever system is in place for their own benefit? Of course; look at all those executives who get exorbitant pay even when their companies have gone into the toilet or when they've had to cut jobs (never their own, of course) or when they get their money on the sweat of the workers. I wouldn't say that those executives don't deserve health care, for example, no matter how many people they've exploited. And everyone else deserves it, too. I've always said that I want the same health care plan as my representatives in Congress, and the same retirement security as well. Seems fair, no?

In which . . .

the laminatrix has a job interview.

Downtown.

Doing grants and proposal management.

No idea how it Really went, but I gave it my best shot.

It would so rock.

In addition: the cat has died (yesterday), as has my mother's best friend's husband--the latter was a surprise, the former not. (My mother and said friend have been friends for nearly 70 years.) And the woman who was an intern at the bakery this summer dropped by yesterday, asked to talk to me privately, and then told me she had just been diagnosed with leukemia, wanted me to tell Bossman, but didn't want everyone else in the kitchen to know. No, she doesn't have any health insurance.

So it's been a confluence.

So I'm going to bed.

In Which I Laminate Do Stuff

In which I pay too much attention:

The radio station to which Artie listens (when I'm lucky; he listens to a Lite station when I'm not) advertises itself as the "true" oldies station. Then there are the clothing catalogues that describe the fit of some of their pants as "authentic" or "true." Or how about the television shows that advertise an "all-new" episode? Or the commercial that has the dad announcing that "in this house, noone uses drugs"?

What, pray tell, would a fake oldies station play? And what would an inauthentic fit be, exactly? And are some episodes only partly new? Does an all-new episode include an all-new cast? All-new characters? (It would be entertaining if one of those two things were true--an all-new cast playing the same old characters, or the same old cast playing all new characters.) Does the anti-drug message apply to antibiotics? Antidepressants? Treatments for erectile dysfunction? Sleep aids? Oral contraceptives? Alcohol? No? Then which drugs, exactly? (Actually, i suspect this is a longer rant.)

You've observed me ranting about sports cliches--have you played "he's-the-kinda-guy-who" lately?--but, on some level, I cut them a little slack. They're calling a game, live, and you have to expect a certain amount of infelicitous phrasing.*

However. Someone thought about the infelicities described above--hell, someone probably paid some marketing firm or person big wads of money to come up with those phrases. And I think that's what makes me a little crazier about them than about the sports cliches. Seriously: what the fuck is an authentic fit? (It's what I throw when I'm really peeved.)

*I also note that (a) they do NOT need to fill every single damned second with babble, (b) they have entirely too many factoids at hand, all of which they feel compelled to share, and (c) the proliferation of factoids promotes the wrong kind of attention, e.g., to bizarre little statistics that don't really enhance my watching or enjoying the game at hand. When MJ was still playing basketball here, I'd typically watch the playoffs with the sound down and the local radio broadcast on--not just for the excitement of the announcer, or because he was a home-team supporter, but because he was trying to paint a picture with words, trying to communicate the action, rather than trying to fill airtime. Similarly, I like a well-broadcast baseball game on the radio.

In which I buy things:

Two new pair of shoes, both on sale. One is yet! another! pair of Keens, a winter boot thing, complete with thermal lining of some kind. I have a pair of LLBean boots, but they're neither warm nor comfortable nor convenient, and the Keens were on sale at Footprints, as were Earth shoes. Yes, I had a pair a million years ago (where million = approx. 30), and they went out of business for awhile, but they're baaack. I got them in part because I can feel my calves tightening up every single day. Yes, I could practice yoga daily, but buying shoes is more fun.

In which I eat things:

A loaf of olive sourdough bread, to be specific, between last night and tonight. It was a smallish loaf, but still. With cheese, mind you--a lovely goat cheese today, and something brie-like-but-not-brie last night. And red wine was involved, but only after editing ceased for the evening. And some chocolate. (There's a list for you: bread, olives, cheese, chocolate, and red wine. And tea and honey. I suppose I should eat a vegetable once in awhile, doncha think?)

In which I read things:

I'm rereading Anthony Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds, and I am once again struck by several things. One is Trollope's point of view: he frequently provides judgments about his characters. In this novel, he often points out how unfamiliar Lizzie Eustace is with Truth. He also makes it difficult to completely despise Lizzie, despicable though he tells and shows you she is. Part of the reason, I think, is that Trollope, like Jane Austen, is well aware of the necessity of marrying someone who can and will support you. It almost doesn't matter whether you're male or female: if you don't have an income of your own, then you'd better find someone who has that. He is especially aware of what not having an income means for women (again, like Austen), in that there are few ways that a gentlewoman can earn her keep. Governess is about it, really. Or companion, like Miss Macnulty in the current work. That in itself is interesting: Lizzie must either have another woman with her (Macnulty) or live with another woman (her aunt, at an earlier point in her life), because it is simply not respectable for a woman to live alone.

Men can work in other occupations--minister (or whatever it's called), schoolteacher, barrister or lawyer, and reporter are the occupations of a few of the men who must earn a living--but women don't have those options, and Trollope doesn't romaticize that. He does allow his heroines to marry for love and to find love, and he clearly values that, but he also recognizes the boundaries within which women must operate. (I seem to remember The Way We Live Now as being particularly strong on that point, but I might be mistaken.) One of the guys with whom I used to play handball was writing a dissertation on Trollope many, many years ago--he never finished it, but we discussed Trollope more than once, after handball, which was entertaining on multiple levels. In any case, his dissertation would have argued that Trollope's novels ended when the characters had reestablished the community--or Community--that had become disrupted in some way by some character(s) or situation(s). Which probably would have been an interesting dissertation.

In any case, I highly recommend Trollope (with the exception of Phineas Finn and The Small House at Allington, both of which bored me to no end; if you're a completist, the way I tend to be, skim them as part of the series in which they appear, but don't spend too much time on them). If you're interested, I'll even recommend specific books or the Barsetshire or Palliser series, and you can go to any bookstore and find cheap editions of many of them.

It's Laminated Dead, Jim

Another Woody story: Thursday he asked if I'd ever lived in NY; I said no. Mike asked Woody if he'd ever been there; Woody says no. Then Woody declares that the "food culture" and the fine dining in this city are better than New York. I could not keep my mouth shut and said, "You've never been there! How can you say that?" According to Woody? He reads up on things, reads lots and lots of reviews, knows who's who and what's what in the fine-dining world, so he can tell. Gotcha.

Prior to getting my hair trimmed the other night, I stopped in to the building where I used to live, and found out that my friend the doorman died in August. (Remember that i was on the list to pull the plug on him if necessary?) Which would explain why he wasn't answering the phone at the front desk during what I thought would be his shifts. He was a sweetheart, especially because he liked me; he never thought the marriage would last, though, and he was right. I won't tell Chuck that, of course, and Chuck will be sad to hear the news. I'd thought to tell Chuck on Monday when we went to file our divorce papers, but it turns out that everything's closed Monday for Columbus Day, so the marriage will exist, at least on paper, a little longer.

Apparently the Cubs lost today and the city is in mourning; I haven't been paying attention. As for the Phillies, well, it's unclear whether their postseason run will last the night. Having dropped the two games at home, they're in front of a loud Colorado crowd tonight, so we might be writing an obituary for their season, too.

No need to write the obituary for my iPod just yet, though. I loaded up the new Bruce the other morning, which always makes the iPod cranky; I think there are some hidden incompatibilities, in part because I have such an old iPod and an old iMac. Relatively speaking, anyway. The new Bruce rocks, and I'm looking forward to the concert at the end of the month.

Speaking of obituaries, Friend's cat is dying. Cat has been with Friend's mom since May, because Cat was Displeased that Friend went back to work last year, and was displaying his displeasure in unfortunate and stressful ways. Cat was happy with Mom, who could provide lots of attention, but Mom called this week and said that Cat is failing--skinny, unsteady on his feet, not eating much, etc. Friend zipped up there yesterday and brought Cat back today, so Cat can, perhaps, die at home. Friend didn't really want to take Cat straight from Mom's to the vet for offing, in part because Cat hates the vet, but also, I think, because he wanted to have some time with Cat, and Cat does not appear to be in pain. Can't really eat, and drinking appears difficult, perhaps from strokes?, but not really in pain. So they're hanging out tonight, and, with any luck, Cat will go peacefully in his sleep in the next day or so, and Friend can put the body in the freezer until he can take it to the spot he's picked out. He'd planned on heading back to that location anyway next weekend, and I suspect a visit to the vet will occur if Cat doesn't die on his own. But they'll have had a chance to say goodbye to each other, which, especially given that Cat is 17 or 18 years old, is important. Friend didn't want me to come over, because he doesn't want anyone to see Cat in his current condition, and, I suspect, because he just wants to be with Cat, which is fitting. Cat predates--and outlived--his last/second marriage, for example, and used to go to work with Friend when he was tiny.

I managed to get most of the proofreading done--some of it tonight, even!--such that some (the part that I didn't know was sitting downstairs in the office for a week) will be a little late, but some (the part that is due next Friday) will be early. I'll be able to ship the whole thing off Monday (so long as FedEx doesn't care about Columbus), and I'll have plenty of time tomorrow and Monday to do the copyediting I have. With any luck, I'll get that done by Monday, too, which will enable me to do the OTHER proofreading and finish the copyediting that goes with the Sunday/Monday copyediting. (Got that? That's why I have a calendar.) I've been extraordinarily lucky lately (in general, actually, but especially lately), in that I've been getting a lot of work, but it's been spaced in ways that enable me to do it relatively easily, which means I can actually accept the work. Yes, I'm still working something like 60 or 70 hours a week, but it could be a lot worse.

One way or another, I have to get out of the bakery, as I keep saying, and the work I've been getting is crucial to one version of that plan. That is, getting some cash in the bank will make it easier to leave. I've decided, at least tentatively, to leave at the end of December, at the latest, though the thought of another season of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman" four times a day may send me right over the edge before that. Even though Lole will be around for the next week while Bossman is cruising in the Caribbean somewhere, I can feel my stress levels beginning to rise again already.

I also have decided that I am not doing anything other than croissants if I can possibly help it. Someone else is going to have to assemble orders for mini pastries. Someone else (or, more likely, no one) is going to have to make the little tarts that I've been making for the store. Someone else will have to make the macaroons that Lole makes, and the pastry cream, and the custard cups, and the bread pudding, and the doughs and fillings and such. I'll still help out Phil, when I can, but that's about it. (Speaking of which, Phil thinks very little of Woody's skills--and I can tell in a second whether Woody or Phil made the dough for the little sourdough rolls we send to the Tart, which amuses Phil no end.) Woody has already appropriated Mike (who was originally hired to help Johnnie decorate cakes, but he sucked at it and, I heard today, Johnnie apparently half-threatened to quit). Bossman had suggested that Mike would help me out, but Woody seems to have taken care of that. It will be interesting to see what Bossman does when it comes down to it.

That is, he was used to me doing what needed to be done, and, with Lole around this summer, even though we were producing nearly 4,000 croissants per week (each one shaped by hand, mind you), I was happy to do other things. So now that the croissants are all back on me, and only me? Nope. Same as the not-going-in tomorrow or Monday to do the orders. I used to be willing to do that, but not getting paid for Labor Day pissed me off. Don't want to pay me for Monday holidays? No problem--but I'm not going in on Monday while you're off somewhere, either, especially not when I can make twice as much per hour for editing, and not have to transport myself on my own dime/time while I'm at it. I'm trying very hard to not get vindictive about this, or bitter, but nevertheless hold the line. It's an interesting balance, but one that's useful for my self-preservation. (Friend noted that my stress levels dropped noticeably once Lole came on board full-time, for example, and I'd rather they not rise again.)

The thing is, I really don't like doing things this way. I like being in a position where I can put forth a full effort and be compensated appropriately for it. The bakery isn't such a position, however. Bossman doesn't want to pay people any more than he has to, and he expects everyone wants to work the hours he works (even though Bossman's Wife is constantly shrieking about how he needs to work less, and he works too much, and so on, but don't even get me started on her), and I can look forward to being exploited, basically, for his personal profit, if I put forth that effort. What he hasn't yet figured out--and may not ever figure out, but it's not my job to educate him--is that if he wants to offer the higher-end stuff we've been doing, and wants to offer it regularly, then he has to have someone around other than/in addition to him who can make it. And someone who has that level of skill is either going to be able to get substantially (for this business) more/better compensation in, say, a hotel restaurant, or is only going to stick around for a year or so, meaning a whole new round of training/learning will have to occur, and he's going to have to do it, especially now that Brad's gone and (though he doesn't know it) I'm leaving.

And here's another thing. I basically run the business for him when he goes away, whether it's for three days or a week or whatever. In addition, even when he's there, he just expects me to check in deliveries and such when they occur (because for awhile I was the only person other than him fluent in English), no matter what I happen to be doing. He has never once thanked me or told me I've done a good job or anything like that. It doesn't exactly increase my motivation, you know? Luckily, I'm an adult, and I like him personally, so I'm doing my best to let it slide off my back, rather than getting all wrapped up in it. Flip side, though, he gets two weeks' notice from me, no more, and if he's lucky, that will occur after Christmas. If I'm lucky, it'll occur before that.

Delamination Chronicles

I had dinner with Chuck and his son last night, and we had a fine time. Or, anyway, as fine a time as could be had by two people who are divorcing, and the son of one of them but not the other. I have no clue how to do this. On one hand, there's the fact that Chuck lied to me, every single day that he knew me. Oh, and left me. And used my money to do so. On a second hand, there's his son, who is still too young to hide very much, and who is as glad to see me as I am to see him. On the third hand, there's the things we remember, the old casual intimacies, and they do not disappear. And I can see Chuck struggle with them.

He called me a little while ago, and we had a rather intense 40-minute conversation. I actually got to say several of the things that I've been thinking--that he lied to me, from the day he met me, and that that was a rather large thing to swallow; that I know he didn't mean to hurt me, ever; that I asked him to show himself to be trustworthy, and he took my money, moved out, and told me he was falling in love with someone else. He likes to think, and he said, that the last thing was only because I had said i couldn't be married to him. I reiterated, for the umpteenth time, that I said I didn't know, that "I don't know" isn't "No," and that I didn't immediately say we could work things out because my experience of him is that that meant he would have just gone on the same way, and that was not acceptable to me. He wondered why he gets close to someone and then "the rug gets pulled out from under him." I asked him if he considered the ways he sabotaged his relationships (like lying constantly to someone who values honesty . . . though I didn't say that part).

He also likes to compare his condition to a brain tumor--if he'd had a tumor that caused him to behave the way he did, and then he had it taken out, wouldn't I have stuck with him? And I pointed out that the behavior did not, in fact, change, once he started taking medication; he continued to lie to me. I pointed out that he didn't want to go to marriage counseling. I pointed out that I did, in fact, attempt to do that; he noted that I still wouldn't promise it would be okay. I said hey, if you really loved me that much, I'd think you'd have grabbed at any chance whatsoever. And you didn't.

I reiterated, several times throughout the conversation that he lied to me, every single day that he knew me. Why, I asked. Because--and here's the kicker--he thought that, if I knew who he "really" was, I wouldn't love him. And, you know, I can't fix that. He certainly had ample reason to know otherwise, but, alas, couldn't believe what he saw.

Interestingly enough, all of this conversation was held in reasonable tones. There were some tears (mostly on his part), but much less drama then you might imagine. I have every suspicion that it'll come back at me in some way. But I know that he doesn't mean to hurt me, and he never has, and I told him that, too. He has hurt me, tremendously, but it was never his intent.

And he told me, again, that he loves me and he always will. Which I also cannot fix.

Yesterday I made some caramel apple tarts. For the caramel, I substituted orange juice for the water and cream, and I increased the butter and added cardamom (though not quite enough, I think, and some cinnamon would have been good, too). I arranged the apple bits so it more or less looked like this (thank you Tartlette, whomever you are), though the picture is of quince rather than apple. Things didn't get into the store until mid-afternoon, but that was pretty much unavoidable. I also made some fresh apple danish (quite good) and some pear almond tarts. And yesterday's plain croissants were unfuckingbelievable; too bad I couldn't teleport some of them to kstyle . . .

Do Laminatrices Dream of Electric Sheep?

Despite my desire to do so, I cannot watch baseball, first, because My Team isn't on television where I live, and second, because they seem to lose if I do watch them (e.g., when they play Atlanta or Chicago, i.e., when they are on TBS or WGN, or when they are on ESPN). However, i do know that (a) they are tied with the Mets for first place in the NL East, (b) they are winning right now, (c) the Mets are losing right now, and (d) there are two games left in the season after tonight. Apparently things are in such a state in the National League that several rounds of playoffs may be necessary before the NL playoffs begin, to determine the winners of various divisions as well as the occupant of the wild card berth. All this to say that I cannot call my brother tonight, even though my sister-in-law had her knee replaced this week, because he is a Mets fan, and a call cannot occur until the situation is clearer, viz., until it is determined whether I may taunt him (the gods frown upon premature taunting).

I spent today fantasizing about having a comma in every paycheck, not least because it's been awhile since i've seen one. Indeed, the fantasy included not just a comma, but paid days off and an increase in the numbers to the right and, perhaps, even to the left of the comma. I know better than to think that a request for additional information is grounds for dancing on the worktable, bathing in the spiral mixer, or submitting my resignation, but the laminatrix definitely dreamed of giving up lamination, except in the privacy of her own kitchen and without a dough sheeter. Oh, to laminate for friends only, rather than for the teeming masses! I have to say that, if I do get an interview at this place, I will make sure to point out that one of the benefits of hiring me is that they get a trained, professional pastry chef in the bargain, and I do so love to share my knowledge, albeit in edible, rather than audible, form.

Speaking of sharing knowledge in audible form, I thought i was going to leap across the table and stab Woody today. Mike was working with Woody today, and Woody just went on and on and on. Lordy. He might bring me some geese, though, as he's going hunting this weekend.

We also have a new woman working with us, an intern from the same school that Woody, Mike, and Brad attended. She's young and thin and vaguely hipsterish, what with her Chuck Taylors and all. (Hey, I got me some Chucks, too, and I love 'em, except not to work in, because they have absolutely no support whatsoever; might as well walk around barefoot on concrete all day.) Tuesday, I was treated to repeated views of her ass crack, as her jeans kept slipping down when she bent over or crouched. Wednesday, she was wearing a very tight, old, thin yellow t-shirt and a black bra; I'm sure the men with whom I work were as able as I was to discern her precise proportions. Yesterday and today, she theoretically had her hair held back in a ponytail and topped by a cap, but trust me when I say the cap was merely decorative and most of her hair was in the "hanging down all over the place" arrangement rather than in the "tied back or covered in some way so it doesn't get into people's food" arrangement. It was kind of funny, in a don't-bring-that-near-my-croissants kind of way, in that the hair elastic and hat were nods in the direction of hair containment without either of them doing that job and, apparently, without her wanting that job done. (Which I find a little bizarre: Not only do I not want to find one of my hairs in the food I'm preparing, I don't want to have my hair in my face or in the flour or in the crap with which I work all day. It's really much more convenient to get it out of the way and covered, much as I like to have it flying around all over the place in other settings.)

No laminating tomorrow: tomorrow is the Day of Tarts for the Store (which I kind of enjoy, if you want to know). The plan is pear and almond; the orange-cardamom-caramel apple ones that I tested the other day; and, if there's time and blackberries, sous bois tarts. We had an order for two large sous bois tarts on Wednesday, I think, and I went ahead and made them, along with four other large ones, figuring we might sell one or two of those. Or, all four of them, by yesterday, apparently. I'm not sure that Bossman has figured out yet that, unless I get help as good as Lole provides, the tarts will be gone when Lole leaves, as I won't have time to make them AND do all of the croissants. And I figured out, when it was way too late to do anything about it, that we're going to be short of the miniature plain croissants we send to the Brazen Tart's place. Bossman took an order for 50 for tomorrow, and I went ahead and filled it, even though I wasn't certain we had enough, I didn't have any more laminated dough today, and I am not laminating anything tomorrow. Whatever.

Update: Phillies win, Mets lose, which means the Phillies are in first place by a game, with two games left to play this season. Bossman is rooting for the Mets to get into the playoffs, only so they can play and beat the Cubs, whom he hates, for a reprise of sorts of 1969. Bossman is an old-school White Sox fan--always has been--and would root against the Cubs, no matter what. His two favorite teams, as he says, are the White Sox and whoever is playing the Cubs.

The Laminatrix is Displeased

Before I get to that, I must give credit where it's due. Woody made a focaccia today and made sure to make an end of it without green peppers, because he knows I cannot eat them. I wish I could like him more; he tries so hard, and he wants so badly to be liked and to make good food and so on. His pomposity comes from insecurity, and maybe ignorance, more than from arrogance, and I simultaneously know that about him and become irritated by him.

I, too, like Blue Moon, though without the fruit salad. I haven't had one in quite awhile, because I've been being a beer snob and have been drinking obscure Belgian and American craft beers on tap at the Tuesday night watering hole. And one of them, a couple of months ago, had some cardamom going on (and of course I don't remember what it was).

And, I actually got a response from one of the jobs for which I applied--a questionnaire! I duly filled it out, and I'll reread it before I send it tomorrow, but I was a little taken aback that I got it today and was expected to return it no later than Monday. Hey, at least I wasn't rejected outright just yet. And, yes, they asked about salary requirements and I gave a vague answer with no numbers.

Now, on to the Laminatrix's complaints about the media.

First, those commercials for the coffee counter at the BP station cafes. There's this weird fake-pseudo-french accented person going on about how they took the croissant and gave it an American twist! They made it round and piled it high with breakfast stuff! And turned it into a croissandwich! Stop it! The croissant is a fine thing--except it is not round. When made properly, it is made with butter. It is laminated, so that you can see the layers of dough and butter. This butter/lamination thing makes it flaky, not soft and round. Go ahead and make your crappy gas-station sandwich, pile on it whatever chemical-salt-sugar combination pleases you, but do NOT call it a croissant. I make croissants, I know croissants, and you are no Jack Kennedy croissant.

Second, there's a commercial for a small-business credit card, and the opening line is, "A wise man once said, do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life." What bullshit. Do I even need to detail how wrong this is, or the number of dimensions in which it is wrong? Must I pull out my anarcho-syndicalist trading cards and demonstrate that there's always shit work, always unpleasant crap, no matter how wonderful your society and your place in it happen to be? Because, you know, toilets still must be cleaned, garbage must still be managed, boring drudgery must still be performed, and we all know that none of that work is work that someone would love so much that the doers will feel like they're not working. And there's plenty of work out there (**coughpastrychefcough**) that one might well love but that will not provide much recompense, and it is only the not-well-rounded person who wants to only work and sleep. So shut up, already. Your credit card is not the ticket to my small business dreams.

Less Whining, More Food

I can't leave that last post at the top; that's too . . . something, even for me.

First, the bad news: Lole is leaving. Bossman asked him to stay until after Columbus Day weekend, because that's always a busy weekend for the bakery (long boring story why), and I'm just glad he's going to be around while Bossman is gone (from the 5th to the 12th or maybe 13th). I'm totally bummed that he's leaving, and not just because he's a huge help, to me personally and around the bakery generally--I'll be back to not really having anyone to talk to, which just makes the day longer and more tedious. Bossman said that he'd get the new guy--Mike--to help with us; he was hired to decorate cakes, but apparently sucks at it, bigtime. He was the night baker a local schmancy hotel, so he'll likely be competent, but there's no telling.

The good news is that a bunch of work has been falling in my lap, and, at least as important, it's been falling in such a way that I can actually accept it all. I have committed to or am in the middle of multiple projects, so I'm not getting a weekend off for awhile, but trust me when I tell you I'd rather have the work than a weekend off right now. I'm beginning to think that if I can get steady work from only two or three more publishers--even two, to start--I could quit the bakery. I doubt that will happen before the end of the year, but even a little bit of hope that I don't have to work at the bakery forever will help a little.

The other good news is that the Phillies won tonight, and the Mets are losing. I realize the chances of the Phillies actually making the playoffs, either by winning the NL East or by winning the wild card, are pretty slim, but I'm enjoying the moment right now.

And on to the food.

Lole made some apple danish yesterday that apparently were quite tasty--they were all gone by the time I got there this morning (I'm usually a little late Wednesday morning, because I don't like to get Friend up any earlier than necessary, and he's usually here Tuesday night). So we have these apples around, and they are really quite tart (and tasty), which I figured meant I should make some kind of apple tart for the store for the weekend.

Thus, I made some caramel--dark, but not REAL dark--and tossed the apples in lemon juice and flour, and then let them soak in the caramel for awhile. I put them into the little sucree shells I've been making for the tarts; for a few of them, I left some caramel clinging to them and put some streusel on top, but for one, I filled the shell with apples and then poured caramel in it. I kind of did that last one as a lark, figuring the other ones would be better--but I was wrong. The apples-and-caramel one was both prettier and tastier. It still needs a garnish of some kind on top (it looks kind of tarte tatin-ish), and I think I'm going to add some orange and some cardamom to the caramel to give it a little nudge, but I was pretty happy with it. Maybe some candied orange peel as a garnish? Hmmm . . .

I also took a couple of ounces of leftover croissant dough--unlaminated--and made a little caramel-apple pizza out of it. It, too, didn't suck. Caramel really is an amazing thing--you take this basic substance (sugar), one you use all the time, and you cook it and you get this whole other flavor going on.

Let me also note, in passing, that kstyle's comment below has been with me all day today, and deserves (and will get) more elaboration. Eventually, anyway. And I do love all you guys, you know.

Blogpost 101

(It really is the 101st of this particular blog, for what that's worth. It feels like I've been writing the same fucking post, over and over and over.)

Let's kill off another fantasy, why don't we.

I sent a long email to the owner of crunchy granola restaurant today, basically saying that, much as I want to work there, I can't afford to do it unless and until I get more of some other kind of (more lucrative) work. Because, really, that's the situation. Hateful as I find the bakery, I'm stuck there.

Here's the other thing that's been going on in my head for awhile now. Whenever I'm around college-age people--or even in a crowd of relatively recent graduates, like I was Saturday night--I can't help but feel as though I've completely wasted my life. I have talents, I have skills, I have abilities, I might even have a little wisdom, at this point, but I've made a series of bad choices and bad decisions (and, to be fair, I've had some bad luck along the way, but who doesn't) such that I feel like I'm living in a cramped corner. You can't point to any one of those choices or decisions and say, "There! THAT was the bad one!" Rather, it's a series of small steps, tiny increments of failure that eat away at space and time, leaving me in that corner. I can see the person I was 30 years ago, the enthusiasm, the naive, blundering well-meaningness, and I can see her promise, and then I look at what I've done with my life, and I wonder how I could have done such a poor job of it.

This is not a plea for reassurance or something. I know that I DO, in fact, have talents, skills, etc. But I'm using almost none of them, and I do not see how I am going to find a place, or create a place, or get to a place, where I use even some of them in ways that are valuable for anything other than my own bare survival.

In truth, arguably the worst thing I did was to get involved with Chuck--that's where my money went, for example. Without him, I'd have enough money in the bank to work only one job, or to start my own business after all, or to do any number of things. And I've realized that what did me in was and is the fact that no one has ever lied to me anywhere near that often. He was lying to me, about at least one thing, every single day that I was with him, and he married me, in front of our friends and family, while lying about several things that he knew were important to me. I don't think anyone quite expects that much lying--certainly noone else in my life has ever come within a long plane ride of him in that regard--and, because he's a very good liar, there weren't a lot of big red flags, just the occasional flutter in the breeze that he could explain away. That is, it's difficult to regard it as a "bad decision," because I think of such things as situations where one sees the facts and makes a dumb move anyway. I simply did not have, and could not have had, the necessary facts.

But I'm sure you could go through the alumni magazine and find plenty of other people who had similar experiences. One old friend/lover, for example, whose first wife had the same diagnosis as Chuck: at one point, while he was away at a conference, she put his belongings on the street and changed the locks. (She also ran up massive debt on the company AmEx card, which caused her to be canned.) He has since remarried, has a couple of kids, has an academic appointment, and is doing good work in his field.

We could argue that my experience with Chuck was also timed incredibly poorly, in that it combined several factors that are difficult to overcome under any circumstances and particularly difficult to overcome when one is as old as I am. That is, while he's certainly an asshole, and he certainly is responsible for some portion of the shitty situation I'm in, it's not all due to him.

And see how I'm using my training in philosophy? To parse the situation into little teeny bits, trying to apportion responsibility among the people and factors that seem relevant. All of which is an attempt to make sense of it, to tell a story that I can believe, at least for a little while, because the alternative is a kind of despair that I don't know how to assuage.

I keep clinging to my morning DJ's words today--he did a little essay on rock and roll t-shirts (I can direct you to the podcast, if you really want to hear it), and he talked about the zillions he has, and he mentioned one from some thrash metal band that said, on the back, "Die in Pain." Which he thought was just funny, because death isn't enough? it doesn't make you Interesting enough? You have to add the pain part?

And I try to laugh at myself, too, because of the above-mentioned alternative.

Getting Out

Jesus Old Man Chrysler did my feet hurt Friday night. Perhaps it's the 13 hours I spent standing on them at work? A day made more hellish than most farmers' market Fridays because Lole called in sick, and a day made even more full of resentment because the store manager who already makes $12/hour apparently said she was going to quit but then was provided with an "incentive" to stay. Monetary, one might guess. It's not that the store managers aren't working hard or are incompetent, mind you; that's not true at all, and that's not what I resent. (In my last job, several highly compensated people were complete fucking idiots who actually cost the company money and/or did damage; other highly compensated people worked their butts off and did a great job. The former annoyed the shit out of me, the latter not at all.)

I've reached the point where I don't even want to ask for more money, I just want to get the fuck out of there. Bossman knows what I'm worth, and he knows the products I put in the store and the backup I provide to him and to the business, and I shouldn't have to fucking ask. This isn't some big corporation where there are levels and managers and whatever--it's him, and he sees me there, five days a week, managing the production of 3500 croissants and making a fair number of them, checking in every fucking delivery from a supplier, getting new shit in the store cases, doing whatever needs doing.

I do not like feeling this angry and resentful, I might add. All of us think we're Special (and not just in that short bus way), all of us have moments when we feel underappreciated and underpaid, especially in comparison to That Person, all of us think something like, "They'll really miss me when I'm gone!!!!" And, probably, a lot of us are right; it's the rare business and the rare boss who really tries to compensate people fairly. I've been quite lucky in that regard--I think I've noted that my last two bosses tried very hard to get me compensated properly, and succeeded to some extent; certainly they regarded my contributions highly, and I knew that. That, I think, is what's bugging me here/now. Bossman sees what I'm doing, he can do math just like I can, he knows that croissants are 25% of the wholesale business--he himself noted in a recent newspaper article that our croissants are our best product--he knows how many of those tarts we've been selling at $4 a pop (I've been making somewhere around 60 to 80 a week, and there are never any left), he knows that I have to work another 10 to 20 hours a week on the editing to make ends meet, and so on.

Ah, well. He's going out of town in a couple of weeks--a 30th anniversary cruise, I think--but I don't know the exact dates. (Why would he bother to let me know ahead of time?) I've already decided that I'm not going in on Sunday or Monday to do the orders; normally I would, but I didn't get paid for Labor Day--I'm not scheduled to work on Mondays, don't you know, so I didn't get paid for that holiday. Ergo, I'm unavailable on any Sunday or Monday. The sad/annoying part is, it wouldn't take much to keep me around a little longer, but he's basically provided me with no incentive to stay, and my anger and resentment are such that it would take quite a bit of money at this point, for which I'm sure he (and his wife) would expect even more work. Better I should get out.

This week's new product--all my own idea, mind you--is using the hazelnut sablee crust, with the hazelnut frangipane, but putting a layer of chocolate inside; Nutella-esque, anyone? Thursday I did three test tarts, with three different types of chocolate, to figure out which one would work best--milk chocolate, to everyone's surprise. I drizzled chocolate on top (though it bloomed within a day, which I won't mention in front of Woody, because then we're in for a lecture on blooming chocolate), then yesterday caramelized some hazelnuts and glued them on with a dot of melted chocolate, and then put a little sharp edge of powdered sugar on it. Despite the fact that, according to Bossman, hazelnut is a hard sell, we sold 12 of them yesterday.

I also got to give two of them to the chef who got me the job at the bakery. He and his 3-year-old son and another chef--one who started after I'd graduated, but who is also French and who apparently thinks highly of me and my croissants--stopped by, so we chatted for awhile, and I made friends with the son (showing kids how machines work and taking them to places like the freezer downstairs for a special muffin go a long way to overcoming shyness). I loaded up the chef with two of the tarts, and some croissants, and a cookie and a mini muffin for his son; I gave the other chef a couple of croissants, too. It was good to see him, and fun to deal with his son, and nice of the other chef to be so nice to me.

And--hold on to your hats--I actually went out last night, by myself, and not just to dinner. A bar in the city is a gathering place for graduates of a nearby university whose football team was on television last night, plus there was a Musky Fest and a crowning of a Musky Queen, MCed by a local DJ to whom I listen in the morning and whom I happen to know a little. So I put aside my editing work, washed the flour out of my hair, and wandered down there last night. It was something of an anthropological expedition--I went to a Division III school, with a total of fewer than 3000 students in the college plus conservatory, so the huge state school experience is pretty foreign to me. I had a couple of beers, a couple of brats, watched the people and the game, talked to the DJ for a few minutes. Upon seeing me, he gave me his usual big hug, even though the last time I saw him was maybe four years ago and said, "Narya! How the hell have you been?" I gave him the very abbreviated (15-second) version of the past two years, which of course caused his mouth to gape a little. After the game, I made my way home and went to bed. The end.

This morning I got up and made tea and talked to mom and started editing. Yes, I also obsessed about what the fuck I'm going to do--and whined about it incessantly to J--but you all know that song. The basic thing I need to do is find more editing clients (or an office job, or both) and just get out of the bakery. Much as I like it, good as I am at it, it's not what I meant to do when I decided on pastry school nearly three years ago. If I get the clients and can work out something with the crunchy granola restaurant, fine, that would be nice; I'd like the chance to be the pastry chef, basically, at a place that embodies more of my own sensibility, and I'd like the chance to do it in circumstances where I don't have to be there to plate things and where I don't need to work full-time to make ends meet. I'd like the chance to figure out how to create desserts and breakfast pastries that people will buy; I'd like to create desserts that don't need plating and elaborate construction. And not just because I sucked at plating while in school. I've gotten better at the garnish thing, even. Rather, this restaurant is not one that can afford to have a pastry chef working a pastry line for dinner, which means desserts have to be self-contained in a particular way, which poses challenges of a different kind, and I'd like to take on the challenge.

So, instead of continuing to whine, tomorrow I'll edit the next bit, and force myself to make some queries to publishing companies. I suppose I could sit here and wait for them to magically find me, but I suspect that approach has limitations.

More About Lunch

I completely understand how the ancients thought that flies generated spontaneously--fruit flies, in particular. I must have had some vegetation in my garbage can, ergo, I also had fruit flies. I managed to get the garbage outside, so the flies will likely be gone within a day. But still--how do they know?

It's amazing how a National Day of Lounging can improve one's mood, especially when good food and good company are part of the festivities, and especially when I have done no work whatsoever, for the first time in several weeks. (I have some editing to do, but I should have no problem getting it all done tomorrow, so I just skipped it today.) I got out of work early yesterday, which meant I could shower the flour out of my hair before we headed to Whole Paycheck (for food) and then to the outdoor venue to see Emmylou Harris. It was cold as shit last night--in the 40s, I believe--but I had multiple layers (including fleece socks), and Friend had a Magic Fleece Blanket that kept our legs toasty, and the Thermarest chairs insulated us from the ground, so only my nose got cold. I didn't have to get up this morning, and neither did he, so we lounged awhile, then strolled on over to the crunchy granola place, had a lovely breakfast--sitting outside, no less, probably for the last time this season--and then strolled back home, where we watched some football. He had to leave (he has a hockey game this evening), which gives me the opportunity to do stuff, but I can assure you that very little stuff will be done. If I manage to cut up some tomatos and mozzarella cheese and slice off a hunk of bread I will regard myself as having done quite enough.

I keep putting off the Big Push to find more editing/proofreading clients, in part because I keep hoping some magical solution will appear (e.g., an office job or winning the lottery--both of which seem equally likely), in part because I've been busy, in part because I have to expect a lot of refusals (which requires a certain strength of mind), and in part because there are so very many publishers out there and no obvious way to figure out which ones utilize freelancers. I had thought to go with university presses, but my editor friend tells me that his press doesn't use freelance proofreaders and rarely brings in new freelance copyeditors, and he suspects that's true for most other university presses, so I'm not so sure now.

I realize that I can procrastinate about this forfuckingever, which gets me exactly nowhere, or I can suck it up and do it. Nearly any attempt is better than no attempt (and, to be fair, I have been applying to regular jobs and made a couple of freelance inquiries, and have either heard nothing or been rejected, in every case). I can't do the crunchy-granola restaurant gig without substantially more freelance work. I won't give up either a day of overtime at the bakery--which is what giving up a day a week would require--or a day of either editing or relaxing; the former is more lucrative than the restaurant, and the latter is too enjoyable to give up for so little return. I also don't think I can do it justice with only one day a week of work. Thus, if I'm going to do it at all, I need to find enough editing so that's my major source of income, and work maybe 25 hours/week at the restaurant. Which wouldn't be so terrible--being the de facto pastry chef at a place like that, having the opportunity to do creative stuff as my heart desires, but without the necessity of working 70 hours a week to pay the bills. On the other hand, getting a normal office job would be fine, too, at this point--as if THAT's likely.

Tomorrow I have to do the editing, clean up some of the crap around this place, make my tea for the week, pay some bills, meet with one of the bakers at crunchy-granola place (I met with the other one Thursday, after I picked up my remade ring), and meet briefly with my dissertating client. Her committee passed her proposal--yay!--though the chair wants some relatively minor revisions; we spoke tonight for a few minutes, and she said in passing, "Hiring you was the best thing I did." Which was gratifying, I have to say. What I've mostly done is coach her and edit her writing. I've thought about trying to make a business out of that, too, but graduate students typically have even less money than I do (this person has a full-time job), so it kind of violates the Willie Sutton principle.

Moon in Crabbiness

I could whine and moan about work, about how much of it I have to do (and, of course, I did none of the editing tonight), about what i could possibly have been thinking when I agreed to throw a third job into the mix, about my terror about whether I'm ever going to find another job, one where I only need one job, say. I could bitch about Woody; I could sing the praises of Lole; I could complain about any number of things . . . but you've heard it all before. (I could also whine about my Phillies, but there's not much to be said there, either; even if they trounce the Mets in the next couple of days, they're likely to remain out of contention for either a division-winner spot or the wild-card spot. Alas.)

I picked up my ring yesterday--even though Chuck hasn't agreed to the terms, hey, I still have the diamond in my possession, you know?--and I like it. I certainly would much rather have the money I spent on it (and on Chuck's ring, for that matter), but that's not an option; ergo, I'm happy to have a piece of jewelry that I can wear. I've been trying to move the divorce along, but Chuck still hasn't completed the promissory note papers (four months or so after we first discussed this). Lately I think he's been kind of overwhelmed, in that his girlfriend's dad is dying (or dead by now, for all I know) and there's the usual school-year busyness with his son. Needless to say, my sympathies are limited. I've hesitated to push much, but I am so very tired of this whole thing, and I want it done. We rarely communicate at all, and I haven't seen him or--more important--his son in more than a month. I think he has (or someday will have) a difficult time dealing with this all, if, indeed, he ever deals with it at all; I kinda doubt it.

Bossman's wife was in the bakery today, going on about why was this order wrong, and he has to do something about it, and if she weren't there to follow him around and get him out of there, he'd never leave, and on and on and on. I have to tune it out as much as possible, because it otherwise drives me nuts. Take, for example, the phone calls. The people working in the store typically answer the phone. They're supposed to answer it within two rings (which can be difficult if there are customers in the store and the one phone in the store is already in use and so on), and if it's for Bossman, they're supposed to announce who it is over the intercom, not just say that it's for him. Bossman's wife also wants them to basically screen calls, i.e., only announce calls from a select group of people. It's worth pointing out that the number of customers per day has increased pretty significantly, so it's not as though the people in the store are standing around and/or have time to be receptionists. (It's also the case that she calls more often than anyone else, by a long shot.) In short, she thinks she's doing him some big favor, "protecting" him--because he's apparently incapable of protecting himself--when of course what she's really doing is causing even more hassle.

Woody's big pronouncement this afternoon was that there is no problem whatsoever with monosodium glutamate. He went on about it for a couple of minutes, and added that he really liked to use it as a flavor enhancer with some foods when he cooked. I kept my mouth shut through this whole monologue, though I was tempted to note, in response to his last comment, that that's because he has taste for shit. Which isn't entirely true, but I have been underwhelmed by his taste on several occasions (e.g., when we we all tasting some new tart, he started going on about how it was too this, or not enough that . . . we were all not responding, until Bossman finally said that Woody was kinda voted off the island on that particular issue; on other occasions, he has suggested flavor combos that I think will suck).

Lole was being frustrated (and therefore crabby) today, too, because there was just not enough room (typical for a Friday, of course), and it was wearing on him. We talked about it some the other day, and I completely agree with him; I've just become better at ignoring it, out of sanity-preserving necessity. There really isn't room, which means even the simplest task can become much more of a pain, because of the moving and rearranging and shlepping that must be done to accomplish it. It wears on all of us. And for all his frustration, he still got everything for tonight's bake put out on pans before he left.

Phil was annoyed, too, primarily because, if I got it right, Woody makes all this bread and then takes off before it gets bagged and put away--basically leaving it to Phil to do. I think Phil would spread out the production a little more, and he would certainly want Woody to complete the task, i.e., bag the bread, too. Woody had to leave today for a wedding rehearsal, but my guess is he wouldn't have stuck around anyway. In any case, I was helping Phil with that while waiting for some tarts to bake (I made pear almond this morning, and the hazelnut/raspberry/blackberry/strawberry/blueberry and the peach/mixed berry this afternoon), and I'll probably end up helping Phil tomorrow, too. Woody bugs Phil anyway (despite the language barrier!).

In short, everyone was just crabby today--I might have been the least crabby person around, and how often does THAT happen? The thing is, business has increased significantly in the past year, and the hands available aren't quite enough to manage the increase, which means everyone is humping, all day, every day. As I said to a friend last night, when I show up at 6:30 or so in the morning, I know I have at least 10, and possibly as many as 12, hours of work in front of me. Every fucking day. And, when I'm lucky, I have more work waiting at home (and I'm not being sarcastic about the lucky part; I'm glad to have the work, even when it puts a strain on me). Lole works almost as many hours as I do; Woody works about 40 hours a week; the Mexican guys work another day each and come in earlier (though they often leave earlier, as well), so they work probably about 60 or 65 hours a week to my 54 or 55. Bossman probably spends about 70 or more hours a week at the bakery. The thing is, I make the same amount of money no matter how good or bad the croissants are. I told Bossman today that Lole and I want a piece-rate bonus: we want a nickel for every croissant over 2000 we make (which would be somewhere around $75 a week, mind you). In short, business may be up, but my paycheck ain't.

Well, I must get some sleep. Friend and I are going to a concert tomorrow night--outdoors, even though it's supposed to be in the 60s or 50s come music-time; time to break out some fleece. And though I have some editing to finish Sunday and/or Monday, it's not a whole lot, so there might even be some time to relax in there. For a few minutes, anyway--though needlepoint is probably too much for which to ask.

More of the Same

My feet are really killing me tonight. I think it's partly because the Thursday Festival of Plain Croissants involves a fair amount of standing in one place--more than the other croissant-making Festivals--and partly because I worked nearly 12 hours today. I thought I was done around 5:15 or so, but Phil still needed a hand, so I lent one. He's as tired of Woody as Lole and I are, I think. It's kind of unfortunate (and tiresome), but every workplace has its issues. Today, for example, Lole asked Phil what time he'd be using the ovens tomorrow, and Woody answered, explosively, all fucking day! because it's Friday! and we have to bake all day! Why, yes, Woody, we all KNEW that, except that Phil is exceptional at managing the ovens, and if you tell him what you need, he'll find a way to accommodate you. Lole kind of politely told Woody to fuck off, and then got the answer he needed, about what time he could use the oven to bake some palmiers. And as I was helping Phil bag some bread (some of which Woody had screwed up, by not slashing it before baking, which forced us to send it to the markets and call it "rustic," rather than send it to the wholesale customers for whom it was intended), I said, "Hey Phil--where's Woody?" To which Phil replied, "Ah, shit, Woody; I want to go home, too." Or something along those lines. And that's kind of the other thing: for all of his prancing around, trying to be Mr. Big, he sure doesn't work many extra hours. The up side is that Lole cracks me up; he's really quite funny. We have to be a little careful around Woody, in that Lole can slide the knife in up under Woody's ribs so Woody doesn't even notice it, and i don't dare look at Lole when he does that, or we'd both lose it.

The worst part about the long day and sore feet is that I really should have done some editing tonight, but I just couldn't bring myself to do any more than the minimum (a sample chapter to send off tomorrow morning, to make sure I'm doing it correctly). I ate some fresh mozzarella and not-so-fresh-but-still-tasty semolina sesame sourdough bread, and some Ben and Jerry's Lite! ice cream--yes, I had wanted to include a vegetable in there, but got too lazy in the end. Of course, I'd also wanted to include a fermented beverage, but decided I'd sleep better without it. I suppose I could make the effort to do some editing tomorrow, and I'll try, but I need to talk to Friend tomorrow night (he made a mad dash to a nearby-but-still-90-miles-away-city tonight to see a concert), because he's heading to the neighboring state Saturday, or possibly Friday, to hang with friends, go to a wine-tasting, etc., and then dash back here early Sunday morning, fetch me, and haul us off to see the Indy cars in their final race of the season. Saturday I am supposed to be emptying and defrosting the reach-in freezer, which is having serious problems lately; I am so not looking forward to that task. (Would you want to shlep 60 pans of assorted crap down to the walk-in freezer, then clean the crap and ice and crud out of the reach-in, and then shlep everything back upstairs again? No; i didn't think so.) Saturday night I'm heading clear to the south end of the city (I'm a few blocks from the northern border) to go to a handball party; it will be nice to see the guys, but i dread the commute in both directions, and the cleaning-the-freezer task means I'll have to go home and shower rather than just head to the party from work.

This is an incredibly tedious and long-winded way of saying that I'm not going to get much editing done before Monday--and I have to send it out on Tuesday. And what was that i was saying about working at the crunchy-granola place on top of all of this?

Fuck, I don't know what to do. On one hand, an office job does sound tempting--but I have no reason to believe that I can actually get one. I have looked for jobs, off and on, for 15 years, and, in that time, I've gotten exactly two interviews--the substance abuse treatment agency, back in '94, and the film production company, a couple of months ago--and one job--the substance abuse treatment agency. Every other job I've gotten (and that hasn't been very many) has been with connections of one kind or another. It's also worth pointing out that I have failed to get even an interview, in at least two situations when (a) my qualifications lined up perfectly with the job being advertised AND (b) I had at least a second-degree connection who made a phone call or recommendation for me. The definition of insanity, you may remember, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Why should I expect that suddenly some HR person is going to see my resume and think I might be worth inviting in for a chat? Given that reality, it seems like a better idea to cobble together what I can, from the work i seem to be getting now, and hope for the best. And play the lottery.

Now with More Crunch!

Because my life isn't complicated enough, I'm going to start hanging out at the crunchy-granola restaurant and spiff up their baking, maybe one day a week when I don't have an editing job (I have two right now, so it's not going to happen just yet). And, who knows, maybe eventually work there something close to full-time, which would mean quitting the bakery, but also would mean I'd have to be getting even more editing and proofreading work. Meanwhile, Bossman's wife says Bossman needs to talk to me about something, "something good," she said; no telling what that's about. Crunchy-granola place would be an interesting venture--the chance to do some cool stuff, maybe, but it would definitely require more editing work to manage it. It would actually be okay to reverse the balance--say 25 or 30 hours a week at the editing stuff, and another 10 to 20 doing baking stuff. We'll see what happens. It would be somewhat ironic if Bossman came through with a raise as I'm working out how to leave the place; probably also wouldn't stop me from going, though I suppose it could delay things a little. Eh; no sense worrying about it yet--though, of course, I run through endless permutations in my head, most of which end in failure. Actually, it's not so much that they end in failure; it's more that I look for the costs and the downsides, and everything has some of those, and I try to figure out where the weakest parts of these grand plans are.

Too bad I didn't do a very good job of that before getting married and embarking on this particular career change. I didn't do a very good job of it before the other career changes, either, so my track record kinda sucks on this count. It's not that I don't think about what could go wrong, it's that I'm wrong about the things that could go wrong.

In other news, I'm feeling justified for my loathing of fake butter flavor, the smell of which, especially in microwave popcorn, has always made me a little ill.

Only two things

that money can't buy
and that's true love and home-grown tomatos

One can, however, purchase lovely heirloom tomatos in all kinds of colors (my favorites were the ones that were orange at the bottom and golden at the top--kind of a tye-dye effect) at the farmers' market and slice them up and sprinkle them with a little sea salt and some balsamic vinegar, and get some fresh mozzarella and some semolina sesame sourdough bread, and have one hell of a feast.

I got out of work early on Saturday, but I didn't do much of anything Saturday night except watch a movie ("Ocean's Twelve," because the other Netflix disc I had was scratched/cracked) and drink wine. Sunday I proofread, then had a wonderful four-hour dinner with J; she has either had houseguests or been out of town for the last three weeks, and she was looking forward to being home alone (and going to the gym) this week. Both her steak and my char were wonderful, and the bananas foster, well, it might be illegal in some states. Plus the server took pity on us and scraped up two spoonsful of sour cream sorbet; it had been for a dessert with strawberries that had been soaking in Grand Marnier and brown sugar and simple syrup, but they were out of it. I begged for a taste, and he managed to supply one, which made me wonder how those flavors could be incorporated into a tart that would last for a couple of days in the store. (And if i don't get a new keyboard soon, one whose keys don't stick, this one is going to be airborne.) Today I finished the proofreading, blue pen in hand, plus did the laundry so I don't have to do it next weekend (handball party on Saturday and Indy car race Sunday).

And today I haven't spoken a word to anyone except to ask someone in the laundry room if she was using the dryer. That part is peculiar: I lived alone for so many years, I got used to having days or even weekends of that kind of solitude. I'm sure I could have called someone if I particularly wanted conversation, and, in fact, there are several people I ought to have called, so it's not necessarily an enforced solitude. For that matter, if someone had called me, I would have been perfectly happy to talk to him or her, so it's not as though I insisted on the solitude, either. Anyway, it's familiar to me, because I lived with it for so many years, but the time with Chuck, especially when we lived together, meant I didn't have it that often, if ever, and it's sort of strange to have it back. At least I know how to do it.

I used to say that the good thing about living alone is that there's noone there when you get home, and the bad thing about living alone is that there's noone there when you get home. I don't really know how I feel about it over the long term. There are parts of the everyday intimacy with someone that I like and that I miss; I missed it when I was alone before, too. But living with someone . . . I don't know. I don't know that I'm a good judge, though; Chuck took up a lot of psychic space, and I don't know that everyone would take up quite that much. It's not an issue now anyway, mind you, it's that weekends of this kind of solitude make me think about it.

Extra Hooooos

Wow.

First, let me say that I liked the band (DMB) well enough to pay to hear/see them again, and I liked the venue (Alpine Valley) well enough to go see another concert there. Second, let me say that personal physical pain was present the whole evening (mostly in the form of pain in my feet and back, the latter from menstrual cramps), so that was something I had to transcend to enjoy myself. And I DID enjoy myself, quite a bit.

Those things said, the whole concert was like a drunken fraternity/sorority party with 40,000 other people. More than once, someone fell down drunk in front of us, in the mud, and decided that curling up there was a better alternative than trying to regain verticality. The pickup truck next to which we parked--completely randomly, the parking lot being a big field--contained someone so drunk before the show that I'm not certain he made it into the show, plus his brother was worried that he had vomited so much that he was dehydrated. That is, there were a LOT of really, really drunk people there; my Friend said it was almost like a Jimmy Buffet concert that way.

But the weirdest aspect, by far, was the . . . attitude? of the attendees. Everyone was busy mediating the experience--calling each other on cellphones, text-messaging, taking pictures with the cellphones--and not actually experiencing the experience. Similarly, people chatted the whole fucking time: It was as though they had paid to go to this frat party, and there was a really good band playing, and they'd all "Woooooo!" when the band played a good song (leaving a lot of unsaid hooooos), or sing along when the band played a song they knew, but mostly the band was kinda background music more than the reason they showed up at the event. Which was annoying for those of us who wanted to, you know, HEAR the music, without a constant conversation track in the background, foreground, and sideground. Very, very weird, though the amateur anthropologist in me was fascinated.

Sunday we hiked one of the trails at the southern end of the Kettle Moraine, which was wonderful, in several dimensions. The weather was perfect--sunny, warm, but not hot--and the bugs were minimal, despite all of the recent rain, and my body really appreciated the opportunity to walk up and down hills, to walk in general (rather than merely stand), and to be outside. And Friend is really good company. So, really, all good.

My mother isn't exactly all good, however; she had a relapse at the end of the week. They started her up again on the antibiotics, and they've given her a wider-spectrum replenish-the-gut-with-good-bacteria supplement ("I had to go to the natural foods store to get it."), and she has no strength or endurance whatsoever. She sounded okay, but only just okay, when I talked to her today, and I'm a little worried about how or whether she'll manage to get her strength back. And my dad has to decide whether to continue the TB treatments for his bladder cancer; he had another bad reaction last week. I suggested he ask the doctor what the worst-case scenarios are for discontinuing that treatment (he's had eight already, and is that enough to reduce the chances of recurrence significantly?) or for continuing it (how serious are the bad reactions? can they be life-threatening?). Feh.

This week "should" suck, in the sense that Bossman is leaving town tomorrow and will be gone until Friday, I think, but I'm going to hear B. B. King tomorrow night and I've decided to just not care. I'm hoping to get the next batch of proofreading before the weekend, and I'm hoping to hear from an editor friend at a university press who will be in town next weekend, in the hopes of hooking up for dinner or something. So, really, the week will only suck if I insist on getting too much sleep.

Thorns in My Body Parts

Where's Androcles when you need him?

I had this sore spot on the outside of my heel for awhile--a week? longer?--and figured it was just a side effect of my job; a rough spot, whatever. So I put lotion on it, waited for it to get better. It didn't. Finally the night before last I soaked it in hot water, and rubbed away the skin crud, and realized there was a little lump there--and some probing revealed a small thorn or splinter, which I removed. It doesn't hurt any more!

I've got a little contest going on in my head, to see if Woody can get through a day without saying something that annoys me. This week he's 0 for 4 (I don't work Monday and he doesn't work Saturday, so he's 0 for the week--well below the Mendoza line.) I've decided that his pontificating and his annoying remarks are signs of a certain amount of insecurity--okay, a large amount of insecurity--and I've discovered that thinking this helps me let him be, but today I almost said something. One of the kids who works in the store is a pain in the ass--he's about 17, and queens around the place, yells at Bossman, gets orders wrong constantly, and--here's the thing that sends me over the edge--he's a bullshitter. If you ask him a question, there's a good chance he'll just make something up on the spot. You know what? I'm married to someone like that (though not for much longer, I hope), and it's not a behavior I like.

Today he apparently yelled at another young woman working in the store, in front of customers. She's one of the better workers, and her older sister worked in the store and now works the markets when she comes home from college in the summer and in the store over holidays. She came storming into the back, nearly in tears--which is NOT like her--looking for Bossman. Woody goes after her, saying, "Calm down; calm down." I nearly stabbed him. First off, it was none of his damned business; she was, correctly, looking for the person in charge. Second, I HATE it when some patronizing asshole tells me, or anyone else, to "calm down." (Or when some asshole tells me to "smile! It can't be that bad!" Fuck you. I do not exist for your entertainment or pleasure, and I am under no fucking obligation to smile, for you or anyone else. Oh--and fuck you. And the horse in upon which you rode.) I didn't say anything--because it wasn't any of my damned business, either, and because the young woman seemed to have it in hand--but I came close.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I'm leaving work early (only 49 hours this week instead of the usual 55) to go to see the Dave Matthews Band tomorrow night. I suspect we'll be sitting in a mudfield, but I don't care. Sunday we were going to try to connect with an ex-coworker, but she's busy being an intern (as in M.D.) and we can't find her. Instead, we'll either hike a little, or hang out nekkid on a beach, or just come back and watch some racing; any of those is fine with me. In order to implement this plan, however, I need to get my ass to bed so I can get up at the ACoD and go glaze galettes, make some tarts, perhaps make some mousse, garnish all of the above, garnish some more sous-bois tarts, and put out croissants for tomorrow night's bake. Speaking of sous-bois tarts, I made a bunch on Wednesday, and two people came into the store asking for them before i had them out--woo-hoo! I was pleased that they were requested, and even more pleased that I had some available.

Things to Do on a Monday

Take a couple of onions and dice them; throw them into a wok or similarly large pan in some olive oil and a little butter. After the onions are soft and translucent, add the kernels cut from about eight ears of corn (you've already shucked the corn and boiled it for about six minutes). Maybe throw in some garlic. Add a large can of black beans (I rinse mine, for something like this, or everything gets a little muddy-looking) and a 15-ounce can of Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatos. If you're really inspired and it's sitting around in the refrigerator getting moldy, dice a hunk of ricotta salata cheese and throw that in, too. Mix everything around a little. Voila! You can eat it hot or cold.

Take a loaf of sourdough "lunch" bread from the freezer so it thaws by tomorrow. Find a small Mason jar and put into it basil-flavored olive oil, pesto from the freezer, balsamic vinegar, and dashes of pepper and thyme; be prepared to use this on the bread, once you've added the provolone, ham, and hard salami Friend is bringing (along with tomatos and green beans from his garden).

Later, you can take two of the peaches that are getting a little bruised-looking, slice them up, and, as you're eating them, absorb the essence-of-peachy-goodness they provide. Marvel at how they are juicy and sweet and peachalicious. Wonder if more of them can be transported tomorrow evening without being destroyed in transit.

Realize that all of this morning's blathering, and Larry's comment, have clarified both (a) your immense gratitude that you have a job and are getting by and even having fun once in awhile and (b) your realization that you don't love this job in its current context (low pay/long hours/for someone else's profit) nearly enough to stay with it. Be sad that you're kind of a loser that way, but accept it and keep looking for a different combination. Or pour a glass of wine and vegetate for awhile before going to sleep.

Bruised Flesh

Not mine--I'm speaking of the flesh of the two heirloom tomatos and the one not-quite-ripe peach that got a little bruised in transit Saturday and had to be consumed Saturday night; it was a tragedy, I tell you. I ate the tomatos with a sprinkling of sea salt and the peach with a sprinkling of brown sugar (no, not honey, surprisingly enough).

For an interesting post, as opposed to the drivel I put up, go check out the Brazen Tart's description of the dance on the line at a high-end restaurant (i.e., a dinner check of somewhere around $100 per person). For those of you who don't visit such places, note that you actually get three desserts: the "predessert," the actual dessert you order, and then some cookies (probably not of the fortune variety) or some other kind of sweet with your check. I have worked in restaurants (though never anything high-end, and not in a million years), and I have worked service jobs where I had a lot of direct contact with the public, but I've never done anything like worked a line in a good restaurant, and even from the Tart's description, you can tell that the pace is different from the work that I do. In my case, the time pressures are more from the fact that the night guys will be coming in (at 6:00 pm), and we have to be out of there, plus the croissants have to be on sheet pans and ready for baking and such, rather than that the customer is waiting for sweetness to arrive at his or her table in a timely fashion. There are exceptions, of course, in both directions: Tart has a lot of prep work to do, as she noted, which is similar to the stuff we're doing, and I occasionally have an order for which someone is waiting. Both of us have to get a lot of work done in the hours allotted.

For example, for a catering order on Friday, I assembled 10 large tarts, and garnished a total of 14: four Tartes du Sous-Bois (ground hazelnuts in crust, filled with hazelnut-sour cream frangipane and fresh raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and cherries; glazed after baking and garnished with raspberries, blackberries, and candied lemon peel), four chocolate mousse tarts (someone else had made them; I garnished them with raspberries), and six fruit tarts, for which I had to bake the crusts from the sablee dough I'd made the day before, fill with pastry cream, then arrange strawberries, blackberries, kiwi, raspberries, and mandarin oranges in a pleasing pattern, then glaze it). The sous-bois tarts and chocolate mousse tarts were marked so they could be sliced into eight pieces, and I garnished them so the garnish was on each slice.

Meanwhile, Lole was in a macaron-making frenzy. Over Thursday and Friday, he made caramel, pistachio, and chocolate, plus the fillings for each, plus the filling for raspberry ones, to which he didn't get before his week ended. (The cookie part of the macaron doesn't have a flavor--they're all made with, basically, almond flour, powdered sugar, and italian meringue--but each is colored appropriately, so they must be made and piped and baked in separate batches.) And, let me tell you, he definitely has the macaron mojo goin' on: they were beautiful and delicious.

You'll note that no mention was made in the previous two paragraphs of croissant-making. We managed to squeeze in the butter-shaping (Lole) and making room in the freezer by putting 40 dozen plain croissants on pans and hauling the cabinets down to the walk-in freezer, then cutting up the day's dough (me), slicing ham and cheese (Lole), and, eventually, after the tarts were done, laminating (me), but we didn't shape a single croissant until nearly 3:00 pm, IIRC. We cruised after that, however, and got out of there around 6:00.

The Tart observes that the pay in the industry is a sad joke, and that's one of the things that makes me a little crazy about the whole thing. What she doesn't point out, and what you may not realize, is that waiters and waitresses in her restaurant can take home more on a weekend night in tips than she makes in a month: Front-of-the-house staff can make serious bucks in this business, but the people who actually make the food, not so much. (Similarly, because of something I completely inadvertently saw at work, I believe that a couple of 20-somethings who kind of manage the store staff make about two bucks an hour more than I do--not quite the gap that Tart experiences, but it would result in about $400 more a month in take-home pay for me, which would be a substantial increase and would substantially reduce the pressure to do the extra work.)

I should point out that if I were willing to do work more like the Tart's, and could find a union job, I could make a little more; in part, it's my lack of interest in the fancy plating and working a line that holds me back. This may sound like orneriness on my part, but I would like that work a lot less, and the pay isn't a lot more, i.e., the trade-off isn't sufficient, and it still wouldn't lead to a longer-term solution that I'd really like. The Tart can be a superstar pastry chef, if that's the direction in which she wants to go--she certainly has the talent, and the background, and is young enough to spend some time getting the experience in fancy places, and did I mention her talents? (If I'd started the bakery, she would have been one of the people I'd have tried to hire or get involved as a partner.) Throw together the monetary and physical factors I've detailed here, and you're starting to get some serious difficulties--difficulties that eventually cannot be overcome by loving the act of making the food or the love of the food, at least not by me, and at least not at my age. (That doesn't stop me from feeling like a failure, however.)

That's something that makes me a little sad about my bakery dream going up in smoke: one of the things I wanted to try to rectify was that imbalance between the monetary rewards for the people who make the food and the monetary rewards for the owners or front-of-the-house staff. I don't know how I would have done it--or even if I could have run a business successful enough to execute such a plan--but it was definitely one of my goals. Profit-sharing, for example, could have been a way to do that; the more you work, the bigger your share of the profits. Or something. The reality is, if making lots of money is important to you, you certainly don't go into a business where the profit margins are non-existent or vanishingly small and where the only people who make serious money are the superstars. (Even mediocre lawyers make more than I do, for example, and I make the best croissants in the midwest.) If what you want to do is make money, you don't become a pastry chef. Hell, you don't even buy a restaurant; more than 90% of restaurants fail in the first two years. In short, I didn't expect that going into this business was going to make me rich.

It's not all monetary, though, it's a combination of factors. More bluntly, I also didn't get in this business to work long hours for low pay for someone else's profit. I was trying to find a combination of challenges, and work that I liked, and an opportunity for success, and maybe the opportunity to do these things in an equitable way, and starting my own bakery seemed like an excellent combination of those things, given that Chuck was going to support me for a little while (hah!). Well, it's spilled milk now, and the best I can do, I think, is figure out what to do next. I detail the issues with the current situation as much as I do not so I can whine and complain but so I can figure out the pieces. For example, I DO love a lot of the aspects of being a pastry chef/baker, and I'm good at it, and I'm continuing to get better, so there is a certain amount of satisfaction, but it turns out there isn't enough satisfaction to compensate for the low pay/long hours/for someone else's profit combination. If I can't have my own business, I'd rather work at a less satisfying job, for more money/fewer hours/paid days off. If I were making, say, $14/hour instead of $10, working exactly where I'm working, the choice would be only a little less clear. I suspect I'd still want to get out of it, though, if only because the work would be just as hard, the hours would be just as long, the paid days off would be just as non-existent, the profit would still go in someone else's pocket, and the long-term viability of the work would be just as tenuous.

And I don't think there's a single "right" combination, for me or anyone else. For some people, making a wad of money is the most important thing, and they don't care what the work happens to be or what they have to sell, or how much of their souls are included in the bargain. For other people, loving what they do is the most important thing, and they don't care if they have to live in a hovel or eat only Ramen noodles to do it. Some people have others depending on them for food and shelter, and they can't afford to be picky about either thing. Some people need a job with benefits. Some people get lucky or unlucky at a crucial moment, or make a decision at a crucial moment that leads one way or the other. We're all just muddling along here, I guess.

Anyway, I have to finish making my gallons of tea for the week, I should go to the post office if the rain stops for long enough, I have to apply for a couple of jobs, and I have to shuck, boil, and roast the dozen ears of corn I have, so I can use some for a corn/beans/tomato salad to take to the Aretha Franklin concert tomorrow. Which is likely to not suck.

Bits and Pieces

All kinds of interesting bits (in my own head, anyway).

First off, I've been hating my job. Yes, I know, I have mentioned this once or twice (okay, every fucking post), and you're tired of my whining already, but my mini-vacation has helped me realize that I REALLY, REALLY hate my job. There's not much I can do about it, other than continue to get up at the ass-crack of dawn and go to it (the job, not the ass-crack of dawn; unclear referents are a problem, aren't they?), and try to find or invent an alternative. On which I'm working, of course, slowly but surely. As when I finished graduate school, I have no idea what I'm going to do next, and that's somewhat disconcerting, but, on the upside, and unlike the 18 months after grad school, I have regular employment. I don't make enough to live on, and did I mention that I've been hating it?, but at least I have something.

Second, I did go to the jewelry store today. The woman who waited on me had been there the first time I went in, although it took her a little while to remember me and the ring. I pulled the ring out of the pocket of my chef pants and asked her what it would cost to have the diamond removed, without destroying the ring completely, and I said I'd eventually like to put a ruby in it, when I could afford that, because it's my birthstone. She looked a little taken aback and uncomfortable as we chatted around it, until I finally looked her in the eye and said, "My soon-to-be-ex-mother-in-law wants the diamond back." Which made it all clear for her, and elicited a certain amount of . . . compassion, I guess. Anyway, because I have a bezel setting, they're going to have to cut it off, and then rebuild it, in order to preserve the stone and set a different stone in it. She suggested that I set a garnet in it now--because garnets are red, but are WAY cheaper than rubies (the rubies she showed me, just for the hell of it, were $1300 and $2300, while a garnet would be about $50)--and then if/when I can afford to put a ruby in the ring, they can just break the stone and I won't have to have the bezel rebuilt again. I could get the whole thing taken care of for about $200, including the garnet, and I think I'm going to do it. I'm going to tell Chuck that it's going to cost him $100--it'd cost at least $50 for just removing the stone, and I think he should pay half the cost of rebuilding the setting--but I'm not providing details about what I'm doing. On one hand, I probably shouldn't spend any money on this thing, but it feels kind of important to me, and $100 isn't a lot to pay to have a ring I can wear again--and any red stone, including a garnet, will look quite nice with the gold and rose gold of the ring.

From there, I went to my zen shiatsu session, and that was interesting in a whole other way. For one thing, unlike what I imagine (perhaps inaccurately) to be true with people who have some kind of chronic condition or imbalance, my blockages seem to change from session to session. This is the first time I've gone in right after work, as well, and that might have influenced where the sore spots were. In any case, while I was on my back, it felt like she was working her way through a "surface" pile of crap--the work, the hating of the work, the sleeping on the ground in a tent for four days, the being with someone in a different way (I'd argue that camping with someone for the first time is an adventure in and of itself), the meeting of someone else's friends for the first time, the bullshit associated with the ring and the divorce and such. As is common, we chatted off and on about her life, my life, what we'd been doing, etc. While I was on my stomach, however, for 15 to 20 minutes at the end, and she worked mostly on my back, all conversation ceased, and I could feel her concentration and intensity even as I felt myself releasing/relaxing/realigning/whatever you want to call it. And I definitely felt better when I left than I had felt when I went in, which was the point, after all.

I have several rants or posts in my head--including one on success--but they're going to have to wait.

Diamonds: Not Really Forever

Among my tasks for tomorrow is going to the jeweler who made my wedding ring and finding out how much it will cost to get the diamond removed. I'd love to be able to put a ruby in it (it being my birthstone), but I can't really justify spending the money on a ruby, especially since I can't really wear the ring on a daily basis. Apparently Chuck's mother continues to ask him when he's getting the diamond back, and he doesn't want to sign any papers until we have a plan in place to get it back to her. Which is fine with me--I don't want it, and I won't wear the ring so long as it has a diamond in it--but I refuse to pay a single cent to have it removed. If she or he wants to cover the cost--in cash--then fine, I'll have it done.

And you know what else? She's welcome to discuss it with me if she has a problem with that. I have no doubt that Chuck will avoid that at all costs, because I'll bet you a dollar bill that there are many, many things he hasn't bothered to share with his family, and I know of several misrepresentations he's made as well. (For example, he claims that they just don't understand why I refused to even work on our marriage, which leads me to believe he's left out things like my efforts to find counseling we could afford, and that he hasn't exactly explained the parts about how he moved out, with my money, and then told me he was falling for someone else. I'd be happy to share that email with his mother, as a matter of fact. I probably won't, but I would have no problem doing so; perhaps that would help her understand why I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth. And I doubt that he's mentioned that he kept the $2,000 that his old company eventually repaid him for travel expenses, when I was the one who actually put out that money. I'd be compelled to mention that as well.) I've had an email to his sister sitting in a folder on my desktop. I haven't sent it, and I probably won't do that, either, but I also haven't deleted it.

Happily, I have a zen shiatsu session scheduled for right after the jeweler visit.