I have tried everything, I mean for my age. I had no idea in high school. Maybe be an art teacher? I was good at drawing. Then I graduated and I got a job in the art store in Flagstaff, thinking that would be a chance, but all they had me do was stock shelves. All my coworkers there had been to art school and most were older, and when a teacher --they had classes upstairs?-- when a teacher came down and needed help teaching or setting up for a class or whatever they always went to the art students, which I wasn't and I felt I would never be. I mean, even after just one summer working there it was pretty clear I would never save money to go to school and maybe I didn't plan well for art school anyway. My grades were not good. Maybe in other towns I wouldn't have even graduated, but in Flagstaff they just want you through your four years and out the door. So I felt pretty stuck, but I did work there a whole year. They never had me do anything but inventory, not even work the register.
Then Blaise, who I knew from sangha, asked me if I wanted to work at Daisey's, the college bar by NAU? And I had to think about it because of my vows to never drink. I mean, I have the most Irish family and I wanted to be the one to not drink, to not do that instead of everything else. So I hesitated to take the job, but then I did because of the tips and the night hours. This was good and bad. Not all good, but not all bad either. I started out doing inventory, which I knew how to do by then of course, but they promised when the students came back at the end of the summer I would work tables, which is what happened. I would get their orders and take them to the bar and then take the full tray back to my table and hand the drinks around. This you're supposed to do all flirty? because that's how you get tips from the college boys, by making them feel you're their one special bargirl! Just for them. I had to get some sort of embarrassing coaching from my boss and the other girls, on what to wear, how to talk, how to avoid the trouble boys, stuff like that. Even how to move for them! It was embarrassing, but it was also nice to get advice from the older girls, who it really felt like were looking out for me. They called me little sister and always had nice things to say and when Daisy's was full and loud and it was the end of the evening so the boys were rowdy they would encourage me with sly winks and tell me how much they envied my ass and liked my jeans and stuff like that. I really liked that job. Every day I looked forward to it. I mean, sometimes it was hard? Like, there was this one boy for a while he was tipping me so much I started getting nervous and then he grabbed me a couple of times, but then he apologized, actually really nice like a gentleman. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it but he started coming every night and sitting in my area, and you don't move out of your area because of the regulars? So: he started chatting me up and I was having my premonitions about this and getting worried, like when I left to walk home I kept thinking he'd be there and I was freaked out. Then one day Bobby Seau, our sort of doorman and bouncer, who is, like, a bear? I mean, he is like six feet tall and so thick I could not reach around him and he looks fat but he is all hard as wood. Anyway, he saw this college boy grab my wrist one night and I did get a little upset, and he was just suddenly there looking at the kid and he says pretty polite but strong let go of her and go home. And the kid starts to say something but Bobby Seau just shakes his enormous head and the kid takes the tab and leaves, no tip. Things like that could stress me out but mostly I loved that job and the people who worked there.
After I think two years? Blaise left to open the restaurant here in Kolob. I really missed her. She was really the person who made Daisey's work. She ran the place and everyone loved and respected her. Plus, I had rented a room from her for a year, so we had gotten close outside of work and she was a good friend. One day she called me from Kolob and offered me a job here. She said it would be a pay cut, but that she would love to have me here and that she had a trailer I could stay in, stuff like that. I had finally bought a car with what I'd saved from Daisey's, so I hesitated a while not sure that I could make payments with lower income, but here I am. Some of being here is like Daisey's, but really not much. I'm serving food, and there isn't much drinking here, mostly just wine with dinner, so that suits me. I have to dress a little fancier, but that's not too expensive. I already love my coworkers. There's a girl I knew a little in Flag, and some of the kitchen workers are my age and they're nice. This is a pretty good buddhist community, too, so I don't have to explain my dzi bead and my vows and stuff.
There aren't many men my age in town. Actually not many men at all! One thing I was really sad about in Flag was I kept meeting really good guys but then nothing. We would go out like two or three times and nothing. I was pretty down on myself, romance-wise. I learned how to flirt working in the bar, and I got to where I could predict a man's response to what I was wearing and how I acted and moved. But then after we'd gone out a couple of times they just stopped calling and lost interest, which made me feel pretty sad, or like I just didn't have what they wanted. I went through that whole pathetic girl thing? Where you keep checking your breath and re-doing your hair and asking the other waitresses if your ass looks fat, stuff like that. When Blaise asked me here I thought it might get worse, romance-wise, with so few men and most of them Mormon, which, I used to be Mormon, but not really because of all the drinking in my family, but I know it doesn't help the romance, so I hesitated on account of so few men-prospects. When I first got here I was okay being celibate for a while. I went into retreat for four weeks when I left Daisey's before I came here. I went to New Mexico and meditated and received teachings for those four weeks, and when I got to Kolob I kept that focus for a while, but really I was lonely. I went down to Blaise's, she had fires in her yard some nights, and I was really happy to have all these new girlfriends, but I did get lonely. One thing I did was start reading again which I hadn't since my dad made me when I was a kid. And I read not crap but real books, like Huck Finn and even Moby Dick and stuff to pass the day before my shift in the evening, and I kept the trailer extremely clean! There is one boy in the kitchen who came by for a while and I'm pretty sure he liked me, but he is so awkward and boring I just didn't see that going anywhere.
But I really love this job, too. They money is pretty good, especially with the trailer so cheap and nothing here to buy! And I am working through the guidebook of all the trails in this area and I really think this country is beautiful. And so I think I will be here for a while and I hope it just keeps working out.
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