How Not to be a Rockstar September 14, 2009
… Jeff’s proposed title of the compelling bestseller he proposes I write. Not a bad idea, really, for a girl who spent a good 6 years pursuing a career in music, only to realize the pursuit had made her into something she was not. Into someone she did not envy or admire. And thus, she walked away from it all.
Not to say I was anywhere close to infamy. But those years did produce some pretty great stories of experiences both hysterical and terrible, both bittersweet and just plain bitter. SO maybe this is the new direction of my masters thesis… for the grad program I haven’t been accepted to yet…. because I’m still working on the application…. and because I can’t decided if it’s the right thing to do.
Which brings me to my next point.
Today is one of those thankfully rare days when, never mind all the a##-busting and name-taking you’ve been doing, you feel like you’re just not doing enough with your life. In fact, you can’t figure out what exactly you are doing, and why any of it hasn’t gotten you somewhere beyond serving shrimp teriyaki to college kids.
((Oh- great story – today, an elderly woman of questionable sanity walks in and tells the hostess that a friend recommended our sushi restaurant to her. For seafood. She is also allergic to shellfish. So when we settle on the seafood tempura, with only red snapper and salmon, I think it might just work out. I even bring her ketchup in lieu of cocktail sauce (Cocktail sauce. In an Asian restaurant. Seriously?). She looks pleased, but when I glance over a while later, she’s calling me over. “Honey… I’m sorry, but I just don’t taste any fee-ish in theya anywaya,” she says. She has eaten all the salmon, but the red snapper is there untouched. “I know it’s hard to see it with the batter, but these are the white fish,” I explain, pointing out all the fish she hasn’t eaten. “Well, I know forah fact they’s onions theya,” she says, pointing to the one white thing on her plate that, true, is not fish. Soon, I convince her to open up one of the “potatoes” so that she’ll see it is, in fact fish. She puts a small piece in her mouth. “Well that don’t taste like no fee-ish I evah had; try it,” she adds, actually offering me a piece of fish. I tell her that’s really okay, that I believe that she is unsatisfied with the fish and will see what I can do. I’m able to comp half of the price of her meal, tell her so, hand her the bill and get back to my other tables. Moments later, the hostess comes walks over and tells me the woman is at the front desk trying to get her bill decreased. I take a huge breath, trying to summon whatever patience I might have left. And to not drop my tray and run screaming for the hills. (Did I mention there is NO MANAGER ON DUTY??) Once again, I try to explain to her that we’ve already given her a huge discount on her meal. Somehow (and I’m a little foggy on the details here; I may have blacked out in order to save my head from exploding), I get her to pay 7 of the $7.51 she owed me. Victory? I’m still not sure.))
Clearly, my life is not glamorous.
But I don’t need it to be. The years in which I sought musical stardom (in one form or another) were some of my most exciting but undeniably my loneliest as well. I’ve traded it all in order to be true to myself, and was rewarded by meeting a most amazing partner. Together we traveled to a more happy latitude, and finally I live by the sea.
It’s like working on a puzzle, and your down to your last few missing pieces. But as soon as you find one that fits, you realize another has gone missing, and this continues until you feel like you’ll never get the damn thing together.
But if history repeats itself (and clearly it does) I know the feeling of being completely overwhelmed will only last so long, that tomorrow I’ll wake up with a renewed sense of purpose and optimism. Happens every time.
‘Til then I’m summoning my patience, not running for the hills.
Sophie’s Choice September 12, 2009
I told her the life of a model was no life for her… being the adolescent she was, she threw me an icy glare as the flashbulbs exploded. The rest – was history.
Apology September 9, 2009
Dear Guy at Table 26,
I wanted to take this opportunity to express my deepest regrets for your family’s experience at my restaurant the other night (in case the five times I apologized to you that evening were not enough). But first, please make yourself comfortable – this could take a while.
I’m sorry, for starters, that on the Sunday before Labor Day (which might as well be a Saturday), I was one of only two servers scheduled.
I’m sorry that you happened to arrive along with four other families and a couple of two-tops, so that when the server assigned to you failed to notice you and was too overwhelmed to take your table, I stepped in to make sure you didn’t wait any longer.
I’m sorry that at that point I had 5 other tables, one with a special needs child who had tipped over a full bowl of soup that nearly ended up in his mother’s lap (consequently, she was thanking me profusely just before you told me what a horrible job I was doing).
I’m sorry that under pressure, I failed to enter two of your sushi rolls. I’m also sorry that when I tried to correct the error, the sushi chefs (who are still working on their English) could not understand my request.
I’m sorry that you brought three small children to a sushi restaurant, and that your two young girls were squirmy. And that your son was screaming and had to be taken outside at one point. And that you and your wife do not appear to be on the best of terms. (Or even in love anymore).
I’m sorry that you decided to cancel the rolls as they were being made. They looked good. Reee-aly good.
And I’m sorry that you had to tell your server how to do her job. “Maybe if you just slowed down and listened, things like this wouldn’t happen.” You’re probably right – or I’d have five other tables also upset with me for not moving fast enough. But whatever. At least YOU would have been happy, and that’s what we’re really concerned about here.
Most of all, sir, I am sorry that you probably treat other people this way. Some of us have learned to roll with the punches, and even so it stings a little. Other people are not so lucky.
I can only hope that you now feel like a bigger man (because no one else who’s heard this story so far seems to see it that way), having put your waitress in her place.
My sincerest regrets,
~a
Gainfully Unemployed August 11, 2009
Ah, to be young and unemployed!! To live out your days sending out and dropping off resumes! To dream not of finding work in the field you spent 4 years preparing for, but of finding work in a restaurant where the entrees cost more than $8.99 so that you might at least have enough free time to pursue your creative endevors pro bono on the side.
To be entirely honest, back when I held a 9 to 5 in a young, sleek, hip office, I caught myself silently envying my lesser employed (read: jobless) friends. Their daily struggles (which included quite a bit of free time and sleeping in because there’s only so much job groveling you can do in a day), announced via Facebook status, read like mini adventures, romantic tales of strife, struggle and sacrifice. And free time. Did I mention free time?
And now here I am. Walking in the shoes I had just months ago dared only to experience vicariously.
Am I nervous that after two months I still have no job awaiting me when we arrive in Wilmington? Does it frighten me ever so slightly that my bank account balance creeps perilously downward each day?
No, mes amis!!
In fact, I find it exhilarating! Like a swan dive into a crystal clear lake lit by the early morning sun!! Like biking down a hill with the wind in my hair!!!
Or so I tell myself – every time I feel like I’m being sucked down into a spiral of frustration and self pity. Every time a cover letter goes unanswered. Every time I wonder if I made a huge mistake leaving my safe, if terribly unsatisfying, office management position.
This morning, I spent half an hour filling out an application for an assistant manager position at a health food store. I was feeling especially bold having just proof read a gloriously written cover letter, when the application asked me several questions about my grocery management and/or grocery store experience (of which I have approximately none). It was at this point that I realized I would not be considered for this job no matter how eloquent my treatise on why I was the obvious choice. That, and I really didn’t want the job.
So it was back to the drawing board – namely, the Craig’s List bulletin board. My latest motivational theory? That these employers must simply meet me in person to understand the force of nature that is Amanda Heironimus. That once my irresistible life force is transferred via a simple handshake, they will be powerless to turn me away. So, all I have to do is get to Wilmington (moving day = Thursday), and all will be made right in the universe!
Or something.
It keeps me going anyway. Making follow-up calls, sending e-mails, applying for jobs I probably have no business applying for, but which sound interesting and not overly difficult to figure out nonetheless (cough… Marine Finfish Cultivation Technician… cough, cough).
So to all my fellow unemployed (I prefer the kinder, gentler, if less widely utilized term, “Vocational Explorers”): keep calm, carry on and make productive and creative use of this rare surplus of time. And maybe do your job-hunting using the pool’s WIFI, because when are we ever going to get to do THAT again??
All my best,
~a
Red Hot American Summer July 13, 2009
All right, all right.
I’m forced to give in here and admit that the London post is going to take much longer than expected to pull together, and I’d feel like a bad friend, daughter and blogger if I left the slate blank for much longer without so much as a word to indicate I’m still alive, kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs a la John Mayer (anyone else captivated by the irony that he sings that line in falsetto – and that he still has a career?)
I’m writing to you now from Davidson, North Carolina, no longer an Ohioan, no longer 9 to 5-ing it, no longer sure of the future, and bizarrely at peace with all of this.
And assuredly having the best summer of my adult life.
Probably because it so closely resembles the summers of my childhood. Yes, we’re fixing up a house and I do wait the occasional table. But somehow I’ve been granted this incredible situation in which I (for a couple of months, anyway) have less cares and more free time, in which I ride bikes, go swimming, get enough sleep, go for ice cream, go to the movies, take late-night walks, take road trips, take naps. I was finally able to visit Evil Twin, who’s now a mere three hours away, and not only did we go out on the town dressed to the nines and drank a few pints, we STOLE A DOG. Yep, this dog had run away from its home too many times and when it nearly got hit by a car, its family officially lost ownership rights. Now she’s Moose’s new big sis.
I live this way knowing that, just like summer break, the bells will soon be ringing, calling me back to a more regimented lifestyle in which there are rules and responsibilities. We’ll be taking another day trip to Wilmington to scout the campus area for apartments. J and I came to an agreement that our safety and well-being are probably more important than being able to walk to the farmer’s market. And then there’s also an impending job hunt looming over my head.
But right now I’m going outside to catch some lightning bugs.
And the rest can wait.
~a
Oh, and, P.S. Something completely unrelated, but nonetheless hysterical:
The Everything Update June 8, 2009
As questions abound as to my whereabouts, activities and general existence, and as my head’s still too deeply buried under the pile of everything-that’s-happened-in-the-past-week, I thought I’d take this rare quiet moment to let everyone know that A) J and I have made it safely to Davidson, B) we’ve spent the majority of our time here preparing his former childhood home for sale, dividing its contents in order to get them to a number of different final destinations, and C) I do generally still exist.
Not only do I exist, but my existence has so greatly improved in the last week that it pains me a little that I had to leave so much behind to feel this great. My body prefers the climate, my mind prefers the pace and both prefer the work. Sadly, the work isn’t permanent, and there’s the task of securing some kind of job looming ahead.
Nevertheless, it’s been a much-needed change. The absence of Gabe (who, by the way, we heard from HART, has quickly adapted and is getting to run and likes the company of his fellow canine roomies) sometimes tugs at my heartstrings, but has also left a blanket of calm over my day-to-day. Not sitting behind a desk for 8 hours a day makes me endlessly happy – even if it means finding myself in the back of a garage closet, forearms draped with cobwebs, trying to convince a house mouse that he should probably find better digs than inside the camping equipment I’m trying to remove. And then there’s the big change of scene – I went from living across the street from a funeral home to having a family of deer dining at the treeline in my back yard.
In a couple of months we’ll be in Wilmington, and our lives will inevitably change again, but for now I dig the quiet life. And anyway, before the next move there’s the trip to London, J’s family beach vacation and my cousin’s wedding in Atlanta (right, so it’s possible my idea of the “quiet life” is a little warped).
We did get to take a day trip down to check out Wilmington (J had never been and chose UNCW for grad school site unseen). Evil twin drove down from Raleigh to join us, as she had once lived there and we hoped she could serve as tour guide. (She is, by the way, doing quite well, despite rooming in a house with a reckless, young, drama-prone lesbian couple). Turns out she only actually lived in Wilmington for 6 months and couldn’t even remember where her house had been, so she made a horrible tour guide, but great company. The three of us terrorized the historic downtown area for a while (offended an entire rooftop bar crowd, contemplated crashing not one, but two wedding receptions and discovered a piece of purple lingerie strewn across a historical statue that I swear we didn’t put there but were inclined to photograph nonetheless) and waded in the surf (read: got our clothes soaked because we weren’t paying attention to the size of the waves) and ate sundaes at Wrightsville beach that were called something unfortunate like Peanut Logs.
So let it be known that I have no complaints about my current existence and will be sure to write something more substantial and topical when things settle.
Which may be around Christmas time.
~a
All Good Things… May 18, 2009
Question: If a moving van leaves Columbus, Ohio at 8am on May 31st, and the moving couple departs from the same location at 9:45am (running late due to animals, long goodbyes and several “final” sweeps of the house), how long will it take said couple to question whether or not they’re making the right decision?
Answer: Approx. -17 days.
That’s right, it really hit us last Friday – the questioning of our sanity, that is. J and I were sitting on the front porch at a friend’s house, celebrating someone’s birthday with a cookout and good conversation on a beautiful spring evening. A warm breeze tousled our hair; we ate strawberries and cream and sipped gin and tonic and laughed. A lot.
I looked at J.
J looked at me.
And the look said something like:
“Dude. Wtf?”
It was the pained expression of how-can-we-leave-all-this-behind? I mean, what were we thinking when we decided to chuck the city we’ve both come to love and defend?? (Actually, I think we were thinking how much we loathe only getting to have real lives 6 months out of the year due to Ohio’s atrocious winters. And we’d just been to Miami in March, which will make anyone want to go beach bum). So, okay – we had our reasons. But that doesn’t make it any easier, now that the Dark Ages of winter have subsided, to let go of some of the more positive relationships we’ve established here.
It’s the few negative ones I’ve established, however, that are helping to ease that blow.
Like the guy at UDF who insists on being weird about my ice cream order every bloody time I go in there? Him I can do without. (If he’s not giving me 12 scoops of ice cream, he’s doubling my Deep Freeze into a melty tower of ice cream doom). And the parking lot attendant I walk past every day who finally put his head out the car window and screamed, “Hey pretty girl, what’s your name?” perhaps not thinking that if I took this poorly (which I did), we’d have to have a nice, awkward moment EVERY MORNING that I have to walk by his car.
And then there’s the literal relationships: the ex I won’t have to run into because we’ll no longer live down the street from each other. I cannot WAIT to live in a place where I don’t have to hear all about his g.d. band and to not have to tell people that, no, I do not in fact enjoy his music and, no, I would not like to go see him play at the local bar, and, yes, he DOES sound like a blatant rip off of Bob Dylan and/or Bruce Springsteen (depending on the song), and, yes, I have noticed that every song sounds like the last and, oh yes, he does really seem to like himself. (These conversations are admittedly somewhat enjoyable as they round the corner and become full-on Haterade toasts)
Finally, there are a few that I can’t even mention due to the expanding readership of this blog. You just never know, and I’m not in the clear yet. Lame People I Can Do Without – you probably know who you are, anyway.
Despite all of these, for the first time since I’ve started serial relocating, the mass of “Things I will Miss” is formidable. So much so that when J gave me that look, and I returned it, I really did have to think hard about what we’re on the verge of doing.
And yet….
I came out on the other end of all that contemplation still ready to pack my bags. Because this time, we’re doing it together. And this time, we’re going to do things the way we want to: create friendships that can be our own and not remnants of previous relationships; control our house (i.e. without the t.v.-as-background noise philosophy and as though Mr. Clean was our bald-headed third roomie – which could make a really awesome sitcom, come to think if it); fill our bedroom with playpen balls because we’re grown-ups now and it’s our turn to decide what that means!!! (Thank you, xkcd).
I’ve done one helluva job as a loner for the majority of my life, and I can’t speak for J (actually, I can; he’s lived with girlfriends before and is admittedly terrified of ruining everything…), but I’m hell bent on learning to live with someone else. I want a partner this time around. I’ve done Independence! and I’m tired of doing it all alone. Now that I know I’m capable of surviving without anyone, I want to do more than just survive.
And I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather take that ride with.
~a
In the event you have no idea to what I was referring...
28 April 10, 2009
I decided to get rolling on that serious blog I’ve been meaning to..um… get rolling on. Introducing: www.theadventurista.com.
~a
The Great Escape Part III (Or, Miami Vice) April 7, 2009
Where were we?
Ah yes, after a good night’s sleep, J woke up and phoned the movie theater, and, to our shock and amazement, they had his wallet in their possession (minus the $7 in cash he’s had left, but whatever). Since we were already in Aventura, we stopped at the local Archie’s Pizza for lunch with R’s girlfriend, who lives in the area. Archie’s served up a mean mojito, and its patio furniture included cushy armchairs and square beds, BEDS!, along with the more traditional stuff, so no complaints here.
When we dropped R’s girlfriend at her apartment, R insisted we take a quick stroll along the channel that runs behind her building, home of the mother of all yachts, The Adriana III (to be honest, the daughter of all yachts, because the Adriana II is even more immense). Apparently the couple that owns the Adrianas lives in the islands and pays a staff to live in the apartments and maintain the docked yacht. Miami excess makes your stomach turn at first, but strangely (or sadly) you start to get used to it after a few days.
"Never thought I'd be on a boat..." -T. Payne
We arrived back in North Beach in the late afternoon, changed into swimsuits, grabbed a bottle of wine and headed down to the pool deck to relax as the sun set. The view was stunning: colorful sunset, crew teams at practice gliding past, the great Tikki Beach (a Polynesian-style party barge) meandering through the bay. A couple of hours here was enough to recharge our batteries, and a good thing; that night we’d be experiencing South Beach nightlife…. for 6 hours straight.
I don't know why everyone thinks this place is soooo great.....
We tried all week to discover the Tikki's secret launch area... to no avail. My personal theory is it appears out of thin air once a year, Brigadoon-style.
After getting all dolled up (right, so the guys didn’t so much doll up as they did pimp out), we were ready to hit the town. R recently retired from the nightclub scene to launch a new brand of flavor-free vitamin water called Basix (which saved our lives, btw, this entire week). Before his departure, though, he’d been the manager of several clubs, including the famed Mansion, for a number of years. For this reason, we’d be getting a much more extensive (and much LESS expensive) experience.
Dolled Up/Pimped Out
Our night included visits to 5 clubs: Love/Hate (a tattoo-inspired dive), La Fois (the latest addition to the strip, and probably my favorite, it should be noted that no one remembers the correct spelling of the club’s name), Hedkandie (a modern Euro club featuring house music), Mansion (a monolithic dance club, possibly the longest-standing in South Beach) and finally SET (a slick, mid-sized dance club where we spent most of our time trying to sneak onto the go-go elevators).
Light-bulb-headed ceiling birds (I believe that's the technical term) @ La Fois
Mansion - a brimful Spring Break bacchanal. It was here that some guy body slammed me on his way into the bathroom, and I threw my nearly full drink on him. I'm going to blame the Basix for this... um... zeal. 
The average Miami clubber would pay a $10-$30 cover just to ENTER these clubs. Drinks on top of that are pricey, and parking is $10 on average. There’s no way we could’ve afforded this kind of club-hopping if we hadn’t been under R’s wing for the evening. There was no waiting in lines, no covers, no paying for drinks. It was a crazy night of V.I.P sight-seeing (and occasionally even dancing) and by the time we returned home, my head was a little spinny, I couldn’t feel my feet (stupid hot shoes) and the clock read 5:00 a.m. I don’t even recall falling asleep…
Just waking up the next afternoon.
(To be continued…)
