Cheese & Rice

Sorry to have been m.i.a. dear reader(s?!), but I have been making some long-awaited life adjustments, switching rooms, cleaning up the layer of grime left by couch guests and committed relationships. I and my pseudo husband are no longer together in the romantic sense, though we still share a domicile, though not a bedroom, a long-awaited moment. Now I may once again make proper use of furniture, floor space, wall space, putting things in their proper places, etc. Further, both he and our other housemate Sam have been very busy with work and/or school in the past few weeks, meaning that my days off are oft spent alone at the house cooking and watching Netflix. Or not writing, trying to finagle my reinstitution as a university student at UNC Asheville. My initial essay was deleted when Art closed my open tabs in Firefox, despite my requests to not close my open tabs as they may well be incomplete essays or some other important document. Oh well, ground rules are being laid.

Overall everything is much clearer and less, um, fucking awful, now that I am back to my comfortable state of single FOR GOOD THIS TIME. No more of this back and forth shit. And since I am now out of Chapel Hill, there is no cause for relapse as a result of environmental pressures and general dystopia. No offense Chapel Hill, I just fucking hate you is all. Even you, little Carrboro. Some of your inhabitants are quite wonderful, and I am happy for them that they can coexist happily with your flat, hot, useless and yet pretentious little aura, but they can and cheers. Their college degree will look better than mine. Or will it? 35,000 students, half of undergrad courses taught by 22-year-olds (a group proven to have no brains), arbitrary distinctions between clever and workable into a corporation etc. vs. 3,500 students, liberal arts atmosphere (shame on you Chapel Hill for even using those words to describe anything on your campus), virtually no athletics or “school spirit” whatsoever (FUCK YES still my biggest draw to UNCA), tiny discussion-based classes. I choose the latter, obviously.

In the meantime I have been working downtown and all the while trying to find ways to make my ends meet on craigslist. I have done a bit of modeling and while the $25+/hr is nice, the gigs are few and far-ish between. I may have a more consistent gig set up starting this week, depending upon how the initial work goes. I have also volunteered at a couple of downtown music events, and while they don’t exactly pay, volunteers get between 3-5 free drinks plus shift drinks plus no one really notices if you sneak an extra beer. On Sunday at the LAAFF (Lexington Avenue Arts & Fun Festival), I sold beer from 6-8:30 and made $50 in tips, plus 4 free high gravity organic beers (Pisgah Belgian Tripel Solstice, 12% ABV). Everyone working with me kept asking me questions and when I explained that I actually didn’t know what was going on any more than they did they apologized saying that I just seemed so together in the face of the huge crowds. I wanted to just tell them to work at a restaurant for 3 months and they would be the same way. Maybe they wouldn’t, some people just don’t have the demeanor for customer service. All in all, it’s a good deal for something I do not find to be stressful and I get an invitation to a sweet party put on by the Asheville Downtown Association in November at this fancy bar downtown. Free drinks, free cocktails, meeting funny people. It’s not bad at all.

Trying to find a real second job is difficult though. I have a third interview tomorrow afternoon at this Italian café with two different restaurants in Asheville, both at unbikeable distances from my house. Oh well. There really seems to not be a choice and as long as I can hold out until May I can get a real life bartending job somewhere. The menu seems good though, the prices are high and the wine list is extensive. I could definitely work with that situation. I just really need a second job. 25 hours a week is not cutting it, not when I’m out of school. I’m getting bored playing house with myself.

However, much of my free time is being spent with new and old friends alike, including a lot of the chill people that went to Hanover as well as my co-workers at the Green Sage, all of whom are super fun, laid-back and down for whatever, an underrated quality. We have gone out a couple of times and my friend Heather slept over on my couch on Friday night. We made popcorn and watched the Boondock Saints, which is really a dumb movie but the cheesy rice I made halfway through totally made up for it. Last night after the LAAFF my friend Ellie and I loitered in front of bars with her dog Yula, ran into people we work with and drank vodka and liqueurs in a gallery on the corner. We talked about watching the X-Files on her projector (ah, projectors!) but were both to exhausted by the shitshow that was downtown all day to do anything but go to our respective beds and pass out.

My plans for the rest of the evening are similar to last night: have a beer (Starr Hill Lucy), read some of The Grapes of Wrath since I finished Despair last week (awesome!), watch the X-Files until I fall asleep, get up at 7 to bike to work. All in all, not a bad Labor Day, and a few steps up from the super pathetic feeling of loneliness that was ironically shed the second I uncoupled myself. Now I can be myself yet again.