One Week

It's like my life: it makes no sense.

Well that week came out of nowhere.

Last Wednesday my job was to take about 30 foreign students to this western "club" for $2 drinks and line dancing. The place was packed, despite the $8 cover and line dancing. One coworker had been with the students dancing and was going to be taken home early, so he comes over to my van, thinking I'm the one driving him home, starts to push me off my seat and says, "Don't worry, I'll drive." I turn around and he realizes I'm not who he thought I was and starts apologizing like crazy. Then, "Ok, well give me a hug, cause I'm drunk." They leave in the other van and I head to Del Taco to pee. On my way out some foreign looking boys are on their way in, and I can't tell if they're my students or not, so I smile. Turns out they aren't, but I've already smiled and made eye contact so one comes over and ends up kissing my cheek.

Thursday I found out one of the students has blood cancer and might not live more than a couple of months. He just got here, was planning on staying at least a year, and is here with his sister, who he doesn't plan to tell. My response? "Are you messing with me?" But then I realize he isn't even looking me in the eyes. And I feel like an ass. He shows me his leg and his veins are black. Fucking scary. After that I meet up with a friend for sushi and wait outside with Quail Man and Robin. (No joke. Wish I'd gotten a picture.) After that my coworker gets off early and wants me to meet him at one of my favorite bars, which I discover is a 3 minute walk from my apartment. Somehow we end up talking with his friends about AIDS and herpes for like 20 minutes and they leave saying, "Always wear a condom." Good advice.

Porkchop couldn't make it.

Friday afternoon (when I finally wake up) I go for a run. Across the street from my apartment there's a coffee shop and food mart, and on my way back I see a double decker bus sitting outside with a ton of Asians. Some of them were taking Asian glamor shots with their coffees and here I am running by all sweaty and gross. That night, I was rear ended by a taxi while I had students in the van. I pull over and the taxi stays where he is, blocking the lane. There isn't much damage, but my bumper is very bent. The taxi driver looks at it and says, "Oh, that was there before. I didn't do that." Since I was 100% not at fault, as I was stopped at a light, I tell him he's in no position to tell me what damage was and was not there before he hit me. He refuses to give me his information and suggests I call the cops. So I write down his plate number and call. While I'm giving the dispatcher what information I can, another cop drives by and tells the taxi to get out of the middle of the road. He pulls to the side, then comes over and says, "So you want my information or not?" WTF, dude. Finally he gives me his information (no idea why he made me call the cops...) and I can take the students home. Later that night we leave downtown at 130 AM when my boss calls me to come back for people left behind. They aren't even at the pick up place, so I have to go out of my way to get them. Grrr.

Saturday is Pride, but I have to work during the day so I miss the parade. I go to Baja Betty's with my lady while we wait for the boys to show up, but they end up going to another place, so we walk to meet them. And it is a sausage fest! There is only a small handful of chicks at this place, and we're there with straight guys. Obviously I have a great time. We get some drinks, meet some vibrant and fun looking gay guys and dance. My friends are grabbed and hit on, my lady is motorboated and I end up with half my drink on the floor. Then my Scottish friend tells me he wants to take me on a "proper American date." How can I say no to that? (I tell him to ask me when he's not drunk, so I get a text at 3am saying he's not drunk anymore; I've long since passed out.)

Sunday I'm called in early (and by early I mean 1130) and get a little bit of overtime. I was having a great day: the sun was out, I took kids to the beach, I was not hungover, and I felt fancy in a skirt. After work I have dinner with my lady, then go home to shower and wait for shift #2 to start. At 130 AM I'm back on campus waiting for a busload of students to show up. They finally do around 230, and I load 8 Taiwanese students and their luggage into my van to take them to their house families. First one I drop off I can't pronounce the name, so I show it to the girl who thinks it's her house and she says yes, that's her. When the woman answers the door she says she was expecting a boy. Since the girl confirmed that was her name there was nothing I could do and we assumed there was some error that could be figured out in the morning. Then I get to house #3 on my list and realize there's a boy in the very back who says his name is the first name I called. Well fuck. So I knock on the door and am told the students are expected to share a room, so since we can't have a boy and girl sharing a room I tell them there was a mistake and I'll bring them the other girl. So I continue with my drop offs and around 4am get back to the first house, do the switch, and drop off my van at 430. I'm home at 5, so I watch some TV and 45 minutes later get back out of bed.

Monday I'm at my lady's house at 630 AM with breakfast and lunch all packed. I've promised to go in to her class on her last day to see all her autistic preschoolers and help out. She buys me coffee, but I start to slow waaaaaay down at 9 AM. Luckily, they got an hour of swim time and that perked me up for the rest of the day. The kids were cute (except for the screaming ones) and I thoroughly enjoyed watching Miss K sing "I am a pizza" and "We love peanut butter." When the day is done I go home to nap. My alarm goes off at 530 PM and I have no idea what's going on. I don't recognize my alarm, don't understand why the street outside my window is so busy (thinking it's 530 AM), don't know where I am or what I'm supposed to be doing. I have a vague feeling I'm late for work, but don't know where or why... Finally I come to and understand what's going on. And an hour later I'm back on campus. My boss had asked me to extend my shift until 2 AM and I tell him I did not sleep the night before, but if I have to I will. There's some big party in Mission Beach that all the students were supposed to go to, but it turns out no one did. I start thinking I'll be off early. But when we get back to campus there's a group of 20 Italians who were told about a party and want to go, and we have to take them. But when we get to Mission Beach the party is over. We drop them off to go get drunk somewhere else and do the last of our pickups. We finally get out of there around 1 AM and my coworker and I stay on the phone to keep each other awake while we drive, talking mostly about this giant tarantula we saw. One of the best feelings in the whole world is getting into your bed when you're that exhausted. I slept hard.

Tuesday I force myself awake and go for a run. My foot kept bugging me, like I hadn't loosened up enough before running, and when I get back I notice a giant lump between my heel and second ankle. Weird. I'm not doing things to get random cuts and bruises anymore, so I figure it'll go away just like it came. After work I meet with friends for birthday tacos (and have the tamest taco tuesday experience ever while I get made fun of for wearing a dinosaur shirt) then go see "The Girl Who Played With Fire." I'm amazed how well they do these movies- they stay so close to the books and the actors are so real. Plus, I discovered Paolo Roberto is a real boxer, and he plays himself in the movie. Freaking cool. We'd gotten some frozen yogurt from Pink Berry to sneak into the theatre. Turns out it's ridiculously expensive and not even that good. I end up getting chocolate yogurt all over my hands and all over the inside of my purse (phone, book and chapstick included). Hooray. Way to end one hell of a week. But I discovered that my dinosaur shirt glows in the dark, so that's awesome.

Here's to hoping for a tamer and more restful week.

Pay My Bills!

Though it feels really good to see my credit card statement below $3k, my savings over $1k, enough in my checking account to cover rent and another paycheck on the way, I do sometimes wish I wasn't spending my nights working a second job. Sometimes I wish I had parents giving me money every month to live. Sometimes I wish I had a boyfriend who paid my rent.

I've made choices the last few years that got me where I am now. If I moved back in with one of my parents when I graduated college I could have lived rent free until I found a job and built up savings. Or if I moved in with The Ex (not that he would have agreed...) when I was laid off I could have lived cheaply. Or if I found a full time job at a desk somewhere I could have a consistent paycheck and probably have my card paid off by now.

I chose to stay in San Diego when I graduated. I chose to live alone. I chose to work at a non-profit, outside, doing something I love. But when I'm working nights driving students to PB or downtown, when they're all dressed up and smelling nice, to go have fun is kind of depressing. I've never really had the cute clothes, nice perfume, or sexy shoes like other girls have, and rarely did I ever have the money to go out drinking and dancing. Oh, there was a time when I was working a lot at shuttles and went out and bought fancy foods, but that was a short time that seems so far away now. And it's not that I really care about dressing up and going out every week, because I don't. I just want to not count every dollar I spend on the rare night I can go out. I knew when I graduated that I wouldn't be making much money, and now I know it's more important to my overall happiness that I enjoy what I do for a living rather than be able to buy nice things. I just hate the worry and the penny pinching.

Since Blogger decided about an hour into me having ads that I abused the privilege (before the ads were even up... thanks Google) I'm not making any money from this blog. So, I am accepting cash donations to My Personal Fund. Money will go towards paying rent for myself and the kitty, providing us both with sustenance, fueling my car so I can continue making my own money, and maybe occasionally buying a pair of jeans (I have 2 that fit) or a t-shirt that hasn't been through the wash ten dozen times. Leave me a comment and I'll direct you to my bank account. Thanks!

Ballet

For 3 years during high school I insisted I did NOT dance. Colorguard involved rifles and sabres, I did not do the dancing part. I had friends who did dance in colorguard, but not me. When we had mandatory try outs for dance I didn't sweat it because my goal was to not get it. My senior homecoming was a bust: should have gone to City Walk like some of my friends did. Even prom wasn't the best, considering I passed off my boyfriend to my single friend and had ONE dance with him during the whole night. I didn't dance.

In the years following high school, up till now, I've reconsidered dance. It's really not as bad as I once thought. At Moorpark College I took a swing (dance) class where I switched off partners every two minutes and had a great time whenever I wasn't with the Arab guy who shaved his arm hair (gross). I actually liked that class, I liked moving around with the skilled male dancers, being led around the classroom, being told I was a great dancer. Since then I've more or less romanticized dance, always pestering the boyfriend to go dancing (even though I'm almost always pestering for the sake of pestering, not because I really care), enjoying Bollywood movies and remembering where friends went to salsa lessons. 

Tonight I watched House, M.D. and a ballet dancer ended up in the hospital after being dropped by her fellow dancer/lover.  Her main concern was being able to dance again, and the team ridiculed her (behind her back) for it. But if you are lucky enough to be able to do your passion for money then that seems like a pretty valid concern. The show isn't over yet (yay TiVo!) but they're throwing around words like MRI and syphilis, and House's best friend's girlfriend is personifying House's subconscious, so I can't really draw any conclusions just yet. Also, this is a tipsy post (happy cinco de mayo!), so I may be missing a link or two.

Anyway, the boyfriend said he's about to pass out if we don't go to bed about a minute ago and he's now asleep on the couch, so off to bed for us. First day at my new job in seven hours!