Nothing compares 2 U

I'm sitting on my back stoop.  Long day.  But what does that mean?

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I was up early, doing some cleaning, but whatever.  I forgot my chef coat.

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Got a ride in from a coworker.  Nice that he saw me at the bus stop.  

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I finally walk into work around 3:38, finally realize that I have no chef coat in hand.

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Spend an hour doing prep upstairs, 'cause I have nothing to do with what's going on down there.

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Think about how I've done this a million times...

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I'm in the middle of deveining shrimp and the order comes in for two fillets.  I look at my expo with shrimp guts on my fingers.  He doesn't care.

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Throughout the night I'm pealing and de veining shrimp, all just to be skewered with either grape tomatoes or the yellow ones, ya know, the ones that go bad before you even use them.

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The end of the night is nigh, it's 9:57  and I shut it all down.  I'm breaking my habit but I tell my only other cook I'm taking our cutting boards up and then taking 5 for me.  20 minutes later, get a call up from the bar that they had a late walk in. We, in the kitchen, that is breaking down for the last 20 minutes and have dumped EVERYTHING and now we get the word about a potential table?

*

So we take care of the guests.  I turn the heat lamps back on.  The oven.  I pray for an easy order.

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I make a half assed burre blanc and we call it a day.  I call it a day.

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Intercom: can you guys send down two chilled spoons?

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the sous, he is how happy so lucky, and i wonder if i would be if I was him.  it was offered, in my initial interview.  I'm wondering...

the third planet

...that's how the world began/that's how the world will end

*

funny how it's three months and then, when I'm still doing prep at 10:30 at night, 15 out of 18 items on my list having been done but still having to bag up the fish, my GM says "hey, have you thought about moving up to supervisor?"

I'm in too much of a conversational mood to say, Hey, Have You Read My Resume?.  But I decide to take the low road, and see where this is going.  Been with these guys all of three months, and i think I've found my home.  What I'm afraid of is so much regulation.  Paperwork.  Training.  Unlearning and then, relearning.

Am I too old to do it again?  One more time, just because I have nothing to lose?

What do I have to lose?

*

It is a sad thing to look back, when reaching 40, to think back on where you were ten years back, and the only difference is that you had a minor clear direction when you were 30.  But you were also going through the second worst break up of your life.  At 40...I'm realizing how much work and effort my father and mother put forth to make our family work.  I'm barely scraping by, and it's a bit embarrassing, but that's life.

Calling it Quits

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3434
I am walking from the house party in 2005.

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I remember kissing you, once, the first time, on Halloween 2004.

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I broke up with my girlfriend a week after 10/31/2004.  I knew I didn't love her, as much as I loved her family.

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I walked through snow, it still coming down, that day in November 2005.  I looked at the time on my phone: 12:34.  I laughed for a second at the numerical niceness of it, and then the coldness of the cardkeys in my wallet reminded me that I am not going home.  Just another hotel.

*

It is June, 2005.  I've opened the windows, the breeze is great and I can see the Cathedral of Learning from my dining room.  You come behind me, asking if I'm going to make breakfast.  "It's afternoon baby, I'm gonna fry up some french toast and call it a day."

*

The shower is running.  I burn the french toast while I stand in front of my windows, just watching.  The view is...something I want to watch all the time.  The CoL is primed 45 degrees to the left.  And it's wonderful.  I didn't attend but that doesn't mean my appreciation is lacking.  Dan Marino was an alter boy at the church a block down, doesn't mean he get's a plaque.

*

I'm holding her hand.  It's snowing.  The so called blizzard was just a farce, but there are at least 3-4 inches on the ground.  I hold her hand...she didn't want me to.  I.  I was.  I was maybe doing my best to not cry.  I.

I.

I didn't know what to do.

*

I'm sipping coffee in my favorite diner in a city I no longer call home.  It is Thanksgiving.

I'm reading the Post-Gazette and wondering why I care anymore.

*

I reached for her hand because that was the last part of me.  My life had been foreclosed upon by the IRS, not because of me but because my landlord didn't pay any property tax.

I think about this, and the number of hours I'm still going to be on the phone with the government, because I'm the best guy to get a hold of for this property...and I'm eating french toast at my second favorite diner on Forbes in Pittsburgh.

*

I go back to my hotel, check out, buy a pie and get to Bel's around noon, we eat, and then I pass out on an ottoman.  I awake, and then drive 12 hours back to Madison, WI.

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It's morning.  My bags are packed, but I know it's all been delayed. Again.  I'm in bed, her body spooned up against me, the bedside light still on.  I find the remote for the CD player just before it kicks into high gear with the opening track from that Afghan Whigs album.

*

We are making out with Sex in the City playing.  It is January, 2004.  Your apartment reeks of cigarette smoke and booze.  I consider none of this all night long.

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March 2005:  At some point during this month, you turn on the nightstand light, illuminating the bedroom at probably 4:45 am.  "Why are so many damn books in my way...Oh, crap..."


*

I'm still holding her hand.  I don't know what to do.  I grip it tighter, which is the worst thing to do.  She is talking but I have no idea about the words, she's going on about moving on but my own words are "I fucked up"

*

She is in bed.  My. Bed. Are you fucking kidding me?   But then I remember how we came home and she's naked.

*

It is June, 2005.  I'm looking out my bedroom windows.  I'm standing naked in front of them, contemplating knowledge and where the fuck I'm gonna be in six months.  Her arm draws me in and then I stop caring.

*

I think about you. But it's a different you. It's May 2008 and I'm taking a new job.  My sister hears me cry as I take your phone call and you tell me that there is nothing for me to go back to in Wisconsin.

As I am hanging up, the only person I ever just threw dust to the wind, didn't give a rats ass, just threw it all in...I think about how much I've dealt with, all the pain and sorrow that came because of us.

*

I think about how I am holding that knife, the one that my own chef gave me, and I'm wanting to cut myself just so you won't.

I'm curled up. Fetal.  And you come in with tears.  Your mother has died. You ask, that regardless of this weekend, can I come and help you?  And I say yes, clean myself up, and then two blocks away we turn around, and I'm back in bed.  She adds the bonus "It's cause you're honest and you don't give a fuck."

I'm paraphrasing the last, but you get the gist.

*

Mid-December, 2007:  Her mom, from her bed, says, "Hey, out of all her boyfriends, you're the best so far."  I'm startled, try not to show it.  \

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I am in tears, sitting on my sisters livingroom couch.  I used to be strong.  I used to rule.  I manged kitchens of mere mortals.  I do P&L in my sleep.

I am on my sisters couch, at a loss.  She has the balls to ask: Are you going to kill yourself?

*

We went to see Aimee Mann at the Carnegie that night.  It is 2002. Dressed up.  Unfortunate triple balcony seats.  I slipped on the ice more than my girl Jamie did, it was mid january after all. It was great, and I left my suit on her kitchen counter (table?).

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Break up sex is not as good as you think it is.  Squirell Hill 2003

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April 2016:  I have, and own, and also wear, jeans that have more to say to about my life than I do.