Day 16: My Blueberry Nights

Listening: Nobody looked me in the eye. Tried to fly to the moon. Only made it to the sky. I was looking, looking for... I couldn't find a friend. Searching for a clear connection, without a digital send.

What's my problem? Shooting 1 for 3 on sunny days off.

My schedule got changed around this week. I was supposed to have Saturday off, and I was supposed to train on the grill this week. Due to some people being sick, and probably due to my lackluster performance on my first two shifts on hot apps alone, I'm just on hot apps for the remainder of the schedule this week. It made me mildly insecure that I'm also training one of the interns on hot apps. I know that it's probably a necessary evil for this restaurant given that there will be three interns, four cooks, and Chef once Sean, the current sous leaves.

I guess it makes me feel kind of like a schmuck to know that someone who is still in school may be doing the job that I do. I'm looking for a better way to explain it. I want to be badass. Someone still in school, I don't think has the ability to really be a badass. Maybe I'm just full of myself and my bruised ego from these past couple of weeks is still on the mend. Still, I want to own it. Maybe I'm not meant to own it here, because Chef does eventually want me to be on rounds. It makes sense, but I still want to go in and rock it out... on a busy night.

On my day off today, it has been raining. Rain, rain, go away. Come back again on a day that I am prepping some really big project. I planned on going to the laundrymat today, but it kind of sucks walking too and from the place in the rain with a load of clothes. I figure that I have enough clothes to get me through until my next day off.

I'm here at "The Bean," a coffee house downtown, just chilling out while it pours outside. There's a strange contingency of high school kids who dress funny and don't seem to shower. One guy was here on my last day off. Right now he's eating sugar in the raw out of the packet at the table next to me. He's wearing the same long sweater coat, dingy striped button-down shirt, a wooden whistle around his neck, and corduroy pants that are too big for him. His corduroy pants are held up by suspenders, and it's hiked up so high that strangely enough, he's got camel-toe. Fucking weird. He and his pals go behind the counter all of the time and they never seem to buy anything. I'm glad that the cafe is relatively full with people other than these high school kids. The aroma really is quite unpleasant.

It seems like there are two things that I do when I'm not working. One is drink with the other cooks, and the other is plink around on my computer. Last night, I went to the Chicken Box for the second time since I hit the island. The first time, the guys wanted to hear this hippie band called Entrain. They sucked. They broke out into a fucking drum circle at one point. I wanted to shoot myself, but instead I took another sip of my Newcastle. This time, it was a kind of funk band called Miss Fairchild. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. They were really very good. When I walked in, they broke out into a cover of Terence Trent D'Arby's "Wishing Well." I was nearly sold on that alone. Then, I heard them play some of their own songs which were good, followed by a cover of Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up." When They started playing Curtis, they had me, hook, line, and sinker. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. The fisherman metaphor may make me seem like a cliched islander. Anyways, they're coming back to "the box" in July, so I'm going to try to go and see them then.

But, yeah, every night after service there's drinking. Everyone sits out behind the restaurant, at the foot of the stairs to my apartment and next to the walk-in and drinks all of the beers they want. The guys I work with drink and drink and drink and drink. I try to cap myself off at two or three, but it's hard to extricate oneself from the group. Jo-jo used to sneak off to call his now ex-girlfriend, and they would all ask, "Where's Jo-jo?" It's hard, because I want to bond and be a part of their little crew, but there has to be something else to do besides drinking in the back alley. It's not like back home where I would go out with Marsoir and John and we would sit at Noir and crack on people. I actually wish they were here right now so we could crack on these high school kids. I know. It's mean. I hope that once the summer sets in and the rain goes away, I can just go and sit on the docks with my iPod on, or maybe even just go find some late night eats. If it's a choice between drinking by the walk-in, drinking at the bar, drinking at "the box" or sitting at home plinking on my computer all summer long, it'll be a long six months for me.

Speaking of plinking on my computer during my time off, I couldn't seem to sleep the other night, so I ended up watching a movie online. I decided to watch Wong Kar Wai's "My Blueberry Nights." When I decided to watch it, all I knew about the movie, really, was that Norah Jones was in it. I didn't even know that it was a Wong Kar Wai film. I have to say that I really enjoyed it. Norah Jones plays a heartbroken girl who at one point holds down two jobs to deal with her broken heart inspired insomnia. It was a detail that hit pretty close to home. I was that person once.

In the movie, Jude Law is telling Norah Jones that while at the end of the night, there's no more apple pie or cheesecake, and that the peach cobbler and chocolate mousse pie is nearly gone, but at the end of the night, there's always a whole blueberry pie left. He tells her, "There's nothing wrong with the blueberry pie. Just... people make other choices. You can't blame the blueberry pie, just... no one wants it." When I heard that, I thought to myself, "Wow. I can totally dig and appreciate that." There are days in your life where you are the blueberry pie. Some people have more blueberry pie days than others. I guess the challenge is to find a group of blueberry lovers, no?

I guess I'm still looking for my people out here. I'm still looking for my kindred spirits.

(an aside, a guy I really wanted to kick in the balls last night at "the box" for being a kind of a drunk, show-off-y douche just walked in. I still want to kick him in the balls. I know. I should really stop being so aggro.)

Anyhow, I'm still looking for kindred spirits. There's a new server at the restaurant who seems nice. She's a total southern belle, but without the excess of makeup. She seems to be down on her luck, as her housing when she got to the island fell through. I saw her walking to work with all of her stuff on her back as I was heading into town. I offered to help her carry her things, but she said she had been carrying them so long, that she could manage the last two blocks. She didn't go into how her housing fell through, because she said, "If I got into it, I might start crying." It's the first time since I got here that I wanted to give anyone a hug. I didn't though, because she barely knows me. I know I should have just grabbed her bags from her and walked her to the restaurant. But I'm not that forward. Anyhow, I hope everything turns out alright for her. She seems like a nice person.

But that's all I have to say for now. Tonight I'm going to grab a burger somewhere and then go watch the new Indiana Jones movie at the one movie theater in town. It's half past five, and I want to see the show at half past nine. I figure I can go eat at eight then. I got two and a half hours to kill before dinner then. Who knows what I'll do. I'll probably end up just closing this place down and heading over to the theater to grab a bite. I hope you all on the mainland are doing well and I miss you all dearly.