Angry Urban Dweller: September 2008

Listening: I think I'll go to Boston. I think that I'm just tired. I think I need a new town to leave this all behind. I think I need a sunrise. I'm tired of the sunset.

What's my problem? It's been months and I still don't know anyone.

I was supposed to have today off. Instead of going to the beach, or taking a ride out to Madaket, I worked. Brit's sister has been in town for the last four days and goes home tomorrow. Brit's had a rough go of things, with this being her first time away from home. She's got a "friend" from home who works on the island, but from the stories that Brit has told me, she's not much of a friend. She's one of those friends who is a total user. I can't even begin to tell the stories that she has told me about her friend. I told her what one of my ex-girlfriends once told me: "Friends are the family you choose for yourself." It's the one true thing that I got out of that relationship. It's so true that from that point on, I tried my hardest to make sure I have the right friends, and make sure that I am as good to them as I can be, so that maybe they'll be as good to me as they can be. I gave up my day off to Brit so that she could spend more than one whole day with her sister. Chef said that there weren't many people who would do that. I told him that sometimes people need things more than you do and if it's no real skin off your nose, why not give it to them.

To be honest, I don't know what I would do with an extra day off. Chances are, I would hang out by myself and do nothing of consequence, hang out with no one of consequence, and just waste a day. Maybe I would start working off that trade debt that I have with the owner of the Centerboard Inn, but I don't even know if I'd do that.

Part of my problem is that even after four months on the island, I still don't know anyone. I know cooks. I know cooks from my restaurant. I know cooks from Straight Wharf. I know a couple of other random cooks. Sometimes I just don't want to talk to cooks. I want to talk to artists. I want to talk to computer programmers. I want to talk to environmentalists. I want to talk to people who will connect with me on a different level.

I've tried getting to know the front of the house crew, and I've gotten to know a couple of the guys pretty well, but I still haven't found any profound connection. I've tried to get some of the girls from the front of the house to hang out, but it never really happens in anything more than a group setting. It's a strange thing for me to not feel really connected to anyone within a fifty mile radius. I've got no one to go to for any sort of social comfort.

Yeah.... I made one friend out here. She was a nanny for a rich family. She went back to school a few weeks ago. Other than that I'm not meeting too many people. I'm usually good at making friends, but I don't seem to be doing a good job here on Nantucket. Maybe I just need to break the island in a bit this year and then maybe next year I'll be the toast of the town. Or maybe I'll just work my ass off again.

I have to say that it would be nice to have someone completely unrelated to my business to hang out with. I guess for now, I'll just have to either hang out with cooks or be by myself. I figure that in December, when I get back to Boston for more than two days at a time, I'll reconnect with my people.

Listening: Hang your collar up inside. Hang your dollar on me. Listen to the water still. Listen to the causeway. You are mad and educated, primitive and wild. Welcome to the occupation.

What's my problem? Not doing as many rounds lately.

There are a lot of stories to tell and not so much time to tell them in. It's the excuse I'm giving for not blogging in a while. As far as work goes, I continue to work six days a week. The shit part is that since Jo-jo left, I'm working hot apps a whole lot more. I have to say that it's my least favorite station. I like being prepared for what I have to cook. I like looking down the line and seeing what I have coming. On hot apps, you get hit right away.

Tonight we had a 24 person party. About twenty of them ordered apps off my station. In addition, I had a couple of deuces order off my station for apps at the same time. Furthermore, as I was in the process of cooking the apps, some tables had ordered apps as entrees, so I got royally fucked. It's hard putting up twenty eight dishes on your own in one fell swoop. I had to break it up into smaller twelve and sixteen dish pickups. It sucked though. The funny thing was that we were dead the whole rest of the night. It was like one big tidal wave that I got the worst of. To make it even worse, I got made fun of for being pissy about it.

But that was just today. Lately I've had my hands on a bunch of specials. For the latest pig tail preparation, I created the Asian slaw that went down as the salad portion of the dish. One night, I put on a special of my own. I knew that if I didn't speak up, I wouldn't have any special to sell that night. I knew that the night would be slow too. So I asked Chef to throw me a bone and let me work a special. He said that we had a lot of shitake mushrooms and a chanterelle mushroom sauce that we had left over from another special, and that I could make a special from that. I ended up making what we called in the kitchen "shitake-o's" I took two shitake mushrooms, filled them with herbed goat cheese, tempura fried them, and served them on top of the chanterelle sauce with a salad of watercress, pickled red onion and orange and drizzled a orange sherry reduction over the top. I have to say that it was a tasty little dish.

Aside from work there have been some interesting things that have happened. A couple of Fridays ago, the lot of us from the kitchen, myself, Brit, Pies, Lindsay, and Pablo, along with Sandy, went out to Cap'n Toby's for drinks after work to celebrate Pablo's birthday. We were all having a grand ol' time, when Pies decided that we all need to stop cheers-ing like pansies with little clinks. Instead we needed to cheers with gusto. We needed to clink so hard that beer would fly everywhere from our three quarters of the way full pint glasses of beer. This was all fine and dandy until I was cheersed so hard that my glass broke in my hand and gave me a small cut just above my thumb on the back of my hand. Beer went everywhere, including all over me.

Probably the most fucked up thing that I have ever seen happened at the bar that night as well. As we're all standing there drinking, in walks in a midget. Well, she might have been a dwarf, but she was a little person nonetheless. She was very proportional though. She didn't have the... different proportions that some other little people have. She wore a tiny white dress, and walked up to the bar, climbed up a barstool and kneeled on it as she drank.

I know that you think that a little person kneeling on a bar stool with her ass in the air is pretty crazy and fucked up, but it gets a bit worse. So this girl was with a couple of friends, but it just so happened that her friends were all over the place, flitting here and there while she was just there on the bar stool. Next to her was a man in his late forties or early fifties who wore a crazy loud shirt and khaki pants. They start chatting and his hands start roaming. His hands are all over the place and she's just sort of going with it. At one point, I see one of his hands go up this girl's skirt, between her legs from behind. The entire group of us were watching like it was a train wreck. Here's a pic that Pies took when he stole my camera:

You can see the sketchy dude to the left of the girl. Amazingly enough we didn't get pics of the actual deed, but it was both graphic and disturbing.

In other news, we all had Wednesday off. So, Pies, Lindsay, Brit and I headed to the beach. It started off as being pretty overcast, but before we knew it, it was sunny and warm. Pies, Lindsay and I frolicked in the water, while Brit, a not so great swimmer, stayed on the beach. This was the type of beach day that I have been looking for all summer long. I was with people who would stay and watch the stuff while I went into the water. There were beers consumed and fun was had. At one point, Pies and Lindsay started drawing all over Brit in Sharpie marker.

Later on that night, we all went out for dinner. We were all exhausted though. Originally, I was supposed to call this Slovak chick that I work with so that we could go grab a drink, but all of the time in the sun and the long bike ride too and from the beach got the better of me. I ended up texting her to tell her I was zonked. Hopefully we'll go out sometime before she leaves at the end of October.

Anyhow, I'm tired. It's time to go to sleep so I can be bright eyed and bushy tailed for prep tomorrow. I'll leave you with some pics though!