even you have to win sometimes, dear

News flash: It appears that working for seven days a week is not good for the psyche. And so I have decided to end my professional relationship with the Meat Palace.

Saturday, to put it bluntly, was not a good day. I was severely hungover and sleep-deprived, which certainly contributed to my decision. But it makes my job immeasurably easier to do when the kitchen isn't staffed by a cadre of fuckwits--in other words, if they can get a handle on what is out of stock BEFORE I ring the orders in so I DON'T have to go back to three tables (after getting quadruple sat) to look like a moron. I'm a waitress; people already tend to assume that I'm an idiot. I don't need my coworkers to help them with that.

Friday was an interesting night. I finally made it to the Madison. Unfortunately, my mood had swung over to "annoyed drunk" because while Rachel is lots of fun to party with, her taste in men is somewhat different than mine. So I got roped into going back to her apartment with four randoms after the bar closed, and then played drunk Scrabble whilst fending off the advances of one to two of them. I kicked ass in drunk Scrabble, for the record, even though the guys were cheating rampantly. It turned out that one of them was from my neighbourhood in Mississauga, and we had a disturbing number of acquaintances in common, including one of my brother's friends who'd had a crush on me in high school.

Anyway, since I'm quitting the MP, I'm looking forward to having a little spare time. I might even DATE. The world is my mollusk; the possibilities are endless (well, restricted to the two days off I'll have per week).

we will still need a song

On Wednesday, I had what I think can only be described as a migraine. I woke up early to go to my first pilates class, and was assaulted about the head with stabbing pains. I took some extra-strength migraine relief Advil (aka the Good Stuff), and the pain actually subsided during my pilates class (possibly because I was uniting my mind and body), and then returned in time for my journey to work (during which I snapped at a Bagel Stop employee). My lunch shift was absolutely brutal. I begged off my on call evening shift, went home, and crawled into bed. I woke up about five hours later, convinced I was going to die. I dragged myself to the bathroom and kitchen to retrieve my bottle of Advil and some water, double-dosed myself, and then, while waiting for the sweet, sweet drugs to kick in, pictured my funeral.

Drama queens like myself can get pretty into the funeral planning business. I was calculating how long it would take for my body to be discovered, and trying to decide whether or not Mother would remember an offhand remark of mine stating my preference for cremation. Then I decided that Dad would put his foot down and go for straight up burial--it failed to occur to me last night, in the throes of my dramatics, that my body would probably be in no state for an open casket, having been decomposing quietly in my apartment for a few days--and then I tried to figure out what outfit they'd have me in for the funeral. Not having my arty sensibilities, I decided that Mother would choose the little black dress that I'd bought for a semi-formal back in high school, although I'd prefer the sixties-inspired dress with the three-quarter sleeves.

No fantasy funeral is complete without a guest list! Family would come, of course. And Jo, Toni and Linds (or I'd haunt 'em GOOD). And I'm sure one of my family members would have the bright idea to send out the word via Facebook or MSN of my untimely demise. I'm sure not everyone on my lists would show up, but some of them would. At least a few coworkers, past and present, might feel some obligation to mourn. And maybe a professor or two, if they found out in time. So I think I'd have a respectably attended funeral, despite my general lack of impact on the world and society.

Anyway, by the time I'd gotten around to picking out some appropriate music (and then gotten distracted by remembering my favourite scenes from Love, Actually), I was feeling improved enough to relocate to the couch, and then soon to go on a chocolate run. The long and the short of it is, I'm still alive, but you're all invited to my funeral, whenever it may be.

don't you want me to have a clean uniform?

I try to have this rule about laundry in my building. We have two washers and two dryers; mine is not a large apartment building, but all it takes is for one other person to want to do their laundry on a Monday afternoon, and I could be screwed. So generally I'll only monopolize one set--that way, if someone else has a laundry emergency, they don't have to wait forty minutes for my stuff to finish. If a third person wants the machine, they are S.O.L. I still think it makes for good karma re: me, however.

But it does tend to take a long time, and sometimes I like to sleep in on Mondays--I always work at four, so I have a limited amount of time in which to do this laundry. My new thing was to wait fifteen or twenty minutes before snagging the second machine; I'm staggering my laundry for the convenience of others, if you will.

This was also spurred by a passive-aggressive laundry war I was having with an inarticulate Asian man who would use all the machines, and continue to put loads in after I pointedly left my basket next to a washer one day to claim my place in the machine line-up.

Today, however, I've decided to walk to work (because not only is it beautiful out, but also my path will skirt me through Yorkville, and since I'm finally living in the city during the Film Festival, I might as well try and see ONE celebrity), so I have even less time to spare for my cleaning endeavours. So I sez to myself, I sez, Susan, just stick both loads in at once. You haven't seen anyone down here for the last couple Mondays; just go for it.

So naturally, today when I went to put my loads in the dryers, a little old lady was sitting on the sofa in the laundry room, looking sad and staring at the washers mournfully. And then asked me questions about how everything worked.

EDITED TO ADD: I went down to retrieve my clean, dry clothes, and what had happened? One of the dryers had opened during the cycle (MYSTERIOUS, non?), and the timer had apparently kept going without actually doing anything. So my clothes were still damp. I had to put another buck fifty in! Enraged, I got into the shower and seethed*. And now I just went to get my stuff (leaving 27 minutes on the timer, bah), and the other dryer was making the most ridiculous thunking noises. I feel like the little old lady put some dead cats in there or something. Or both her loads into the one dryer. But really, it sounded like something that had been subjected to rigor mortis** was in there.

*slight exaggeration
**perhaps also a slight exaggeration

baked chips depress me profoundly

I had a dream last night that I had a severe head cold, and now I'm having trouble shaking off the feeling that I should be sniffling and coughing.

PM didn't want me for my on-call lunch shift today, and I gave away tonight's dinner shift last week (that is, if she remembers she took it... I'm a little nervous that I'm going to get a phone call at four fifteen asking irately why I'm not there). So I randomly have a day off. I'm catching up on the laundry I didn't do on Monday and then hanging out with my sister, who is newly moved to Scarborough (which, coincidentally, is why I didn't have time to do my laundry on Monday).

Scarborough is a hole. I know this for the following reasons: 1) empirical observation, and 2) Jo told me so. I know that Jo is often a lying liarton from Liarville, but in this case she is nothing but right. It reminds me of the sketchiest parts of Mississauga. Also, would it KILL Toronto to label things a little better? I got lost, like, twice trying to get to her piss pad by transit. Interesting trivia re: me, which may or may not totally undermine my beefs about getting lost: I have East vs West dyslexia or something. I constantly confuse them. I have to face North and then picture a map of Canada and remember that West is off to the left.

Em's moving day was not a good day for the family. On top of my transit woes, we were unable to get her bookcase and sofa in (her place is a basement pad in an older house), and then there was a bizarre odyssey for dim sum (all five of us were crammed into the Corolla, doing slow drive-bys of Asian plazas) that ended in us eating at Tim Horton's, barely speaking.

And, inevitably, I had gone out drinking with some coworkers the night before, so I was running on three and a half hours of sleep and a quietly festering hangover. Servers tend to be fairly insane drinkers. I had to close that night, so clearly I had to catch up by having some tequila and chugging a beer. On a related note, we were talking about server nightmares at work yesterday--I'm sure all jobs have similar difficulties, but I write what I know--which are, trust me, horrendous. I once dreamt that I was having a heated argument with a customer and I got so worked up that I sat bolt upright in bed, and was unable to get back to sleep for two hours. Another time I woke up, convinced I'd forgotten to punch in someone's appetizer, and had to talk myself down. When I used to bartend, I'd hear the printer spewing out drink orders when I closed my eyes.

My Labour Day weekend was full of labour, but I have today and Saturday off, so September is getting off to an all right start, I guess.

worst date song... or BEST?

Flight of the Conchords: "If You're Into It"