Working Class Zen

My nails have no polish on them. I feel like a newborn baby. I hope they stay long, my fingers look short and fat when my nails are short. I care a lot about my hands, and my nails, and I can’t remember the last time I left them bare. I always keep a gel manicure. I usually do light pink, some shade of red, or a brown color. Otherwise I have a bit of a melt-down. These colors are safe.

My nails looked like shit at work the past few shifts, and I blame the broken dishwasher. I had been handwashing dishes, and my gloves had been filling up with water, both pruning my fingers and soaking off my gel. My nails were painted color that sat between maroon and brown. They are always oval. A few of the members looked at my chipped polish and broken nails with fear when I handed them their drinks. Not even disgust. I think they were actually just freaked out.

The members always request specific amounts of ice in their drinks. Their drinks are free, because I work at a members-only club. Everything is free. I love this, because when I waitressed, I found that a lot of people like to bitch about the bill. It always made me uncomfortable, because I didn't price the food. And I wanted the full 20% tip.

We don’t technically get tips at the club. I got slipped $100 last week by a guy visiting from another state. He ordered drinks, and I kinda forgot how to make drinks, because I like, stopped drinking. He watched closely as I fucked up his drinks, and he probably would have wished that he didn’t slip me that hundy, if I hadn’t given the group such heavy pours. I figure that’s what people what. Either to get their moneys worth, or to get drunk. But the guy asked me if I was still in college. Not because I looked young, but because only an idiot kid would be able to fuck up the ratio on a vodka on the rocks with a splash of tonic. I will probably figure out a normal ratio as time goes by, because I’m still not sure.

I never thought I’d say this, but I wish I was going in to work tomorrow. I could ensure a decent day by not wearing the Dickies in a size 2 that give me a front and back wedgie as soon as I eat anything. The shifts when I wear the dickies always wind up being pretty uncomfortable. The bloating/wedgie situation was the catalyst that got me to stop drinking whole milk at work. I was starting to puff-out in my thighs and my arms. The same thing happens when I go on a trip and throw restrictive eating out the window, but I’m not about to get fat off of fucking whole milk.

Another thing I love about my job is that there is unlimited tea and coffee. This was the major bonus of my corporate job, so I’m really glad I gave up literally nothing when I quit. My cubicle at the 3WTC office had a great view of the New York City skyline, but my mountain club job has a great view of several runs. Of course there’s no snow in Colorado right now, so there’s only one run open that goes to the bottom, and it’s the one that’s a bit harder to see from the main room, where I’m mostly posted up. There’s also endless free soup at my new job, and there’s always leftovers to take home, since we rotate. There was no free soup at my corporate job, and there were no leftovers. I did go grocery shopping in the pantry, but that was only for meat sticks and popcorn, and sometimes apples and oranges. You can’t sustain yourself off of meat sticks and popcorn, or hand fruit. I don’t know if I will have to grocery shop much while I work here. I can live happily off of soup. I may buy sweet potatoes, and I bought frozen chicken and yogurt. And milk. And collagen. And I think that is all I will ever have to buy, for the rest of my 1 year lease, and 1 year employment.

I say 1 year don’t know how much longer I will stay. But I am not entirely out on the idea of spending another year here. Whereas before, I wanted to skip town before the first snow storm. I could see myself moseying over to Aspen and trying a year there after Vail. Or I could renew in Vail, because I like my job, actually, and I am starting to like people, too. I’d also be happy if the things I purchased for this apartment did not to go to waste, I could squeeze a few years out of this new mattress. So that means staying on the west coast would be cool. LA is an option because my best friend is there, or San Diego because I liked it when I visited, it felt kind of like the East Coast. I also like the East Coast, and I can imagine 10 different places I could try living. Or Brooklyn. Return anew, after a year or two in the mountains. I keep saying shit like this about New York, half as a safety net, half excited. But I won’t be able to afford the NYC life I want by next year. And apartments in LA are cheap, relatively. Hawaii isn’t cheap, but I did think about it for a second. If I learn of other places, I will add them to the list. Who knows. But I need to try here first. A thought that has been helping me is to be where my feet are. I am comfortable now, where my feet are, and I have been for weeks. I am making money and making memories, and recognizing new faces, and some of them register as a good-hang, or a work buddy, and I’ve even seen some attractive people working in the village. So I will probably see them again. That’s great. I love eye candy. But as I said before, I don’t want to date a ski bum. Which is also great, because it is probably in my best interest to not date at all right now. I am working on myself. I am at work, working on myself, because I don’t have to think for work, it’s an autopilot job. I get to think about more important things than marketing or business development. Like Me Me Me Me, and some things I learned on a podcast during my commute.

And I think about my life, what got me here, where I am, and where I’m going. In all the senses of the words.

I feel really grateful to be in a position where I can have this playful kind of uncertainty. And the options. And the opportunity to live in different places, and the willingness. Working in a non-corporate position has made me feel very freed-up for this kind of thing. I am learning to conceive of time differently, since I work Friday through Monday,. This is better for a less-crowded mountain experience, and maxing out the chances to get slipped a $100 bill. I also like eating fresh berries in the morning with my free coffee, and I’ve been bringing my collagen in and mixing it into yogurt or cottage cheese. It’s a really lovely arrangement, free protein. My other restaurant jobs didn’t have this luxury, but my boss said we need to be happy and fed to feed others and make them happy. And I agree! It makes me look forward to work. That, and my coworkers. I like most of them a lot. The one I don’t like, I just pretend he doesn't exist. That’s what I do when I don’t like people, or things. I ignore them like no one’s fucking business. My mom laughed on the phone, and described to me how I act when I don’t like someone. She clocked me. I laughed too, and I like hearing that I have a natural inclination to be a little bitch. I don’t want to be fucked with, and I don’t think people Fuck with bitches. I know I don’t. I ignore them, too.

Of course, the winter season hasn’t really started. I am quick to say things in a definitive way, but obviously I have had a bit of emotional whiplash the past two months. Or a month and a half, or however long I’ve been here. And considering how fast things have changed, I’m willing to believe I’ll feel very different this time next year. I’m learning a lot about myself and bla bla. But I am at a turning point, where I am actually excited to start a life in Colorado. Vail village is starting to feel a bit like a college campus, and that’s exciting to me. I have friends visiting, and people online have reached out to hang out here. There’s a lot of potential. And I will spend my off-days snowboarding or skiing. Which will feel like a huge upgrade from spending off-days at Walmart, or painting in my room. Though I will still need to paint in my room, and do my creative-things, because that was a priority for me when I moved here. And it feels pretty good, even though I said I’d rather snowboard. I will find a balance, and I will likely not yearn to return to work, but I won’t mind working,either. Which is great. I’ve come a long way since I started my corporate-journey post-grad. One may argue that I’ve backslid, returning to an industry where you don’t even need a degree. So many people at the club have asked me if I just graduated. Maybe they asked because I fucked up their drinks, or because of my radiant sober glow. But I think it’s because they sense I am a smart young lady who has a big bright future ahead of me, not just working at the club forever. And that’s true, but the club is great for right now.

I’m glad I quit corporate, and I don’t miss it at all. I wasn't lying when I said it was sucking my soul out of my body. And I think my soul is coming back. At first the hard on-your-feet-all-day labor freaked me out. But my arms are getting kinda toned, and it’s all mindless, and it’s very validating to complete a task. The full cycle of tasks is over at the end of the day, and then you start again. The stress is different. It is more conducive for me to do something like this for money, and work towards long-term goals that will not make me money right away. So it’s a good thing, and that is obvious to me. And since I don’t really have to use my brain for these auto-pilot tasks, I can think about other things. I like reading about some theories on the bus, and then pondering or practicing those modes of thinking. Hence the buddhism kick I’m on. I’ve done it with philosophers, and Big Heavy Hitters in society. I listen to this podcast, “How to Take Over the World” and then I think about my own story, and how to improve and become a better person, how to be more efficient, and how to make the most out of my life. And I really feel like I’m doing that. I feel like I am becoming more myself, and I am developing and learning more than I would had I stayed in NYC. And I am proud of myself, finally. Like I feel and think good things about myself, and I’m not being a judgemental little bitch about myself and everyone else. My worldview is shifting how I hoped it would when I left the city. Like, life is bigger than I thought it was. I like hearing about the priorities of my coworkers. I like going to AA here and listening to people with very different backgrounds from those people in the NYC Rooms where I got sober, and they’re saying similar things, and feel similarly, and think similarly, and it reminds me we are all actually really really really inescapably human.

I like recognizing that I didn’t move to Colorado to run away from anything. I am really trying to be as human as I can. I’ve suffered with varying degrees of suicidal ideation from a pretty young age, and I’m finally feeling relief from that. It’s not why I chose to make all of these big changes, but I think that these changes made me recognize that I have a lot more say in my life than I thought, and there is a lot I can and will achieve if I am willing to dedicate myself, and take risks, and do scary things, and learn and grow and take inventory and observe and process and share. This is another new exciting thing to share about, too. In addition to the mess of bipolar and alcoholism and sobriety and sexual assault and all the hard shit. This is like: you don’t have to live a prescribed life. I’m not going to, I’ll tell you all about how it’s going for me. And then I can look back and share in past tense, and have retrospective revelations, that other people may make on their own first, since it all went down in real time online.

So I did think I may be embarrassed by my previous blog posts, however judgemental or wordy or manic they may have been. But now I’m like, I am changing, often, and I often have, because I often find myself in a bit of a crucible. Which has been great for extreme pressure and quick-leveling up. But I am appreciating a slow burn, and I’d really like for the hard work to pay off, and to not suffer, and to reap what I sow kinda.

I hope that in a year or so, my blog posts are me bragging and happy, I’m comfortable and healthy, and I’m waving around these archives of messy posts to say: look what happened, look how it paid off.