The agony and the ecstasy

Being a near-30, well-educated waitress, bartender and, let's not forget, freaking intern, I have my good days and my bad days.

Last Monday was a Bad Day. I was mentally formulating a blog post at work. Being distanced from the emotions now-- in fact, being contentedly on my roof deck, drinking a negra modelo, listening to Bob Marley, and admiring the growth spurt of my sunflowers-- it is difficult to re-imagine precisely what was going through my head. From what I can recall, it went something like this:

"The woman at table 3 just grabbed me by my lapel. Literally grabbed me, and asked me, menacingly, 'Did you not hear what I said to you on the way to the bathroom? Don't you know how many times I've been in here?'

She was upset because she had told me she wanted to pay the bill, but her son had asked first, so I decided to be Switzerland and placed the bill gently in the middle of the table at the end of the meal.

Shaking her off of me, I tried to recoup in the kitchen. I grabbed a chunk of bread out of the supply reserved for the paying customers, stole off to a corner, nibbled away and stared absent-mindedly at... a toilet. The filthy freaking kitchen toilet. The crapper was the capper: I am a rat. Vermin.

Disgusted, I tossed the nibbled-at bread into the trash and walked back out onto the floor, scratching my arm. And scratching more. This has been happening since the onset of spring, my arms itching at work, non-stop, hives rising up. I am allergic to this job. I am having a corporeal reaction to the malnutrition of my brain, calling out for help..."

The version running through my head last Monday was more angry, less comedic, but equally melodramatic.

And then there are nights like last night, when I remember, almost-30-year-old waitress and intern aside, I'm pretty damn fabulous. Well, at least a lot of the things I've done are fabulous.

The moment of realization came when I mentioned, off-handedly, to a couple of my bar regulars, whom I've known for a year now, how my former students have gotten in touch with me through Facebook.

"What? You were a teacher?!"

A high school teacher, yeah.

Delighted gasps of incredulity.

Moments like this, I remember: I'm not just a near-30 waitress/bartender/intern. I have this whole other life-- other lives, really. For the most part, Teaching, surviving, traveling, up-and-moving to New York because I simply wanted to. And it's all the more fun to have the ability to turn people's perceptions of me completely upside-down. There's something to be said about living an unexpected life-- the good days AND the bad days.