The one in which Rachel plays hobbit to Liv Tyler’s Arwen

I’ve always been tall. Always loomed above my 5 ‘ 3”-ish counterparts. Then again, I’ve never spent any time around the preternaturally tall species known as models. Until this week.

On a whim, I accepted a one night gig as a hostess at a new restaurant opening in the Meatpacking district (oo la la). My responsibilities? Smile and manage the improvised coat room as guests arrived.

When I showed up for instructions – slightly harried after rushing down from work – I soon realized I was missing what every other girl in the room was glowingly parading. A pair of, ahem, breasts. Besides sporting the prerequisite pouty lips, kohl-lined eyes and rail thin bodies, the waitresses were exhibiting far more plentiful bosoms. Bushwick never felt so far away. Or more flat-chested.

I fluffed up my hair (if only to make up for the lack of “fluffage” elsewhere), tugged at my skirt, and took up residence behind the receptionist table at the door. That’s when all the beautiful, tall people started to arrive. Emphasis on tall.

With New York Fashion Week underway, the stylish set from G-Star had descended upon the restaurant for a post-show dinner. Cameras flashed, “OMG! How are you?’s echoed throughout, and denim-heavy looks dominated (G-Star Raw is primarily a denim line).

I watched all of this from my “servants’ quarters” – passing comments, and judgment, with my fellow hostess, another beautiful, albeit busty, Greek girl.

“I wonder who he’s with?” we wondered.

“Who’s that?” I asked, realizing I needed to brush up on my D-list celebrities.

Then I saw Liv Tyler. From my spot near the front door, I watched her walk from the “red carpet” (more like cement walkway), past the front desk into the crowd.

And here’s my confession: I have never been a LOTR nerd (though I now write the acronym in this post), but in that moment when Liv Tyler appeared, I positively felt like a hobbit. And not of the dreamy, Elijah-Wood variety. The glamour of other leggy, denim-clad women in their 30s paled next to the elfin princess herself (so much for not geeking out).

She glowed, she serenely smiled. She chatted and worked that room like a pro. I took mental notes. And then staggered home to sleep before heading to my day job.

When the manager asked me if I wanted to host again, I said yes. Party #2, hosted by Fuse, the cable music channel, featured a similar crowd. Same chesty cocktail girls. Same bevy of leggy models. Same boozy men who take full advantage of the open bar.

This time, however, our receptionist corner doubled as a DJ booth. The night progressed in somewhat chaotic fashion. The ceiling sprouted a leak. Crystal crunched underfoot after several champagne glasses fell. I sneaked a bite of a hors d'œuvre after standing on my feet for 5 hours. In heels, of course.

All the while the party grew. As I swayed next to the DJ, outright danced, and mopped up the water from the continual ceiling drip, I practiced what I’d learned from the night before and smiled serenely. Liv style.

The one in which Rachel gets kicked off a Chinatown bus

Disclaimers can be dangerous things. I know. But let me preface this whole story by stating that I have never been a rebel rouser. Ever. For good or bad, I have always been of the sniveling, people-pleasing, Neville Longbottom-esque variety. Having my credit card rejected at the grocery store register reduces me to a quivering, blushing mess.

So what went down on Saturday, September 4th, on board the Chinatown Express line -- direction Washington, D.C. -- was unnatural. And shocking.

It all started when our lumbering, non-Wifi bus (which I'm still bitter about) pulled into a Baltimore rest stop. My ever-active roommate, Bri, decided to get off the bus for a couple minutes to stretch her legs. And why not? At a previous rest stop in Philadelphia's Chinatown (this bus ride was to feature a comprehensive tour of all East Coast Chinatowns), we had been subjected to a 25-minute-long rest stop, while bus travelers scampered to the nearest Chinese restaurant bathroom only to find a wizened, Asian woman fiercely scrubbing her raw fish in the bathroom sink.

So Bri got off the bus.

That's when I heard a suspicious rumbling and noticed the bus was moving. Away from the dilapidated Holiday Inn (which happened to have no electricity at the moment). And away from Bri.

As I processed the fact that the bus driver "wasn't just repositioning the bus," I clumsily shuffled to the front of the bus to kindly ask the driver to briefly stop the bus. And there I met my great surprise. In very loud terms (for all the other 50+ travelers to hear), he told me he was not going to stop. Even for one 22 year-old girl's bladder. I had to get off the bus or leave my friend behind. Sans her cellphone, wallet, iTouch -- in essence, her lifeblood.

I stumbled back to collect our bags, and, with all 50+ eyes still on me, got off the bus. On to a highway in the middle of nowhere. The last thing I heard before the bus doors slapped behind me was the unintelligible ramblings of the bus driver who continued to berate me. May his conscience keep him up at night.

I dragged our bags across the highway, found Bri, watched Bri's eyes widen, watched Bri begin to hyperventilate (just kidding Bri!). And then my survivor tendencies kicked into gear. We harassed several gap-toothed middle-aged women at the darkened Holiday Inn until they told us that "naw, you cain't buy bus tickets here." We befriended an excitable Asian man/self-appointed Chinatown bus liaison/guardian angel in disguise who directed us to a grassy patch where we could wait for the next bus. We watched in horror as a three-legged dog crossed the busy highway and made his way to us (I was sure I was about to witness a bloody tragedy). I even peed in a dark bathroom (there was still no electricity).

Within fifteen minutes, another Chinatown bus showed up. After high-fiving our smiley bus tour liaison friend, we hopped on. It was like we had never gotten off. Same stale smell. Same bedraggled mix of young adults and senior citizens dozing -- or trying to. Still no Wifi.

And, apparently, we still haven't learned our Chinatown lesson. I sit here writing this after just missing our return bus to New York.

One thing is sure though. I won't be getting off anytime soon to "stretch my legs."

You can't have one without the other.

Well, I guess I lied. This post will not be about any real roommates, or roommates at all. In fact, it's only about a room. A great room. An old room. Mine. Well, it became mine. Originally, it was mine and my brother's. But then he left for college, and even though I was just a year behind him, I continued to live at home because I went to college in my hometown. Many people don't do much with their rooms. It's a place to sleep in, possibly to work or study in, to store clothes and other various belongings in, to change or get dressed in, and I guess to, on certain rare occasions, to actually hang out in. That last one was always (and still is) the main purpose of my room. Even when my brother and I shared it, it was already quite different than rooms occupied by other boys our age. We actually put real art on our walls. We had this great stereo. We had model cars placed neatly on the top shelf (for display as opposed to play). We had a small growing collection of books and cds here and there. But the main thing, the real thing that made our room so much different than the rest was our lighting. We didn't just use the overhead light fixture coming out of the center of our ceiling. We used lamps. And not just one desk lamp or bed lamp, but both, and closet lamps, and corner lamps, and window lamps and whatever lamps. Lamps galore. And we also had twinkle lights or string lights or whatever they're called. Also, on the ceiling were hundreds of glow-in-the-dark star stickers. When my brother and I were very young, we got this mammoth package of these things and we put them all over our ceiling, with real constellations and everything. When we turned off the lights at nighttime, because there were so many, it was like we were in a sort of planeterium. I was beginning to really notice this stuff as I got older and I loved all of it.

Well, like I said, my brother eventually moved out and I stayed in the room for a good, I don't know, five more years I guess. Something like that. And during those years, I went to town. I was constantly covering the walls with all sorts of neat things--postcards, posters, photographs, things that normally don't go on walls like towels or linens, etc. I even painted an outline of a dinosaur on the wall. I took out the bright bulbs in the ceiling light fixture so there was never that real bright central light again. It was certainly not dim, not at all. I had plenty of lights all over the place that helped accentuate every nook and crannie in the room. I had a reading chair--this great golden easy chair I found at a thrift store for only fifteen bucks. I had a loveseat-sized couch that I got for free cos someone was getting rid of it. I had this old desk that my aunt gave to me when she moved. My bed, for most of the time, was a bunk bed that my brother and I had had since forever. I stayed on the bottom for a long time, but then, to help with space, I took out the lower bunk and moved my couch in place of it, so it was below the top bunk. This was all near the end. I had a turntable and receiver and speakers and my record collection was getting bigger and bigger. I even had a cassette deck and plenty of tapes to play. I had a goldfish in a small aquarium with a little castle in it. My small library was getting to be just that--a small library, literally. And the stars were still there of course, but I had eventually obtained two blacklights, so I could "charge" up the stars and make them glow even brighter than any incandesent light ever could. And this was all in my average sized room at the end of the hall.

There are many reasons someone might "go through all this" to have such room. They could simply be one of those people who love interior design and refuse to have their living quarters be a place where they can only do the things I mentioned early on in this post--the essentials. Or they could be a bit compulsive and can't help themselves--everything has to be in a certain place and look a certain way and it has to change and so on and so forth. Possibly they could have plenty of friends who also have awesome rooms and they're all doing it because it's a trend and they want to be cool. Or maybe they love to entertain, and they view their room as a gallery of sorts when people come to visit. For me, it was some of these things and more. I always viewed my room as place where my friends and I could come hang out and sit in the couch or the golden chair and play a record and just enjoy ourselves. I also a viewed it a sort of museum or, yes, even a gallery. I'm certainly not saying I had any fantastic relics or artifacts in there. No, it was all just my pictures and mail all over the walls, all very personal in fact. But nonetheless, it was quite curious still, to see and look at so much stuff all over the place. And that's what I loved most about it.

                    ~                        ~                    ~                     ~                     ~                   ~

That room is no longer. The physical room still exists but it certainly does not look like it once did. A year ago, I moved out because I transfered to a different school somewhere else. Immediately, my parents wanted to rent it out. So that meant I had to basically strip the room clean. It was very odd taking down every single thing. There are two closets in the room, one for my brother and I. I was told I could still use one of them to store things in. I used my brother's. My closet was gutted. After I left, I found out my parents had painted the room and filled in all the holes in the walls. I expected the holes, but they painted over all the stars on the ceiling and also my dinosaur. The dinosaur, sure I guess it could have gone. I was thinking maybe whoever the new tennant would be could simply put a small poster over it, no big deal. But the stars, I mean, it's kind of dark you know. I'm not one to shy away from poetic imagery and when I found they were painted over, I thought of the light or something leaving that room forever. Nothing left. Not even some silly stars on the ceiling. I'm not mad at my folks or anything. I was at first, but to them, it was simply a room to make some money off of since I was leaving. That's fine. I know I'm in the minority when it comes to rooms. To most people, rooms are just places to stay, and nothing more. They're four walls, maybe a window, a bed, a closet, a small desk perhaps, one door. But to me, a room is so much more. So very much more.

Be professional. Pt. 2.

Next post will be about roommates again. I promise. From me it will be anyway. But trust me, if you worked where I do, that would probably be the center of your misery as well. It just gets worse and worse. I've tried looking for another job, but it's no good. No one's called. Oh please, oh please, someone, please call back. Please call me and hire me. Take me away, I beg of you, from this place, this godforsaken hellhole. God is not present where I work. He is absent. He's absent from two places -- Hell and Suckway.

So, since the first post about this place, a good two months ago, much has happened that is worthy of note. First of all, I'm happy to announce that the notes have been getting less and less. Of course, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this -- the managers simply don't come there anymore. If they do, it's to look at the freezer that's been broken for three weeks, say some stupid things, grab some free food, and then leave in their industrial strength pick-up trucks. That's right, for nearly a month, our freezer was busted. It was almost as cool as the refridgerator. I'm pretty sure we were breaking all kinds of FDA rules. So what do we do? Lie in the temp checks? I guess so. It's okay to sin here, though, because, as I said before, even God doesn't go there. Anyway, the thing is apparently fixed now. So...thanks guys up top. You all showed some great managing skills during that terrible crisis where most of our food was ruined. One day, when I'm a moronic manager like you, I'll use you guys as my role model. Whatever anyone else teaches me, I'll simply throw out the window...because that's clearly what you've all done.

Hmm...what else. Ah yes, cameras. Surveillance. That's right, they can finally watch us and actually see how busy it gets while they leave me there all alone each and every nite. It's hilarious how many cameras they put in. The place is really a pretty small store, but there is definitely six cameras up and running, watching our every move. Rumor has it that four can record audio. We certainly haven't censored ourselves, believe you me. I'm still waiting for that phone call from them telling me that I shouldn't eat that cookie, even if it's broken or old or stale or burnt. And that's when I get to ask them why they only have five people currently employed at our store and why they only care about productivity.

Here's the thing with them and why we're always rushed. As I said, we only have five people working now. And those five people always work. I let my supervisor know tonite that I'm sick of this and what the heck is their problem? Why haven't they hired more people? This is ridiculous. He told me that as long as productivity is high and workers are low...they're making good money. I mean, it makes sense (cents. ha). We're getting loads of customers and they only have to pay for a couple people working there at a time. Sure. We'll take care of it. Don't worry about the people actually running your--

But I'm still there. And it's all I've got. So as miserable as it makes me, I gotta find something good in it. Mmhmm. This post will actually have a happy ending. Most customers are morons. But some aren't. Some come in and are regulars and tip me every time because I help them out and they feel bad I'm the only one there. Alot of times a couple will come in and the guy will joke around with me about how it sucks they leave me there alone like that or something. They allright.

In which Luke gets clever at work.

Another gripe about my job at suckway (Hi, welcome to Suckway. What can I get for you?). We have satellite radio but it's special subway radio. There's like ten stations to choose from. Technically, satellite radio doesn't have advertisements or commercials because, after all, it's satellite. You're paying for it. However, this is subway radio. Every three or four songs, on comes one of, I don't know, three or four different shitty ads subway has to over. And believe me when I tell they're annoying. Holy cow. I can't stand them. They're some of the dumbest things in the world. I won't go into exact details or dialogue that's involved with them, but they drive me nuts. I had a bright idea this evening at work while I was closing. Well actually, someone else did, because when I arrived for my shift, the radio was off. I noticed it immediately and I was about to turn it on because, normally, I'd rather have music playing than just silence, even if it's awful music with even more awful ads as a companion. But this time, it donned on me- Hey! Why don't we just Not turn it on? What an Idea! What a genius thought! How clever, Luke! Surely, you Are the most clever there ever was! And so, I worked my whole shift without that godawful ------ excuse of ------ radio at that horrible ------- of a place. And thus I've survived yet another miserable shift in the trenches.

Be professional.

The world lives and dies by its minimum (or less) wagers. Billions of untalented unprideful morons out there serving all the other morons in food, labor, sales, anything. Sure, we all start out in this area. You kind of have to unless you have a gift of some kind. But the reality is that alot of us don't have any gifts. We are just lazy losers. Yeah, we have all kinds of excuses and reasons in an attempt to save face, but come on. It's almost like your losing it the more you try to save it. In other words, knock it the hell off.

It says not to take us seriously, but let's be honest . . . and be honest. Besides, they say sixty percent of a joke is, in fact, truth. That's more than fifty, so why not round up and just go with saying the whole thing is really what you mean? At least I am. Stab 'em in the front.

What a cute intro. Onto the meat, the meal, the main dish. All of my jobs that I've had but one have been minimum wage. And most of them I haven't really minded so much. I've taken the mentality I mentioned above to each, and that sort-of twisted perspective has pulled me in with a strange desire to find a rather odd worth or value to the pointless tasks I work at. But not lately. Lately I've been at a subway. The ruiners of the sandwich. I admit, I've eaten there plenty times. Of course. I still do. We get free sandwiches and it means less for the food bill. Basically, believe me when I tell you I'm in it only for the money, but even that's hardly doing it for me anymore. There's a hint of my former note-leaving roommate at this place. Everytime I come in, there's a new note (or a few in fact) telling us all something what we're doing wrong or what we're still doing wrong or what we're not doing or what we're still not doing or whatever. One will point out our mistake and then "I don't know why I keep having to tell you this. You have All been trained how to do this, so do it! No Exceptions!" Key words there are the last two. I feel like we should be called Subway: No Exceptions! sometimes.

We recently had a health inspection. We had failed the five prior. They told us if we failed this one, we'd reportedly be shut down. Man how I prayed we'd fail. But we didn't. Just as well. The product I serve and how I serve it gives me no pride whatsoever in my work. In Orwell's Down and Out in Paris in London, he talks about how every job should have a sort of pride to it. And even sometimes in the lowest most pathetic jobs a pride is still attainable. There's no pride in what I do. None. They call us sandwich artists. That's our stupid name. One guy I was serving one day told me so. He said "Wow, what a sandwich. You're quite the sandwich artist!" I told him what we do is not art. I was of course being starkly serious but he thought it was funny. Good for him. Enjoy your art, retard.

The management is invisible. This is the first job I've had like this. Well, obviously they're not entirely invisible. Some jackhole has to be leaving those notes. The person who does our schedules, I still haven't met. I don't even know who she is. She apparently does the schedules for, like, sixteen stores or something. If we ever call any one of the five managers, they don't answer. If you keep bugging them, they might, like the other day. But over spring break, I had asked for the week off because I went home and they gave it to me. Well, the idiot who I haven't met scheduled me for that week and I had to call the main manager of that place, and because it was my cell phone number, she answered; but twenty seconds into the phone call, she hung up. I called back to the store, and my co-worker said "Oh yeah, she does that." Oh. Sure. Okay. She hangs up on you. Or doesn't answer.

It goes on but this post is long enough. And miserable enough.

I don't know how to end this post. I tried some endings earlier but, oh, let's just end it here.

the big jar

My roommate likes to grow things. In jars. When I moved in, I noticed a jar perched on the corner cupboard. A big glass jar full of a dark liquid and something floating in it. I didn't try to figure out what it was. A couple of days later, my roommate got on top of a chair and took the big jar down. A mushroom! oh dear, that floating thing is a mushroom. She set the jar on the table and went to the refrigerator and grabbed the pitcher she had been drinking from every day. She lifted the cloth covering the big jar, and carefully poured the dark liquid into the pitcher.

"What is that?" I asked.
"Kombucha tea."
"What?"
"It's really good for you," she began. This is never a good start. She said something about good bacteria and your body and maybe something about digestion or your immune system. She explained that the mushroom fermented the tea and made a drink with quite an acidic bite, which you then consume daily for heath reasons. I then watched her drink her daily dose. Her mouth puckered and her eyes squished down to her nose, which flinched. She smacked her lips and stuck out her tongue and shook her head. Every day, she suffered through a glass of that god-awful drink.

One day, she brought the big jar down to work on her mixture. (I found the directions on our fridge -- there's a lot of splitting mushroom colonies and harvesting and something about the "mother colony" and tasting for "bite.")
"Oh no! My tea is moldy, Sherry," she said.
"It's a mushroom," I said. "It is fungus."
"No," she said, not at all appreciating my quick wit, "There is mold floating in the tea."

It turns out something had gone wrong with something, and the tea had mold floating on the top. To me, the mold didn't seem any more offensive than the floating mushroom colony, but I guess even health nuts draw the line somewhere, because that day, Danae poured the whole thing down the drain.