Friday, August 22, 2008

The golden great dishwasher

It's 7:21pm. I'm moving fast. Absolutely ridiculous music is keeping everyone pumped. I speak of fast paced asinine heavy metal, which I believe is supposed to be funny. Such clichés of lyrics and instrumentation must require careful crafting. This music can't be serious. I'm almost sure that this is screaming ironic poetry.

I'm spraying dishes and stacking racks like a maniac. I've got a flow, and the minutes are flying by. It's my first day washing dishes as a profession, and I'm picking it up fast. Tubs full of dishes pour in, and I spray them off and apply elbow grease where needed. The shift is going smartly, and the only feedback from this crew is positive. I get a free meal at the beginning of the shift, and I get tipped out when I'm done with training. This is a good crew of cats, and I think I will be able to tolerate passing some time in this elite healthy restaurant by the creek.

I got a pillow top mattress topper that is going to bring up my quality of life several small notches. (There are numerous notches, and several is measurable.) Jordan didn't need it, so she gave it to me. Jordan is the girl who I met my first night in Ashland at The Black Sheep. At the bar next door to where I now work as a dishwasher (a dishwasher, dishwasher...) God, she's cute. I gave her the address of this blog, and my words are duly colored by the fact. But God, she is cute. She's also a lunatic. I don't mean it in a bad way, and in fact I want to hang out with her all the time. Still, she's an impish bottle of sex, and I'm not quite sure what to do with one of those. To hang out always would be a good start. One of the first things she said to me included something about Steinbeck's "Travels With Charley." And today she gave me that pillow top that's going to transport my bed to a whole new dimension. She also gave me a bigger cooking pot, groceries, and elite novels. We sat on rocks by the lake. I took an actual hot shower. All this occurred before I arrived for my first shift as a dishwasher (a dishwasher, dishwasher...)

After my first shift as a dishwasher (a dishwasher, dishwasher...), I drove to Medford, 12 miles away. I headed straight for a hick bar that was having karaoke night. Craigslist came through for me again. First it told me about the job opening for a dishwasher (a dishwasher, dishwasher...), then it introduced me to Shay through email. I hung out at a hick bar with Shay and her very small wheel-chaired girlfriend, Hailey, watching karaoke. Shay is a nurse, and now that I'm a dishwasher (!) we both have somewhat erratic work schedules. But it was determined that we could both find time to meet in Medford and watch karaoke tonight. She's kinda new to this area too. This day was one of the golden greats of the 21st century. Shay was cool, and we talked about plenty of things but left plenty more to speak about next time. I let her borrow the book "Life of Pi" before she left. She had to go earlier than me. I drank more Bud, for lack of a better tap. Then I slept on my new pillow top'd bed.

My van is organized like a bucket of nonsense. The cobra's head is packed like a hiker's waterproof stuff sack. If belongings could speak, you would hear not a sigh of relief, but the spastic gibberish of twisted cloth and folderol speaking in tongues, eyes rolled to the back of the collective head, moaning as well. I'm sharing my van with a bicycle. Since I'm smart, I brought two bicycles with me because I didn't know which one I would end up riding exclusively. Better organization is not only possible, but easily achievable. I've procrastinated and ignored the issue for a very long time. I'm still alive and twitching.

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