A new beginning for my blog?

For years, I found this blog to be a place where I formed ideas, forged ideas and honed ideas. Of course, for years it was about writing, which was who I was then. To put it into perspective, I began this blog just over a year after leaving Goddard College with my MFA in creative writing. I began this blog shortly after leaving my briefest of stints as an adjunct instructor of writing. I began this blog, officially, less than one month after the first issue of Umbrella Factory Magazine. I was still in the process of becoming what I would ultimately become.

The Detox is Over?

 Waiter Detox Day 7

It's been a week.

And I feel great.

What's really amazing is how much mental space has been freed up in a mere seven days. When I think of the nature of being a waiter, I don't really find it as stressful as many people do. Sure, waiting tables has it's own stresses, but whatever, at the end of the shift, the shift is over and it's time to be drunk or become drunk again. I was, however, taking the emotional impacts of interactions home with me over the last few years.

Dangerous of Nostalgia, part 2

Waiter Detox Day 5

There is no better day that today. There has never been an America greater than there is right now. There has never been smarter, more compassionate people than those who live today. The pop music has never been better, more interesting nor has there ever been more variety and better musicianship. Food tastes better. In fact, fuck anyone who thinks 'those were the days' because, let's face it, these are the days.

And if this is not the case, then there is nothing wrong with the world at large, there is only the problem with the individual, the person who looks back at some remote time and thinks that things were better then.

What about COVID? What about global warming? What about bipolorsian politics? What about the insidious and ubiquitous algorithms that are ruling and shaping our lives? Yes, those things are bad, but we've had to deal with all sorts of fucked up societal issues and problems ever since society began. I do, however, feel very bad about global warming and I will truly miss a peaceful planet, but that is another story for another time.

Dangerous of Nostalgia, part 1

Waiter Detox Day 4

In my waning days at the Thinman, way back in the late months of 2004, my patience for just about everything was very thin. I have two reasons for this. First, I was a very chronic weed smoker. Now, say what you will about people in Colorado, in Denver particularly, weed was still illegal in 2004. I was a weed smoker, I think because I worked in a bar and booze was very unappealing to me at that time. The real trouble with being a chronic weed smoker is that it makes you into an asshole. Now, I didn't smoke weed before work. I wouldn't smoke weed at all during the day if I had to work. I smoked it when I got home. And I smoked it on days off, often many times during the day. I was saturated with weed. As I think about weed and weed smokers, I don't think it works any other way.

Waiter Detox Day 3

What is a detox?

I always though the term detox was one of those bullshit terms that don't mean anything. And if I'm honest, I still feel that way. What the hell is detox? Detoxification. But from what?

I suppose, I can say it's all a detox from the booze and the drugs and the smokes and the bad food, the lack of sleep. It's all of those things, yes, I guess. But the truth is, you don't get to my age and not have already gone through the detox of those things. In a way, I've been in that particular process for years. It was a slow incremental process. I feel like as we age, it's the gradual coming off of all the bullshit. So, in a way, I've been detoxing for years.

This whole conversation is about a waiter detox, and I haven't needed to mention the physical vices, because they aren't the main focus. Sure, I like to stay up all night, and I have to get up early so my sleep has never been great. When I drink, I over do it. Alas, I don't drink as much as I once did, nor with the same frequency. I don't eat bad food. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. So, when I think of this detox, it's a much deeper thing. It's a mental detox. A detox of old ideas, old modes of doing things and thought processes.

Waiter Detox Day 2

On the second day away from the restaurant, I threw myself a party. It was an intimate party, but we all ate and drank too much. I thought about all the parties over the years. Christmas 2004 came to mind. So did the idea of friendship. There have been friends over the years, and I know there have. So often, though, I've had to pass on friends because I was at work. And my work friends, well, their schedules were so often like mine that our time together revolved around individual shifts. Yup, friendships.

Waiter Detox Day1

While walking home last night, I grew incredibly sad. It would seem okay to be sad coming off a last day at work. It was after all these years, my last restaurant shift. I've heard it said that leaving a job gives most people a level of depression, which I did not notice. Fortunately, on my last night in the restaurant business, I worked with my favorite people. On my last night in the restaurant business, I did not have to serve too many people. And best of all, I only served a few people who I would rather kick than be nice to.

So why the sadness?

It was a beautiful night. The moon was shining through light clouds. The air was the perfect texture. I walked the 6 blocks without a hat on my head or gloves on my hands. I walked upright through the neighborhood and Roosevelt park. At one point, crossing through the rose garden, I thought of my friend Dan. I haven't spoken to Dan for nearly 11 years, and even before that, we saw each other pretty regularly, about once a decade or so. But last night I thought about him because of the night.

So many of my memories of him take place at night. When we were teenagers, we wandered the streets of our atomic community all night long. We talked about all the things teenagers would talk about, deeper things, what-ifs and how-comes. During my walk home, I missed him terribly.

Waiter Detox the last(the first day)

Once upon a time, 7,670 days ago, in Denver, I took one fork in the path. This particular path did not seem any brighter or rosier or better than the other path, it was just the path that I took. It was the tenth of February. It was 2001. I went to work at St. Mark's Coffeehouse.

It was a job that came at the right time. I had been back in Denver from Portland by way of New Orleans for about a week or two. I was living in my sleeping bag at Chris's apartment on Gilpin Street. I had already gotten and lost a temp job. And when I got the gig at St. Mark's, it was a serious situation for me.

The truth is, and all I really need to do to confirm it is to look in my old journals, I was already a burn out at the age of 28. I know I was a burnout and I can't remember if I knew I was a burnout at the time. See, the thing is, I wanted to be a writer. Before the St. Mark's gig, I had spent a few angry years working a professional, or a “real” job which took me away from what I really wanted to be. So, when I learned I would only be working six hour shifts at St. Mark's, I was eager to start.

Waiter Detox Day -1(minus 1)

I've been thinking about Haley a great deal these last couple of days. Haley, just Haley. There are only two thing I remember about her: she was six foot four and she was named Haley because she was born in 1986 when Haley's Comet came around. Of course, in 1986, I was a teenager and living in the cold war suburbs of Denver. My friend David Reid and I spent our weekends awake all night star gazing, and I remember Haley's Comet very well. Perhaps that is a story for another time.

I met Haley when she came into Marlowe's, the restaurant where I worked at the time. She had never been a server before, and although it was not required to get the job, there just aren't many people who walk into a restaurant without experience and get a serving job. I was taken with her immediately. She was 22 years old at the time, and she had just graduated from college, Hawaii, I think, with a degree in Marine Biology. Marlowe's in Denver seemed like a very far distance from marine biology save for the fish we cooked and served nightly.