Still alive and still kicking that dead horse

Jesus H. Is this REALLY the FIRST chance I've had to update my blog since returning from MD on the 2nd? Answer: Yes. Yes it is. Suck.

Our piggy-backed internet officially decided to give us the boot at home, so that greatly limits my ability to update. Then too, working 40+ hours since the first morning I was back doesn't help at all in the free time department... I've been making a lot of money, but, god am I tired.

Today would have been my fifth double shift in a row but for the fact that a friend offered to pick up the AM shift so that I don't have to be in until 5:45 tonight, allowing me time to settle my ass at It's A Grind (BEST COFFEE SHOP EVER), with an iced chai (I've recently become a fan: finally, I'm a true lesbian!), a checkbook to be ballanced (hooray internet banking; I don't want to begin to think about how snarled it is), a blog to be updated (at this point I feel the need for a parenthesis after each statement), and a doctor to be found (I suppose I'm trusting to fate and location since I know no one here). (Parentheses: the new black. Or comma.) Damn but that was the longest sentence ever.

Oh yeah! And also, I have a birthday party to plan if I have time! Old as I may feel, I still am only partially legal. Isn't that lame? It's not even as though I drink, but the mere fact that I can buy and own a car, rent an apartment, join the military, what-the-f-ever, but not get a glass of wine at a restaurant pisses me off. All this will change on September 16th when my last Big Birthday for twenty years will occur. It's weird, planning my twenty-first... Honestly, I've felt so old for so long that it seems trite.

...Wow. What do I have to say? This is nothing but a tangle of rambles, all frustrated before the point of meaning. This is actually how I've been feeling lately about my life in general, though whether or not the two are in any way connected is debatable.

Lately, waitressing has felt even more thankless and dead-end than it already has... Though I'm still bringing in a fair amount, enough at least to pay the bills, I get off a shift feeling more as though I've been begging for change or turning tricks than legitimately being paid for a job well done. Every 5$ tip on a 90$ check (see also: last night) makes perfectly executed service feel like a joke. If the person will pretty much tip what they're going to tip regardless of the service I give or the check they run, why bother? I ruin myself every night trying to make sure each table receives exemplary service but whether or not I'll be paid for that effort is a crap shoot.

My shoulder has been bothering me again, too, increasing with the hours I work. Hell, it's only been about eight months since my surgery and I'm back to double shifts pretty much every day I work... At this pace, the healthy, whole parts of my body won't stay such for long. People don't realize that waitressing takes an incredible toll on your body. Although I've been eating more I can't gain any weight or keep on what I've got because of waitressing so much... I may be eating Cheesecake Factory food every day, but the calories are all offset by the loaded plates I cart all over the restaurant, the trays of drinks, and constant speed-walking. I'm solid muscle, knots, and strains.

Yucky part is, I've got no clue where I'd rather work or what I'd rather do. What job can I get with a year's worth of college that has adequate pay, benefits, and satisfaction? That I'd enjoy? I have no clue. Especially with working in a mall, it seems that everyone here is older than I and stuck working too many hours in a dead end job because it's the best option they got. So many people here in Colorado are working to pay for the homes, cars, and KIDS on minimum wage, yet I'm making at least twice that and complaining about it. Why does it feel like that makes me a terrible person? I don't think it does...

Last night I was mourning my complete lack of connections here. I didn't exactly have the most outrageous network in DC, but I still new enough people that I could know where to go if I had a question about something, needed help. I had a Pulitzer prize winning author, senior literary professor at George Washington U offering to mentor me and help me become a better writer. I had opportunities. Now that I'm half a country away perhaps I'm not completely cut off from any way to improve but I certainly feel the disconnect. I don't know where to go or who to talk to. I've got no school, no professors, no friends outside my dead-end job. The only way up at Cheesecake is to step into management and I'll be damned before I become THAT much of a corporate whore.

...Of course, then I look at complete complete train wreck entries like this one and think that I ought to have learned better by now than to still have literary aspirations. I can't even keep a blog in one piece.

Well, my thought are trickling out at this point and I'm having a hard time sifting through the silt that remains. I'm going to now return to my doctor search... I've finally got health insurance now through Cheesecake, meaning that I can at long last find a therapist to stick with, a psychiatrist, and get back on some medication. With any luck, maybe my thoughts will be a little more cohesive and I'll have a better time trying to plan and think and do anything with some cocktail to temper my crazy thoughts. It's about time, I can tell you that much. I'm tired of crying myself to sleep at night with absolutely no provocation.