On Sunday Toby and I sat down to watch The Restaurant on NBC. I was intrigued by this concept as anyone who has ever worked in the service industry knows that pretty much anything can happen there. You may find yourself calling 911 after a fellow employee comes into work drunk and punches the time-clock, breaking the plastic and severing every tendon in his hand. You may find yourself naked in the walk-in freezer. You may find yourself asleep in the bathroom with you pants down, around your ankles. The dishwasher may carry a bat and he may use said bat to threaten and abuse unwieldy frat boys. The cook may like grabbing your ass while his girlfriend is at table 5. And someone may actually pass out in their dish of mac and chez. While working in a restaurant, pretty much everything and everyone does something or someone, which creates a story they can tell for the rest of their life.

But I digress, this reality TV show has the potential to be great. And I can see TV reps everywhere scratching their heads, muttering to themself,

God damnit, why hadn’t I thought of that first.

The show seems exciting. It combines many popular trends decorating current television. For example, watching hot people cook, watching people get voted off or fired, or watching gay people, straight people, big people, small people hook up with almost strangers, run off with someone’s other, and fight. My only criticism, thus far, is that for whatever reason they blast rather loud “background” music while people are talking. I guess the producers do this to spice it up or something, but it leaves me and my shot to hell ears tweaked.

So Sunday, we sit down to watch this.

This show is a great idea. Given that many waitresses, waiters, bartenders and maitre dis are indeed actors, it kind of works out well, you know? And I wouldn’t be surprised if we see someone we know on here.

Toby nods over his paperwork.

And then, there she was. One of the bartenders looked familiar. I knew her from somewhere. I looked on google, briefly, that night and found nothing. It was driving me crazy. I think I lost sleep. The following day, I found images of her and then her name. As it turns out, Lola Bell, a woman who used to serve the Williamsburg hipsters drinks at Enids, is on the show. We used to go on Mondays for karaoke night. She would put on quite a sexy version of “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”.

Anyway, that’s pretty cool. I do look forward to watching this show. I hope it ends up being “real”. If not, I fear it’ll just end up in the trash with all the rest of reality television. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing who else ends up on there and who ends up off. And to Lola, a once hipster-serving bartender who slung booze from a corner in Brooklyn, I say

fire away.

There’s a theme in the back of my mind. It’s there all the time but more so during moments of frustration or strife. I have this idea, somehow, that like solving a once deemed impossible equation, there is a similar, definitive way in which one can do the same using language. Whether it be through the individual words you choose, or the way you put them together, there could be a way to do so and not only make your meaning known, but solve a life’s problem as well. And though entirely abstract, by using this perfect construction, your meaning will suddenly be understood by another person, nearing us all closer to something holistically perfect.

Obviously, this is just not so. Why else would there be religious war, crime, catty disputes over petty things, arguments composed of he saids, she saids. It’s tiring-the constant back and forth-and totally unrewarding in the end. Lawyers can argue a sound case, and even if the person they fight for did indeed stab his wife and her lover, they could win over a jury of people by merely conducting a logically sound argument. I’m not talking about that kind of equation. I’m talking about truth. An absolute one.

I guess that’s why I do this—write this thing. I hope to always find something better in myself and those around me, work through the things not quite refined or understood, and refine the things I do understand. By admitting human err about myself, I might become a better person or, at the very least, make someone else feel not so alone.

I took Buddhism when I was a sophomore. It was taught to me, or delivered to me, by a booze-guzzling, Buddhist. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense but it worked somehow. Anyway, he taught us about the Eight Fold Path. And the steps one takes to enter enlightenment. And while I never quite “caught on” and decided that I would run off and become a Buddhist, I was intrigued by the quest many practitioners have for honesty. Right Speech. Right Action. Right Thought. (I don’t remember them all). But for this raised, (recovering) Catholic, I was intrigued.

There was one concept which stuck with me the most. It was the idea that, through Right Speech, one could eventually attain Right Thought by way of honesty. Now granted, my education in Buddhism was not only taught by a self-acclaimed drunk, but I was half-there, mainly only in flesh, after crying myself through all-nighters and inhaling adhesives with warning labels longer than this post. That said, who knows if I “got it right” and I make no claims that what I say on here is fact. From my understanding, from what he said, practicing Right Speech does not mean saying what people want to hear, it’s not about saying only what is the nicest, kindest, sweetest thoughts a person thinks of only after removing the first, and possibly more negative thought. After all, it’s nearly impossible to not have some negative thought, Right Speech was something practiced to eventually rid the human mind of negative thought, bringing him or her closer to becoming an enlightened being. Right Speech might mean to say,

Hey, Michele, your feet stink usually always, you’re insecure sometimes, and you need to stop taking your grumpy moods out on Toby. I think you fear getting older. I think you fear losing the elasticity in your skin. I think you should do something about this.

Maybe the truth hurts. Maybe it’s meant to, regardless of how it’s delivered.

Who knows. What I do know is while I was a practicing Catholic, I would very nearly every day think of every “bad thought” I possibly could by trying to NOT think about it and by doing so, it’s all I could think about. (Which, as a 7 year old, was only “Tracy should only play with me. Never Dania. I hate Dania.” but still, quite negative). So this idea of pushing out the negative by actually admitting to it was, again, intriguing.

So what do we do with all the negative thought? I know we have them, I see them distributed by way of sneers, half-laughs, fake smiles, limp handshakes, side-looks and good, old-fashioned hatred. They fester, they grow, they mutate into cancerous insecurities.

And right now, I just want to wrap this up because a two hour project just landed in my lap. And It’s too long. And I’m not sure where I’m going with it. And I just rambled on for two pages. :] I hate it when I do that.

Here is a song for today. (4.2 mgs Rival Schools) And even though I woke up with my monthly visitor, I feel like shit, and I want to tell certain people to shove random objects up their ass, I chose a positive song, by one of my most favorite singers-songwriters ever to hit this place.

This weekend, while visiting the family, I went through some old boxes in order to throw some stuff out. Along with finding a truly terrifying photograph of me as a 7th grade cheerleader (it wasn’t your average cheerleading squad, I assure you, as we were rejects, mere overflow from an actual try-out) Toby and I found a book of poems I wrote and illustrated in 1985. Here are two from that series.

• I hate the taste of brochlie
• I hate the taste of peas
• And I hate it when I’m teased
• People are always saying
• How stupid they may feel
• I’m sure I feel the same sometimes
• And that I says for real.

Here is the illustration.

• Me, myself and I
• Are climbing up a tree
• There’s lots of things we spy
• Climbing up a tree.

• I spy the sea
• Hollared me
• And a bumble bee

• I see a fly
• Called out I
• And a guy
• Hollared I

• I spy and elf
• Called myself
• Sitting on a shelf

• There’s lots of things that we may seeI,
• myself and me

Here is the illustration.

What a dork.

Last night after a 3 hour, intensive yoga seminar, I felt nothing but hunger. And so we ventured out for a late bite to eat at Tryst. The place was packed with people drinking and hanging out, having a good time. There was one girl, in the back. I only noticed her because at first I thought she was Drunk Girl (aka our neighbor). This girl turned out to be just one, drunk girl. She was throwing back beer as if conquering a dare. I watched her drop two into the back of her throat. When the bottle was held upright once more, the index and middle finger came to her lips as if to hold back vomit or, at the very least, a gag. It was something I could literally not take my eyes off of at first. And then something occurred to me, I have been her before. There was that time I fell off the stool at Stetsons. There was the time I got in a fight at Galapagos, There was the time I tripped over an imaginary wrinkle on a rug and fell flat on my nose. There was that time I passed out on the floor, my arms wrapped around the toilet bowl waiting for someone to please come kill me as I was too drunk to do so myself. I have been the idiot, drunk and foolish, highly comical, always that safety around enabling someone to think, “It could be worse, I could be her.”

Somehow drinking became a habitual necessity within an everyday life – within my everyday life. I’m not sure why it happened. But it did. The words, “Hey, you want to meet for a drink?” have crossed my lips and ears thousands of times. Booze. It’s what’s for dinner and dessert. Booze. It just is. And it works that way well. Some even believe booze was created to keep a working man stay-put, stuck, and constantly frustrated by running so very fast while standing so very still – a perpetual motion, down and drunk, ready to work in order to consume more. After a long talk one day, three weeks ago, Toby and I decided to take a break from the booze, clean ourselves out. Well, I decided to take a break for a while. He did so just to be kind. “Solidarity,” he said. (Squared)

I was a bit worried. Within the first few days, I wondered if I’d be able to do it. It’s summer. Somehow summer seems coupled with booze. I wasn’t sure I could do it, not that I’d miss the taste of alcohol, but that I would succumb to the habit too easily. I asked Toby that we not discuss a time frame, but instead just take it day by day, and see where it takes us because If I think of anything as ‘Forever’ I’ll get scared and probably fail.

So that was it. Just like that, I gave up drinking. . . at least for now.

At the doctor’s office the other day the nurse asked, “What is your age?” I thought, that’s easy, “23”. I haven’t been 23 for many years but it’s always the first number which comes to my mind when asked about my age. 23. Always 23. “I’m 29” I answered after realizing 23 is just not so anymore.

Later that evening, on the way to the pottery studio I was feeling slightly proud of myself when something occurred to me. “Wanna hear something kinda sad?” I asked Toby. “I haven’t gone more than a week, maybe even a few days, without a drink since I was 23.”

Let’s look at 23. When I was 23, I was just graduating from college. (I had taken a year off to live in England, hence the older age). I was thin and fit. I worked for Penn State creating playbills. I worked in a video store and as a waitress. I had so much energy and what felt like so much time. I was so very excited about my life. I knew, one day, I’d spend time in New York City. I knew I’d travel other places. I knew I’d make enough money to buy toys. Hell, the details are boring, and quite honestly, I really don’t remember them all. I do remember a grand old feeling of elation, safety, and fearlessness for the unknown. Why snag oneself up on all life’s petty details when one has the entire story to comprehend? I think I’m in need of some story finally. That’s the new detail.

“Some people who gave up drinking have said it’s as if all the time spent drinking their life was on pause. They didn’t know it while drinking, but it was apparent after they became sober.” Toby said while standing in the kitchen stirring sauce, or boiling noodles, maybe steeping tea.

Since I stopped consuming alcohol entirely, I have been swept up by thoughts I haven’t been in touch with for a very long time. I have had this bit of excitement and energy I didn’t even know I was missing until now. And while I’m not an alcoholic – as stopping was entirely too easy for me – there was definitely something missing, wrong, or absent from my life, and only after stepping aside have I begun to see that. And my energy alone is enough to keep me interested.

I’m not even sure what it is I’m trying to say here or why I feel compelled to write anything at all about what I’ve been up to or not up to. And while I’m certain I’ll have a drink again someday, it’s nice to understand it’s not the necessity many people make it out to be, and that you do actually feel better when it’s removed, and that it is possible to talk to people without employing your hands and your head with a drink. And that sometimes, that bit of you you’re trying to squelch is the bit which actually matters.

And maybe tomorrow or next week sometime I will finally be 29. :]