Hungry to hopeful

I wonder what it is that makes restuarant owners hate waiters? Not all waiters, just me. (Tongue in cheek). It feels that way though in atleast my last two jobs, maybe more... it's not until they finally realize that I know what I'm doing, and make them more money than most, that they finally begin to treat me as though I am close to human. I'm really not being self-pitying. My current job, I had to fight to be a waiter, not a bus boy because someone thought I smoked too much. I smoke less and work harder than most of the other waiters. At my last job, I was warned a couple times, and was definitely on thin ice, before my customers rescued me by raving about my service.

Right now someone is asking, "obviously smoking is causing problems for you and interfering with your job. Why don't you just quit?" I guarantee that someone is a non-smoker. I know I can't do massage and smoke. The proximity to the customer makes it really difficult to hide the smell. But waiting tables keeps me a couple feet, atleast, away, (even better at an outdoor cafe, like where I am now), and except for the most anti-smoking nazi ex-smoking customers, no one is offended. I am careful to wash my hands and cough and blow my nose after every cigarette, and unless you are close enough to kiss me, you won't notice.

And I know when it is ok to be gone for 90 seconds; how long it takes me to smoke a whole cigarette. Yes, I've timed it. And it kills me when someone who has never waited tables tells me how to do my job.

Now on the flip side, because someone else is saying that I am being ego-centric and justifying my addiction, I recognize and respect that I am working for someone who is trying very hard to keep a restuarant open. Someone who has put in the time, money,  and self-sacrifice to get the place going, keep it going (so far...) and has definite ideas about how they want it. I accept that. I respect that. What I have a problem with is being treated like I am not a professional, and don't care about the restuarant or the owners. I am a very small piece... an expendable piece. Disposable, in fact, where I am now. 90% of the waiters there don't stay more than two weeks. Most don't stay more than two or three shifts. I am not kidding when I say that they really don't know what they're doing. Maybe in France this is how you run a restuarant, but I doubt it. This is how you run an unsuccessful restuarant.

I think I have complained enough. I am, and will continue to take pride in my work, represent the restuarant to the best of my ability, and make as much money for myself and the restuarant as I can by giving the best service and providing the best dining experience that I am capable of.

So I guess I needed to report all that to qualify the statement that I am doing pretty well. I am working seven days a week as a waiter, that allows me to get extra tips in cash, and those have usually been enough to cover my daily expenses. That means I can save my tips that are on the check automatically, and pay my bills. I expect to be paying all of them on time within a month, and maybe begin to whittle down that title loan instead of just paying the interest. Soon, I will establish my boat fund again.

It has been six weeks, and I have gone from hungry to hopeful. I'm nowhere near easy street, but I am making it. I am here to stay. I've been thinking of a backpacking tent as an intermediate step between sleeping under the starts and being devoured by mosquitos, and spending the chunk of change that a cap for my truck bed would cost. The tent has to be small enough to not attract attention from passing cars... passing police cars... but I think I can find the perfect tent, and next week might be the perfect time.

I am riding a wave of Quality, Service, and love into a life that I am supposed to lead. I still have a good 40 years left. I can't wait to see where I will go next!

P.S. I am writing this blog on my phone, and for the most part, it is unedited, and is posted pretty much in the form that I would consider a rough draft. I have a good phone, but the word processing is still primitive, and it is easier to write as grammatically correct as I can, spelling without a spellchecker, and pretty much just writing what comes to me, than to sacrifice the creative flow by spending too much time editing. Someday, I hope to have enough material, a decent laptop or desktop, and a quiet mooring in a peaceful sailboat to turn this unweildy thing into a memoir that could be submitted for publication. What is that, 12 lines to say I'm sorry about the typo's and the spelling errors, and the run-on sentences, and the undisciplined use of paragraphs? I beg your indulgence.  :)

Movement and dog love

Labor day weekend was disappointing. Instead of making enough to pay all three bills, I barely made enough to pay one. But now I have enough to pay my phone bill again, so I can stay connected for one more month. My status at my restaurant is evolving; first I worked two to three shifts, then I worked atleast seven a week as a busboy, now I work seven a week as a waiter.

I think I was just visited by kenny. I'm lying here on the beach on my stomach writing, and I hear this snorting/panting getting loud very fast. Its dark, so I didn't have time to identify the source until a pug was litterally in my face. She was clearly happy, and I was too, to pet her, and she just lied down and rolled over on to her back right under my chin. I love dog energy.

My mom suggested that I have the idea that I find enough to not just survive, but to thrive. It makes sense, and I think I'll try it. What I have learned in the past six weeks though, has really gone to my core, and I'm not sure I've finished the lesson yet. I feel some shame in admitting this, but for much of my life, in many ways, when I have gotten into trouble, usually financially, I have atleast wanted, and several times looked for, someone to rescue me. To take care of me. When I was younger, I felt like my parents owed it to me, they created me, afterall. As I got older, I recognized that as an adult I was responsible for myself. But still, I felt like the deck was stacked against me from the start, and my family should help me out. This conflicted with my desire to be self-sufficient, and I spent a lot of energy trying to reconcile the conflict. All the while continuing to get into difficult situations. I think that what I am learning now is that I don't need anyone else to rescue me. That I am following my inner voice, my higher power, and I am being taken care of.  And I am deadly serious about the taken care of part. I said it before, I ALWAYS have enough. I don't need anyone else to rescue me, to "bail me out". I took a leap of faith that most people thought was foolish, risked hunger, risked becoming a vagrant who moves trash around, and have been lifted up. I'm still living in my truck, but my conditions are steadily improving. My last post was titled there but for the grace of god... well, grace has kept me alive and sane and healthy and loving very clearly for six weeks today. And I think I'm starting to trust it. I didn't freak out on Monday and ask my family to pay my phone bill, and today I have enough to pay it. I'm not going to freak out about losing my stuff or my truck. If I am supposed to keep them, I will be able to pay for them. The thing about lessons though, from my experience, is you don't know you're learning until you've learned. And you keep getting the same lesson until you've learned it. So we will see...

Thriving is an interesting idea. For awhile, abundance consciousness was a big thing. Believing that there is enough for everybody in the universe. I definitely agree. The part I didn't agree with was who defines what is enough. Is there enough in the universe for me to have a 45 foot sailbout? I don't really need a 45 foot sailboat, and in fact that would probably be bad for me. I don't know how to sail a boat that big, you get charged by the foot in most nautical fees, and I'm only five foot nine inches. I thought I wanted a 35 foot boat, but now I'm thinking a 22 or 26 footer is within reach in the next few months, and that should give me plenty of room. Now the length of the boat is proportional to how large a wave it can comfortably sail through. Smaller boat, smaller waves. So maybe I won't sail to Spain in a 22 footer, or maybe I will, or maybe I will find the perfect boat at the perfect time, and maybe I will own more than one in my lifetime. We humans have the tendancy to take really good ideas and distort them to fit our conceptions of how things are, or "should be", rather than trying to understand the idea and let it change our self's.

I just might be thriving already. As my Mom pointed out, I am outside, in touch with the sea and nature almost all the time, and I like it. I am growing in my work, I am maintaining more friendships, my body is healthier, and I am shedding beliefs that have stood in my way in the past. I consider all of these things blessings, even though sometimes they can be difficult.

So maybe what I'm really learning is that the universe, not me, defines what is enough, and gives it to me. Remember, desire is the root of unhappiness. But also, if I don't move, I don't change. So I'm trying to keep moving toward what I think is good for me, and making the best of what comes to me.

What is my purpose? That's god's decision, not mine.

There but for the grace of god...

If you were somehow able to transport South Beach to Georgia, or Indiana, or Pennsylvania, I could say this place is crazy. Insane. Problem is, insanity is defined by society, and here, EVERYONE (almost) is so extreme in some way, that extremeness and uniqueness are the norm. Baptists who come here from Georgia are so easy to spot. They look "normal", but at home they're probably amongst the most rebelious in their subdivision. That's probably why I feel so at home here. I can be what I am, and most people think I'm boring, not aloof.

I really don't care now if anyone knows I sleep in my truck. Atleast I have a truck. Here, there are so many disgustingly rich, or extremely poor, or blatantly superficial, alcoholic, sex or drug addicted, or just plain so into themselves that they don't notice crowds building behind them wherever they happen to be pursuing their own adgenda, that some guy quietly sleeping in his truck is barely worth commenting on. But some do, at 2:00 in the morning, very loudly, while they are having their friends take their picture in front of the cool dog park under construction... why is next to my truck, in the middle of the night, the best place to decide which picture she should put on facebook? I hate weekends, especially three day weekends.

So, I still haven't covered my bed. I have worked out a system to deal with the wet clothing issue; pajamas, a couple extra items of clothing, and more trips to the laundromat. The rain in Florida comes pretty much every day. Mostly, it's in the early evening, and results from cooling of very moist air as the sun goes down, resulting in a change in state of water from gas to liquid...condensation and precipitation. Atleast I'm pretty sure I remember that correctly. Anyway, all the standing water also provides habitat for breeding mosquitos. So if I get to sleep in the bed of my truck, when it's not raining, the mosquitos become a real issue. I've learned how to not scratch the bites, so I don't aggrivate the inflamitory response, but in the middle of the night, when my mind is half in dream space, I would swear that I get so many bites on my arms that large patches of skin go numb from the neuroactive substances the mosquitos secrete to make dermal puncture less noticable to the animal source. The mosquitos, the lack of comfortable places to sit, and the interminable blasting of hiphop or house music through most of my day make me a little tired sometimes... all it takes though is an hour or two at the beach, at night when I have it almost all to myself, a cleansing swim, and subsequent chill from the seabreeze on my wet skin, and I feel restored enough to do it again. It also helps when my bartender friend plays reggae for happy hour for as long as she can tolerate it. I can listen to it all day, most people don't feel the same.

Not everyone here is crazy. There are a few angels. People who think, and care, and work hard, and do good things because it makes them feel good, not for what they think they can get. And living among extreme people also gives you patience, and tolerence because everybody here really is just trying to make it. The reason there are so many skinny people on South Beach is because we're all hungry. The people I know who work for tips eat with the extra money people they serve leave for them. The busboy, the Russian kid, today asked me what was the story with the fettuccini alfredo sitting on the bread table covered with a napkin. I put it there because a customer sent it back. It wasn't good enough to sell because the cook was tired and probably drunk, and he didn't care, but there was nothing "wrong" with it. My friend wanted to eat it.

It makes me a little sad that I, and all of the people I work with, in the front of the house, are so poor from lack of business, crappy tips, no hourly wage, and tip stealing owners, that we will eat off of the plates before they go back to dish. It reminds me of the custom of leaving a small bit of food on your plate for the help. I always thought this was a little pompous, until I saw myself and others living off of the discards of others. But it only makes me a little sad because I really admire the spirit that overcomes pride to live. You will eat and do many things you never thought you would if you become hungry enough. And yes, I am talking to you specifically, not to any general person. There but for the grace of god go I... never forget that.

Most people would not put themselves into this situation voluntarily. I have voluntarily, and with foreknowledge of the consequences, made my self homeless. I did it because I have been away from the ocean, landlocked, for eight years. I have gotten into unhealthy relationships with people and with drugs in the past as a way of dealing with the duhki, the pervasive unsatisfactoriness, in my life. I chose to become homeless and stay in South Beach because I am by the ocean, and I know that gravity grows around you wherever you are, if you can stay alive. I am surviving, I will build here, and buy my boat here, and leave here as soon as I can. And I will probably always consider South Florida (and New York City) my homes. I stayed because I knew it was the right thing to do, and if I left I would be continuing to live my life by what others think is right for me. I would be back to self-medicating with something within six months. I am making foundational changes in my life now. I don't recommend it unless you are willing to let go of yourself completely. How else are you going to build a new self?

So thanks to my angels, they keep me alive and sane. There are way too many to name, but I told Oshi I put her in my blog, and I hope Beau is reading... :)

No worries

People worry... I worry sometimes, I need to admit that from the start. Recently, I've noticed though, that people I talk to get themselves hung up in trying to make their world the way they want it. I say this absolutely without condesention. I think it is a trait that makes humans unique in this world; we manipulate our environment. Actually, society is built on this ability.

One side of the coin makes 120 volt power and modern plumbing accessable to most of the people on earth, and the other side gives us ulcers, diabetes, obesity, and addiction. We want things to be comfortable, neat, spontaneous, new, sparkling, and spiritual. We want what we want. When we can't make it the way we want it, we worry about it. As if expending mental energy will somehow change anything.

And the funny thing is that we usually don't notice we are doing it. It takes someone else, with different worries, to point out that really, we're in pretty good shape. That's what friends are for, right?

Yesterday I told you that everyday I am taken care of. It happened again today... I worked hard, put love into my interactions everywhere I could, noticed when I didn't, and here I am at the end of the day alive, fed, and ready to do it again tomorrow. I don't claim to be special. I get myself into trouble, just like everybody else, and friends and family have helped me when I needed them. I don't have any magic. I'm just trying to tell you that we are all taken care of. I'm not heading onto any kind of relegious trip here.

In the movie starring Demi Moore, where she was a SEAL candidate, I forget the title at the moment, the instructor quotes, I think Robert Frost, "I have never seen an animal feel sorry for itself... a bird will drop dead off a branch without ever feeling sorry for itself" or something very similar to that. The point is that birds live, animals live without worrying. I think. Kenny, my chihuahua taught me a lot about life. He let things come as they might. He ate, and slept, and loved me. He did what dogs do.

Being homeless and barely employed has made it pretty clear to me. I can worry, and close myself, or try to manipulate others into giving me good tips, or I can just give good service and trust that I will have as much as I need. Staying in Quality, living my Values, keeps me myself. Accepting what comes and responding from my self keeps me happy. Being happy improves my little corner of the world. Reminds me of Kenny; he was happy until he dropped dead. May we all be so lucky.

Post Script

I have enough cigarettes for tomorrow, I work as a server, the sky is clear, there is a cool breeze, and I have $10 to my name. What more could I ask for?

Every little thing gonna be alright

It has been four days since I've posted. I started to write last night, but couldn't keep focused. I have been bussing for over three weeks now, and I have decided to stop. The waitress who works most of the day shifts with me is not a very good server. She is young, and this is her second job serving. She is easily distracted, by boys especially, she relies on flirting to improve her tips, and she doesn't take responsibility for her guest's dining experience. As a busser, its my job to serve her. I am admitting right now that I have a very hard time with serving a server who doesn't care about serving her guests.

I am still working on respecting her as a person. She is a spoiled child. The owner lectured us both on service yesterday. I recognized that because she doesn't care about her tables, I let my standards for myself slip. And when that happens you start to get used to being lazy. I won't let that happen to me. So today I was scheduled as a busser, even though we have a new bus boy. Last night I told the owner I won't bus anymore, and I took today off. The new bus boy worked my shift.

I was scheduled, and worked as a server yesterday during the day. The owner has put me on the day shift through the weekend. For what reason, I don't know. It could be that he doesn't like me, and he thinks I will do less damage on that shift. I feel like I'm viewed as sub-human, no matter how hard I work. Maybe because they know now that I live in my truck, maybe because I smoke, or because they think I'm alcoholic, or maybe it's just because I'm American. It could also be that he knows I am dependable, and the other servers pretty much aren't, and he knows the day shift will be covered if I'm on it. The promoter asked if I could barback the night parties, so maybe he had a hand in it. Bottom line; I don't know, it doesn't matter.

Regarless of the reason, I am serving through Labor Day weekend. Yesterday, after the other server left, I got a seven top, and they gave me a $50 cash over-tip. I know how to give good service, and maybe my reading glasses with only one arm clued them in that I could use a little cash. Stuff like that happens everyday. Not $50 overtips, but money when I need it. Consequently, I was able to not work a bus shift, demonstrating my resolve to the owner, pay two $18 parking tickets before they became $45 parking tickets, eat, and buy cigarettes. EVERYDAY, I get what I need. That's how I know I am doing the right thing and am in the right place. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I am not a pleasant teacher to lazy students. I am gruff, and at times, rude. I let them know they do not have my respect, and I show them how to work. This other server has gotten better in the last three weeks, maybe when I show her how a good server works she will learn even more. I doubt she has the character to do it, but maybe she will. I respect effort. Also, she is free to do and to be as she wishes. I will be what I am and who I am regardless.

Still no callbacks. I went to see a manager I worked with here before. He didn't have anything for me, but he referred me to another manager who I worked with briefly, and took my resume because he has several special events happening this month that he might be able to use me for. One of my new friends tipped me to a job where she works. I met with the manager who said I was hired, but she hasn't called me yet to tell me when I can start training.

I have been in the hospitality business for over 10 years, I have a very good resume, I look good, and I can communicate. There is no reason I shouldn't be able to get another job, unless god wants me where I am for some reason. Working as a bussboy fed me for three weeks, but it has begun to turn me into something I don't want to be. Jimmy Buffet says "Leap, and the net will appear". So I recognize that I shoulld be a server. That will either happen where I am, or something else will come along at exactly the right time. Believe it, I do, I am staking my life on it.

I checked craigslist the other day and found two sailboats that I think I would be happy living on. Both were 22 feet, smaller than I was thinking, but one was asking for $3000, the other $2800. I think I should be able to scrape that together in not too many months. And I will bet that I will have a boat before it gets too cold to live in my truck. If not, plan B is a cap for the bed, a camp stove, water tank, and a cot with blankets. I will not live in another apartment before I live on a sailboat.

Yesterday I started to write about a buddhist martial arts teaching former bartender that I used to work with and recognized about a month ago doing tai chi on the beach. Yesterday the time was finally right for me to approach him. I hope to be studying with him starting next week. I'll tell you how it goes...