I work as a waitress and I'm 29 years old. In my head, this sentence comes out like something you would admit in AA. Something shameful that you hide from the world. I try to avoid talking about my livelihood if I can, since waiting tables is supposed to be something that you do to get yourself through college. I'm already through college. I have no excuses.
I can't lie, the flexibility in schedule is wonderful. Also, I get to sleep around 10 hours a night, which is a luxury that I am loathe to forfeit. It has very limited perks, one of the most important being that it matches my skill set in a way that my college degree can't: you can't excel at Organizational Management when you hate managing people.
As an adult, I am good at very little. It's hard for us to admit that we are not the blank canvasses that our parents told us that we were. At some point, you just have to realize that you are not going to be an astronaut, you have acid reflux and have grown soft in the middle. I keep telling myself that after the wedding and honeymoon, as soon as I get back home I am going to look for a respectable desk job, one that I won't be embarrassed to talk about. In reality, I dread this.
I thought it might be helpful to compile a list of things that I am good at, which have no practical value in the workforce.
*I'm very good at drawing wild animals in a slightly scary/childish way.
Sometimes my boss at the restaurant asks me to draw him a hippopotamus when he's having a bad day. I can also draw giraffes, elephants, platypuses, chickens and snails. I mostly do this for the amusement of children and coworkers who have nothing to do.
*I write small books for my friends about their adventures in the world.
Usually I accompany these tiny books with pictures to accompany the story. The books are usually about how I'm sorry for insulting/degrading the person unintentionally, but sometimes they're about happier things. I try to make them funny, because people generally can't stay mad at you for degrading/insulting them if they're laughing.
*I can sew very basic things.
Like buttons. I am very proud of how I can sew a button or mend a sock. I can also make really dumb things like pillows and pajama pants and skirts. Nothing fancy. You can't make a living of it, for sure.
*I tell stories to my 5-year-old nephew that he seems to enjoy.
Sometimes even the imagination of children needs to be jump-started. Most stories that kids hear are about dogs or sharing or other boring stuff, so it helps to hear something outside of the box. I'm sure that this skill has an expiration date; by the time he's 6 years old he'll be over it.I also sometimes have a hard time coming up with material that is age appropriate and not terrifying.
*I make really good spaghetti.
It's true.
So there you have it- my list of things that I do well, yet can't possibly make a living excelling at them. I'm also very good at being poor, which is fortunate.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Two Weeks til Launch
So, I've got two weeks to be Sarabeth Dillon. I really should relish these moments. David Dillon is particularly fond of our last name and I suspect that on my wedding day, he will wax poetic about the end of an era or possibly something about a dynasty.
Just a few days ago, he asked me over the phone what he should wear to walk me down the aisle. I stopped for a moment, thinking that surely I had planned some kind of dress code for us... I had not. I told him to wear whatever he would be the most comfortable in, which could really be anything. On my 25th birthday, he showed up to lunch wearing my high school band uniform, so yeah. I'm leaving a lot up to chance here.
The truth is, I don't really care what he wears, or what anybody wears for that matter. I don't care if the cake is lopsided or if it rains. I'm honestly just glad Scott talked me out of eloping, because I'm really excited to be with my family as I'm transitioning into a new life. As a consumer and sometime-watcher of cable television, I'm a little confused by the general public's idea of what makes a perfect wedding. It seems like the world is fascinated (and frankly, kind of addicted) to proposal/wedding stories. The flashier, the better. As for me, I'd probably throw up on my shoes if Scott chose to propose at Disneyland or by putting my ring in a fortune cookie or at a Yankees game on the Jumbotron (I'd say no). The ring isn't the important part, the mark on my own personal timeline is. Starting on October 22, there's a slash through my life and Scott's, a distinct marker showing that our lives as two separate entities have halted. People don't put shows on Lifetime about that... unless one of us has inoperable cancer or something.
It won't be a wedding where people cry and look meaningfully into each other's eyes. It'll be better than that. There will be peacock feathers, or so I'm told.
Losing my Dillon won't actually matter much in the grand scheme of things. I'll have to wait longer when added to an alphabetical list. People will stop giving my sister-in-law my mail (maybe). I'll be a member of a new extended family that I've only begun to know. Better than that, though, I will be forging ahead into the unknown making my own family- a family of two! I'll be ruining holidays with botched cooking and fighting about what kind of paper towels to buy. But there will also be the good stuff, the stuff that acts as glue on the loose ends of our being. Oh, what a journey.
Just a few days ago, he asked me over the phone what he should wear to walk me down the aisle. I stopped for a moment, thinking that surely I had planned some kind of dress code for us... I had not. I told him to wear whatever he would be the most comfortable in, which could really be anything. On my 25th birthday, he showed up to lunch wearing my high school band uniform, so yeah. I'm leaving a lot up to chance here.
The truth is, I don't really care what he wears, or what anybody wears for that matter. I don't care if the cake is lopsided or if it rains. I'm honestly just glad Scott talked me out of eloping, because I'm really excited to be with my family as I'm transitioning into a new life. As a consumer and sometime-watcher of cable television, I'm a little confused by the general public's idea of what makes a perfect wedding. It seems like the world is fascinated (and frankly, kind of addicted) to proposal/wedding stories. The flashier, the better. As for me, I'd probably throw up on my shoes if Scott chose to propose at Disneyland or by putting my ring in a fortune cookie or at a Yankees game on the Jumbotron (I'd say no). The ring isn't the important part, the mark on my own personal timeline is. Starting on October 22, there's a slash through my life and Scott's, a distinct marker showing that our lives as two separate entities have halted. People don't put shows on Lifetime about that... unless one of us has inoperable cancer or something.
It won't be a wedding where people cry and look meaningfully into each other's eyes. It'll be better than that. There will be peacock feathers, or so I'm told.
Losing my Dillon won't actually matter much in the grand scheme of things. I'll have to wait longer when added to an alphabetical list. People will stop giving my sister-in-law my mail (maybe). I'll be a member of a new extended family that I've only begun to know. Better than that, though, I will be forging ahead into the unknown making my own family- a family of two! I'll be ruining holidays with botched cooking and fighting about what kind of paper towels to buy. But there will also be the good stuff, the stuff that acts as glue on the loose ends of our being. Oh, what a journey.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
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