Girl Next Door

Or restaurant...

I get a lot of creepy. No, that's not fair. Let me try again.

My restaurant (and I assume many slash all restaurants) get a lot of lonely people. They don't always seem lonely; in fact, a lot of them seem like pompous, arrogant pricks. However, they are overcompensating for the truth that no one really wants to go out to lunch with them.

Along this vein, I get a lot of single men at my tables. Being a young woman, many of these men (after asking me how old I am) make passes at me. Some women find this creepy, find them creepy, and sometimes it  can be, don't get me wrong. However, more often than not, I just end up feeling sorry for them.

Allow me to lay it out for you in my line of thinking. These middle-aged, single bachelors are willing to come to a restaurant and literally pay for someone to spend an hour or so talking to them and taking care of them. In that hour, that woman is required by threat of no-tip to be gentle, kind, indulgent, sumptuous, and smiley. She also comes bearing food.

And you do this because normal woman don't. You don't have somebody at home who thinks your  jokes are hilarious, your small-talk brilliant. You don't have someone who will make you food. You don't have someone period.

 I'll take your tip, sure, but then I go home to my family and my best friends and my wonderful boyfriend and live my life. And you, sir, will go home to yourself.

That is how I live with myself in my position of low-grade prostitution. I am not your groveling servant. You need me just as much as I need you. Shoot, you need me more than I need you. I'm so sorry, sir. I'm so sorry.

Learning to Love

When I first started my job, I felt this overwhelming realization of just how much darkness and lostness there is in the world. People don't realize it, but we see how you interact with one another, we hear your conversations. We know you're lonely, fighting, joyous, on that  first date, on that 1635th date, hate your kid, hate your husband, can't get over how much you love your husband, are cheating on your wife, are hiding an office relationship. We know.

And my coworkers. Before I started, I decided to find something good about each one of them. And I have. I truly love each one of my coworkers and managers. I think they're wonderful people and good at what they do. But you all just don't see how much your chirpy servers drink and smoke and cry about when they leave or how much yelling and attitude happens back in the kitchen on your behalf. You just don't.

Gentlemen, ladies, your words have power over us. Regardless of how your day is going, we are going to treat you the best that we know how. In return, though, we are often treated a little better than dogs by you. You cut us off, you snap your fingers at us, you poke us with your forks, you are quick to tear into us if we make the slightest mistake.

Which brings me to my point. At every moment in every situation and location, there is someone who could use encouragement. It sounds cliche, but you just never know what's going on in someone's life, so treat each person as though they were Christ. It doesn't matter if we will never see one another again, did I behave toward you as though you were someone worthy of love? Did you treat me as though I had any value in your eyes?

I'm not attempting to change the world through waitressing at a mexican food place. That doesn't mean that I can't pray my way through each interaction and hope I leave in my wake the aroma of Christ, without giving you a card or even telling you that I'm a Christian.

"Where's Home for You Anyways?"

Last night, as I was running my checkout with my  manager, he asked me, "So, where's home for you anyways?"

I said, "Here."

But I didn't mean it. On the drive home, I thought about his question, and I think my answer isn't "here," but more along the lines of, "What is home anyways?"

I wrote sometime during college that I felt like a nomad, and it's still true. My point of reference and the place where I will always think of as home is in the house where I'm writing this. Not Tulsa, necessarily, but in this home. I will always have a secret pleasure in driving up the hills and through the fields and past the big blue wall to get to my wonderful, wonderful home and family.

And my body is here right now, but this still isn't home.

My heart is in Arkansas.

I went to college there, a few of the people I love best are there, my church is there, my academic self found an outlet there. But it was my college home, and college ended for me. So it's not my home anymore.

Then I'm moving to Ireland, and it will be lovely and adventuresome and everything good and wonderful. But again, it will only be a year. Not my home either.

Then to Denver for another degree. Still not home.

So, folks, am I meant to redefine? Or am I meant to continually wander with my heart in five different places at once?

"Where's home for you anyways?"

My heart is playing in the pool outside in my backyard and in the mountains with Haley and in Stillwater with Caity and in Houston with Kira and in Siloam with Noah and Abby and Becca and Maddie and JBU and First Pres and in Belfast with Queens. That's where.

What I Know.

The first thing many writing teachers will tell aspiring (or not aspiring) writing students is to write about what they know. This has meant different things to me at different times. If I would have been asked to do so (and I was) last summer or any of the summers before, I would have written about lifeguarding.
or being a student.
or a publishing intern.
or an aunt.
or a daughter.
or sister.
or dog-mom.
Currently, though, "what I know" is mexican food and being human.

I waitress at an extremely popular mexican restaurant in the town I grew up in. As an introvert, I was actually more anxious at the idea of working this job than I am about moving countries in September. However, by the Grace of God and the need of money, I have overcome that for the most part.

The best part of waitressing is that there are no wholly bad days. There are bad tables and bad interactions, but one good tip or one kind family can honestly make everything better. I have had every extreme of people from black to white to indian to christian to very nonchristian to creepy old men to darling old ladies and couples.

This serves as my preface, and it comes with no sour cream or guacamole on the side, unless, of course, you'd like to add some for an upcharge of 2.29.

I spoke in chapel. Listen if you will.

9//5/12

Sometimes in life, there are moments of absolute certainty. 

For a handful of people, this comes when they “hear” God’s voice telling them what direction they need to turn.

Others, like my Grandma Ruth, have their moments of absolute certainty when they are in the market and have taken their broom-straw to test melons. And find one. 

My most recent moment of certainty was when I realized, in my distractedness, that my dress was completely seethrough and my underwear were shining straight through. This, and I had already been publicly out and about for three hours. I was certain that it was in the top twenty-five things I wish I could do differently. That or the moment I stumbled over my words and accidentally told my male professor “good cock!” instead of “good talk!” 

It’s in these moments that, in your absolute certainty, you learn more about who you are as a person. God hearers get direction for their life, Grandma Ruths get to prove their half-baked theories when a beautiful red shows itself in a watermelon. And people like me are reminded once again that “cool” will never be my middle name. 

9/3/12-Powerful Things

• Big words used correctly
• The answer “no.”
• The answer “yes.” 
• a smile from an attractive stranger 
• listening to whipporwhils in summer
• sitting on the kitchen floor with a best friend and ice cream
• bike rides
• affirmation, sticker charts, and a star from a professor.