WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2011 — 05:21:16 PM

I was too lazy to hide my hair (or lack thereof) this morning/afternoon. That may be advantageous, or it would be if Garamond was fucking working today. Sheesh. I didn’t see Pluto cleaning when I came in either. But Marcél is working  tonight. Hell yeah. And so is the new server girl. Gah, I still don’t know her name.

Zenzen says I shouldn’t write as much tonight. Hahaha, yeah. Sure. But this chapter might be a little shorter anyway. It’s not even 6:00 yet and we are probably almost half full. Yay, there’s going to be money to pay my paycheck this week!

You never know that at this restaurant. The building is cursed. I am totally being serious right now, too. Since I can remember–and I’ve lived here in Knoxville all my short life–there have been at least four restaurants here. Grady’s, West Side Tavern, Amerigo–all went out of business or had to close for some reason. I’m probably forgetting a couple, too. But Brazeiros is doing pretty well. It’s here to stay, I think. Southerners do love their all-you-can-eat meat. It sounds really bizarre because it kind of is, for America. The concept actually originated in Brazil. Something about cowboys slow-roasting meats over the embers of a fire and then sharing the meat all around and partying hardy like only Brazilian gauchos know how. It’s a pretty cool place with a really interesting culture. I like it here.

06:40:39 PM Zenzen: “Will you check the restroom please, Klara?” in his half-German half-Brazilian accent that makes him sound Chinese. “Sure!” I responded. “Thank you,” he bagan as I turned the corner, “You are the best one… after me.” … #Lolwut? Here’s the thing about Zenzen. From what I’ve heard, both of his parents spoke German, and he spoke it fluently as a child. However, he lived in Sao Paolo for the first seventeen years of his life, so he speaks Portuguese. He’s also fluent in Spanish and in English (mostly). His real first name is Vilmar, but when he opened up this Brazilian steakhouse he needed to sound as authentic as possible, so he goes by his last name now: Zenzen.

07:53:21 PM Gah, I haven’t had time to do anything party-related at all because I’ve been partying with the customers, Brazilian-style. Really just making funny faces at a little baby and smuggling cheese bread and diet coke from the back. I did learn her name, though–the new server, not the baby. Joy! Haha I heard Zenzen yellin’ at her. He’s always tough on the newbies.

But I’m not going to reminisce about my month as a newbie, way back in October. It’s party planning time.

I have a rather small space to work with. I live in my parents’ house, but kind of separate from them at the same time. My little domain (I guess you could call it that.) consists of my original bedroom plus my bathroom and the guest room, which is right next to my room, converted into a living area with a little fridge and a microwave and shit. I figure it’s a cheap way to have my own little apartment suite without paying shit tons of money that would honestly be better spent on drugs. And it’s close to work, too. It’s not terribly close to thhe college I’m supposed to attend this fall, but I don’t even know if that’s happening…

ANYWAY, there are always Skittles, and M&Ms for the chocolate lovers, and a pack of caffeine pills to accompany the Sam’s Club bulk cases of Vault and Mountain Dew. Hahaha I have such kiddie parties. But to this one I’ll add some smokeables, and if anyone wants to bring alcohol, that’s just fine. “I’m having a few other people from Brazeiros over on Friday after work. You wanna come over and chill with us, perhaps have a joint or two?” Hell yeah, that sounds classy. If I got invited to something like that, I would go in a heartbeat.

I might ask my parents to go on a date or something on Friday, that way I actually CAN bust out the giant speakers without keeping them awake against their will. For the playlist, I’m thinking more indie-dancexdubstep than my usual drum’n'bass, breakbeat rap stuff. And I’ll let people add songs, of course. A small party doesn’t bring out the control freak in me as much as a 20-person bash. I’ll just let it flow, let people do as they like, be themselves. OOOH I’m sooo excited! ^^

09:19:15 PM Marcél is sitting at table 3 with Renata (Zenzen’s wife). I’ve noticed another thing about her. She doesn’t eat any meat! At all! Ever! She’s a manager, too, and she doesn’t even eat the beans–they’ve got sausage in ‘em. Wow, as far as I know, we’re the only two vegetarians working here. Hahaha, vegetarians working in a steakhouse. Oh, the irony. It’s not a moral thing for me, though. Meat just really upsets my stomach, so I substitute cheese bread. I’ve snuck eight pieces today, ahahaha. Such a fatty.

09:42:34 PM Cut! Haha when Marcél cut me I asked if she was a vegetarian. She laughed her odd little androgynous laugh and said she was.
“And you work at a steakhouse?”
“Yes, and it bothers me sometimes, especially when I see the gauchos in the kitchen butchering the meats. They used to be animals! Walking around and…” she allowed herself to toss her hands in the air and dropped off the end of her sentence in true Brazilian fashion. I told her how I was a vegetarian, too, we laughed a bit about that. Then I told her about Friday and, oddly enough, my manager is coming to my house to party this weekend. Lolwut? My life is so weird. I hope she brings some exotic Brazilian strain or something. She is of course aware of the cannabic nature of the gathering, so, fingers crossed!

??:??:?? PM I’m off, so my perception of time has kind of intentionally disappeared, but I must tack this on to today’s entry, for completeness’ sake.

I was sitting in the little private room that the employees usually dine in after we are cut, finishing up my usual salad with olive oil and ground pepper, dipping my remaining puffs of cheese bread in the leftover deliciousness. Soon, Joy is making her way towards the table with a slab of picanha (our house special beef cut) and what looked to me to be a chicken leg or something. “Holy shit, this is a Wednesday?” She looked a little frazzled; the servers were a little understaffed since we didn’t expect to be so busy, plus newbies are always kind of shellshocked. She practically did an about-face and headed towards the salad bar. Must not have been out of OMG SERVER MODE GOGOGO. That’s something you eventually learn to toggle at will.

I continued to nibble on my pan de queso. At risk of sounding like a total creep, she’s even prettier up close. A little heavy on the makeup, but she was probably trying to look extra nice for her new job. I was guilty of the same thing when I started. So anyway, she returned with her salad and sat down almost across from me, but not quite–diagonally, I suppose. Now, pay attention. This is smooth. I said,”If you think today was crazy, just wait until Friday and Saturday.” She mentioned she had to work at her other job on Saturday, so I was like, “Well I’m having a little get-together on Friday after work with some Brazeiros people. You wanna join us? We’ll be chillin’ at my house; it’s just like three minutes away…” And she sounded pretty excited to come~! She might even bring some alcohol or something. She’s over twenty-one. Booyah~!

I hope to Baby Jesus that Garamond and Pluto are working either tomorrow or Friday… Gotta get the gender ratio right. Partying is a science.

You know, before I worked here, I had no idea the amount of work that goes into making a restaurant function. I bet you’re not aware that someone dusts the salad bar each and every day. Waiters get here early to start folding bags of cloth napkins from whatever laundry company we hand them off to. Haha, and I like the guy who is cleaning the frosted glass on the half walls today. He has this knowing smile about him. Doesn’t say anything, though. From what I can decipher of the Spanish conversation going on, they call him Pluto because he  “está en otra planeta todo el tiempo.” And he doesn’t disagree, doesn’t even say anything in response. Just chuckles a little  as he finishes up his dusting.

Individuals like Pluto intrigue me. I know they all have some kind of intense, vibrant inner world in the great depths of their brains. I’ll have to get to know him, as well as mohawked man. Muhaha, my guest list is growing.

07:12:26 PM So bartenders often double as servers — they have all the drinks memorized already, so why not? And when I seated that last table, there was the mohawked man, all nicely combed down and bowtied, ready to greet the table. “I got this one.” His voice is fairly deep; he would probably sing baritone. I also admire that East Tennessee hasn’t permeated his speech entirely. His west-coast flow only has a slight twang tacked on the end, kinda like me.

I went to the back to take a sip from my diet coke. He was standing, autonomously scrawling the codes for their drink orders onto a pad of note paper, and I jumped at the chance to say, “Hey, I still don’t know your name!” A glance up from his scribbling, “Garret,” a half smile.

“Really?” I casually responded. I didn’t expect a response, and yet…

“Garamond, actually.”

“Oh! Garamond’s a cool name, bro! Why would you even change it?”

A smirk, a chuckle. “Lots of reasons, but you can call be Garamond if you want.” And he put the tab in the basket and hoisted his tray onto his fingertips as he reentered the dining room.

Like he fuckin’ owns the place. Sheesh! There are three things that could be the case: he was trying to impress me, he has some grandiose personality disorder, or he actually is the shit. Not mutually exclusively, though. It could be all three.

08:26:46 PM Hahaha I just checked the restrooms (cleaned them up and all that). I looked in the mirror and pink eyes were staring back at me. Hahaha I’m a little stoned. The lines of text in my notepad kind of slope and collide. I’m just now feeling it because I took a gel capsule of liquid THC before work — medical-grade, California shit. Comes up slow and easy, then last eight to twelve hours or so. Fuckin’ brilliant.

Oh, yeah, man, it’s no problem to work in this state. Marcél is working today. She doesn’t give a shit. She KNOWS, man. In fact, she’s another quirky one I should mention. From what I can gather, she’s nothin’ but a hippie. She’s Brazilian, of course, since she’s a manager, but she smells like incense half the time and ganja all the rest of it. When she works, everything is very chill. I’d call her a peacemaker type. She never sounds frustrated about anything.

I”d imagine if two waiters were competing for a particular table, she would suggest that they split it in half so that one of the served two people and the other took care of the other couple. One would be like, “Sounds fair,” and the other would say, “That might be annoying. You take it, man.” And Marcél would ask the one who cared about the customers to serve the table, and the other one would just walk off.

She’s not quite old and wise like King Solomon, but she is at least thirty. Would that be weird? To invite a manager to my party? … Naww she’s pretty much the bomb. Dang, I’m managing to have created quite a list already! Maybe I should invite someone who kind of bridges the age gap? Hmm, let’s see…

I could invite the new waitress that just came in today, but I know even less about her than anybody else here. Plus, she looks kinda normal. She has that light in her eyes, though, the sparkle that indicates that they are completely open. Some people have dull eyes, eyes that don’t draw much attention, eyes that don’t see. But this lady has almost brown eyes that shimmer with green ether. And she sure does smile a lot…

Fuck it. I’ll invite her. She’s gorgeous. Is she bi? She’s gotta be. Look at her!  My gaydar isn’t trustworthy, though. Time surely will tell.

09:38:00 PM Time passes so quickly when I write. It’s almost time to get cut (relieved of my hostess duties for the evening)! I have quite a get-together to plan tonight.

THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2011 — 05:21:48 PM

07:30:41 PM Today has been hell. But really, it’s not so bad. I’ve handled it like a pro. There were two rival pharmaceutical dinners, both in urology, for some reason. Projectors set up and famous doctors speaking and research PhD whatevermajigs just standing around like they own the place. And then there was Jennifer Robertson, who made a reservation for two separate tables next to each other and came in with what looked like her son and his girlfriend. and she just sat there at the table next to theirs, waiting for her date for like half an hour as they ate their meal. Completely awkward as hell. But then they walked out the doors before his mother could finish HER little date, and I was like fuck yeah, man, fight the power.

08:23:49 PM I haven’t had any time to write or socialize tonight (except with the customers). We’ve been slammed. But I see Garamond today–it’s hard not to. I swear he’s like seven feet tall. And he’s standing by the cashier stand and seems to be looking over here… and now he’s back at the bar, hidden behind the wine rack.

Pluto is, of course, back in the kitchen, probably washing shit. I’ll get to talk to him when I get cut. I wonder how good his English is. Hahaha it will be fun to try to speak Spanish. I can understand it pretty well, but my vocabulary is lacking. Uhh hay una fiestita a mi casa viernes y me gustaría invitarte. ¿Fumas la ganja? Jajajajaja…

I’m like the huntress stalking her prey or some shit. Why do I have friends.

Zenzen was just holding the doors open with me for the last stragglers of the urology dinners, and when everyone had gone, he said “Everybody lahves Klara,” in his funny little voice. I’ve kind of gotten that impression tonight, so I was like, “Really?” and he nodded. Gosh! Stuff like that makes me smile. On nights like tonight, I feel really good at my job. It’s a nice, warm feeling.

09:01:56 PM Things haven’t really slowed down enough for me to invite Garamond. When it gets kind of quiet and sleepy in here, I’ll get cut, and the bartenders usually have to stay until everyone leaves. So, then, the huntress shall pounce.

Ha, it’s like a game to me.  A very fun little social game. I might be in a mood, but I really genuinely want to get acquainted with these individuals. Foreal, they are super cool as far as I can tell. But it’s the fuckin’ social olympics, and I’m doing backflips through flaming hoops. Pretty tough on a half-blood introvert, y’know?

Sometimes I wonder if I’m even making sense.

09:29:04 PM “Hey Garamond.”
“Hey, how’re you?”
“Tired. Bored. Not dying, for once.”
“Well, that’s good. Hey, what’s your name?”
Fuck. He doesn’t even know who I am. I’m such a creep. “I’m Klara!”
“Well, nice to meet you!”
I laughed. Don’t say something awkward don’t say something awkward. “What’re you up to tomorrow after work?” Not as bad as it could have sounded.
“Probably going out or something. Why?”
“Wellll~ I’m trying to get a few people together from work to come over to my house and partake of various substances, to put it bluntly.” That pun was completely unintentional, so I didn’t force the issue.
A pause, then, “Excellent. I’ll be there.”
“Fabulous!” And back to the hostess stand I go. Fuck yeah. Now, the waiting game. It’s like, from 9:00 PM on, my mind focuses on waiting to get cut. It’s kind of fun not having set hours, but the anticipation! I can’t handle the uncertainty!! (I think that was a Toy Story quote, actually. I’ll have to look that up.)

I make no sense why do I have friends.

??:??:?? PM Hahaha awww Pluto. I went into the private room as usual to eat after I got cut. None other than Pluto was sitting at the very end of the far right table, folding napkins by himself. I would have sat next to him, but I didn’t want to get all of the napkins dirty by some freak accident (as would be my luck), so I sat at the left table. I tried talking with him from across the room, but the acoustics in there are less than conducive to that sort of thing, so I was like hmm.

And, slowly, I started shoving my table all the way across the floor until it touched his. He looked at me incredulously, but when I smiled he smiled. And then, we could hear each other–an improvement, at least! “I am so tired.” A pretty typical conversation starter around this time of night. “Yeah, me, too. It’s been a long day, hasn’t it?” I replied. He smiled and shook his head a little. “I had to get up at five this morning.”
“Dang, why’d you have to do that?”
“I fix roofs.”
“Ahh, that must suck. Too early for me. I bet you get a lot of business, though!” (There have been a shit ton of storms this summer. Power was out for a week at my house, trees down, tornadoes all over the fuckin’ place, hail damage, wind damage–half of our sign outside was blown off and we’re currently still holding the other half on with rope.)
“Yeah, I’m just so tired, though.” He said it with a shy smile, somehow. There’s a certain point while you’re working under sleep deprivation where you get delirious.
“Do you normally talk this much? Your English is very good.”
“Haha, no, but my English is better than my Spanish sometimes.” And then he remembered to retreat back into his usual silence.
“Ohhh~,” I noted. Perhaps the hispanohablantes here think he’s super quiet because he’s too shy to speak Spanish with them? God knows. I took some time to eat about half of my salad–it was delicious; I allowed myself caesar dressing. Then I asked, “Do you like parties? Like, you know, dancing? Drogas?”
He took a moment to be amused with my sign language, then he replied, “I don’t dance, usually,” and turned his attention back to his folding.

Ha. I knew his type. I could get him dancing.

SUNDAY, JULY 10, 2011

It takes forever to get ready when you have a crater in your leg. It can’t get wet, so showering is some kind of acrobatic routine, and I have to wrap my leg up tight with an ACE bandage every day because spreading staph at Brazeiros would probably be a disaster. I have a fucking staph infection because of the immune-suppressant biologic drugs I’m on. I honestly think all of my ailments and illnesses are signs of my soul being ready to leave my physical body and exist in another dimension, and the fact that both my intestines and my skin are self-destructing is merely a way to transition into my fifth-dimensional light body. Or something like that anyway.

I’m really just on drugs. A lot of the time. Most of us are, here. The house favorites are alcohol and caffeine; I just tend towards hallucinogens. Anything works, though. I’m so prone to seeing things that “aren’t there” that even caffeine can make me trip. At present I have some Percocet in my bloodstream, running through my brain. I must still be high from last night, too, because I just told a customer it was lunchtime. … It’s 5PM.

Sorry, I get sidetracked when I start writing. So! I managed to wash my little dreadlings before work — God knows they needed it. I carefully combed my bangs into place to hide the undercut, decided to skip the makeup and just put on some moisturizer so I didn’t look like a fucking creature of the dead, brushed my teeth, grabbed a waffle, and I was out the door.

I try to walk to work when I can, but today I got a ride. My commute is fifteen minutes on foot, but I was late and felt too shitty to brave the 93° Knoxville heat for more than the three-minute car trip. Even as I write this I am periodically fanning myself with a menu. I am a hostess, forever doomed to brave the temperature extremes that blow in through the front doors. My job is to spread love to everyone who seeks all-you-can-eat MEAT.

But on a day like today, my job is to make small talk with the manager, obsessively sanitize my hands, not get caught texting, arrange highliters like Stonehenge, and write. I am the lighthouse keeper. I was once told the story of a young thinker who asked Einstein what job he should get to help further his understanding, and Einstein said to be a lighthouse keeper. The student was at first offended. What a menial task! But old Albert explained that a lighthouse keeper had ample time to sit alone and think, and that would allow his great ideas to flourish.

Now, I’m not any scientific wizard or anything, but I do think. A LOT. There’s not much else to do up here at the hostess stand on a slow Sunday. So, I write. Maybe I’ll take home these little pieces of paper and copy them onto a blog or write a book or something. Hell, it wouldn’t hurt to share my occasional revelations with the world.

05:55:59 PM The ironic thing about being hostess, charged with spreading love to all who enter the restaurant, is the isolation. I don’t get to interact much with my coworkers. Like, at all. The most contact I get with them is when I sit with one or two kitchen workers to eat dinner after our shifts are over. Sometimes I work cashier, which is nice. I actually get to sit! (I’m standing right now, as usual.) And cashiers get to interact a little more with the servers and such. Otherwise, I have been to a couple work parties, and even though I’m good friends with the other hostesses, I’ve yet to connect with anyone else in the restaurant…

Ahh, work parties. I’ve been to two of them, and the experiences have been completely different. The first was Gilberto’s birthday. He’s one of the gaucho chefs (the ones who carry around swords of meat), and he lives in a nice little apartment with a couple of the servers. I remember the vibrant paint on the walls, the sangria, the delicious little fried chicken tortilla bites, the salsa dancing– oh god, these Latinos can salsa dance in their sleep. It just comes so naturally to them; it’s so intriguing.

Then there was Blake’s going-away party. (He was a bartender. Very knowledgeable. He got a real job with some fancy wine distributor.) Krystin drove me out there. I remember we got lost in the absolute sketchiest part of town, but we eventually made it. The group that attended was a rowdy, charismatic bunch. The drinks were professionally mixed, and the bud was absolutely magnificent. That’s where I met that California-blonde guy with the angel-blue eyes.

Man, you know what? I should throw a Brazeiros party! But gah, I don’t know anybody. Hahaha I’ll keep an eye out for people I’d like to party with. Zenzen is hiring a lot of new people lately, and they seem pretty quirky. We shall see.

06:51:18 PM Speaking of quirky, the newest bartender just sauntered in the check his schedule for next week. Seeing servers in their street clothes rather than bowties and button downs really emphasizes the humanity in them, y’know? Haha, this guy though. He has a mohawk. He hastily brushed it down before he walked in –  I can tell; I do the same thing with my hair. He’s got a sense of style that kind of hints at European punk, but he certainly doesn’t put too much effort into it. It seems like he’s so tall that his limbs are way too long for the rest of his body. He’s kind of attractive, though, in his own way. I like majestic noses. I’ll have to learn his name.

08:03:00 PM Oh gosh now I’m in party planning mode. Klara parties are unlike any other. I’ll get a small group together, some caffeine, some sugar, a little of whatever substance I have on hand to share. Then it’s always fun to bust out the three-foot speakers my Dad had in the eighties. Still work like a charm. They make the beat so irresistible, even the shyest of guests ends up dancing. It becomes infectious. Darkness falls, the strobe turns on, and we all float away to another land. A mystic world of bass and melody, of sweat and sex.

Dance parties are a shamanistic thing. For eons, humans have moved their bodies on beat with the music as a way to achieve a trance state. Raves are a sacred mass meditation on the divine through music and dance.