Eve of a new day

            Starting new things can sometimes be a very scary process. Most likely mistakes will be made, dishes may break, or tears could be spilled. These are all a part of the process of learning how to do something new and remembering the right and wrong way of doing those things. However, it's much harder when you don't have a friendly face to turn to for advice before things go seriously askew and the world feels like it could be coming to an end. This is how it usually goes when I try to take on more than I can handle, because I want to make a good impression on the people I'll have to spend forty hours a week with. On this fine, wintry New Years Eve morning in New York City, I walked through the door to my first training shift at, let's just call this place, "The Restaurant," and the first face I saw was my old friend Erinn. Sweet and petite Erinn, with her beautiful long blond hair, was busily fluttering around the restaurant like Tinker bell, setting up for the start of the lunch shift she was unknowingly about to train me to do. What a sigh of relief I felt when I realized it would be that familiar face that was going to show me the ropes and not someone with ten years seniority trying to make my life miserable and who I should never make eye contact with, unless I was looking for a death wish. Erinn was a dream come true on this first shift and, already, I was looking at this job like a blessing and not a curse.

            After getting a quick hug and a rundown of where everything was located, it was ten minutes to noon and the wait staff of three and myself, made our way to the restaurant next door, also owned by the same man, to use its shared locker rooms to put our things away and change into uniform. Like a family attending a dinner date at the neighbor's house, we made our way into the front door, past the dining area and climbed a narrow stairway to the second story storage area. The smells that swam through the air were like walking through a patisserie in Paris as master pastry chefs pulled hot sweet goodies from the ovens that very moment. My mouth began watering from the sweet scents of chocolate cakes and freshly baked breads before we even reached the top of the stairs. At the landing we turned into the locker room and I noticed that this impressive space was as big as my kitchen and bathroom put together. And, I had my very own locker! The last time I had a locker I was in high school. How excited was I? Very! Well, that was until I noticed there was only one room and it was co-ed. So, when my co-workers began to strip themselves down in front of me, I awkwardly stood around admiring the stickers on the lockers or trying to keep eye contact with Erinn while she talked to me, as I was already fully clothed in uniform before I came in. I'm not really sure if I even heard all of what she was telling me, now that I think about it, because I was too busy trying not to seem like a pervert. Nakedness has always made me uncomfortable, especially in front of strangers. I would have felt awkward no matter what because I've never really had to disrobe much in front of other people before. Growing up, changing for gym class happened in little stalls, much like the ones used in public bathrooms, and I was the only girl in my family so I always dressed in my own room. This was going to be an endeavor.

            Back at the restaurant, we found that in no time at all, our first table was sat and it was show time. Before we even reached the table I knew exactly who was sitting in one of the two seats. I could not believe my eyes. It was Dan Lauria. The same Dan Lauria that I watched on television as a child playing the father in The Wonder Years. I had seen him just a few weeks ago as the narrator of the Broadway musical of The Christmas Story, but now, here he was, sitting a foot away from me, and asking me about MY life and what I liked to do. As Erinn's shadow for the afternoon I knew I would be the source of people's curiosity and/or the butt of everyone's jokes, but this was all too much. Sitting beside Dan was his long time friend who was just as personable. He was a funny man with a round face, long curly white hair that fell to his shoulders, and a charming personality. He kept me standing and listening to his impressive family history while I tried to follow along as much as I could, saying as little as possible. When I find myself in a state of surrealism, I feel it's always better to shut my face and just listen. Otherwise, I say the most ridiculous and unintelligible things that confuse even me. In my head, it all makes sense, but when I try to articulate my message, it just sounds like a vocabulary list of nothing congruent and I only make things worse when I try to elaborate. I don't exactly get star struck when I'm around a celebrity. I've worked with many big names in the past, I've run into a few in the streets, and I've waited on a few other film and Broadways stars before, but it does take me a minute to take in the 3-D version of the person before I'm convinced they're really standing in front of me. When you spend years always seeing a person on a flat screen you forget that they're actually a living, breathing person. So fighting the urge not to stare at them is very difficult. However, I've made minding my own business a craft when I'm around people I don't know on a personal level, so I look only when I have to...or when they can't tell that I am. Yup, it's official. Dan Lauria is indeed a real person.

            After waiting on our first table, each successive one was just as pleasant as the other and just as talkative as the one before. Erinn warned me that this would be a common occurrence and on days when it's busy, I would have to learn the art of politely brushing people off so that I don't get distracted from what I have to do. Sorry Dan, I'm too busy to talk to you. How will I ever learn how to do that gracefully? From what I noticed, everyone who came in this afternoon was a regular and each one came craving a friendly face, a good meal and a quiet environment. I was already sold on the place after I took a whiff of those pastries next door and Erinn's friendly face when I walked in, but when I saw how unobtrusive management was, the pleasance and patience of the clientele, (at least when they're not in a rush to see an evening show anyhow) and the amounts of delicious food that they feed us before, during and after a shift, I was sold. I'll never have to buy groceries again! Bon appetit Marcy!

An inside job

            For someone who appears to loath interviews as much as I do, I seem to find myself in the middle of them more often than I'd like. Half the time I'm not necessarily looking for the work, but my good friends like to recruit me into their current field of work whenever possible and I have a hard time saying "no." Apparently, I'm very easily seduced when it comes to pleasing the people I care about. Late Wednesday night, in the middle of my week long Christmas vacation, I was sitting on the couch with my parents when I got two messages from two different friends of mine within fifteen minutes of each other, each telling me to come in to the restaurant where they both work and apply "ASAP!" That night someone was let go from this very well known, and very difficult restaurant to get employment at due to it's history, respect and the famous regulars that like to make appearances there. If I were an actor, this would be the restaurant to work at. However, it doesn't hurt to rub elbows with the likes of people who can do more for you than you could for them. Most of the staff who work there have been employed for years, and I don't think they have plans for leaving any time soon. So, when a slot opened up, extremely flattered, they both thought of me instantly. Even while knowing that I didn't necessarily need the work, they thought that I would enjoy this place far better than where I've been for the last two years. I've always told myself that I would never take on another waiting position again, unless I found myself in a place where I had no other choice. For instance, if I were in a foreign land, down to my last crumb of food and only a dollar to my name, then, I would put myself through the indignity of putting myself in another position in the field again. However, my waiting friends are very good salesmen and quite good at their job–of coaxing people into buying what they're selling–so I caved. It's a survival mechanism we've learned to cultivate in time. Otherwise, the rent would never get paid and our fridges might just as well be used as air conditioners.

            Nestled on the couch between my mother and father, I pondered the idea of working in a place that was well respected, non-corporate, located in the heart of Hell's Kitchen, in business for the past fifty years and where any career waiter would kill to work at given the chance. I figured, Why not? New year, new job. It's a change that I think could only benefit me IF they think I'm even worthy enough for the position. If it didn't work out, I still had my current job where I know I would always be welcome, or I could keep on as a part time position for a while too. Crap, that means I need to go through the process of another interview. After a minute of assessing this thought, I went ahead and messaged both of my friends and told them I would be there Friday afternoon for an interview.

            Bright and early Friday morning, I was in my car racing down Interstate Highway 95 at eighty miles per hour to get home in time to get to this interview. Mind you, this weekend is considered the busiest time of the year for the restaurant industry in New York City. My timing is impeccable, I wouldn't be surprised if I was laughed at and turned away just for showing up on a day where restaurant managers loose most of their minds and their hair. However, I had nothing to loose and I didn't want to disappoint my friends who cared enough to think of me in this position by their side. When I got home I changed into some business attire, spruced up my resume and ran out the door. From experience, the hours between two and four p.m. are considered down time in the restaurant business, so if I didn't want to be a nuisance I had to make it in between that time period or risk being turned away, or worse, rejected completely due to my not knowing any better.

            Before I walked into the door I wiped the snot dripping from my frozen nose and smoothed the tangled mess of windblown hair on my head the best I could, hoping no one in the restaurant was paying much attention to the people on the street. Then taking a deep breath I walked in. To my relief, the quaint little restaurant was pretty empty for the moment, just as I predicted, and the manager was sitting right inside the door at the bar. Noticing that someone was behind him, he turned around, stood up from his stool and made his way towards the host desk to my left, "A table for one?"

"Ah, actually (stutter) I was looking for a position...if you're hiring."

"Oh, well you're in luck. Someone just left us this week."

"Yes, actually, Michael Angelo and Aisha told me there might be a position (stutter) available and that I should come in."

"If you have ten minutes we could do that now."

"Excellent. That would be great." Whoo, if I had to come back and do this introduction again, I would just forget about it altogether. Let's just get this over with.

For someone who has been through dozens of interviews in the past you would think that I'd be prepared for the same old questions and have the perfect responses down to a science, but I'm a bad liar and even worse when I'm under pressure. So telling people what they want to hear and not what is the honest truth is not my strong suit. Although, to my great surprise, this was not an interview at all, it was more like a rundown of what I should expect and what I should wear on my first training shift on Monday. I must have said about ten words through the entire conversation, nothing remotely intelligent by the way, but I was hired anyway and before the end of the interview Michael Angelo and Erin, another of the five people I knew well who worked there, walked through the door for their evening shifts and the "interview" was interrupted by hugs of delight in our seeing each other. I think it pleased my interviewer that I was already well acquainted with half of his staff, even though I had never set foot in that restaurant until this day. So I'm sure he was glad the position was filled...for now. I won't officially be hired until training is over and I was okayed by the rest of the staff, as well as the managers. I like that. It's a team effort here. They all have to work together to make each other money, so they should all have a say as to whom they end up working with.

            I've been trying to get out of working for a corporate company for as long as I've worked for one. But, to leave one place of employment that is so similar for another just never made much sense to me. However, I do like the idea of working at a place where there is just one head at the top of the food chain to please and not an army of unknown faces dictating what they want you to do while you try to do your job. This place sounds like a dream in comparison and I'm sure willing to give it a try. One of the worst parts of starting in a new position is getting to know the staff and I've already jumped that hurdle. So what do I really have getting in my way? I suppose if there is anything, I'll find out on Monday. 

Happy daze

            Apparently, studies have said that fifty percent of our core happiness is genetic, ten percent is circumstances and forty percent is unaccounted for. Forty percent! That's a whole lot of misguided and misunderstood happiness if you don't know where to look for it. And, about that fifty percent being genetic...I assumed this was an issue anyway. Genetic unhappiness has been the very thing that I've been fighting since I was a young teen. I've lived in fear of that awful disease called depression from ever taking precedence of my life for years. Sadly, both my mother and grandmother have suffered from manic depression for most of their lives and both have been hospitalized more than once because of it. When my mother was diagnosed with the disease I was just thirteen and I vowed then and there that this would never be me. I was not going to live the life my mother and grandmother struggled through for too many years. I was not going to let myself become another statistic, pumping myself with medication just so that I could put a smile on my face everyday. Instead, I decided that I was going to pursue my happiness to the ends of the earth if I had to. And, that flimsy ten percent due to circumstances in life...this can't really be helped because most circumstances happen TO you, whether you like it or not. However, it's how you deal with those fleeting good and bad moments that are given to you that can make your life ten percent better or ten percent worse. I believe, that those decisions we make in our circumstances can bleed into that unknown forty percent, and there is where we might just find the very happiness that we all struggle to possess.           

            The other day, during a long and dull day at work, I was doing some meaningless task in a corner somewhere, daydreaming, like always, when my friend Andrew appeared beside me chomping on a bowl full of chopped salad. At the time I was contemplating the near future and a decision I've been weighing the pros and cons to for quite a while. As he stabbed a fork full of his salad and shoveled it into his mouth he said something along the lines of what he believes could quite possibly be the key to happiness. It was a really random statement, as though we had started a conversation earlier and were just now picking up where we had left off. He just seemed to pull the message out of thin air. I don't know what made him say it, if I was looking completely bored out of my mind, or little suicidal in that moment...I don't know, but it was something that went more or less like this: to be truly happy in life you would have to constantly do two things...be physically active as much as possible, and keep changing. Whether it's good change or even bad change, this is the secret ingredient that will make you feel most alive and therefore, happy. It was a very profound and unexpected statement, coming from Andrew, a young twenty-something who spends most of his days schlepping through long days at work to pay for his few night courses at a community college. Then spends his free time partying like a rock star, like most people who come to New York City at that age, soon regretting it the next day when they have to drag themselves back to work again. People assume Andrew is from California because of his laidback personality and low and slow way of talking, but when you actually have a conversation with Andrew, he is not as laid back as everyone thinks. In fact, he seems on the verge of exploding half of the time I see him at work. So hearing this deep and Zen-like string of words come from his mouth, especially while he was crunching noisily and spitting pieces of his chopped salad as he spoke, felt meaningful and something I very much needed to hear in that moment. For what felt like a good ten minutes, I just stood there, contemplating his epiphany, until I realized, what he said might actually be true. It made complete sense. I've felt those surges of happiness, excitement and complete awareness to every present detail in those moments in life, the good moments and the bad. The day I first fell in love felt like being born again, the day I lost that love felt like the start of another life, the tearful bus ride I took when I moved to New York, my first apartment, first paycheck, first flight on a plane, first rollercoaster ride, first swim, seeing a piece of art come to life, seeing birth, seeing death, learning to drive, learning to crash, my first award, my first F, all of these things, and many, many others, good and bad. They were moments that woke me up, opened my eyes and I felt most like a living, breathing human being. I was alive! Those were the moments I remember, moments of change. The long days I spent in overtime at work doing the same mundane thing or the times I spent sitting on the couch watching television all day. I don't remember those days, because I was bored, I was static and I was, therefore...unhappy.

            This year I've had so many new and different experiences happen because of my mission to live as fully as possible, as though this were the last year of my life. And because of that I've never felt more alive and truly happy in one consecutive, long stretch of time. I've been more physically active than I've ever been before, I've traveled more than I have in the last six years of my life and these last few months have been one change after another and I'm addicted. I'm addicted to the happiness that it has brought me and the will to pursue my dreams have only gotten stronger and more vividly placed before me.

            A few weeks ago I got my new lease agreement for the apartment I've been living in for nearly two years. Before I got the lease I told myself that if the rent went up, I would leave the apartment at the end of its term in February and look for something cheaper or sublet for the last few months of my thirty-second year. I would let go of place I've called home and continue what I started to do six months ago and continue to follow my dreams. If the rent stayed the same, then I would stay where I was and life as I've known it would continue as it were. I'd go on pinching my pennies the same way that I've been doing for the last two years and do the best I could with finishing as much of my bucket list as possible.

            Well, the rent went up, and I had to really think about what I was doing. When Andrew came to me with those random words of wisdom, he was like an oracle that had happened to appear at the exact moment I needed to be reminded of this very important piece of information. The question that I was contemplating just moments ago, suddenly came to me with such certainty that my final decision was made before Andrew took his final fork full of chopped salad. I was moving on and letting go. Before the end of that week, my decision was signed, sealed and delivered, and there was no turning back. Where I end up in March, I have no idea. But even if it means fighting Gizmo for the blanket in the back seat of my little Nissan Sentra for a month, I'm still excited by the change and all of the possibilities that lay ahead of me now. 

In the spirit of the season

            I was never much of a big party girl, although, there were those college years–what I can remember of them anyway. But for the most part, I would take a small circle of friends over coffee than shots of tequila at Coyote Ugly any day. So, unless there's a special occasion or a close friend is in desperate need of a night out to forget her latest breakup, I will most likely stay in my pajamas watching back to back episodes of The Vampire Diaries all night, than don a cocktail dress until the wee hours of the morning. The problem is, I work with nearly a hundred different people in the city and although we don't all work at the same time or even on the same days together, you get to know these people and become very attached to them because they're all you have here. Many of us are far from our families and the things we were familiar with and although some of us are from right over the bridge, they come here in need of a change and a chance at a new and better life than what they had to start with. We're all very much like starved orphans wandering the city, in search of a place to call home. So when one of us has something going on, it's hard not to be a support system or a fellow advocator for them, because otherwise, it can be a sad and lonely existence in the big apple. However, it's just not physically or financially possible to go out for every occasion. So I try to go to those events where more than one person is promoting their career or celebrating something or other and where most of us can gather together at once. Then there are the holiday parties. There's just something about these parties that I just can't resist. For one thing, they're never overly wild and crazy like a twenty-first birthday or a housewarming party, (which happens too often. We like to change apartments like the seasons). There's a little more class and restraint with holiday parties that allow people to dress up without being one dance away from having the boobs fall out or the hairy chests making a world premier. We can look good, be merry and remember most of the night afterwards...for the most part.

            Last night, a lovely group of friends from work decided to throw a Christmas cocktail party at their new apartment. The party had started at eight thirty in the evening and I had intended to be there around that time, nine thirty at the latest, but after squeezing into one outfit and peeling out of another, I found I had nothing remotely suitable to wear that still fit me. I nearly called it quits and slid into sweat pants after going through my entire wardrobe. Oh, now I remember why I don't go out, my closet looks like a ninja lives here. After the Thanksgiving feast I ate last month, I can still see where the stuffing went too. Dang carbs! After nearly two hours of trying to gussy up the hair and trying to look like I know what I'm doing with makeup, I happened to look at the clock and it was ten o'clock. Dropping everything, I settled on the go-to dress when desperately out of other options...the little black dress, a woman's best friend.

            Stumbling down the stairs while trying to figure out where I was going on my cell phone, I realized that the apartment I was heading to sat well over thirty blocks away, and sadly, the fastest way to get there was to walk. I nearly popped open the bottle of wine I had with me just to keep warm and entertained while I pressed through the long haul. When I finally found the inconspicuous abode, I though for sure I was in the wrong place. It was the darkest spot on the block and the windows facing the front of the street were all dark. Where am I? No, I was at the right place. When I rang the bell and got buzzed in, a wave of relief washed over my cold face and sore feet as I swung open the door. Inside the apartment it looked as though I had just stepped into a red carpet event and it took a minute for me to recognize anyone. Who are you people? The girls I see dressed in frumpy black attire every day now looked like they had just walked out of Glamour magazine. And the guys...they looked like they belonged in GQ. Too bad more than half of them were batting for the other team. What a room! I'm sure glad I didn't go with the sweat pants.

            You know it's been far too long since you last went out with the crew, when everyone stops in mid conversation to drop their jaws when they see you walk into a room. "Oh my God! Marcy is here? I can't believe it. I just can not believe it." It was a mixture of surprised happiness that so many friends were excited to see me, but it also made me aware of how anti-social I had become too. I really do need to get out on the town and spend more time with people. My cat is getting sick of looking at my face anyway. She needs her space. If someone had told me ten years ago that I would be living in New York City, standing in a room full of some of the most talented singers, dancers, artists and actors I've come to know, wearing a little black dress at a Christmas cocktail party, I would have rolled my eyes and laughed in their face. Just ten years ago, I was drowning in a life that was going nowhere and working hard to pretend that I was. At the time I was in the fourth year of a relationship that had ended bitterly before the year was even over. I had but one close friend I hardly had time to see because I was working two dead end jobs while attending a community college, studying a major I wanted nothing to do with, and I was living in my childhood bedroom with my parents in the next room. Then, like a stack of cards, my life had suddenly fallen away, one card at a time. With one bold decision, I ended up moving to New York City and I was now standing in this apartment, smelling the pine of a chubby blue spruce decorated in shimmering silver garland and sparkling red balls while having adult conversation about life, work, the pursuit of happiness and laughing at the follies of our daily lives. Who could have imagined such a dramatic change? Not me.

            Making a round about the finely decorated living room of the apartment, I saw not only the faces I often see throughout the week, but there were also some old friends who had moved on to do other things. Although it had been nearly a year since I had looked into some of their eyes, it was as though not a day had gone by. Across the space, like a shining star, I spotted one of my favorite people in New York and also one of the hosts of the party, Charming Chad (I like to call him). And like two planets being pulled in by gravitational force, we bee-lined across the room and embraced like a cosmic collision. Chad, a tall and slender man in his mid twenties, with a flare for the finer things in life, is one of the classiest people I have ever met. Having lived in France for some time, studying fine art and the French language, he stood out in the crowd donning his red bow tie and sparkling green and back sweater like a character in one of Jean-Luc Godard's New Wave films. Only he could get away with a look like that. 

            As the night carried on, the merrier we all got and the louder our excited voices seemed to get. A few times our hosts had to shush us like unruly school children and we would cower in shame, sip our drinks, then slowly slide back into our conversations until the volume red lined again not a few minutes later. Their neighbors had to have hated every one of us by the time the party broke up at two a.m. For some of us, the night was still young and although I'm usually fast asleep by this time and I had to work in the morning, I was already out and had to head back another thirty blocks in the same direction everyone was going anyway so, I thought, I might as well stop half way home and warm up with one more drink with my friends. Poor Chad, as classy as he is, the man's slender frame was not built to sustain high volumes of alcohol. What grace he kept in holding himself together for one more round with the rest of us. However, had the night lasted any longer, I probably would have seen a different side of him–the upchuck Chad side.

            At an Irish pub where many of us who live in the neighborhood had often found ourselves in the past, after a rough night or a day off in good weather, the five of us sat at a high wooden table by the bar listening to bad country music and sipped on pints of beer. What felt like minutes were really two hours later and before we knew it the lights were turned up and our cups were dry. Where does the time go? I'd have asked Chad that question, but I don't think he even knew where he was by then, let alone the time of day. Sure was great to make those memories and bridge the gap of change with experiences we could enjoy together. Days like this will not last forever, like everything in life. It's inevitable that this too shall pass. However, I would rather live and lost than to never to have lived at all.