A Hooker’s work is never done

It is amazing the din of traffic that I only barely registered is much louder in it’s absence…the streets of Asheville are very hushed tonight, the masses having left earlier this evening, as the city put to work to clean up the crazy litter, washing away the grime and beer to make downtown Tourist Pretty for tomorrow morning. 

Interesting, how a city can grow so much right under your nose, and the expansion is barely noticed until all of a sudden, the question becomes "who in the fuck are all these people", no longer "what are they building over there?"  Since I’ve been here, there have been three large festivals, and one or two smaller ones, EVERY WEEKEND.  The flow of people just never stops on the sidewalks.  Men smoke cigars in their Madras shorts and comment to their wives how much nicer ‘Carolina’ is than–fill in the blank—(mainly FL or NY) as they stroll down the street with shopping bags from all the stores where locals can’t afford to shop.  Droves of women that literally smell like the live in a vault take up the sidewalks, walking four abreast at an absurdly slow pace, strolling I think they’d call it, while the rest of us are just trying to get a cup of coffee on the fly before work.  It’s as if there are two sides to this lovely city, a real sense of duality operating full force; there are the wealthy summer folk, and then the rest of us.  Granted, there are plenty of really fucking rich people that live here, year round…much richer than I’ve ever seen before (there is a street here that looks straight out of the canyons of Los Angeles), but the divide is much more pronounced when the weather is good. 

Someone has been committing burglaries in the downtown area, throwing bricks through store fronts, and leaving a calling card…a pair of handcuffs and a scribbled message that says ‘Poverty Free Zone’.  These people are assholes, as all the businesses they are robbing are independently owned small businesses, but I can almost see their motivation.  So many rich in a city with such a difficult job market, it’s hard not to be bothered; getting paid $10 an hour is considered a fairly good job by most people I know, and these are intelligent people with college educations and varied skills.  These are the people that were lucky enough to snare the ‘good jobs’. 

That is, I suppose, the lot of a town driven by a tourist trade, an enviroment I’d never lived in before Asheville.  The thing that drives me the absolute craziest is that all these vacationers will ask the most ridiculous directions…

I was sitting outside of my favorite coffee shop, drawing, when this woman comes over and gets up in my grill, so I could smell her White Diamonds perfume and really ponder the irradescent orange of her skin that peeked out of a knit tank (white with blue stripes at the collar and armscye). 

"Scuse may, darlin’.  Where cood we fand some dizzert round here?" 

I was seated directly in front of a plate glass window that says ‘confectionery’ REALLY BIG in shiny gold leaf.  Now, she could have been stupid, but truly stupid women don’t marry as rich as she did, generally.  I believe that she and her type have simply gotten so accustomed to a life of ultimate convenience that they don’t know how to do for themselves.  Myself, when I was a newcomer in Asheville, my course of action was to park and walk and look.  It’s as if these spoiled women from Florida and these cocky men of outrageous wealth from NY have no sense of how to move through life without an assistant scheduling their social engagements.

I hope no matter what kind of money I make in life, I don’t end up like these dicks, behaving as though locals are a free version of MapQuest and the service industry exists for the personal catering to their every whim and desire. 

All that bullshit aside, what I really meant to say in this post, when I sat down thirty minutes ago was that I have met SO many quality people in this town, it boggles my mind.  With a few very important, very notable exceptions, the best people I’ve ever known are in Asheville…so kind and interesting and generous and involved, and more and more, every day, they just pour out of the woodwork, an endless stream of real treasures amongst the trash.  Every day, I am reminded that a person is made wealthy more by the company they keep than anything else in life…this I know to be true.  The people I’ve known in Asheville are nearly as responsible for the shape my character, and indeed my life has taken, as I am myself.  Thank you, Asheville, for being a magnet for so many rich personalities. 

I am marveling at the amount of alcohol that the booth I worked in sold these past two days.

14 hours, 5 Aleve, 12 shots of espresso, 1 voice raspy from barking at the crowd to buy their beers from us, $2000 in tips, and roughly 6000 cans of Bud/Bud Light sold at $3 a piece. 

Our beer booth was so successful that when we ran out of cups about an hour before the festival was to stop selling beer, the festival organizer shut down another booth so that we could have their cups.  We really had the beer slingin down to a science.  Even though there were eight beer booths operating, our booth was responsible for a quarter of all sales…quite a feat, considering that there were more than 300,000 people there this weekend.  AND, as an added bonus for morale, people kept telling us we were the funnest booth in the entire city and that we ‘rocked their face off’.  All because we’d sing to them while they waited in line…

"B-double E-double R-U-N, BEER RUN, all you need is a ten and a fiver, keys and a car and a sober driver, BEER RUN!!!"

Also, "Brrr, it’s cold in here, there must be some be-ers in the atmosphere, I said oh-ee-oh-ee-oh ICE COLD BEERS".  Shout out to Bring It On….

And then, "My grandman is ninety two, she drinks more beer than you do, left right, left right, wooooooooo!"

It was a lot of fun…It was nice to hang out with my friends, amuse the crowds and make money in the meantime.  Plus, an excuse to get loud in the streets of Asheville, in broad daylight…well, it was pure gold.  We ARE a theater company, after all.  Performing is what we do…

AND, we had the only all-female bar back crew, of which I was a proud part.  Lemme tell ya, it’s an achievement in my book when four women can pour something crazy like forty-eight beers in a minute and a half.  We tore that shit up, in style, to boot. 

Every night when we finished, I was soaked in beer and cooler water from nipples to knees, but I never minded getting dirty doing some honest work. 

Now I must go soak my busted ankle…an old break is acting up like a muthafucka due to all this recent hard work, standing on pavement all the while. 

I just spent six hours opening, pouring and serving 16 oz Bud Lights…I never knew so many people liked the Bud Light.  Grossest beer ever.  Cumulatively, I would guess that I poured about 12 beers directly onto me today.  I smell like the bottom of a recycling bin.  Mmmmmmm, sexy. 

Bele Chere actually proved to be a fun time today.  Meg and I declared a truce until Monday so that we could at least have a good time this weekend, which significantly lowered my stress level, so that’s good.  We had a staff of eleven in a booth that is ten by five (my first estimation of the space was generous), and the lines just never stopped.  It is a thing of awe and horror to see hundreds of thousands of people pour by, walking down the middle of the streets I am so used to, that become unrecognizable with foot traffic and plastic tents full of turkey legs and mediocre artwork.  I realize that the only way I will ever enjoy the festival is if I profit from the tourism, and that it is a priviledge to have a space that is partially my own, that can’t be invaded by drunk strangers. 

As I am coated in a fine layer of grease, sweat, beer and festival grime, I must go shower and fall into a sleep coma so I can get up and do it again tomorrow.  I realize that this is what makes an Asheville local (as there are no REAL locals, there must be a system for ownership) is that you work Bele Chere instead of attending.  I think it’s a good system…I’d much rather be standing on the other side of the counter than rubbing elbows with all those filthy common folk.  heheheh

Of course the day that Bele Chere starts, where I am slated to work in a beer booth (having done so last year with bucketloads of tip money as reward), it is torrentially raining with no hope of sun.  Of course it is.  I mean, why oh why would the Gods of Weather chose a perfect sunshiney day conducive to selling lots of beer and therefore making lots of tips when it could storm all the day long.  Grrrrrrrr.  As an additional bonus of fun, I have to walk about two miles from my apt. to the booth downtown in the friggin rain.  So I will be soaked, not making money AND still surrounded by more rednecks and tourists than I’ll ever be comfortable with.  Yay!!!!  For the icing on the cake, I’ll be stuck in a small booth in the rain with Meg, who I got into an argument with three nights ago that ended with me just hanging up and refusing to take any of her calls thereafter.  Good planning on my part.  I totally could have waited until after Bele Chere to do the friend break-up with her.  Three days wouldn’t have killed me.  But now we get to spend twenty hours together over the next two days, in a 10′x10′ space, not talking. 

I love Bele Chere. 

Hollis and I had a most interesting conversation tonight, as we both smoked and put off going to bed (I more successfully than she).

Hollis: What would do if tomorrow morning you woke up and you were Carrot Top?

Me:  (brief pause) Kill myself.

Hollis:  You don’t think you could stomach the life?  Tough it out as the annoying TV personality we all love to hate?

Me: Maybe, but every time I looked in the mirror, I’d be inclined to punch myself in the face.

Hollis:  Like in Fight Club.

Me: Just like that. 

I realize now that Carrot Top is The One…the person I hate above all others in this big world of ours.  Oh sure, I could be a humanitarian and name a slew of political leaders that gloss over genocide and work feverishly to fulfill a Doomsday prophecy, but I’ve given up on politically correct; it takes way too much concentration.  So Carrot Top, if you’re out there…Fuck you, buddy. 

Here’s something to ponder:  What are the odds, do you think, that two people, on the same day, in the same room, at different times, in different company and different scenarios, would utter this precise sentence—"What do you think Shelley Long is doing  right  this  minute?"   I think it likely that the Laws of Probability got an upset stomach with nausea and vomitting as a side effect of that occurence.  I mean, REALLY, what are the chances?  Shelley Long?!?  This really happened. 

I had just written a most eloquent, insightful post, when all of a sudden, my work computer spits at me that it has to shut down and that all information I’ve been working on will be lost.  Typical.  I don’t trust computers as far as I can throw them, which, incidentally, is about eight feet. 

Alex, good call on the best smells…I’m gonna go ahead and bite that list for my own. 

5 Best Smells Ever

1.  Egyptian Goddess perfume oil

2.  the ozone smell of dense snow on a clear night

3.  curried cantaloupe.  mmmmmmmmm…

4.  my cat’s tummy (which, disturbingly, smells like an old locker room that saw countless sweaty bodies, decades ago, and I LOVE it anyway)

5.  some Aveda shampoo that two of my dear friends use to keep their hair smelling wealthy

Bele Chere is this weekend..the madness ensues.  An anticipated 320,000 people in ten square blocks of teeny tiny downtown Asheville, and drinking is allowed on the streets like we live in New Orleans or something.  Crazy talk.  Blues Traveler is playing but they are charging (bands used to ALL be free at Bele Chere and they got GOOD people mostly, like De La Soul and Blackalicious).  Besides I don’t want to see Blues Traveler now that John Popper is skinny, that sell-out. 

I am tired of "working".  Only five more days and I’m done!!! 

It’s times like this, late at night, when I can’t sleep and can’t possibly get any more comfortable, temperature-wise, that I believe that high humidity could be harnessed as a weapon, lulling opponents into a near-comatose state…  I am remembering my last apartment in Raleigh, on the unairconditioned third floor of ‘Big Whitey’…boy that shit was hot.  I’d lay on the floor, not moving, none of my limbs touching my trunk for fear of adhesion, praying to the gods to please, please make it rain to cut the heat for just a moment. 

It’s not quite that hot, but I did begin sweating the second I stepped out of the shower tonight.  Blech.

On a different note, this summer has been quite a roller coaster…not what I expected at all.  After finishing my most successful year of schooling to date, with a sweet job lined up, and a woman I loved telling me to hurry back to Asheville, I felt like nothing could go wrong…that the entire season would be an exercise in bliss. 

Funny how self-prophecy can be SO wrong.

I let myself wallow for a bit in the fact that the job wasn’t what I expected, the woman all but disappeared after my second week back, my family crumbled before my very eyes, my money dwindled away in car problems, none of my paintings were meeting my expectations, and Asheville didn’t seem to have the shiny lustre I rememebered. 

But this week, I see that there is a silver lining, and I had to go through my own pity party to get myself back in check with my goals, desires, and expectations. 

No, my job isn’t great, but it will looking sterling on my resume.

The woman I loved is absent, but that means she’s not around to make me crazy and sad anymore, leaving me open to explore other relationships I’ve been interested in for a while. 

Yeah, I’m broke, but this is no kind of new development, and I’m thankful that I get to eat sushi when I want it, grab a beer or bourbon when the mood strikes me, and buy art supplies that I need, when I need them.  This is more than 50% of the world population can claim. 

Also, so many good things have happened to me unexpectedly, things that I almost overlooked due to the bullshit…My lovely friend from school is taking me to Connecticut with her, to help her settle in at her new job at the Goodspeed Opera House, where another one of my friends is working.  Once I get to Connecticut, it’s only a short train ride to my dear friends in Boston and NY, not to mention a lot of museums I’ve been hankering to check out.  Plus, I have missed Heather alot this summer, and she wants company on the drive so bad, she’s paying for my return flight, which is really the only way I could go with her. 

My friends Nick and Dana are in town for a couple of weeks and I’ve been spending loads of time with them, which is so good for me…they are such decent people, so giving and interesting and entertaining and intelligent…I feel blessed to keep company with them. 

I’ve reconnected with several people I had fallen out of step with, and met so many great new people…Granted, sometimes I feel like I get short-changed, meeting people late in the season, before I leave or they do, but I like the process of getting to know people from satellite locations. 

I could go on and on, but the point of this all is:  I realize it is so easy to get mired down in the bad that the good is often foresaken, and that is ridiculous and counterproductive to happy living.  I see that there are unhealthy patterns that have been in my life for quite a while, and I feel like I am finally beginning to break free of those patterns.  I feel much more in control and centered than I have in a very long time.  I feel like I am living in a world of options, and that is so gratifying and empowering, coming from a place where I felt trapped in all that I was doing. 

I think I am beginning to see myself in a more realistic light, perhaps more as others see me, as opposed to the self I have created in my head.  This is a good thing.  It helps me to remember that I have chosen the right path for myself, that I can do whatever I set out to do, and that I will have interesting, enjoyable stories to share along the way. 

Masturbatory writing session now concluded. 

I am a sucker for a list, and also I am painfully bored at work (no one is here, it’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m a zombie from reading Harry Potter til the wee hours), so….

5 Things I Love Unabashedly

1. rhinestones

2. smoking

3. my cat

4. scooters with a sidecar

5. breasts

5 Things I Despise With the Fire of a Thousand Suns

1.  the American political machine

2.  soap operas

3.  Joan Rivers

4.  coitus interruptus

5.  fake smilers

5 Things I’m Irrationally Afraid Of

1.  vampires

2.  clowns

3.  midgets

4. midget clowns

5. serial killers using my basement to craft skin suits

5 Foods I Can’t Live Without

1.  sushi, especially the spicy tuna roll or yellowtail sashimi

2.  greens like kale or collards

3.  coconut soup

4.  tabouli

5.  avocado

5 Things I MUST Do Before I Die

1.  Visit the museums in France

2.  Have sex in a glass elevator

3.  Work on Broadway

4.  Own a motorcycle with a sidecar

5.  Sail the seven seas as a merciful pirate

I’m going home to take a nap.  Fuck this working on Sunday bit.  I’m OVER it. 

I have a new appreciation for the old adage, "To err is human, to forgive, divine".  Forgiveness is a hard-won battle…I am tired of anger and it’s energy-sucking properties, yet I am having a hard time releasing the anger I feel towards my father due to his current missteps.  I would love to be able to sleep again, but every time I close my eyes, a flickering film strip plays, recounting all the ways I feel wronged and hurt by this man I love so very much, every unkind word I’ve spoken and all of his prominent absences unfold again for my viewing pleasure, and I can’t help but feel a cold fire burn in my gut.  When I do sleep, I wake with dried tears on my cheeks, tears I was never aware of releasing.  My stomach is shot to shit, what with too many cigarettes, not enough food, maybe too much alcohol.  When I eat, I feel nauseous; when I don’t, I feel unhealthy anyway.  I think this is how people get ulcers…  I tried deep breathing, I’ve had a massage, I attempt to meditate, I write and write and write, then paint some and write some more, and I can’t exorcise this anger, no matter what I do.  I understand that sometimes, emotions just have to run their course, and it may take time for the anger to dissipate, but I am tired of it, dammit.  I want to go out and have a good time without thinking too much in the quiet spaces of conversation.  I want to be able to smile without feeling like the thin veneer of happiness may crack and expose some foul decay inside of me. 

To be honest, I am scared shitless that my brief dip in The Bitter Pond was cool enough, inviting enough that I might revisit it.  And the more I revisit, the harder it becomes to pull myself onto the banks of Somewhat Cynical, Mostly Happy.  I don’t want to be bitter and hard, with a cold heart and too many walls for anyone to penetrate.  I think it’s good to feel whatever emotions bubble up, but I also think it is too easy to give oneself over to the notion that everyone is alone, that the world is an ugly place, that no one deserves trust, and that everyone is guilty until proven innocent.  It is bad policy to make people prove themselves, constantly.  That is a tiring game, and I have always HATED games, unless we are talking rummy or canasta.  Rummy and canasta, I LOVE. 

No, I have not gotten hooked on junk.  Tonight, after watching the moon rise over Beaucatcher Mountain from a downtown highrise, gin in tonic in hand, DWI checkpoint below, I really pondered the reasoning behind my tattoos as I walked home. 

Downtown Asheville isn’t an implicitly unsafe place for a lone woman at night, but it’s just seedy enough in a few spots that there was much discussion by my friends as to whether or not I ought to walk on alone while they continued to the club.  I wasn’t hesitant about walking; the cops are out in force tonight, it was only 11, and I’m confident about my ability to deliver a necessary eye-gouge.  But, walking alone, I got to thinking why I feel secure by myself, but don’t like the idea of Hollis by herself.  I wouldn’t have wanted her to walk home alone, as she was uncomfortable with the idea of me walking home alone…but due to my substantial mass (muscle and fat, I might add), and come to realize, my tattoos, I don’t feel as threatened as I might.  (By the way, this is not in any way to say that I think Hollis is helpless…I know that girl is fiery and not afraid to put up a fight…)

I realize that in addition to sealing the deal about never landing a bank teller spot, I am also equipped with a bit of urban camoflouge; flash a colorful tattoo that’s larger and more complicated than a butterfly, and people automatically assume things about your character— that you can stomach, and maybe even enjoy a touch of pain… that you don’t live within the mainstream, even if the clothes or car might indicate otherwise…that a biker bar might be the Saturday afternoon watering hole of choice…that there’s a streak of crazy in ya that might lend itself to putting a screwdriver in someone’s neck to defend yourself. 

I am not saying these things are true, I’m just stating that people will sometimes make their own conclusions based on a bit of visible body-art.  I’m not delusional enough to think that tattoos could save me in the face of a crackhead with fierce blood lust and a weapon, but I do believe the tattoos might cause a moment, ever brief though it may be, of hesitation.  That crackhead might think to themselves, I’m gonna go ahead and see if I can get that red leather purse, but I might get a hell of a shiner or a swift kick to the groin in the package.  I’m sure most of the women I know would fight with all they’ve got in the face of an assault, but I think it might be more of a surprise coming from a blonde that could’ve been a Breck girl in a past life.  So she’s got the element of surprise on her side…I’ve got the hint of potential shit-kicker on mine.  I believe the street kids that ask me for money are still pissed when I don’t cough it up, but after I reach up and scratch my head, exposing my tattooed forearm, they tell me to have a nice day, anyway…as if there is a respectable common thread of rebellion running between us.

I’ve never been in a physical fight that my health or property depended on, and I have plenty of other reasons, more valid and personal, for why I get tattoos, but I do believe this may have been a subconscious undercurrent, long ago, when I first became attracted to body art.  A girl has to be aware of her enviroment and know how to best protect herself against ill-wishing goons, be it the warning flag of time spent uncomfortable and bleeding under a needle, or a hefty can of mace and precision aim.  Whatever works, I guess. 

It’s odd to me that this thought never crossed my mind before.  Just like I didn’t put together Popeye’s nomenclature with his bug eye until two years ago… 

Oh my goodness, the Decemberists album Picaresque is so good I almost can’t stand it.  Seriously, if you don’t have it, you gotta fix that.  Really.