with all this time on my hands, it's easy to feel like i'm going in circles, or not moving at all. my mind is racing (visualize the cartoon image of hamster running on its wheel in my skull), but i can tell that i feel a little stuck because i've fallen off calling friends, not to mention blogging. but when i get a chance to clear my head, to chat with friends, somehow these funny yarns spill out of me. they laugh, i laugh and i wonder, where the heck did that come from?
the highlight lately has been volunteering in the tenderloin for the past month and a half now. Just 9 years and 10 1/2 months until i get an apron with my name stitched on it! something to shoot for.
when i was done for the day, i was walking back to the bart station, and passed a man who waved at me and said "hey thanks! i remember you from lunch!" in the city, where it is crowded and you have to fight for privacy, it is easy to close yourself off to what is going around you - a skill i had acquired from my time of living in different cities. this friendly greeting from a complete stranger snapped me out of my reverie. i ducked my head and shyly mumbled a "you're welcome."
i have enjoyed my times there, for the most part (more on that later). i've started to recognize different faces, and become familiar with the regulars - the woman who comes back for seconds and thirds on dessert and thanks us for the "diet cakes." i laugh every time.
bussing tables is when i get to interact with people the most. so far this has meant that men try out odd pick up lines on me. it kind of startled me at first, but then i figured out how to brush these aside humorously and move on. i suppose it is good practice for brushing off all of my actual would-be suitors (i mean the other option is beating them off with a stick. i mean, really!).
first conversation went like this:
before i picked up a tray, i said to the people sitting there, "does anyone want these leftover cookies before i take this tray?" one guy gruffly replies, "i want you!"
i blinked and said, "uh... well, i'm not on the menu."
last week:
me: hey, how was your lunch? (as i stack meal trays on the table)
dude: it was good, but it would have tasted a lot better if you had cooked it. (i didn't really follow this logic. a nice sentiment, i suppose)
me: well... thanks, but i can tell you for a fact that would not be true.
as for the the "for the most part" comment i made earlier. i thought the hard thing about volunteering would be in dealing with people different from me. and i was right about that. the part that i was wrong about was exactly who the different people would be. not the people i am serving - but the other volunteers. it kind of makes me laugh when i think about it. the age distribution is such: 1/2 of the volunteers are senior citizens, then there's me, my new friend who is in college, and then there are different groups of high school kids that come in everyday to volunteer. i have been mistaken for a high schooler several times, which is sort of flattering but mostly perplexing to me. i'd make a joke about 21 jump street if anyone there would know what i was talking about!
anyway, the seniors are a wonderfully quirky bunch, but it has taken me some time to get used to them. when the dining room coordinator is waving at us to bring out more meal trays, they are often chitchatting about timeshares, or software to view pictures of grandchildren and then saunter out like they have all the time in the world. i mean, i know we're not mcdonald's or operating at fine dining speed, but still - we are there to serve. my college friend and i have to bite our tongues sometimes, but even then have brusquely told people to get a move on. i'm not sure those with name-embroidered aprons appreciate us young whippersnappers.
conversely, a tiny woman who moves at the speed of a glacier and whose height is about chest high on me (and i'm 5'4" so that's pretty small) has snapped at me a few times and then mumbled something in spanish that i guessed was not complimentary but hey, maybe i'm being paranoid.
inwardly exasperated, i tried to avoid her but something made me look at her again (maybe because she cut in front of me in line). i saw that she was dressed rather nicely; wearing somewhat impractical dress shoes, she had taken the time to put on makeup, no matter how wonky she had pencilled about her eyebrows. and i guessed that maybe this time meant something to her, just like it did to me - we were there to serve. and i got the message: LIGHTEN THE HELL UP. now i suppose that's what i could have told her, but i didn't know how to say that in spanish. i figured i'd just take it to heart myself and then see what happened from there.
i don't know what i expected when i started volunteering, that we'd all be happy and holding hands and singing happy songs, and then we'd all spontaneously break out into a choreographed dance. we human being are far too odd a collection of people to really get along like that. but that doesn't me we don't try to get along as best we can.
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