Anyone in LA want to grab lunch at Water Grill with me, like right now?

Had a great interview last night at Raffles L'Ermitage. Cross your fingers for me.

Headed to San Fran for the weekend, early tomorrow morning.

The Fear is setting in. I've only been out of work 6 days, but I'm starting to get really tweaked out about it.

Had another interview. Went well, would be working in my neighborhood for a friend. Money sucks, though ... I'd have to move somewhere cheaper when my lease is up after November. Not my first choice. Sent out a few more resumes, waiting to hear back. Hate that part. Gotten a few tips from other people in the biz that I'm looking into. Have an interview tomorrow at a big fancy place. Not sure what to expect on that one. Considering going into catering, which would be vastly unfulfilling but pays really well, and would let me catch up on my crappy finances that have developed as a result of being underpaid working too many hours in restaurant kitchens.

Bleh.

Laid off. Good thing I was already looking for a new job.

Interview tomorrow morning at 10am. Wish me luck. Have another one next Wednesday evening ... backup plan!

So we opened this new restaurant 4 months ago. We're doing pretty well, especially for a brand-new place in a crap economy. But the owner has decided that the food and concept is more than he wanted, and that he'd rather have a pizza & burger joint and not pay a chef to run the place. He wants a place that will just run itself with a bunch of cheap labor and not try to do anything special. So basically he let me know that within 4 months I'll probably no longer have a job there.

I'm meeting with a recruiter this afternoon. There's not a whole lot out there right now, and what is out there is very hotly contested -- too many people looking for jobs. At least I don't have to find something immediately.

I'm SO FUCKING TIRED of changing jobs. Seriously. In the last 15 months I've worked at 5 different places, and now I'm looking for #6. I need to find a place that is going to last for at least a couple years. Plus that, I need to find a place where I'm in charge of the menu completely and don't have to bust my ass to make other peoples' ideas come off so they can get the credit.

So last night I went to this new bar that just (re-)opened here in the neighborhood. A new friend of mine works there a couple nights a week, so I popped in to say hi. On the way over I was thinking, "You know, I need to meet new people that don't know and hang out with all the old people I already know. I need to meet girls that haven't slept with anyone I hang out with, aren't friends with anyone I hang out with, and don't hang out at the same places I do."

So I get there and I'm talking to my friend Tyler, who's bartending, and this really cute girl comes in and walks up to the bar, and she knows him, too. So of course, he introduces us, but we're sitting a couple seats apart and it's really loud, so she and I aren't really talking at all. Then a friend calls me from San Francisco, so I go outside to talk to her. When I come back, this really very drunk guy is trying to talk to this girl I just met, and she's obviously not interested in talking to him, so he starts getting all angry and agro about it, telling her she's a stuck up bitch and all that kind of thing. She looks over at me, and I'm trying to figure out the best approach to deal with this that isn't going to lead to a fight or something, and finally settle on asking her, "So you want to go grab that table over there?"

So we go sit at a table and start talking, and she's from Georgia, and isn't an actress, and doesn't ask me what I do for a living, and we just start talking, about road trips and beef jerky and elk jerky and Southern food and barbecue and restaurants and beer and sunburns and "How do you know Tyler" and all that kind of thing. Just talking and laughing and we trade beers halfway through because she liked mine better than hers, and when we were about to leave I asked her to dinner and she gave me her card and I walked her to her car and she hugged me and told me to definitely call her.

It was fun! And very non-Los Angeles.

Thinking about leaving behind this long hair/bearded thing and going in more of a short hair/clean cheeks vibe.

Birthday, but I'm headed to work. Leaving early, though, for tonight is party night, and tomorrow is a day off of work. Much needed.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

(Party is at the Bigfoot Lodge, from like 7pm-2am, if you're around LA you're invited)