Funny how the world has a way of amplifying relatively simple situations into madness with bizarre complications. First, the painful business.
Hostess #1. Either her head's all fucked up with the current situation to think about dating or she's letting me down easy, heartbreak kid that I am. While I'd love to believe the former, the insecure narcissist inside doesn't buy it. It's a cross between that familiar crushing agony with a nice hint of child- like embarassment. Today I'll see her at work for the first time in a few weeks. The thought alone makes me anxious.
If you had to sum up my romantic life, it would be like Weezer's Pinkerton, without that first song about having tons of sex. Sometimes I'm like Cusack in Hi Fidelity, precarious as Hoffman in the Graduate and full of lovey dovey myticism bullshit like Zach Braff in Garden State. Add a dash of criminal history bitterness ('the dark side' of me in tow) and what you have is a steaming pile of confusion- infused baggage. Boy, my writing has becoming increasingly convoluted as of late...
I digress; so hostess #2. A quirky sweetheart of ol' Newport Beach, CA (fancy pants), the desire of half my fucking restaurant staff. The current object of affections from two of my line cooks, who have been deadlocked in competition for weeks (refer to season two of Entourage; the one where they go to Sundance, where Drama and Turtle are fighting over that lady); at a party a ways back, one of her best friends makes a few interesting comments that get me wondering.
So the days go by and surely enough the signs start pointing towards me. The two dolts in my kitchen of course, being none the wiser. Only problem here is that the one cook who is starting to fall for this girl is one of my close friends.
Bartender Nick had dropped recon while we were closing up one evening; hostess # 2 and friends from out of town would be up the street at Whiskey Thieves, he said. I suggested, randomly, that we pursue and that my fucking pussy friend finally try to make something happen.
Fast forward an hour or so and we're at the bar. Hostess #2 has left the company of her friends while they engage in catch-up/ serious conversation. She's sitting across from me, next to homeboy (for now let's refer to him as Muscles Marinara). Muscles is laying it on, but maintaining a degree of subtlety. It's almost painful how obvious it is, the glances shot my way while he speaks, the shifting of her weight, the way she laughs at my drunken vulgarity, my inappropriate comments with inappropriate timing. Try as I can to say something too wrong, too creepy, too awkward for her liking, it feels I'm just roping her in.
We now interrupt the man- child love diary for a short interjection -- on being inappropriate. I'm a product of the 90s, the been there done that generation. The ever devolving media morals regarding violence and the American sex delusion coupled with the deepest and darkest corners of the internet have equipped I, and a good bit of my peers (including some of the fine folks on this here website) with pretty disturbed, degenerate, macabre senses of humor. To say the least.
I work in a professional kitchen. Sure, it's a forward moving industry and the constructs of professionalism and work ethics abound but it's still the fuckin galley. Arrrgh. 13 hour days, banging out plates for the dining public, slingin pans and choppin up carcasses breed a raw madness that only fits the job. Now take a vulgar cook, reared in the 90s and thoroughly intoxicated, and you get comments like "look at this! She's all runnin to get the fuckin strap-on..." after we get into the whole topic of my bisexuality (to which she replied "WOW! That was forward..." with shocked, maybe even a little creeped out, yet intrigued eyes) . When the line is crossed, I cease filtering my lips. It'll probably get me an ass kicking or two in the future, as well as a lot of failed attempts at getting laid. Fuck it, it's fun.
Unfortunately it's time to get ready for work. The conclusion of The Hostess #2/Muscles Marinara Love Triangle to come, as well as the Legend of Front Desk Girl.
Hostess #1. Either her head's all fucked up with the current situation to think about dating or she's letting me down easy, heartbreak kid that I am. While I'd love to believe the former, the insecure narcissist inside doesn't buy it. It's a cross between that familiar crushing agony with a nice hint of child- like embarassment. Today I'll see her at work for the first time in a few weeks. The thought alone makes me anxious.
If you had to sum up my romantic life, it would be like Weezer's Pinkerton, without that first song about having tons of sex. Sometimes I'm like Cusack in Hi Fidelity, precarious as Hoffman in the Graduate and full of lovey dovey myticism bullshit like Zach Braff in Garden State. Add a dash of criminal history bitterness ('the dark side' of me in tow) and what you have is a steaming pile of confusion- infused baggage. Boy, my writing has becoming increasingly convoluted as of late...
I digress; so hostess #2. A quirky sweetheart of ol' Newport Beach, CA (fancy pants), the desire of half my fucking restaurant staff. The current object of affections from two of my line cooks, who have been deadlocked in competition for weeks (refer to season two of Entourage; the one where they go to Sundance, where Drama and Turtle are fighting over that lady); at a party a ways back, one of her best friends makes a few interesting comments that get me wondering.
So the days go by and surely enough the signs start pointing towards me. The two dolts in my kitchen of course, being none the wiser. Only problem here is that the one cook who is starting to fall for this girl is one of my close friends.
Bartender Nick had dropped recon while we were closing up one evening; hostess # 2 and friends from out of town would be up the street at Whiskey Thieves, he said. I suggested, randomly, that we pursue and that my fucking pussy friend finally try to make something happen.
Fast forward an hour or so and we're at the bar. Hostess #2 has left the company of her friends while they engage in catch-up/ serious conversation. She's sitting across from me, next to homeboy (for now let's refer to him as Muscles Marinara). Muscles is laying it on, but maintaining a degree of subtlety. It's almost painful how obvious it is, the glances shot my way while he speaks, the shifting of her weight, the way she laughs at my drunken vulgarity, my inappropriate comments with inappropriate timing. Try as I can to say something too wrong, too creepy, too awkward for her liking, it feels I'm just roping her in.
We now interrupt the man- child love diary for a short interjection -- on being inappropriate. I'm a product of the 90s, the been there done that generation. The ever devolving media morals regarding violence and the American sex delusion coupled with the deepest and darkest corners of the internet have equipped I, and a good bit of my peers (including some of the fine folks on this here website) with pretty disturbed, degenerate, macabre senses of humor. To say the least.
I work in a professional kitchen. Sure, it's a forward moving industry and the constructs of professionalism and work ethics abound but it's still the fuckin galley. Arrrgh. 13 hour days, banging out plates for the dining public, slingin pans and choppin up carcasses breed a raw madness that only fits the job. Now take a vulgar cook, reared in the 90s and thoroughly intoxicated, and you get comments like "look at this! She's all runnin to get the fuckin strap-on..." after we get into the whole topic of my bisexuality (to which she replied "WOW! That was forward..." with shocked, maybe even a little creeped out, yet intrigued eyes) . When the line is crossed, I cease filtering my lips. It'll probably get me an ass kicking or two in the future, as well as a lot of failed attempts at getting laid. Fuck it, it's fun.
Unfortunately it's time to get ready for work. The conclusion of The Hostess #2/Muscles Marinara Love Triangle to come, as well as the Legend of Front Desk Girl.