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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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The last week, a largely somber mood at work. Friday, slow, Saturday, busy.
There was a vintage car show in Nelson, all the streets and side streets filled with hot rods and roadsters, vintage cars, while some of them are nice the streets are too busy for my taste, and so get out of town. Pass the homeless - all on the move, 10 shopping carts filled with possessions, displaced because the town didn't want the black eye of homeless encampments to tarnish the auto show.
We're beginning to look a bit like Spokane. And not in a good way.
To work early, SR is showing the property, this fatality, it's spurred them to want to get out of there even more, if possible. The basement, he's explaining, is off limits, he can't explain why, sealed off by the Coroner until the next of kin are notified, can claim his possessions.
JR, doing as little as possible, busy with the winter ferry schedule, unprepared travelers, and people coming and going from the car show in town.
Crows gather in front of the basement door. They're drawn in by the smell, hopping up to the stairs in the shadows, the bodies gone but they don't know that,...
You can tell the motor enthusiasts, they're trying to order the fancy cocktails, margaritas, martinis...
Sunday, JR is trying to get out, circumstances don't permit. It's half busy, busier than one waiter, not busy enough for two, and he's annoyed every time he has to pick up a table.
Then, in the kitchen, Mister Tickles, on his own, crashes and burns. Soon everyone is in there helping him, SR, JR, his mother.
A customer, older fellow, pays, tips well, and tips me again: "Pay for a haircut...I'm a barber!!!".
I didn't think I was fooling anyone, but I have to laugh at his frankness...
***
Monday, Thursday, I'm on my own. Doubles, open, close, this is to be my schedule for the foreseeable future. Having burned C**** and killed S*** it's me and Mister Tickles, 50, 60 hours a week. No fucking way. No fucking way. An hour commute to the restaurant, with construction, half an hour back.
They've moved the goal posts, removed the carrot from the stick, and this Donkey will be giving his notice. I need a goal, I need my own life back, these people, they are demons....
Monday - slow and steady all day. $3,000 at the end of it, never too busy, just a slow steady stream of customers. The easiest shift of the summer, made so largely by the absence of "help". Meaning T*** and L**** and JR.
Mister Tickles is crashing and burning in the kitchen the entire time. He's hysterical, he can't keep up, can't do it, he's in tears, yelling, all the customers can hear, I just smile and pretend nothing's going on. Mister Tickles, he's not used to doing this on his own, he's not S***, hasn't the skills. I stagger my orders, wait until he's cooked an order for two before I put the next order for two in, but he's not managing, not even fucking coping. He won't survive the next week or two, my notice will be a formality; there's no way they can stay open with Tickles in the kitchen on his own, it will kill him...
September 30th and I'm out. I can already hear the mock distress, appeals to my loyalty, the "we didn't know you wanted a life" and "I told you every time you asked me...", the "Why", the slow, careful explanation that I'm not a donkey, that I can talk and walk on two legs and dress in clothes should have been a clue, that it's September and I should be relaxing, business drops off, and instead they keep piling on the hay, there was no straw that broke this donkey's back, rather a dozen bales thrown carelessly on...
September, I've brought my own goalposts and let that fucking shithole crash and burn. Their problems are their problems, I have plenty enough on my own...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Beginning a slow recovery from the summer.
To catch you up - last week, friend wants to go to Creston to help me search for basic furniture. The flat is still empty.
So we go and search, nada, although we hit the bookstore and I pick up a few books - 2 volumes of Stanley's "Out of Darkest Africa", old, marbled edging and front plates, and 2 volumes of the Lewis and Clarke expedition. So I count it a success, these are big books and I'll be the armchair adventurer all winter long.
Following that she talks me into going to the locker, which has to be emptied that day.
We succeed.
The locker, I have a huge resistance to going to, it's filled with art supplies, trifles, bits and bobs but nothing of any practical day to day value. And it's full of rocks. It takes two trips - for her, no sweat, for me, well....
The physical baggage, it's too much, the psychic baggage, well...it's overwhelming, but it's done, the apartment is filled now with shit to be categorized, thrown away, or packed away into a very small cupboard. My work is cut out for me.
Friday, work, I close. I show up to work on time, there's a paranoia there that I'm not coming, so often - always in fact - I've been there a few hours early "just in case", but - well, my time now is my own, I have a place to live, and enough is enough.
The night, busy with JR working, he's taken the afternoon off, takes a few tables in the evening, then books off. I have no tables, he has two, but he's on the split so I can close.
Saturday I've switched my shifts around, working the day, and I've swapped Sunday around so I'm off, got T*** to cover my night shift, there's a rave, "Summer's End", out by Salmo, and - fuck it, I'm going.
JR is a little concerned, the day - it passes, busy enough, too busy for 1, not busy enough for 2, but he's worried about the night.
Not my problem. For the first time this summer it's not my problem. He's working with his mother in law, afraid that it might get busy, He wishes me well, hopes I have a great time, I've a pocket full of cash and I'm giving him a rundown of all the drugs I intend to take, I'll be in to work Monday, he doesn't need to worry....
***
Fucking off work and to Nelson, too slow, 80 KM per hour and the engine's revving high. Stop, get food, toy with the idea of getting more liquor, but - no, this is a different sort of party, pack my tent, sleeping bag, and I'm off...
****
Arrive, set up camp, the party's in full swing. Talk to a vendor, tip well, give him a list, I'm on a Scavenger hunt, looking for MDMA, Mushrooms, Cocaine...
Work has me exhausted but this will help my recovery...
***
the night goes, and in time I'm approached by all the little helpers, a surprising number I know from the restaurant - or, more accurately, they know me, "You're Rod from ..."...
there's Dean, who looks like a host to a dating game show, and his gorgeous girlfriend, there's others, the usual suspects and pickups full of rednecks from Alberta who keep to themselves, I'm partying with some teenagers who are telling me I'll outlive Ozzy Osbourne, chatting to people in that sociable way, nothing too deep for the most part.
The pantry is stocked, the night goes, meet people, old faces, new faces, loads of people, it is after all the best way to meet people even if by morning most of their names and faces will be a blur, dance until 6:00 AM, try and sleep until 9:00, there will be no sleeping, somebody has taken too much and is hollering in a hilarious accent that "where's the music? What kind of music festival is this? I want to party..." and you can hear the groaning in all the tents, it's funny, only, maybe not so funny when you've been up 24 hours and are trying to get some sleep...
9:00 AM give up on the idea of sleep, outside, a gentle rain.
I'm done. I'll need all of Sunday to recover, pack my sleeping bag, tent up and am off.
***
Into cell range and my phone goes off, messages, JR - "We'll be closed Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, see you on Thursday". This is good news, but what's up?
The other staff fill me in. It was crazy on Saturday night, as predicted, and JR refused to call C**** in, a car went off the road, accident on the highway, closed for 4 hours, and the restaurant was a madhouse. Not a madhouse if it were, say, me and JR or Me and C****, but for JR and his mother in law, nuts, and JR was rude to his mom who was just trying to help and so she punched his father and went upstairs and tore apart his bedroom and ....
...well, the drama.
And T***, well, she couldn't find childcare for the three days she was scheduled.
Hence we're closed.
***
C**** wants to quit. The Mother in Law, she's done, back to Cranbrook, she was "doing us a favour" and wants out. Can't blame her. C**** worked with JR all day Sunday, got tired of his dog-fucking, enough is enough, which leaves me.
Bullshit.
***
Sunday, otherwise, recovery. It takes a bottle of Vodka to put me down and out, but I manage it. In the evening they close off Baker, bring in a DJ, there's a mini-rave, dance for Pride, everyone's invited. But I've partied enough.
***
This morning, thank god for the day off. I'm lower than I've been for a while - well, maybe not, the summer's been long and I'm done. Town is deserted but slowly you see the Zombies from the night before; everyone found a party....
My life's a shitshow and it's time to get it together. The restaurant, well, damn, it's been a gold mine, but JR's an entitled sociopath, his parents both clueless enablers, and I'm done carrying them all on my back.
Out for coffee, the town is quiet, then busy, and all the voices in my head are silenced. Sort out the demons, the projects, time to get some groceries and eat them and get back to the gym and start writing again on things that interest me...
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An apartment entirely bereft of furniture, trips to the locker, slowly emptying it of 5(!! So Far) big boxes of Stormy Scrolls, boxes of irrelevant art supplies - including 8 egg beaters, (I needed one, and eventually ended up with 8, and the locker is still half full), 2 rolling pins (I'll probably use a dozen), clock parts, candlesticks, paints, sort and organize, time only to go through the groceries I never got time to eat and throw out what's old and mouldering, go to the store and buy more, one day I'll have time to cook a meal, really I will...
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And I ran out of internet 10 days before my cycle, scrolling through Facebook Marketplace not finding furniture for my apartment. I refuse to pay the $100/month to Telus or Shaw, especially when there's a dozen networks showing up in my apartment with 5 bars. I need to meet a neighbor and pay cash for a wifi password, split the bill, I don't know why all the neighbors don't it, what's the point of living in subsidized housing and squandering all your money on internet and TV?
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Going to work reminds me of that dream I used to have of the Nuclear Armageddon, the time I was in London and I got word via the radio that the missiles had been launched, 20 minutes until they annihilated London, time to evacuate, seek cover, get out of London, and as I'm making my way up Kilyon road everyone is selling their shit, antiques, joking "you can't take it with you" and I'm torn, there's bargains to be had for sure, maybe you can take some of it with you, but I really should be trying to get out of town...the same feeling when I'm going to work, the smoke, the air, there's no fires near to us but the world now is on fire and this work, this "business as usual", there's nothing usual about it...we're all being distracted in the last days of the Holocene, there's secret climate change models and forecasts they don't dare to publish, Yellowknife, once the arctic begins burning up there's an incalculable amount of gases, methane to be released, and shit is going to start getting serious real soon.
Not that it isn't serious already, but shrug your shoulders and carry on...
Subcategories
Dating
OK. I've been on a few internet dates. I confess this with the same reluctance I would admitting to masturbating, adultery, or excessive drinking and drug use.
This is a list of some of my best -- AND WORST -- dates ever. Note that you gotta go on a lotta dates to get this kinda list, this kinda discouraged. And my online dating thing has been sporadic - an every few years kind of thing at best. Some of these dates go back 10 years, others are a little more recent. And to answer any people who might argue "It beats hooking up at the bar", well, you don't have to hook up at the bar, and at the bar you can see what your getting...
Anyways - apologies to the countless normal, decent dates that I went on but just didn't hit it off with. Memory is selective, it tends towards the extreme, and in this you will find the extremes...
Dear Osama
In which I write everyone's favorite advice columnist.
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