Breathe... You're forgetting to breathe...

The pastor knew I worked in a restaurant. He'd even visited, and I'd even waited on him. But I happened to be out on the floor during that shift, as opposed to behind the bar. And so it had escaped him that I do more than just serve at the Green Iguana.

And so it only hit him recently that his youth minister moonlights as a bartendress.

And by the look on his face, and the stunned silence, I either just got major cool points, or fired. I'm not sure which.

Reflections on Being a Bartender, Part I

There are three ways to get a job in this town.

(1) Lie.
Just lie. You won't get hired without experience; but unfortunately, you won't get experience without getting hired. So, lie. "Yeah, I learned to tend bar out where I lived before. Three years." Then hope they trust you on that and don't think to pay attention to you till long after you've got your feet back under you.

(2) Know somebody.
Have a friend who can get you the job, and (more importantly) loves you enough to show you the ropes. This is usually but not always combined with the first rule for getting a job; i.e., know somebody -- who's willing to lie for you.

(3) Go entry level, and go climbing.
Host, bus, serve, prove yourself a quick learn all along the way, and, finally, belatedly, bartend.

Or there's the way I got to be a bartender at the Green Iguana, which of course wouldn't fit any of the above-defined categories. No, my life (or, at least, my career trajectory) is more like a subplot to The Devil Wears Prada.

My time at the Green Iguana started off looking remarkably like Rule #3: I had been a host, I had been a server for months, but I was hitting the glass ceiling when it came to getting on the bar schedule. Now the woman keeping watch over our bar by night, Jenna, knew of my interest and was getting me on that bar schedule right about as quickly as the Missouri Synod has been hopping to ordain me, and for precisely the same reason. Men were the only hires she made, and for her own, privately arrived at reasons, which were open to discussion but not revision. Similarly maddening, but not quite the same level.

Then came the week I cut my hair entirely too short. (It was an accident, and made me miss roommates from college years who would cut my hair for free whenever I asked and not mess it up.) To combat the mess, I bought a hat -- to be sure, one properly called a cap, according to its class and European-fishing-village-flavor -- and liked it so much I bought a second in a different color. I wore (and still wear) these with such frequency that regulars at the restaurant have time and again known me long before I got around to waiting on them.

Which I do still wait tables -- but, ever since the week or two following that one, I've been on the bar schedule, too. And that's not an accident. Jenna, enjoy her company as I do, never had the time of day for me prior to the Cap Era.

And I'm not going to lie, it makes me wonder what goofy screw-up on whose part will shatter that other aforementioned glass ceiling.

Katie makes a nemesis.

Like the totally self-absorbed jerk that I am, this is how I introduced myself to our church secretary.

ME: Is Paul around?
CAROL (in all capital letters): WHO???
ME (spooked and speaking in all lower-case letters): i mean -- pastor...

Much, much later, my mentor, who incidentally shares my habit of using our pastor's first name in direct address as well as third party conversation, tried to reassure me by convincing me I never had a chance in the first place. (Odd choice, that.) In his view, our dear secretary only really puts up with people who have one (or both) of two qualities: (a) they're of blood-relation to her, or (b) they have a clerical collar. "But if you show up wearing a clerical collar -- yeah. Not gonna help your case."

Thanks. Like I've never heard that one before.

This happened some time ago, and in the mean time I've made several forays toward thinning the ice. There was the day I made no noise. There was the day I earnestly solicited her sage advice on a variety of things I needed to do. I had the most hope for the day I played a sort of look-at-my-bicycle enthusiasm. But of course it was only on Carol's terms that we would finally become friends: she wandered into the office toward noon on a Friday and announced to all of us (save the pastor, and I'm not telling him) that she would have been on time but she found upon waking that she lacked clean under-donks and had to stay home a while doing laundry.

"Under-donks?" I mouthed to the fourth grade teacher, as in, Did I really just hear her say... The teacher nodded, eyebrows raised.

Yeah, and now we're cool. Figure that one out.

Katie makes a friend.

Like the totally self-absorbed jerk that I am, I was in the Church office's mail room taping my name (and title of my choosing -- Interim Director of Student Ministries) over our DCE's name on his/my mailbox -- before he had even left.

The elevator behind me dinged behind its doors to signal its arrival, and then opened. Out walked a man, and his bike.

I turned and, utterly transfixed, said awkwardly and in all capital letters, "HI."

"hi," he replied, in all lower case letters.

"So," I continued. "Who are you?"

He explained his role as music teacher/gym instructor/about five other things that I can't remember since I was staring at his bike the whole time -- floored, I guess, by the fact that someone besides me rides his bike to work (and takes it up the elevator with him, apparently for secure office storage).

"Yeah, I'm Katie. I'll be around. We're going to be friends."

He said, "Okay then."

And presumably he pedalled off.

No manner of luck at all.

Picked up a shift tonight at the Green Iguana. (Yes, I still do that.) Early on in the evening, I was refilling someone's iced tea, and noticed as I wandered away from the service station that my trousers were wet. Specifically, they were wet in just one little, inconvenient spot on the front and a bit off to one side. Briefly bewildered, I figured I'd splashed myself accidentally and carried on.

Five minutes later, I had not been back to the service station, and my trousers were profoundly wet. More wet than they had been. And cold. I thought, "This is really weird," and for some reason stuck my hand in my pocket.

I found an ice cube. Half melted.

Now that is a lucky shot.

Accordingly, I decided to buy a scratch-off ticket the moment I got off work. But then I got off later than any reliable scratch-off vendors were open -- so I suppose we should conclude from this exercise that it wasn't that manner of luck to begin with.

No rest for the weary. Or the rested.

I was at a park. A pretty one. Looks out over the bay. Minding my own business. Composing a letter that, sent, would (will) make ticker-tape of my dignity. But so it goes.

And I got a phone call.

Twenty minutes later I wandered into my church's fellowship hall and our DCE mused aloud, "What are the odds you would have forgotten about a middle school youth event, AND still have been available to come?"

"Slim," I replied, and I got another phone call.

From whom, I have no idea, since about eight preteen heads swiveled round to shout, "No cell phones!" which was as much to say, If we can't have our cell phones here, neither can you have yours, dreadful hypocrite though you may be on your own time. I meekly powered mine down, while another chaperone informed me that, being a chaperone myself, rules did not apply to me.

Our DCE stepped in again. "So did you forget you were teaching high school Sunday School this Sunday, too?"

Now, that one was bang out of order, and I told him so. No, I had no clue I was supposed to be teaching Sunday School a day and a half hence, but neither had anyone informed me of the expectation. I had a dim recollection of notice for the middle school youth event, and fessed up to as much, but the Sunday School thing someone else had goofed.

Doesn't change the fact that suddenly I need to come up with a lesson plan, or something, anything, as it turns out Eric has finished his own series and left the future rather a bit open.

Good. Grand. Or should I say, fuck. But this is the story of my life. I was actually set apart to be a slacker, and I ably do my part to conform to that identity. Then some tremendously misguided if well-meaning people* invariably come along to hand me things I'm not prepared to handle. And I grow as a person. (*See Smetters and Wilco handing off the sacristan gig, Ed Uehling's ruination of my ultimate frisbee career by inviting me onto an academic dean search committee, et cetera, et cetera.)

And so it goes.

safely home

News that isn't: I'm back where palm trees grow on the medians, hale and healthy and missing Valparaiso University (and hugs, and office hours, and incense) tremendously anyway. After the usual round of flight delays, I arrived in Tampa and met up with my older sister, from whom I recovered my car (which, yes, I do drive, and frequently enough to be currently overdue for an oil change). It was a painful switch, though: one that found my knees immediately jammed into the dash. By the time I'd fixed that, I was looking at the back seat in the rearview mirror, and then when I pulled to a stoplight and leaned back, I found myself lying down. Physical discomfort meet to mirror the odd fit of a scholar's soul slinging liquor on the waterfront. But others can identify.