Ben Is For Beneficial

“I just wanna make sure you’re happy, okay? If you’re not happy, I want you to tell me. How much would make you happy? What’s your name again?”
-Ben

Dealing with drunks is part of working at a bar. Ditto that for dealing with crazy drunks. So, on Saturday, I wasn’t all that surprised that we had one. The far more surprising thing was that he, apparently, had way too much money and wanted to share it. Now, hearing someone blather on about how they’re going to “take care of you” isn’t that uncommon. Having them actually do it, is. Having them “take care of you” and then some, is, extremely rare. Ben wanted Dave and I to be happy. I think he also wanted us to like him.

So, when Ben and his two friends came downstairs on Saturday night, he gave Dave a twenty, asked for five in quarters, and told him to keep the rest. When Dave brought over a few free shots as a thank-you, he handed Dave a ten dollar bill. He was very emphatic about us making sure he and his friends weren’t “fucked with.” This was monstrously easy to do since the bar was dead and we barely had ten people downstairs throughout the whole course of the night.

Ben quickly ran out of cash. I ran his credit card three times, each of which I had to physically place the card into his hand for fear he’d forget it. Each of which I also filled in the tip and the total and he signed it without looking at the numbers. He was adamant about spending money. When I was running the second slip, and he was going on again about how his name is Ben and he wants to make sure I’m happy, I mentioned it was my birthday. He tells me to add another twenty dollars to my tip. Thanks man. So I put a thirty dollar tip on a $13.50 round of drinks.

As the night progresses, he ends up tipping me $50 on the credit cards. He keeps saying that he won’t be happy unless Dave and I both go home with $100 (which means we’ll be happy). Okay, I have no problem with that. So, at the end of the night, when he and his pals say “no more, we’re headed home” he wanders over to the bar for one more round of shots (two for him, two for Dave, and one for me that I never drink because he’s already bought me about four and I only drank those ‘cause it was my birthday and I felt like “what the hell?”) I hand him the credit card slip, $22.50. He asks me how much he should put for a tip, what would make me happy.

- Now, let me tell you that this guy has been demanding, not in a mean way, but in a “You know, I’ve got another table wanting drinks, let me bring those over before you make me take another shot” kind of way. He’s also been ranting on and on about how he makes way too much money. I made ten dollars the night before. It’s my birthday. And, he wants me and Dave to be happy. So, this is what I said:

“Well, you said you want me and Dave to go home with a hundred dollars each tonight, and right now we’re both up to about fifty. You wanna do a hundred, fifty for me and fifty for him?”

Ben said, “Alright, let’s do it.”

I filled out the slip, he signed it, and I handed Dave two twenties and a ten. We all went home happy. As for me, I’m kinda proud of myself. Normally, I wouldn’t have the balls to do something like that. However, on this particular night, I figured I had nothing to lose – especially given our benefactor’s lack of any kind of short term memory. Thus, by going with my impulse, I made Dave and I fifty dollars each in the course of ten seconds. Not bad for a night’s work. The best part, is that since I only had a few other customers, since most of Ben’s payments and tips were via credit card, and since I only start out each night with fifty dollars cash, by the end of the night, the bar ended up owing me money when I closed out my bank. Not bad for working on my birthday, eh?

P.S. This is the kind of thing that never happens. Don't start thinking this is in any way typical. What usually happens is people come in, talk big, and leave a lousy tip or stiff me on it.

Deb's Blog

"The pressure is on. A first post on the new blog. Should I be sincere? Funny? Informative?

'The First' is always special and unforgettable, right? Not always. Sometimes The First is painful, embarrassing or messy."
-Deb

So begins my friend Deb's new blog about her first novel and being an editor at Apollo's Lyre. Extra bonus: she's also a great big fan of Great Big Sea.

http://theyremakingmeblog.blogspot.com/

Simply Purple

This set is about as simple as it gets, purple glass beads with silver bugles (or just chain, for the earrings). This pair of earrings is one of my favorites, I really like using chain to create dangles because it really highlights the beads and keeps the earrings fairly light weight where same-sized drop with a line of beads wouldn't.

Took a Walk the Other Day

Oh digital camera, how I love thee. The other day it was nice and spring-like, so I went on down and took a walk by the river. I came home with about seventy pictures. Pictures are fun. So is picture editing software.

Wyatt

Movie Review: Wyatt Earp. After watching, and thoroughly enjoying, Tombstone, I thought I'd check out the competition. Tombstone came out way ahead. Wyatt Earp meanders through his whole damn life and makes sure to leave nothing out, for better or worse - I'd argue the latter. Where Tombstone benefits from taking liberties with facts to create a more compelling movie, Wyatt Earp loses sight of the story and gets bogged down in history.

I Wanna Be a Cowboy

200th

"So I'm usurping the 100th post. [insert evil laughter here] Neener, neener Ali!"
-Camii

Ha! You'll not get this one, you devious person, you!

So, last night Jay Udall workshopped three poems during class and we all talked about him after he left. Two PD (Potential Davids) down, one to go. The third will be coming to class Thursday and then, within about a week, the committee will make their choice. We're getting very close to finding a new David, and I'm starting to think more and more about being sad to see him go. The would-be poets out at American University are soon to be very luck folk indeed.

Meta Moment/New Blog

Since so many of my posts of late have had to do with writing, I've decided to launch a new, slightly more professional blog, founded in what Jay Udall said the other night. The blog: http://dwtdwende.blogspot.com/

Wish it luck.

Another Reason Joss is My Hero

"I’ve always had a bent towards apocalyptic fiction, and I’m beginning to understand why. I look and I see the earth in flames. Her face was nothing but red."
-Joss Whedon, http://whedonesque.com/comments/13271#more

I don't know if he planned it that way or not, but by adding the last sentence, Joss had a very poetic (if horrifying) moment in his post, which addresses a home video of an arab girl being beaten to death in an "honor killing." He makes an excellent point too, that while the act in and of itself is terrible, the fact that there were people who could calmly stand by and record it on their cell phone cameras is all that much worse. It's horrifying what people are capable of.

Okay, but why does this reaffirm Joss's hero status? Well, while his outrage and horror at the event are no more than I would expect from any intelligent and feeling person, he has the extra responsibility of being famous. And, he steps up to the plate and uses his fame for something more than promoting his next project. I have to give kudos to all celebrities who champion causes and speak out against the things that are wrong in the world. With all that influence and press, they ought to be doing something productive with it. Joss knows this, and that's exactly what he does.

Scary Poems

"Give me your hand
skinny, beautiful Danny
with a pock mark scar
on his left cheek
said in sixth hour English"
-Barbed Wire, by me

David said to write a "close looking" poem for our second one, and a memory popped into my head of a guy I knew my freshman year of high school. One day while we were bored he drew on my wrist, a line of barbed wire, like a bracelet. It was a very strange, almost surreal, experience - especially since I had such a crush on him. Putting that down was one of the most scary things I've done in writing because of how incredibly intimate/personal the memory is. (Ha! Not anymore!)

I knew, despite the scary factor, that it was the right thing to do. I was hitting a nerve and that tends to be where the best poetry lies. Not the big "this is why I am what I am" kind of hitting a nerve, like writing an "I have issues with my mom/dad" poem, but digging out that memory that sticks with you even though it was only a moment kind of hitting a nerve. To date, I think it's the best poem I've written (and the class & David agree).

After reading and writing poetry on and off for a few years, maybe I'm finally starting to figure it out. To really get to the good stuff, you have to get to the scary stuff. It's all about taking that which is intensely personal and laying it out, layer by layer. Tough, especially for me, given how private and wrapped up I am.

A Book for the Morbidly Curious

Book Review: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach. Jenny told me to read this book, and I, ever obedient to Jenny's will, went to the library and got it. All-in-all, I read it in a day and found lots of interesting information - though an episode on Nip/Tuck had already shed light on the use of cadaveric heads for practicing plastic surgery. While she doesn't shy away from grisly practices, and gives overviews of things many people probably didn't really want to know (like how the brain of a decomposing body will literally ooze out of the ears), she also colors the chapters with a touch of humor and some neat historical points. A very interesting, and fun, read which makes me think I'd like to be composted when I die.

Not Big With the Sympathy

"Where's your sympathy?"
-Mom

On occasion, my mother has called me, usually jokingly, heartless. I’m not big on “ooh, that’s too bad” stuff when people complain. Why? Because of things like Saturday.

Katherine stopped by the bar for a while, along with a smattering of SCWP folk. One of whom is in the masters program and I’ve known her for a while. To be honest, I’m not a big fan. Let me explain: drama. On Saturday, Katherine and another gal were feeling badly for her, they even got her a shot out of sympathy. When this gal went out for a cigarette, I went out to pick up glasses from the patio and asked her about why she was so stressed.

I got a laundry list of every little problem she had, like the pump on her swamp cooler went out, her car’s having problems, her mom’s coming to visit and her house is messy, she’s so busy with SCWP, and she’s got a lot of school deadlines due at the end of the month. By the way, these school deadlines are her finishing up coursework for classes she took a semester or two ago and currently has an incomplete in. I was in one of those classes, I don’t think it was that overwhelming. Yeah, she works full time. Great. Um, so do I, and during the semester we had a class together, I think that was her only class (I took two). She doesn’t even have time-absorbing kids as an excuse. The best part was how she whined about not being able to even have the summer off because of SCWP (which is one month of the three of break). As I write this, I’m trying to remember the last time I had three months in a row where I didn’t have to go to work. I think it was middle school. Anyhow, during her litany, I nodded and said “yeah” and then tried to walk back inside. She kept right on talking. Yeesh. I wanted to tell her “Get the hell over it already, most of these problems are of your own making anyway.”

Then, on the other hand, we have Julia. She works three-four nights a week at the bar, including the occasional killer 2:30 p.m. – 2:00 a.m. (if she’s lucky) shift. She also works around thirty + hours as a caretaker, and she’s been taking classes. She finally got her bachelor’s on May 5th and had the whole week off of work for it. The week before she was looking forward to getting some housework done. Unfortunately, she didn’t get the chance. Her brother’s new baby died, SIDS strikes again, and she spent the week in Kansas for the funeral. Instead of getting a chance to have some time to herself and celebrate her degree, she got to spend some time with family, grieving over her nephew’s death. While she told me what happened, and I could tell how sad she was, she did not go on and on about how her life sucks.

Isn’t it funny how the people who complain the most are often those that have the least to complain about?

A Good Buy

I bought the glass pendant at the good bead shop in town, We've Got Beads. (There are two others, which are less impressive). The shell nuggets came from Co. Springs, and the apatite was also from Co. Springs, though from a different shop - the now defunct Bonnie's Beads. I love necklaces like this one because it's a great example of how beads I've bought from totally different places, and at very different times, all come together and just click. There are some necklaces where, when I wear them, I'm almost guaranteed that someone will offer a compliment. This is one of them. After the first time I wore it, I had to go back and get a couple more pendants, because to do anything else would have been silly.

Dinner With a Potential David

"Poetry is dancing with the dwende." Very mythical, yeah?
-Jay Udall

On Saturday, Katherine came to the bar for a bit and invited me to come to dinner with the 2nd David-candidate on Sunday. Candidate #2 is the poet Jay Udall. Nice guy. He's getting the campus tour/going through interviews right now and will be in class tonight to workshop a couple of poems and talk to us.

Candidate #1 was a gal who signs her name Darlin', though her formal name escapes me. Also nice, and a fiction writer. I didn't like the way she ran workshop, though. She separated criticism and praise (which is so restricting, because most comments work best as "Your strongest part is X, the weaker part is Y, so take another look at Y and think what you were thinking for X" and without being able to make a comparison, it's tough and less helpful) and let the author say something at the end. I don't want an explanation. The point is that you say it in what you wrote, and if you didn't, tough. I can understand her idea behind doing things that way, but I'm not sold.

Going back to last night, I learned a few things about Jay that won't likely come up in class tonight. For instance, I know he has a six year old daughter and tendonitis in both arms, which is why he can't play guitar anymore. He did bring his harmonica, though, so I can easily picture him and David having a "jam" session, or at least what passes for one when you get two geeky poets together. I'm very curious to see what he does in workshop. From asking last night, I get that he does pretty much what David does, but he didn't mention whether the writer was silent during comments. One nifty thing he did mention was that he often likes to have someone other than the writer read the poem aloud (then have the poet read it) because someone who didn't write the poem will read it differently. I think that's a neat idea for making sure what's on the page is what you mean to be on the page - i.e. like the line breaks are where they ought to be kind of stuff.

Dinner was neat, there were six of us all together, and I was the only one who was strictly a student and nothing else. After being bummed out about the T.A., the semi-special dinner was nice and makes me feel a little more loved. I was a representative for the collective graduate students. I'm important again. Or maybe at least convenient.

Denver Zoo

On the third day, we pack up, check out, and head to Denver Zoo on the way back home. It was fairly warm (mid 80's or so) and I was wearing jeans and walking shoes (i.e. not sandals) so I was feeling pretty toasty. So, it seemed, were many of the animals. A lot of the creatures were napping or lazing around.

Except for those who decided to get a little more proactive about cooling off.

After roaming the zoo for a few hours, we headed home in a nice, air-conditioned car. The best part, I didn't even get sun burned.

Estes Park Pictures - Day Two

We're up and walking around downtown about 10:30, and on the circuit of shops we stop by the little park area near the end of the road. They've got a few sculptures scattered about. This one's my favorite.

Since I've been talking about getting a sunset picture, Keith and I walk across the street to a meadow and wait around for forty-five minutes before realizing that, since the sky is clear, any sunset I get will be pretty bland since there are no clouds to soak up the color.

However, we do find another sing of elk, though this one is beyond the point of grazing behind the cottage.

Estes Park Pictures - Day One

Digital cameras are a beauitful thing. During the time Keith and I were in Estes Park and touring Denver Zoo, I took 183 pictures. Whoo-boy. Once I got home and loaded them on my computer, I quickly deleted a large chunk (roughly half, I think) but it was quite nice to have so many to pick and choose from. Just think, had I used a regular, film-requiring, camera, I wouldn't have all my lovely pictures.

Keith and I arrived in the early afternoon and checked into our cottage.

Around 6:00 things started looking gloomy and soon enough, it rained, sleeted, and hailed.

The mountains looked wonderful though, and when we came back to the cottage after picking up supplies from the grocery store, a handful of elk were just over the fence behind the cottage.

New Adventures in Poetry-land

"It'll be good."
-David

Tonight begins Eng. 640, a four week summer poetry workshop. I'm a bit apprehensive:

1. Most of the people in this workshop are inexperienced as poets + the misconception that poetry is "easy" = potential for a lot of "I feel" or "I think deep thoughts" poetry.

2. I haven't written any poetry (save random word poetry for Camii) in nearly two years. I'm rusty.

On the bright side, I know a lot of fun people will be in class, so - however, the potential difficulties fall - there should be a good group dynamic.

Misfires

In the process of all this jewelry making that I do, I make a lot of pieces I'm happy with, and a few that I end up not so fond of. So, here are some of my misfires.

I like the polymer beads for this one, but putting them together with gold and carnelian makes the necklace look more washed out than anything else. The gold, especially, is just too much. In theory, the gold and the red stone would have echoed/pulled out the corresponding colors in the beads, but actually doing it just didn't quite work.




I mixed the howlite and glass beads in another necklace, and really liked the combination. However, my impulse to add the dangles just botched the design. With them hanging off the necklace, the piece looks overweight and bulky.

This one is made with experimental beads, and while the end result (reminiscent of tiger eye) is kind of fun, the spacer beads make the design fall flat. Perhaps pairing the polymer beads with some genuine tiger eye could improve things.

Last Call

I'm totally fed up with the two guys out in PA who said they wanted jewelry from me for their wives. They said this in February, before Valentine's day. I still have not received payment from them. One of the necklaces I made specifically for one of the guys (including the polymer beads), because he liked one of my others that now belongs to Anissa. So, I do a custom job for him within a week, because I wanted to get the deal done ASAP and I don't like making people wait on me. I told them this one was ready:

They said, "great" and now it's the middle of May and I still have no check. Boy am I ever glad I said I would send the jewelry after I got the payment. At least this way, I may have no money, but I do still have the merchandise. So, today I send them an e-mail saying I have someone else interested in the pieces (okay, a lie) and they have one week to send me payment or I will no longer hold the jewelry for them (totally honest). Maybe this is the kick in the pants they needed, or maybe not. Either way, in another week I can stop this irritating waiting on them to get in gear. I mean, three months. My god. It does NOT take that long to write a check, it really doesn't.

Manuscripts, Etc

Hi guys, it's Jenny again.
(First note: Congrats on the pimpin' ride to Ali's little bro...ah, they grow up so quickly....)

Now, about the whole "only thirty pages" thing -- for those who may've missed the post, Ali was riding me about my lack of production (and I do love her for it) -- I am slowly rectifying the situation, however, if someone did the math, they would realize that Ali turns in a mere 10 pages to our writer's group a month....

I just realized that my point required far too much math to be viable here, as the sum total of my mathematical ability, divided by 1, would still be 0. Basically I think I was saying, you know, in a real page-turn-out contest, that I think I could take her.

Challenge? Maybe. We don't know.

I bought a car

Hi, it's Ali's little brother again. This time I figured I'd let you folks know that I bought a car. It's in pretty sorry shape right now, but soon it will be totally amazing. Of course soon is a very subjective word and totally amazing is a matter of my personal opinion. I'll probably upload a couple of pictures once she's all spiffed out.

Estes and Manuscripts

"Okay, we've got you reserved."
-Gal at the cottage place

Tomorrow Keith and I set off on a mini vacation to Estes Park. We're going to stay at a little cottage and do a bit of hiking, a lot of bumming, and take a day trip to the Denver Zoo. I'm quite looking forward to it.

Along on the trip will be the first 141 pages of Deb's manuscript, My Mother's Ghost which she recently pitched to an agent who asked for it, in full. She's now frantically "polishing" it before sending it to the agent, and a handful of us, including Jenny and I, have volunteered to lend a hand. Yes, everyone says that pinning one's hopes on a single agent is silly, the odds are against you and all that. However, the fact that he requested the whole manuscript right off the bat and told her he loved her voice, makes me excited for her.

Speaking of Jenny, she's making some progress with her own manuscript, Following Julia Roberts, which she gave me thirty more pages of on Saturday. Thirty pages is not what I would hope for, but it's a start. I'm giving her quite a hard time about writing more. Right now. For me. Damnit. I may have to update my list of occupations: Student, waitress, SCWP assistant, and Jenny nag.

For my own writing, I've decided to pull back on Oracle and stop submitting it to the group for now. I can't write fast enough to be fair to them, and everyone's losing track of what's-what since I'm constantly changing things as I go, making people say "Huh? I don't remember that from the last chapter." Shame on me. Thus, I've decided to work on the book on my own for now, and spend some time building up my short story pile (which has gone long neglected). I'm two pages into a brand new story, and it's feeling good to think that it'll actually be complete soon, rather than a few years from now.

Variations on a Theme

The polymer beads for these two necklaces were made using the same technique (using a thin sheet of translucent clay to laminate a dark blue sheet of polymer that had been painted with silver acrylic paint). The pendants are the same shape, but the bead shapes are different, as are the other beads used on the necklace. The one on the right has metallic seed beads and blue glas pearls, while the one on the left has silver spacers and labradorite chips.

My New Hero

"I always consider Salma [Hayek] for my projects, even for male roles."
-Robert Rodriguez

Excellent news. Wal-Mart (a.k.a. Devil-Mart according to my friend Julia) is currently carrying a box set of the Mexico trilogy for $15 and change. Whoo-hoo! Guess what's now sitting on my bookshelf?

El Mariachi is damn funny, especially with the commentary. A $7,000 movie where $6,400 was spent on the film itself and getting it developed. To the best of my knowledge, not a single one of the actors were paid and Carlos Gallardo, the Mariachi himself, actually paid money into the film (he was also co-producer).

Desperado switches up leads, putting in Antonio Banderas for Gallardo, though the latter makes a cameo. This movie makes me love Banderas even more than I ever did before, and that was a considerable amount. His facial expressions alone are enough to make me thrilled he's in the movie. Bonus points for Danny Trejo.

Once Upon A Time In Mexico is one I haven't seen for a while, thanks to end-of-the-semester chaos, I've yet to pull it out of my nifty box set yet. However, the combination of Rodriguez' film making, Antonio Banderas and Johnny Depp totally blew me away the first go-'round and now that I have the back story of the other two movies, I'm certain that my second time watching it will prove even more fun than the first.

Okay, so maybe I'd have to say that From Dusk 'Til Dawn sucked the big fat hairy one, but nobody's perfect, right? The best part is that Rodriguez has already, apparently, lined up not only Sin City 2, but also Sin City 3. I can hardly wait.

End of the Semester

"Is yours done?"
"Just about."
-Katherine asking me about my teaching portfolio

By 5:30 p.m. today my semester is over, for better or worse. 5:30 is when my last project for Katherine's class is due, my teaching portfolio. Talk about frustration, I had to walk away from my computer for a while yesterday or else I was going to start cussing and/or banging stuff. I've tried in this class, I really have, but in the end my interest level was simply not equal to the demands of the course. Theory shmeory. Ugh. The teaching portfolio is the penultimate implementation of the course material, in theory. I've got it all done (paper revision, endnotes/works cited, assignment series, etc.) except for my teaching philosophy statement. I have no idea what the hell to do with it.

What is my philosophy of teaching? Writing is important. Um... then what? It's supposed to be 1-2 pages, single spaced (don't ask me why) and it's supposed to demonstrate my understanding/implementation of composition theory. I'm supposed to demonstrate, through this philosophy, whether I'm expressivist or social-constructivist and all that good stuff. It doesn't help that I'm trying to write this after finding out I didn't get the T.A. The thought persisting in the back of my mind is, "Who cares what my teaching philosophy is right now? It's not like it mattters."

I'm so burned out, the office is starting to smell like smoke.