Today is Haiku Day for the WordCount Blogathon. I’ve been a bit worried about this one. I don’t typically write structured poetry. I usually prefer the chaos of free verse. But I took this picture on my way to my daughter’s baseball game a few weeks ago and it seemed rather suited for a haiku.
cascade of pink left
one lonely cherry blossom
clinging for dear life
Tomorrow is National Waiter & Waitress Day, but it’s also Haiku Day for the Blogathon and I already wrote my haiku, so I’m posting this today!
Since tomorrow is National Waiter & Waitress Day, I’d like to take some time to talk about how you should treat your server when you go out to eat. Of course, there is no excuse for rude service and everything that follows is written under the assumption that your server is friendly and is trying her best.
When I was about 7 or 8 years old, my mom started teaching me how to tip when we went to restaurants. She would tell me how much the check was and then explain how to calculate a 20% tip. Growing up, I figured this was standard practice, so I was shocked after I started waitressing at the vast number of people who seemed clueless about how to tip.
I was also surprised to learn that a lot of people are not aware of what a server’s hourly wage is. They don’t make a normal minimum wage. In fact, there’s a completely separate minimum wage set for them and the last I checked, it was $2.13/hour. That’s just about enough to cover taxes – give or take a few bucks. (I do not miss my weekly voided checks). They make that little because it’s assumed they will make up for it in tips.
You may not feel it’s your job to pay a server’s wages, but just think how much your steak would cost if the restaurant owners were paying their wait staff a regular wage.
The question then becomes how much you should tip. As a waitress, I was generally happy with anything above 15%, but as a consumer, I refuse to tip less than 20% for decent service. My feeling is that an extra couple of bucks from my pocket after spending $50-100 on dinner is not going to break me, but it will mean a lot more to my server. And for over-the-top service, I’ve been known to tip much higher.
There are a few other things you consider when thinking about the level of your service. If the kitchen messed up your meal in any way, remember that your server didn’t cook it. If you have a meal taken off your bill because the kitchen messed something up, remember it’s not your server’s fault. Whether your bill is discounted because a meal was removed or because you had coupons or a discount, tip on what your bill would have been at full price.
Before you go out to eat, make sure you have enough money to tip. Don’t spend $100 on steak and lobster and then stiff your server because you forgot to factor his tip into your budget.
You should also be mindful of the day and time when you go out to eat. I purposefully avoid going out to restaurants on Friday and Saturday nights because I don’t like the crowds. All it takes is for one server to call out sick and it can throw off the entire rotation in a restaurant. It may take an extra couple of minutes for your extra ketchup or a refill on your iced tea because your server could be running extra tables.
If you or your kids make a complete mess, at least attempt to clean it up. If you absolutely can’t clean it up because you decided to take your six kids out to eat and weren’t thinking that they would create a disaster at your table, leave your server extra money. The longer it takes to get that table cleaned, the longer before that server starts making money again.
All of the regular manners you should have learned as a child – please and thank you, looking someone in the eyes when you talk to them, pleasantries, etc. – they apply when you go out to eat too. Don’t treat your servers like a second-class citizens, remember they’re human beings.
I could probably write a book on all of the different situations that could come up, but generally, just remember to tip well and to treat your server with respect.
Disreputable
I repute the dreams
that you one day will come back to me,
forced negatively in each aspect,
worthy of being pushed aside,
knowing they will never come true
Unrewarding
There are ways
I will not care
anew . . . this is one:
I will flatten my face
against the lake’s surface
as though it were a window
I could breath and call
your name. un –
rewarding is what you’ll say
about my love
Antipathy
I’m inclined to rally
against your fanaticism for illiberality –
your course of action trampling
the franchise of those you deem inferior –
you wrap your bigotry with hypocrisy
and dress it up with pretty words –
you only fool yourself
Despicable
Once capable of
focusing on
those redeeming qualities
now non-existent,
I hold contempt
for the negation
of your humanity –
am unable to see you
beyond your
narcissistic quiddity
*This isn’t my usual poetry, but these were fun to write. I wrote “Disreputable” and “Unrewarding” in high school, “Antipathy” last night, and “Despicable” this morning.*
Lonely wanderer doesn’t know where he is going to, missed out on where he has been, and where he is is somewhere between a tropic play land and the melted battleground of erotic fantasies. He meets his mistress late every night believing she will keep him satisfied, but the pleasure is never as enjoyable as the time before.
His wife reaches for him, but he’s not there. She pretends to read until he walks in with the scent of another woman’s perfume on his skin. He climbs into bed and kisses her. She silently stands up and pulls on a pair of jeans. He asks where she is going. “Out,” she whispers, and he falls asleep.
The air is brisk as dawn approaches. She watches the sun come up from a park nearby. A homeless man asks her for some change. She doesn’t have any but offers him a few pieces of candy from her purse and a cigarette. He seems grateful. She pulls a cigarette out for herself and smokes it slowly.
She was in her Camelot once. There was chivalry and romance and unparalleled bliss. But it all came to an end and now her life is bleak. She wants out.
Lunchtime comes and she hasn’t come home yet. He begins to worry. He loves her. He wants to reach out to her, hold her, make love to her, but his guilt is too deep. He had it all – a loving wife to wake up with and a beautiful young mistress to satisfy his depravity – the best of both worlds. But it’s not enough anymore and he doesn’t know how to change.
His mistress wakes up alone each morning in tears. She doesn’t love him. She barely even likes him. He’s older – not distinguished or mature or sexy. She feels degraded each night when he comes to her – more and more isolated each time he fucks her. The physical pleasure is not what it used to be. The autumn air brushes against her neck and gives her chills. She longs for a childhood she never had – for safety and love. She wishes for something to call her own – anything to call her own.
The homeless man sits on a bench watching the people as they walk by. He eats the candy and listens to his stomach growl. He saves the cigarette – he doesn’t have a light anyway. He looks over at the flowers and watches them grow, thanks God for his sight. He fiddles with the cigarette and a stranger offers him a light. He sits back and smiles.
***I found this while going through my old journals. It was originally written on July 28, 1998.***
This is a repost of a letter I wrote to Jared from Lick the Fridge. Read more about this kick-ass letter-writing project.
I’m Bisexual and There’s Nothing For You to Worry About
Dear Jared,
I sat down tonight to write you a letter expanding on my comment from your Betty Friedan post. And then I read your post, Some People Are Gay – Get Over It! and my mind went in a completely different direction.
I’ve been working on writing this in my head for some time now. It started this past September. I told my boyfriend what I wanted to write about. He asked me if I was sure I wanted to do that. I said, “I don’t know.” I chickened out and wrote this not-nearly-as-personal post instead.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been thinking about it again. I’ve been feeling that “I don’t know” turn into a soft “yes.”
To most of the world, I’m a straight woman who advocates for LGBT rights. But I’m not. I’m a bisexual woman who happens to be in a heterosexual relationship. I’ve never felt the need to come out. I’ve never had to come out. All of my long-term relationships have been with men.
I first accepted my bisexuality when I was 21 years old. Since then, I’ve never really hidden it, but I’ve never actually said it either. I don’t deal with overt discrimination and bigotry because most people in my “real life” don’t know.
I did check the “bisexual” box on MySpace years ago, though I admit I was only comfortable doing that because no one in my family was on MySpace. I was teaching preschool at the time and while sitting in the office one day a co-worker asked for my MySpace page. I told her.
About a week later another teacher accidentally made a comment about being irritated with that co-worker and a few others. I asked her why. She sighed and said, “She told me she saw your MySpace page and that it said you were bi. Now she and a couple other girls are skeeved out.”
I rolled my eyes and we joked about how egocentric they must be to think I’d have any interest in any of them. But later I started to panic. I wasn’t thinking about that one little tidbit on a website chock full of other information about me when she asked for my page. I started to regret checking that box. I was worried that this was going to affect my work environment.
Fortunately, it didn’t. The gossip died down the second there was something new to latch onto. That was the last time I directly dealt with any issues related to my sexual orientation.
Still, I listen to people describe bisexuals as confused or greedy or promiscuous. Over ten years ago when I made this discovery about myself, I was dating my ex-husband. I was always faithful to him.
On a few occasions, I’d talk to online friends about being bisexual and many times they’d “correct” me and tell me I must be bi-curious. They’d say things like, “If you’ve never been with a woman, how can you know you’re bi?”
I’d reply with, “How old were you when you lost your virginity?” And after they answered, I’d ask, “So, you were straight-curious before that?”
I’ve never quite understood why it seems to be so difficult for many people to grasp the idea that a person can be interested in both men and women. Whether it’s attraction or infatuation or like or love – that for some of us, those things don’t come attached to specific gender.
It doesn’t mean that I’m confused. It doesn’t mean that I secretly want to bang every woman I meet. It doesn’t mean that I went through a “phase” in college or that I can’t have a committed relationship or that I’m just trying to be the “cool” girlfriend.
You said that you wish we didn’t have to talk about all this stuff because you wish it would just be the non-issue that it should be. I agree with you 1,000%.
I watch a show on the BBC (Torchwood, if you’re interested) with some very open-minded portrayals of sexuality. My boyfriend’s commented about how it’s strange that you’ll see girls hook up with girls and guys hook up with guys and there’s never an explanation of that person being gay or bi. I said, “Isn’t that how it should be? Would you expect an explanation if a man and woman started kissing?”
During my courses on teaching special education in college, my professor talked about people with disabilities portrayed in the media. She made a distinction between having a show about a person with a disability and having a show with a character who happened to have a disability. She explained that the latter shows all of who the person is. It was about making a distinction between putting the disability first and putting the person first.
I think that’s the case for so many things – race, color, religion, and of course, sexual orientation. These things are a part of who we are, but not the whole of who we are. And that’s a huge part of the reason I’ve never actually come out. Because it’s just not that important to who I am. It doesn’t define me.
And then a few weeks ago I read this article and I thought, “Maybe I should indulge these feelings of wanting to be more vocal about this because this is something I relate to and it’s important to me and I’m not ashamed of who I am and maybe I should just tell people that.”
So, for whatever it’s worth or not, that’s what this is.
~Dayle
I’ve started at least a half a dozen pieces tonight. I tried writing about current events. I tried writing poetry. I tried writing about poetry. I tried reworking stuff I wrote years ago. And now I’m writing this. I’m feeling very disjointed tonight and my bed is calling my name. Maybe tomorrow I’ll finish one or two or six of the pieces I started tonight, but for tonight, I give up.
Instead, I figured I’d share a few more of my chalk pastel drawings.
There have been things over the past few days that I’ve wanted to write about, but I’m afraid to put the words into print. They’re things I can’t share. They’d be kept safely within the pages of my journal – the way it used to be years ago. And still, I can’t bring myself to write the words.
The printed word has always made things more tangible – which can be painful, but also therapeutic. Sometimes I’m just not ready to deal with the things that need to be dealt with.
I’m angry. Thoughts seep in and out of my head and that pit in my stomach grows heavy. I feel sick. I feel violent. But I push it all down as deep as it will go because I’m not yet ready to release it.
Sometimes I don’t want to be the bigger person. Sometimes I wish I could say all of those words that dance on the tip of my tongue. I wish I could tell certain people exactly what I’m thinking and not worry about the consequences.
But I do worry about the consequences and my desires – even those that are justified – must take a backseat to what is best for others.
Vengeful thoughts make it difficult to fall asleep. It’s in the midst of that insomnia when my mind goes to the darkest of places.
I long for a day when this is all behind me and yet I try not to wish away the years.
There is hatred inside of me and not for the reasons one might expect. Still, I hate that I hate. It’s not who I am. It’s not who I want to be. But I can’t let it go – I’m not ready to let it go.
One day, I’ll fill those pages with those tangible words that no one else will ever read. I’ll spill my soul onto paper. I’ll cry. Then I’ll take a shower and get into my cozy pajamas and sleep from the exhaustion of the catharsis. And I’ll wake feeling lighter and more at peace.
But not yet. For now, I still cling to my anger and hatred. I’m not yet ready to let them go.
This is a repost of a letter I wrote to Jared from Lick the Fridge. Read more about this kick-ass letter-writing project. This letter is a continuation of a conversation about religion – read the first two letters in the conversation here and here.
Jared,
I’ve started this letter at least a half a dozen times. It’s difficult to choose a place to start when there’s so much to discuss.
I’m not sure there is any actual purpose to my interest in religion. It baffles and fascinates me, so I try to learn more. Like you, I’ve found that the majority of people willing to discuss their religion are more interested in converting me. I’ve come to deeply respect the exceptions – though I’m also wary of them.
When I first met my ex-husband, I considered myself a Christian. I even attended a couple of meetings at his church. As my personal beliefs developed and I let go of the “Christian” label, I continued to respect his beliefs. And he claimed to respect mine. He knew before we married that I had no interest in ever going back to Christianity and he said he was okay with that. He said he accepted me as I was.
During one of our many discussions on religion, we started talking about church views on homosexuality. We specifically talked about his sister and her wife and how many churches would not accept them. He told me how his church doesn’t believe in turning people away for any reason. He told me that they were inviting to people, even if the church opposed their lifestyles, because how else could they one day learn the truth?
I asked him if that’s what he was doing with me. I asked him if he was pretending to accept me so that one day I would become enlightened and join his church. After a very long silence, he said yes.
It was a turning point for our marriage, though that’s another story for another day. It also jaded me. I became skeptical of the motivations of others. I came to prefer those who could at least look me in the eye and tell me I was going to hell. I still wonder at times if my Christian friends truly accept me.
Sometimes, I wish I had a concrete belief system. I wish I could say, “I’m Wiccan” or “I’m Buddhist” or even “I’m an atheist.” Sometimes, I think it would make life simpler if I could neatly box myself with a pretty label. I think that’s where I get my desire for non-committal labels (as I mentioned in my comment to Jen). Maybe it’s a character flaw, but it is what it is.
I used the “more en vogue and allegedly more neutral spiritual” label for many years. Then I realized that even that’s not true. Sure I’ll celebrate some nature-based holidays with rituals and prayers. I even do a little spell-casting (or as an old Pagan friend once called it, “prayer with oomph!”) here and there. I have moments when a full moon will captivate me or I’ll watch the cherry blossoms fall and feel immense joy. But generally, I don’t think about my Higher Powers. I don’t think about the energies of the universe. I don’t typically spend any portion of my day thinking about religion or spirituality or any of it.
I typically spend my days thinking about my daughter and work and writing and friends and family. I typically spend my days yelling at my daughter, hugging my daughter, yelling at my boyfriend, hugging my boyfriend, laughing at stupid jokes, getting angry at stupid politicians, working, attempting to finish a written thought, embracing my geekdom with an episode of Torchwood or Firefly or Eureka, procrastinating folding clothes or going shopping, and singing loudly and off-key to the random music on my playlist.
And when I do think about religion and spirituality, it’s usually from a logical, questioning perspective. I question this need so many of us have (including myself) to believe in some greater force in the universe. I question prayer and how some people think divine intervention helped them get a new car and have no problem reconciling that with a loving god who lets children starve.
I’m curious about “fringe” religions and ancient religions and the differences between monotheism and polytheism. I’m intrigued with the way so many religions have splintered. I wonder where the line is drawn between a religion and a cult. Is there an actual line or is it one of those things you can’t define but you “know it when you see it”?
I think about the variety of religions and spiritual paths I’ve come across and the people who follow them. I wonder about their lives and what led them to that path. Are they blindly following their parents? Did they latch on to a charismatic leader? Did they experience tragedies or miracles? Did they have moments of awakening? I’m fascinated by the psychology of it . . . of nature versus nurture.
So, I guess that’s the answer to the purpose of my interest in religion. It’s people. Individuals and their experiences and thoughts and feelings and psychological processes.
I know I’m all over the place with this letter, but like my comment on your Betty Friedan post, I think I’m just going to go with it . . . and then maybe work on a letter about your Betty Friedan post!
~Dayle
Read Jared’s response: Perfectly Happy Without Religion
***I apologize to anyone who is receiving notification of this post twice. When I rearranged my posts the other day, I apparently forgot to change the date on this one, so it was up for about 20 minutes yesterday 
***
A little over 10 years ago, I started seeing an art therapist. While I have been in and out of therapy since I was 8 and have lost track of the number of therapists I’ve seen, she was the only one I connected to. Because it was art therapy and we didn’t have to rely on what I brought to the table each time, I was able to open up more. We would start each session with her asking me to draw something and then we’d discuss it. She was able to pull things out of me that I could never share with other therapists.
She also introduced me to chalk pastels. I’ve never had much talent in the visual arts. My stick figures could use a little work! But with chalk pastels, I can just have fun with it – clear my mind and play.
While I was going through my drawer-o-journals the other day, I found my sketchbook from my art therapy days and started looking through it. Today (Wednesday), I looked through it again to take pictures of some of my favorite pieces. Then, just out of habit, I thumbed through the blank pages and came across something I wrote nearly 11 years ago. I tweaked it a tiny bit, but not much.
It comes in the silence of a cloud covered sky,
in the single leaf fallen from a tall oak tree,
in the mist of the smoke blown from the lips of a shooting star.
It delves into the depths of a lake of fire,
plummets through the darkness of a shadow on a puddle after a hard summer’s rain.
Creeping and squiggling it comes,
slow like maple syrup over blueberry pancakes.
It listens to the fears hidden in your stomach
and patiently waits for you to surrender.
It crashes like a wave against the armor of trapped and battered dreams,
and keeps coming back for more.
It’s unrelenting in its task,
refusing to give up till you let it in,
let it smother you,
let it delve and plummet and finally stay.
A higher love than ever fathomed,
more powerful than any fist
and lingering longer than any scar.
It is an open door,
a hot shower in the crass frost-bitten winter,
an orgasmic rush in the midst of pain.
It will free you, warm you, and make you smile.
This peace, this serenity,
it will come,
when your roar becomes a purr
and your whines, laughter.
It is waiting.
It wants you.
I had another post scheduled for today, but I had to rearrange after the impromptu conversation I had with my daughter last night.
While playing board games, we had a discussion about hate. She knows I don’t like the word and she rarely uses it, but it slipped out a couple of times over the course of our games. I told her that it’s a very strong and hurtful word. She asked me what a “strong word” means. I explained that our words have power and used a few examples of how certain words have stronger meanings than others – happy vs. ecstatic, yummy vs. delicious, scared vs. horrified, etc.
Then our conversation moved into how hate and fear have been used to deny people rights. We talked about segregation – a topic that has always fascinated her as she thinks about what it would be like if my boyfriend and I couldn’t be together or if she couldn’t play with her own cousin or friends.
The conversation continued to progress toward the issue of marriage equality and we talked about the rights that are given to couples when they marry and how same-sex couples who want to get married are not given those same rights because they can’t get married. Her response was a very adamant, “What?! Well, that’s not fair!”
I explained that some people don’t think two men or two women should be allowed to get married and she looked at me funny. We talked about how the same kind of hate and fear that people used to deny rights based on race are being used now to deny rights based on who a person loves.
She continued with, “One day, if I meet the president, I’m going to tell him that two men or two women should be allowed to get married!”
I explained how the president doesn’t get to make all of those decisions on his own, but how our current president came out and said the other day that he believes same-sex couples should be allowed to get married and how that’s a big deal because no other president has ever done that. She smiled.
I asked her what made a family and she answered, “Love.”
She told me that she understands now why I don’t like the word “hate”. And we hugged and tickled and went back to our game. This whole conversation lasted a whopping 10 minutes.
So, my question is, if my 7-year-old understands all of this, why can’t so many adults?
