heeeey, you. i got fired. bummer. i guess this is the end of this blog. it was a lot of fun to write. to everyone who read it and gave me compliments and critiques, thank you so much. you made it worth it. when someone told me how much they liked it, i felt encouraged to write more, and i looked forward to working. "wait til they read this!" i was quite suprised that it was not only read by peers, but some professors and 'superiors' if you will. there's got to be a better word for that...i digress...
some friends critiqued the implicit sexism that i took part in, and that forced me to rethink how i worked within that space. i appreciate your candor.
to my coworkers, if any of ya'll read this, i miss you. when we got together it was always nice to chat about the crazy shit that went down. i definately miss being able to hear stories that rival the zanyness of these.
to all the people i met at the 'local shops' after work, you're great. you also made this job more fun, and i'd like to think that i made yours cooler too. regardless, i always love seeing ya'll, and even though it's a less constant thing now, its just a matter of means i assure you. i hope you don't move onto bigger and better things before i see you again :)
working on nights rife with homophobia, racism, and sexism forced me to learn how to approach people,and 'deal with' their actions. i learned a lot. i remember one moment in particular: i was talking to this guy for a while, vibing pretty good. he got into the regular ' do you like this job? c'mon, man...' whole talk and i outed myself to him pretty quickly. he had called some generic guy a fag, i think talking about pledges who weren't cool or something. and said, "you know, as a queer man, sometimes this job is a bit much" and then he stopped. and kind of backtracked, but not in a like oh, i'm so sorry way, but more sort of owning that he didn't mean anything anti-gay when he says that. i know that this argument is pretty bad, but in this case it was honest. and it went well. for the rest of the night, he talked about how he doesn't care if people are gay or whatever. interesting little piece of his guard down for sure.
and i know that to some (most?), it had to be hard to read about the hateful things people did or said. remember that guy who threatened to kill me? yeah, me neiher. but, i don't know it is still almost surreal that i vibed with all these people. and when it really came down to it, we flirted. and i came out to a handful of them. and they were great still. i guess i shouldn't be stoked--maybe just thankful--that i wasn't assaulted or ridculed, but i sort of learned to weasel my way through people's words and find that part of them that was down to talk and vibe and whatever. i guess what i'm saying is, is that even though some people said or did hateful things, you gotta try and make sure you take em still as people. cause if you don't, then you'll never be able to figure out how to talk to them and maybe get them to rethink their shit.
god i really want a gin and tonic and to sing mariah carey with jock bar hoppers.
thanks everyone,
you really made this worth while.
-a.
