I had an absolutely miserable day at work. As I left for the night, this song started playing over the radio. It felt very appropriate.
And I’m fine, but I’m not okay
I’m looking forward to looking back on these days
I got home and unloaded all of the things that went wrong in the day onto James — getting scolded for leaving early the night before (when I had been told explicitly to leave early?); not having cheese (again); finding that all the cheese was underneath all of the boxes, just all of them, in the freezer; telling my boss and being told that I would have to unload all of the boxes myself in order to get them; my boss following me around the kiosk telling me everything that I do wrong; telling my temporary helper that I had all the onions, but I needed peppers and tomatoes, and then she returns with onions and tomatoes; telling my temporary helper that the veggie and cheese pizzas were done and that a margherita pizza was in the oven, so all she needed to make was a pepperoni and a sausage pizza, and returning from lunch to find that she had made a veggie and a cheese pizza, so all that was left to make was a pepperoni and a sausage pizza!; my boss telling me that as a special treat for the front end staff (and only the front end staff) that had braved the cold icy weather, I was to make four free pizzas for them; a surprise inspection by the district manager; a cut on my finger; doing a job that requires two people 10.5 hours and having to do all of that in 9 hours by myself.
James had a roaring fire going in the fireplace. He had gotten hot dog sticks and set up sausages on the hot dog sticks. I changed into pajamas, and we sat by the fire and roasted our sausages. He listened and asked questions and sympathized with me. He suggested that maybe we should buy a sausage grinder. He suggested that maybe I should talk to my direct supervisor about how I felt so singled out and misused.
Tomorrow I get to ride on a train and visit my family. I get to sit in quiet for 6.5 hours and read a book. Mom is going to take me shopping. I will see shows with Lacey. I will have brunch with the whole family. Then I will take another train ride home to North Carolina.
Mandy Moore really did say it best. I’m looking forward to looking back on these days.
I am now the full-time pizza person at my local Harris Teeter. It is a promotion. I’m…enduring it?
A customer came up to my workstation today and ordered an entire chicken-pesto-on-wheat. I told him it would be about 10 or 15 minutes. He said that was fine and left to do some shopping. He returned while his pizza was still in the oven, so we started chatting. I asked him about his day and he rattled off all the reasons he was happy — makes good money, never sees his boss, isn’t set to any particular schedule, etc. The only downside was living an hour away from his job.
“Och, I’m sorry about that,” I said, because sometimes I’m Scottish. “I had to do that when I lived in DC. It’s not fun.”
He was fine with it, really. He had everything he would ever want, through the blessings and grace of God. God had done so well by him, with love and care and devotion.
Then he gave me a look, a squint and a head cock. “What church do you go to?”
I’ve found that people who would ask a complete stranger such a personal question are generally not to be trifled with. You don’t tell them the complete truth. You don’t lie either. You have to stay on neutral ground as much as you can.
“I haven’t found a church down here yet,” I said, which is technically true.
“Why not?”
Welp. “I was so happy with my parent’s church that I don’t think any church can live up to it,” I lied.
“What did you like about it?”
“It was a church that was really focused on giving,” I said. “There were all sorts of opportunities to give and be involved charity.”
“Are you a sports fan?” he asked.
“No.”
“Aren’t the Wizards from Washington?”
“Yes,” I said, “But I’m more of a Nats fan.”
Let’s be honest, I’m more of a Presidential Race fan.
“Well so anyway, imagine if you were standing outside of the stadium, and you had all the stats. But you couldn’t get into the game, because you don’t have a ticket. They wouldn’t let you in to see the game. But the owner of the team came out and said, ‘this person is my friend,’ then they would let you in to see the game. And it’s the same way with heaven. You can have all the right deeds, but if you don’t let Jesus into your heart, then you won’t get into heaven.”
Thankfully the buzzer went off and I was able to get his pizza out of the oven and into the box and get him away from me. Because that sentiment disgusts me. It’s not even about the fact that I’m wavering between agnosticism and atheism (so, like, solidly agnostic, then).
My mother raised me to believe that Jesus came to Earth to create God’s Kingdom on Earth. A place where people did good deeds for each other, were kind to their neighbor, and by following Jesus’ teachings, creating a much better place — a heaven on Earth. My absolute favorite teaching, even in my agnosticism, is Matthew 6:1-8.
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
In other words, you are the only person who needs to know about your good deeds. If the reward for doing a good thing for someone else is the praise of other people, then you had an ulterior motive, didn’t you? If you expect a reward for doing something nice — well — that just doesn’t seem very nice, that’s all! If you only do something good because you expect to go to heaven because of it, maybe you should reflect a bit on your motives. Is doing a good thing just to get a reward really a good thing? Should your morality really be set on an end goal?
And the idea that the only way to go to heaven is to accept Jesus into your heart, etc. etc., really disgusts me. Heaven is an exclusive club, apparently.
Harris Teeter doesn’t have a whole lot of Starbucks hours to give, so I’m working less than I have been recently. Yesterday, for example, I got out of work while the sun was still up. I haven’t seen the sun a whole lot recently. It seemed like such a big thing. Once got home, I changed out of my work clothes, into some casual clothes, then put on some walking shoes and took a walk.
I spent most of the walk thinking just how amazing it was that I was able to take this walk. Then, after a while, I found myself thinking that this would be more fun with a dog. But for now, I should just be happy to walk. The peak of fall had already hit, so I was looking at a lot of bare trees. But the temperature was nice. The sun was making everything gold. Work had been thoroughly dull — they have so few hours available for Starbucks that I had spent the whole day training in Pizza. Once you get over the initial excitement of oh my gosh pizza!, the actual work of pizza is quite dull. As soon as you get one pizza out, you turn around, beat a new piece of dough into shape, spread the sauce, and sprinkle on the sauce and toppings, and then bake it and get it out. Repeat ad finitum. But my whole head felt clearer after just a 30-minute walk.
This morning, I was able to sleep in until 9:00. Actually, I didn’t even sleep that late. I spent the last hour just lying in bed thinking how nice it was that I didn’t have to get up if I didn’t want to. I’m closing the pizza bar tonight, so I don’t have to do anything until 2:00. Technically, James asked me to finish cleaning the kitchen, since he would only have a little time to attend to it before he had to leave for work. I had said I would. But that wasn’t, like, pressing.
I ate breakfast and read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for an hour and a half, before admitting to myself that it was now 11:30 and I really should get ready for the day. Once I did all that, I went and got all my schedules figured out and entered into my calendar and synched up to my phone.
I have Friday 5 off. I somehow got a random day off. James and I will be Christmas shopping that day. I was finally able to sign up for the ACT workkeys test that I need to finish applying to Wake County Schools. It’s, uh, tomorrow. My tests are tomorrow. Huh.
If all goes according to plan, I should be leaving for DC on the night of Thursday 11, and then I’ll leave either Sunday night or Monday, depending on how my work schedules line up.
Two nights ago, I decided to stay up late reading Suetonius in bed. Around midnight, I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I set my alarm and went to bed.
Yesterday, I woke up at 6:11 and was unable to go back to sleep for the 20 minutes I had left for sleeping. So I laid in bed reading the rest of Suetonius. I was up at 7:10 and out of the house at 8:15. I was ten minutes early for my drawing class in the Jewish Ghetto, overlooking the Portico d’Ottavia and the Teatro di Marcello. I had my mid-term exam for the class; she flipped through my sketchbook and declared my work to be somewhere between a B+ and an A-. We also took a class field trip up the street to visit the famous Burnt Pastry shop.
Fantastic buns. I was surprised that the burnt part didn’t even matter.
I went home after class and ate some gnocchi before heading to school. I showed up at Rome to Augustus on time. In class, I drew a comic based on what the professor was teaching us.
After class I went home, and Deanna, Sarah, and I made a pizza from scratch.
We don’t have measuring cups and so we had to improvise the recipe.
Dough:
300-400 grams of flour
A pile of parmesan cheese, hand-shredded until Kelsey got bored
Two dashes of olive oil
3.5 mugs of boiling water
Sauce:
6-7 tomatoes, flash-boiled, peeled, and mashed
Dash of all the spices in your cabinet. All of them. And then a little more basil.
Cheese: 2.5 buffalo balls of mozzarella, sliced
Toppings: Garlic, more basil, and prosciutto
Bake at the highest temperature you can manage for 20 minutes.
Results will be difficult to slice, because Sarah likes her dough crispy. But anyway it will be super delicious.
I fell asleep while reading around 11:30. For some reason I was exhausted.
This morning I also managed to wake up on time and get out of the house on time. Even better, I navigated the bus system all by myself! I hadn’t done that yet. I was so proud.
The class sat on the steps outside the Piramide metro station and waited for the other drawing professor to show up (we have one on Mondays and Wednesdays and another one on Tuesdays and Thursdays). While waiting, some old guy walked up to us and started ranting in Italian.
Despite our shouts of “No parlo Italiano!” “Sono di Americana!” “Non capisco!” and “Go away!” he kept going, eventually focusing most of his rant on Chelsea, who was particularly noisy. Eventually he realized she couldn’t understand him, so he did the only logical thing and wrote down what he was trying to express.
He wrote, roughly, ROMA CAPITALE MUNDI E CENTRO NAZIONE, or something like that. It means “Rome is the capital of the world and the center of all nations”. “Roma Capitale Mundi” seems to be some sort of common phrase among all the old people in Rome. Whenever I meet an old person they always tell me “Roma Capitale Mundi.” Well, not that little old lady I helped across the street one day. All the other old people have said that though.
Chelsea was inexplicably popular with Italians this morning. We got kicked off our steps by some street-cleaners. This guy immediately walked up to us and, no lie, the first thing he said was, “I am single! I am single!” Then he gave us more relevant information re: his status. He is a singer. He then gave us an off-key rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”.
Sadly we had to go to the Protestant Cemetary and draw rather than continue to be mobbed by all the random denizens of Fermata Piramide.
This guy is Devereux Plantagenet Cockburn. I called him Lord Cockburn. He kept me company while I drew the graves next to him. I feel bad that I didn’t draw his gravestone, because clearly it is the best gravestone.
This is what I tried to draw (I haven’t grabbed the picture I drew yet, sorry).
For a long time we were mostly left on our own to draw. The professor came by and checked our sketchbooks. I definitely have a B+ or an A- as my midterm grade. I “show enthusiasm”, I just need to “show progress” now. I dunno. Anyway, after several hours of sitting on my butt in the mud and the bugs I got tired and walked around and took pictures of interesting graves.
After class I successfully managed to use some Italian. I asked the ticket guys at the station where a bank was (Dov’é uno banco?). I ordered lunch almost entirely in Italian (I slipped up when I asked what the Italian word for “green beans” is, they then proceded to just speak in English to me the rest of the time). After lunch I went down to the meeting point for my next class. I sat on the steps and read and fell asleep. Then I woke up and read some more. Then, because life is rough, I fell asleep again. When I woke up, I worried I had missed class, so I stopped a passing woman and asked, “Che cosa ora?”
“Due e diece,” she replied.
“Grazie,” I said.
I was pleased. We had understood each other and it was still forty minutes until my next class.
Two girls stopped at my stoop and asked me a question. I could tell by their gestures and a few words I grabbed that they were looking for the Piramide metro stop. I waved them in the right direction.
The Open Source Vase 