Oh, so THIS is what it means to be a waitress.

The bar/restaurant that I work for just started making the night I work karaoke night. Of all the people that work there, I am the only one who had something nice to say about it. That's putting it lightly. I was ecstatic. What greater excuse is there to go to karaoke every week? How cool is it to be the hidden talent of the waitstaff? How much more likely is it that I can drag people to visit me at work?

The guy was taking song requests, too, for when nobody else wanted to sing. I asked him to play "Hello Mary Lou" by Ricky Nelson, and I think he didn't know whether to shit or go blind. And, in his book, he had my signature karaoke song: "Hey Jealousy" by the Gin Blossoms. My kickball bar and my regular karaoke bar don't, so this was thrilling.

By the end of the night...
I made more money than I did during the NBA playoffs.
My boss kissed me. Twice.*
A customer asked me to be in his band.**

All this time I've been sitting at the hostess desk, eating nachos and reading books. THIS is what waitressing, as I always imagined it, anyway, is all about!

* I could do without this.
** Pretty cool, actually. As his band is not of the Gin Blossoms cover variety, I think he will soon see that he doesn't want me in his band.

One drawback of laughing gas.

So I've had to go to the dentist an awful lot in the last two months. I have always been petrified of the dentist, scarred for life by the ghosts of dentists past. I finally sucked it up and went to a new dentist, who I like very much. Apart from my dentist and his assistant's phenomenal chairside manner, my office visits have improved with the help of laughing gas.

It really calms me down. It is, as my dentist told me, like a couple glasses of wine.

I think they turned it up a little high the other day, because I admitted I was especially nervous. As they left the room to let the gas kick in, I lay listening to the satellite "blend" station was on the speakers. I found myself drifting off to the sound of Jimmy Buffet. Looking for my lost shaker of salt.

WAIT.

I HATE JIMMY BUFFET.

But for that period of time, I was wasted away again in Margaritaville. And it was calming. And yeah, I liked it.

Don't worry - I'm normal now. Even laughing gas can't make a parrothead out of me. Not permanently, anyway.

Deliverance

I'm calling in an order to a publishing company in Virginia, and the hold music is "Dueling Banjos".

I'm worried that this might set the tone of the day.

I'm also worried that they don't realize how funny that is.

Damn it feels good to be a hipsta.

I'm not a hipster, actually. I have plenty of hipsterish friends, enough hipstery leanings in fashion and music, but a hipster I am not.

For instance, this is one of the funny-because-it's-truest things I've seen in a while (especially because it is modeled after Monty Python's Upperclass Twit of the Year):



I don't even like going to shows anymore because I've been having a growing distaste for all the people dancing on me, the ones that elbow me in the face and get mad at me when I push back, the tall ones that don't let four inches get between my face and their backs, the ones who sing so loudly that I can't hear anymore, the ones who go to shows to catch up with old friends, etc.

That being said, I really do like going to the Middle East. I like going for dinner Upstairs or at ZuZu. I like ZuZu's Roots and Razors night every other Wednesday, I like the belly dancing on the Corner, I like that the crowd space Downstairs is raked so you can see better from the back. I like the bartender who used to play bass for the Charms. I like that somehow, everything is connected, and that nobody really yelled at me for sneaking through the kitchen from the Corner to the Upstairs, but rather I was told that I couldn't leave. I like the local art, the bright colors on the walls, the people-watching opportunities, the staff that's been there forever, and I like the food, the wine and the beer.

I spent most of my weekend on the corner of Mass Ave and Douglass, and had I not had the Plague, it would have been a near-perfect couple days. Granted, the Raging Teens X-Mas Party was at a freezing cold TT's, but it was the same crowd. One of the people I saw there was in the band I saw the next day. I like that about the Middle East, too. You always know somebody, if not by having ever spoken to them.

I'm glad, however, that I don't know the schmuck who wrote the one review of the Middle East on Menupages. This person, who might be the world's biggest tool, said:

This joint ain't bad. It has the funk I love. Great mix of customers of all stripes (and plaids). Pretty fair food. Unbelivelaby indifferent service. Music is the balls downstairs however. Eclectic (did I say eclectic? Oh my! If I use the word ambience tickle me till I'm pink). Where can you see Gogol Bordello, a band from the circus and a young student singer-songwriter under one roof? Service downstairs is worse than the upstairs. Haughty hotties give perfunctory service. Never the less downstairs is close, crowded, loud, hot and wicked fun.

I'm glad you like it, sir. But "haughty hotties" is neither clever nor respectful, you cannot spell, and self-conscious parenthetical musings have no place in restaurant reviews. And tell me you didn't call it a "joint".

Christmas songs WROR can play all they want.

(In no particular order.)

Nat King Cole : The Christmas Song
U2 : Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Boston Pops : Sleigh Ride*
The Ronettes : Sleigh Ride*
Mariah Carey : All I Want for Christmas Is You
The Kinks : Father Christmas
Frank Sinatra : Jingle Bells
Stevie Wonder: Someday at Christmas
Elvis Presley: Let's face it - anything.
Bing Crosby and David Bowie : Little Drummer Boy
Rosemary Clooney : Sisters**
Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby : Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep**

* Note the absence of the Johnny Mathis version.
** I know they won’t.

I bought a new CD!

It's been a while since I've done this. And it took me a long time to realize that I needneedneeded "Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs". Two years, in fact.



I don't know what I like most about this CD. Could be the Rufus Wainwright-esque voice, or the fact that M. Ward is thanked in the liner notes (which, by the way, are peppered with drawings as delightful as the cover). It could just as easily be the song "Fake Palindromes", which Jon had me listen to in the text office at the Coop, and which was still the only song I'd heard off the album until about ten minutes ago.

With that in mind, I'm sure it's too early to pick favorites. I can, however, say that this CD is already ranked among my favorite CDs that I own, and it isn't even on my iPod yet.