Wednesday, April 08, 2009

The Weird Season

I've started bartending for extra money, since I have no steady journalistic income right now, and I worked five nights last week. I was getting exhausted and even slightly depressed (from fatigue, not soul-crushing run-ins with drunken louts -- those have been rare). I will forever think back on this brief time, when I transitioned from journalist to gin jockey, as the Early Bartending Era, and I will remember how I got to bed late, woke up late, didn't make it to the gym -- my fitness regime has been totally derailed -- and didn't work on what little remains to be done for my novel.

I think now is the time to find a new equilibrium and get things back on track. Thankfully my official schedule, now that I'm done training, is down to two nights a week. According to the friend who got me the job, I should make at least enough to pay rent each month, so that should take the sting out of riding the bus through the ghetto every Sunday night and walking home down empty streets at three in the morning.

I'm an unlikely bartender, and will never love the work the way some people do, but the job is better than expected. It's either fast-paced enough that you don't have time to think or slow enough that you can chat with people and easily pass the time. I even get compliments; usually they're after a fifth shot of Woodford, but it's nice to be recognized for something. I already have a small store of "hilarious bar stories" that will only continue to grow. Now that I have some clarity on when I'll be working, instead of being at the night-to-night mercy of the manager's cell phone, I think I can integrate this into the rest of my life and move forward with a smile and some cash in my pocket.

I will never forget the exhausted feeling of falling into bed at 4:30 while Stephanie mumbles something about Battlestar Galactica. I hope that part's over. Now it's on to dropping hints at cocktail parties about how I can make that drink and bragging about how cool I am.