Greasy Tills
Now Playing: Jim Roll--"Old Love"
Some of you might be wondering what it is that I do all day.

I generally rise with the alarm, although I've been known to lie half-awake for nearly an hour before it goes off, generally between 6:30 and 7:00. I blearily ascend from my mattress and take a shower, dressing and occasionally eating breakfast (a couple of eggs and some milk). If the weather's inclement or I'm feeling lazy, I'll take the #2, #4, or #14 buses that come near my house (the #14's closest, but it has a nasty history of sailing right on past my stop without so much as a "fuck you"). I usually walk, though, as it's only about a mile and a half to my job and I like to keep in relative shape.

I work in a restaurant in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan, that mainly serves lunch to a fairly regular crowd of downtown retail and office workers from Monday through Friday. I mainly cook but occasionally have to bus tables and do dishes on Fridays when our regular busser/dishwasher is off. I start by preparing the soups for the day. Frequently rotating varieties: chicken and wild rice, portabella mushroom, tomato and dill, potato bacon, and my favorite, clam chowder. Our seasonal soup for fall and winter is french onion soup, and I'm told mine is very good (it's the same with the coleslaw, which is odd, since I believe coleslaw and french onion soup to be stupefyingly disgusting). I then prep the dressings and condiments--ranch, pesto, etc. After around eleven or so, I eat my own lunch (usually a turkey and swiss on sourdough with pesto and artichoke hearts), and then make the quiches that we deliver to a local coffeehouse chain (I don't particularly care for the latter, but that's by the way)--lorraine, florentine, tomato basil, and occasionally broccoli and cheddar. Quiche is probably my favorite thing to cook at the restaurant since it's so fascinating to watch it come together, and it looks delicious when it comes out of the oven. Recently, I've begun to make the cookies as well, and that's usually my final job before we begin the pre-close cleanup. All the while, we listen to 107.1 FM, the local ClearChannel pod station, which has a playlist of about 60 songs (they are worthwhile listening to on Sundays, though, for their excellent specialty shows). The other day, I believe we heard Nickel Creek, Dave Matthews, and Jason Mraz three times in a single shift. The line cook has also started bringing in the exact same salsa music that used to play at Don Carlos, so sometimes it feels like I never left (this is not a good thing).

The job gets irritating sometimes, but I love the work. I've been trying to educate myself at home, too--I fixed steak last night for what must be the first time ever (last weekend it was pork chops). Based on what happened afterwards, I think I'll stick to white meat, but it was delicious while it lasted. I've also been experimenting with different kinds of savory scones and cornbread, and they seem to have come out rather well.

Afterwards, I usually stop by the library, check my email, and walk home by a variety of routes to clean up, eat dinner, watch and/or read the news, watch "Coronation Street" on the CBC, and then depending on whatever's on (usually "Lost" or "Veronica Mars"--the latter's the only one I genuinely care about), read or watch TV, and then go to sleep.

The weather varies from time to time, as does the music.