No one is as good as I am at two things in this life. Number one, I’m the best at over thinking any situation at any time of the night or day. I proved that theory immediately with this blog that I didn’t want to write about a situation that I don’t want to be in. But, life is always a constant trade off of doing things you don’t want to do, in order to do the things you do want to do, so here it is.
The second thing I do better than anyone else is sabotaging my not too distant future, by making a shitty decision or decisions in the immediate present or a few minutes ago. I think I’m making a smart choice by eating that handful of goldfish behind the bar as I’m working, but I forgot that I have to chew them for at least 25 to 30 seconds and there is no way to hide what I’m doing without a mask on, or without moving my big ass lips. Which of course, I immediately have to do as I turn around and see that a guest has walked into the restaurant,
“Hello there!”
I say from a muffled position next to the sink. And if it’s not a guest coming around the corner, it’s my Jim, the other bartender I work with three, ah, two nights a week now. He is the complete opposite of me in almost every aspect of the job, except we both have twenty plus years experience doing this job. In fact I think Jim has 30. Recently I have been made aware of an issue I did not know I was having at work.
I guess being in your head a lot has it’s advantages. I’m always prepared for anything, especially when someone else is trying to sabotage me. I can smell that from a mile away and it has been happening for the last month or so, at my work, and the Toad, err, Jim is responsible for the saba-tagie!
Thing is, he picked a pretty horrible time to try and get away with it. I’m the master of self sabatoge, so when I’m making a conscious effort to change for the better, any sort of distraction or negativity towards that effort sticks out like a sore thumb, and it’s even MORE obvious to me now when I just caught that Toad blatantly talking shit about me to a guest while I was in the back. Luckily, I appear seconds before either one of them realized I was in earshot so I’m able to catch the last few words of a conversation, which immediately goes quiet when they see I’m closer than they thought.
So, if you haven’t figured it out, I’ve been having some issues with one of the bartenders I work with. He is older, and rounder, balder and sadder than me, yet he isn’t jolly nor do I even think he has a sense of humor. I wonder sometimes if it’s a good thing that he has 32 years of bar experience, or if he just hasn’t evolved since the early 1990s when he first started mixing drinks and nit picking his workspace.
So, here I come with my sense of familiarity blazing, because I’ve done that trick before where I’m talking about someone I work with just as they re-enter the audible space we’re in. I’ve had my hands resting on the bar and tried to signal the other person I’m talking to by waving a few fingers in the air. I know it got way too quiet when I walked up at the right time to hear, him say
“Yeah, I have problems trying to manage some of the people I work with as well.”
Yet still, even though I called him out about talking shit about me he, then tried to sell me on the lie he was just “waving goodbye” to that guest. The guest who was still sitting at the bar? When was the last time you waved to anyone who is still sitting directly in front of you and not a few feet away, which would constitute the need for a wave.
It’s so ridiculous that it’s not funny. Its perplexing and confusing. The reason why is because when I started there I was not up to speed with my walking and drink making skills. It had been four years since I tended any bar and now I found myself in a private golf club establishment on a mountain in Santa Rosa wine country California where everyone has a name, a member number, and is that unfamiliar shade of white privilege. Rich enough to afford to bitch about the little things, but dependent on them because the little things are what keeps you in balance.
I get it now. I used to get worried and stressed because I wanted to make a good impression. After all, these members literally pay my salary, so when I had the chance to sharpen my skills so to speak, I took those tips the Toad gave me and I ran with them. I bought the little notebook, I left the bar and took some tables, I laughed at jokes that weren’t funny, and I made a few myself right before I walked back into the kitchen with their extra ramekins of ketchup, ranch, bleu cheese and garlic aioli. I gave 110%, I didn’t complain about anything or so I thought, and I started becoming almost happy to be there.
The funny thing is, it fucking worked. I started implementing these suggestions he gave me and within a week or so I was getting extra tips on top of the gratuity. People were handing me cash or coming in to see me Friday night and maybe sit on my side of the bar instead of the other side and I could tell they noticed a change in me because they were smiling and not giving me a hard time just to see how I’d react.
I did what I needed to do. I stepped it up and I got noticed and I took advice from this person who now, suddenly is being so petty that he has resorted to micro managing me while I’m drinking a glass of coke through a straw behind the bar. He was once giving me tips on how to make a black manhattan, until I guess I started making the drink too well. I made it so well that I didn’t need him anymore to give me help, although I appreciate it, I think I got this now.
What started out so meaningless for me, actually became something I looked forward to. Work. I wanted to be there. Honestly I thought he’d be happy that I got to be a better, stronger, more confident soul behind the bar, but it appears that not everyone liked my new found popularity and my success has only made him bitter, like the bottle of Angostura I put in each and every Old Fashioned.
There are only two explanations for this sudden about face. I’ve thought about this for a week now waiting for this chance to have a sit down with the him and the managers, and the only two things that make sense are if this is about money, or if it’s about spite. And, believe me, I hope it’s about money and popularity because that would be easier to stomach instead of knowing you’re acting like a bitch and poisoning the well for selfish and childish reasons.
If it’s about money, I really don’t think two hundred dollars here or there makes that much of a difference in how you treat someone, but its it does, take it. My life isn’t complete or falling apart if I don’t make a certain amount of money every week. It used to be that way, but I’ve grown up.
I met Missy at my place of business in 2006. She was 19, Italian, had a spunky personality and her honest and genuine smile was something that I was immediately attracted to. She had the checklist features of my traditional female which included light eyes, dark hair, and she liked to laugh at my jokes. I have to say I wasn’t in the right state of mind at this point in my life. I was a little sick in the head and as I would eventually find out, so was Missy.
I had been casually dating this one girl I met through my co-workers, and I had been trying really hard to get off of that California snow that was making me crazy when Missy entered my life. Before I knew it, I stopped seeing the other girl and I started spending more time with Missy. Then she dropped this bomb on me.
“I’m sick.” She said. “I have cancer.”
This totally blew me away. I was like, what do you mean you have cancer? Cancer of what?
“Brain cancer.” She replied.
Now look, I didn’t know a single thing about what that meant other than I had to highly doubt it’s even possible to have brain cancer and be walking around like nothing is wrong. In my alternative state of mind I kind of felt bad for her, but at the same time the part of my brain that was actually grounded and still rational questioned her as to whether or not she was telling the truth. She didn’t like that, and immediately pulled away from me.
A couple days later her and I met up again at my apartment and we had a long talk. She went on to tell me about how she had been sick as a kid and how she had just gotten back from an Oncology lab in Texas where she was getting tests done and other cancer-related things. She was going to be going away soon for treatment, and she was really convincing. I guess I kind of believed her at that point. We spent the next week hanging out and making the most of the time we had left.
Things between us were good, and I even talked about marrying this girl, albeit might have been a desperate attempt to prove my love, but I didn’t care. I told my friends who would listen about her story and they all felt really bad and supported the two of us, except for a few people at work.
“She doesn’t have fucking Cancer Christian. I had cancer, and I know that girl is lying.” My co-worker Lainey said to me.
Lainey was making a lot of sense, but I was in a state of mind where I couldn’t tell whether to believe the awful truth that perhaps Missy was making this up, or continue to play into the idea that her cancer was real because why on earth would someone go to such lengths to get my attention as to make up a fake story about having one of the worst diseases in the history of the world?
I started to do some research. In between my days of being with Missy, my nights of not sleeping and my afternoons of not wanting to get out of bed, I secretly started googling stuff about cancer and a lot of what Missy was saying added up. There really was an Oncology lab in Texas and the doctor she told me she was going to see really did exist. In fact, he was one of the top cancer research doctors in the country at the time…he even had done some successful brain surgeries in China to alleviate the disease.
I went back to my friend Lainey, and I told her about my findings. She wasn’t impressed, and she continued to inadvertently have my back by trying to tell me I wasn’t thinking straight. Perhaps I should have listened to her.
“I don’t like that girl.” Lainey said. “I just don’t trust her.”
That was fine for her, but I really cared about Missy because over the last week or two she seemed like the only one who understood me. At one point she saw me at my worst, up for two days and crying, and she still said she loved me and it was going to be ok. When I had an bad experience and it felt like my whole brain was going to explode, she borrowed someone’s car and drove right over to my place to see if I was alright.
Plus, my cat liked her and that in itself was saying a lot because it takes a awhile for my cat to warm up to anyone. I knew if I were to even doubt what Missy was telling me again I would lose her forever. I was one of the only ones who believed her, because I wanted to believe her. I was in a real shitty place mentally back then, and in some sick and twisted way, Missy having cancer was the only thing keeping me alive.
It was September of 2006 and I was watching Maria Sharapova in the U.S. Open when Missy told me she had to go away for awhile. I wouldn’t be able to contact her because she had to go overseas to China to get treatment for her cancer which made sense to me after what I read online. I spent the last few days with her hanging out in Hollywood and in Malibu at the Paradise Cove Cafe, eating fried calamari from a giant martini glass, and listening to the song Invincible by Muse on the ride back from the beach.
I had quit my job, and I got a new one tending bar at the Wiltern in Koreatown. I made Missy a mix cd and booklet with all these pictures of us so she would remember our time together. One of the outcomes of her 50/50 procedure was the possibly of memory loss and the one thing I wanted her to remember was how much I loved her and how all I wanted was for her to get better, even if she didn’t remember me.
She left me on a Friday in September, and even though it was tough, I went on with my new life, praying every night that she would be ok. I took a little trip by myself to Arizona to clear my head before I started my new job, and I got myself clean, at least for a few weeks.
When I returned, I received a MySpace message from one of Missy’s friends stating that Missy was ok and she was rehabilitating on the east coast. I tried sending a message to this mysterious person asking for more details and hoping that I would be able to get to talk to her, but I never received a message back. I would spend the next few weeks writing blogs I posted on MySpace about how much I missed her and about how I couldn’t wait to see her again This is an excerpt from one of those posts:
11-13-06
(originally posted http://www.myspace.com/*starduster) I looked at myself in the mirror this morning and I was thinking about Missy. We used to say to each other…”I heart you” I liked that. I like that we made everything our own…and I love that we did it deliberately because we really meant it even though we knew we didn’t have much time together. It kind of all makes sense now…. Even if I never see her again….or even if she never finds me or if she decides that it would probably be better if we were just friends or if I’m off in Romania when she comes knocking on my door…I still can be happy to say that she loved me unconditionally and she couldn’t have come along at a more perfect time in my life. I loved her first and I always will. I’ve never doubted it either….it kind of freaked me at first but sometimes you need that to really know how you feel. Love is always on my mind and that’s what I’m putting my faith in these days. Sometimes I forget how simple life is because there are so many damn illusions that feel like the real thing. I’ve always been good at giving myself a reason to go on and I’ve always known exactly what to tell myself to make it all ok for now. I heart you too…..and I always will.
I continued writing for a few more weeks, as I poured my heart and soul out to anyone who clicked on my MySpace blog. Then a friend from my old work told me something I didn’t want to hear, but I think at that point, I NEEDED to hear this.
“I saw Missy on Hollywood boulevard today. I called her name and she turned around, and then ignored me and kept on walking. She’s not in China, and she’s not rehabilitating on the east coast. Christian, you have to believe me.” he said
What the fuck?!? I knew something was rotten in Denmark because my friend Joel had no reason to lie to me. That’s when all the doubt I had been ignoring the past few months started to take center stage. It wasn’t soon afterwards that I got a knock on my door at 3pm on a Tuesday.
For some odd reason, I didn’t answer it, I looked through the peephole and I saw someone out there, but then I put my ear to the door and I listened. Just then I heard a familiar ring tone go off. Missy’s ring tone. I couldn’t confirm that it was her, but it felt like she was standing right outside my door, which I never opened.
My mind started to piece it together. If I was about to be found out for telling a humungous lie, the first thing I would do would be to show my face again to the person I lied to before someone else told me about it, right?
I went through my MySpace account and looked at the profile of the girl who had been sending me information about Missy. She had no profile picture, and she didn’t have many friends in common. Back then, anyone could send anyone else a message because privacy settings didn’t exist. I started looking at all these phone calls I had been receiving from a “restricted” number who would hang up every time I answered, and then I came to a conclusion that I should have known from the beginning.
What if the whole time that person who had been sending me messages was Missy herself? What if the restricted phone calls were Missy was dialing *67 before placing the call? Was I being cat-fished? Was I getting duped by a girl who was born in the 80s? What was the point to all of this anyway, and how could I have been so stupid not to see this coming from…..oh right…I was a drug addict back then. (figuratively)
Something occurred to me after that day. If Missy was sending me messages on MySpace pretending to be someone else, then she was able to read my blogs about her as well because you didn’t have to be friends with someone on MS to see their page.
I had to find out if this was true, and the only way I knew how was to put it out into the world, and see what came back. I posted a blog called “and now I know the truth” and basically stated the whole cancer story thing was a ruse, and I ended it with the sentence, “You deserve everything you get in life, and I hope you get nothing but regret. Goodbye Missy.”
The next day I was sitting in the car with my friend Dana outside of a pot store when I got a text from Missy.
“Why are you writing negative things about me on MySpace?”
“Who is this?”
“This is Missy. Who are you?”
Who am I? Wow, this girl had some balls to keep lying to me even after the fact, so I called her out. I was like….Let me get this straight….You don’t remember my name now, probably because of the brain cancer surgery you didn’t have, you have no idea who I am or how this number got into your phone, but somehow you managed to connect the dots to the fact that I posted something on MySpace about you, and then assumed this random number in your phone must be that very same person? There’s about a million holes in that story, the story she told me before, and every other lie she had told me up until this point.
I didn’t even want an explanation, I just wanted her to go away. Do you have any idea how embarrassed and duped I felt for days afterwards? I felt like someone ripped out my heart, put it through a blender, turned up the settings to high, and then WATCHED me from afar as I tried to piece every thing back together. It was fucking creepy, and it didn’t stop there.
Missy kept trying to contact me over the next year and I ignored her. Eventually, I talked to her on the phone some time in 2008 and she came clean about everything. She didn’t have brain cancer, (obviously) but she told me she had some “form of cancer” which I think in itself was still a lie, but at this point who really cared? She told me she had a boyfriend/fiancee the whole time she was living in L.A. while sleeping with me, and that she made up this story of brain cancer and having to go away because she just couldn’t bear to tell me the truth.
Now, I don’t know what causes this kind of thought process, but it seems to me it would have been a lot easier to just tell me you had a boyfriend in the Marines who asked you to marry him, instead of cheating on him with me, lying to HIM about it, then lying to ME and everyone else we worked with by fabricating some ridiculous story about brain cancer and China and having to go away for months. In fact, you probably could have just told me the truth and lied to your boyfriend and no one would be any the wiser.
The last time I saw Missy was in 2009. We met at the Roost in Los Feliz, and she looked different to me, but maybe that’s because I was seeing things for how they really were, or maybe I was still angry and upset with her for what she did to me. I’m not anymore. She has apologized many, many times and I have forgiven her for what she did. I’m not saying it was ok, but if you hold on to anger and resentment in life, you end up making yourself sick in the head.
I know why I had to go through all of that. I was in a really bad place when I met her, and my short lived love for her and the belief that I’d be able to see her again someday was the only thing that got me through that time in my life. I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but I understand the life lesson.
Missy recently got divorced. This past summer she contacted me and every now and then we would talk or text. A few months ago I got a text from her saying she would be in L.A. for the night and she wanted to see me.
“I’ll call you after my meeting” she said
I never heard from her again. Maybe the meeting got moved to Albuquerque, or maybe the plane got hijacked or maybe she never landed in Los Angeles at all. I don’t know, but I don’t need an explanation any more about any of it. I’m done with that chapter of my life.
However if I know Missy, I’m sure there is some crazy story to go with it.
You send your lover off to China, and you wait for her to call.
You put your girl up on a pedestal, and you wait for her to fall. -CC
Complaining Is An Art Form 