Day Twenty Nine

Zombie Sunday

After hours of working at the church this morning I made my way to the store to start my shift as a cashier. I forgot how much I used to look forward to a nap on Sunday afternoons. Waking up four hours before I sing, singing one or two services, being pleasant, friendly and helpful to everyone I meet and then busting ass trying to prepare a season of music for a choir...there is no amount of coffee that can keep me going after that. I stopped by the local Starbucks and get a latte anyway. I would hate for any of my customers to be a victim of my sleep deprived wrath. The latte ended up not helping. Maybe the Starbucks baristas were out to sabotage me by slipping me a decaf...

...monsters.

Emmy

I decided to give our manager, Emmy, a month's notice that I was going to quit. Upon hearing that I was going to be a trumpet prof. her eyes lit up. Apparently, Emmy also plays the trumpet. She played from middle school to high school, "Seven years total," she said with pride. She has a family full of instrumentalists. They get together at Christmastime and play carols.

EMMY: We have to play trumpet together sometime!! Do you know Johnny Be Good?
ME: Not really.
EMMY: [GASP] You don't know JOHNNY BE GOOD!?! [she proceeds to sing the trumpet part from, no doubt, an old marching band arrangement, pretending to hold up a trumpet] I still have my lyre that I used to read music from!

I didn't feel like telling her that I could play or transcribe any melody by ear. I didn't feel like telling her I mostly play classical and jazz music on a considerably more advanced level than that. At first I thought she couldn't differentiate the professional from the amateur, but I still couldn't bring myself to educate her.

EMMY: We SO have to play trumpet together. We'll play Johnny Be Good.
ME: Sure!

I truly do not believe that Emmy thinks the dichotomy in musical ability lies in whether you can play Johnny Be Good or not. I think she was just excited that we have a love of playing trumpet in common. After all, she plays for fun and I admire anyone who plays for fun, young or old. Playing a musical instrument is a special, wonderful thing to be able to do, no matter the ability level.

Updates:

J.V. continues to improve socially. Today we had a pleasant conversation about how tired I am.

I had a customer walk up who was wearing a military dog tag. Banshee was standing nearby. We talked about this customer's grandfather's service in WWII. Pretty cool. After he left I turned to Banshee and told her I have a dog tag on which I have been wanting to engrave the phrase, "Keep your feet on the ground, when your head is in the clouds." I want this phrase or a similar phrase engraved in a French translation because I think French is a beautiful language. She told me she studied French for years and would help me find a translation. Lately Banshee has become more fun. She still yells in an unpleasant fashion and I almost always wish I had a pair of earplugs whenever she pages anyone. She is starting to look pregnant again and maybe she is in a happy mood because of that. I dare not actually ask her if she's pregnant. Most pregnant women don't want to talk about pregnancy until they are ready to announce it. Sometimes they are not actually pregnant.

I found that a lot of people can't stand Copycat. People try to talk shit about her to me but I will never hear it. It seems that almost none of my coworkers have the patience to work alongside someone with autism. She has become more brave. Now she stops by everyone's till to wave goodbye, not just mine. Half the time she will say bye, wave and stay there at your till until you stop, look right back at her and say, "Goodbye Cat! Have a great evening!" Sometimes, she will then again say goodbye and you just have to stop and say goodbye to her again. This is not hard. I will seriously bite off the head of the next person who complains about her to me.

Apparently Crazy Red Head Vegan did not break up with her boyfriend.

CRV: My boyfriend and I went down to Dallas last night.
ME: Whoa, whoa, whoa...You're back together with him?
CRV: Yeah, I don't think we actually ever broke up.
ME: What...

I thought of all of the energy I spent trying to cheer her up or cover for her that one day she told me they split up. I felt highly annoyed as I do whenever I am the irrational bitch friend who consoles any of my freshly dumped, low self esteemed friends with wine, chocolate, kleenex and the general recovery slogan, "Fuck that guy, he's an asshole!"--only to find that they run back to the dickhead days later. From that point on, I made a point to never invest much of my mind or ear to CRV's drama. She later talked about her mother, about how she sits at home all day and does nothing, about how with her dad, she gives her mom tons of money and all she does is online shop. The mom doesn't help clean or cook and doesn't have a job. I didn't care. A lot of CRV's stories are sounding like tall tales and exaggerations.

Last but not least, I heard that O.C.Daisy possibly broke her foot. I can't say I feel sorry for her. I'm sure her foot hurts, but I was happy that I wouldn't have to see her for several days. It's hard to feel bad for or support someone who is mean to you. I was too tired to be a better person.