where i smash (meme) rules!, and wax nostalgic about having been a stripper a little overmuch.

I am actually responding to a meme request.  Holy cow cheese.

But it's from Lotta.  How could I not?  She is the dreamiest.  She makes the word dreamy seem too benign a description.  She's like clotted cream (a very, very good thing; I think.  I don't *actually* know, but then, everyone I used to read as a child talked it up enough to make me think it equated to ambrosia, something *else* I've also never had, well, except for that ghastly canned fruit and whipped-topping melange of cloying ickiness referred to as ambrosia - only, really, it couldn't possibly be, because it's GROSS, but, uh, this was supposed to be about how awesome Lotta is, so let's pretend clotted cream is just perfectly whipped fresh cream with the exact-right balance of vanilla and sugar blended into its delicate awesomeness) on fresh, sweet berries and superbly baked cake.

I loves me some Lotta. 

(Lotta.  Srsly.  Be warned re: my approach at blogger prom.  I will try to quell the adhd alpha response you trigger, but I cannot promise absolute control over the bitch.  Only, don't!  Because my love for you is great and unquenched, so it needs a good quenching, but just, you know, reasonable amounts, like a hug, a nice, innocent hug, and I will master the adhdalphamonster if I can.  I mean that. 

Sorta.

I do!

Oh, christ on a run-on-sentence.)

15! Years! Meme! is now underway.  Gird up thy loins, my two readers, for here we goeth:

"Think back on the last 15 years of your life. How would you summarize your life in just 10 bullet points?"  -- Okay, so that would be from age 20, onward.  Yiiiikes.

1.  Ten?  Really?  REALLY?  Oh, dear lord baby jesus.  (yes.  this counts.  it's a microcosmic example of how I, uh, "manage" stress, and have done for the last fifteen + years.  see?  totally. counts.)  Did Lotta genuinely think this would short-circuit my adhd-addled excuse for a brain?  (also counts.  see above excuse.)

2.  I hate tests.  This is like a test.  (this one relates to having begun and subsequently quit and returned to university no less than four times since I started my career as a college student at age 18.  sure, it's a little over the fifteen-year guideline, but I dislike following rules.  this also relates to having quit school so often.  etc.)

3.  My parents.  (eh.  just keep sticking with me, here.  it's the roller-coaster ride of a lifetime.  *my* lifetime, that is.  right now, the roller coaster has slowed to enjoy some scenery.  iow, we're managing.  having a grandkid to proffer when conversation is awkward helps out awfully in that regard.)

4.  My husband.  Who stripped me of my turmoil-ridden "love" life and gave me steadiness and support and a sexy ass.  Shhh.  Don't tell him I said that.  He'll flush.  Which is so cute.  I love my annoying, adorable husband SO DAMN MUCH.  I cannot believe I have to be married to him forever, but I'm so glad I do, all at the same, wildly confusing time.

5.  My jouncing careen from career to career.  Since I was twenty, I have worked in the following fields (shit, this requires a bullet-point list w/in a bullet-point list.  unnervingly awesome!): 

* temporary employee (generally admin assistant or receptionist or file organizer - terribly exciting stuff) 

* staff in the mail room of a gigantic insurance company; part-time, while attending university (I got to use the microfilm/microfiche machine, and include that on resumes, later, which *ruled*) - this is when I began my side-career of snowboarder in earnest, sorta, so the jobs I took from this point on always were in consideration of the crucial need to work around my riding schedule

* day-camp counselor for the city of Bend, Oregon's outdoor program - I loved this job.  I worked with my old friend, Grand Mastah Gretch (I was DJ Deb), and we had so much fun it was scary, literally, for instance, there was this one kid who wasn't even supposed to be at the camp that day, she was just a friend of one of the campers, and we'd brilliantly handed around all of these super-sharp pencils to aid in their pirate-treasure hunt, which she used *not* to write with, rather, to jab directly into a major artery in her thigh, causing it to bleed in projectile fashion, and she WASN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE THERE.  we didn't know her fucking name.  so, that ruled

* server at a little fifties diner, also in Bend, Oregon - as I was living there for the summer, I was trying to take advantage of the downtime, lacking a social life because I knew no one other than Gretch, and oh, dear, if I start along the road of explaining my reasons for every job I will NEVER FUCKING FINISH, so just you never mind, you -- nosy-pants mcgee, you

* temporary employee, some more, which consisted of the same as prior to this time, but I did, among other things, a long stint at a company working with Intel to produce computer processing chips in clean rooms (they designed/built the clean rooms), and it was chock full o' semi-middle-aged male engineers and other leery looky-loo types.  they flirted with me and the other two (female) front office peeps shamelessly.  I really couldn't tell you why I was there, because I spent the majority of my time writing horrible poetry and song lyrics and chatting with this wretchedly cute young man who had attended my high school several years prior to my having done, and was, during my employ there, fronting a band that had gained REM's attention.  they were quite popular locally, and I believe he still plays around town.  stupid fucker.  really messed my head up with the notion that he liked me, based on his regular invitations to drinks and social functions but NEVER ONCE put the moves on me, and at some point began telling me about his new sweetie.  stupid ASS.  stupid, confusing mind-game-playing ASS (and also, clearly I have completely relinquished the notion that I am capable of not involving lots of extra, not-entirely-unrelated details about extraneous happenings in/around each job, so let's all give into it and roil about in the muck of my historically embarrassing stupidity, alrighty?  great)

* cocktail server at a strip club.  this was only for approximately a month, because I bailed soon after to work for a "regular" place as a server, but it - certainly left an inescapable taste that lingered

* server at an El Torito, the one on the waterfront in SW Portland, a part of the chain, the Tequila Willie's version, where the servers all acted silly and sang really annoying, perverse, rated-R songs, and pulled patrons' chairs and scooted them to other tables and gave them "cowboy hats" (paper toilet-seat covers) as birthday necklaces and assorted other outrageous dumbocity maneuvers; and, btw, we were all drunk (and often stoned) most of the time.  my first shift, I was grabbed by one of the other servers on the way into the bus booth and asked if I liked tequila.  I said, uh, sure, and shrugged, uncertain as to *why* with the questions, only to be handed a shot of tequila, a BIG one, and ordered to drink. it. Now.  so?  I did.  I know.  but, what.  I was all of 21 years of age.  not the sharpest knife just yet.  it made behaving boorishly toward the patrons much easier, fwiw.  I fell completely and totally in loooooo -- no.  not love.  just - crazy-for-mad-about can't-have-want-goddammit-gimme-NOW! lust for a fella there, right off the bat, a fella with eyes the color of a dark chardonnay, he was a rock climber, a free climber (they shun ropes and carabiners and the like, and just shimmy up the side of a cliff, and occasionally break limbs and necks and die, and admire each other so much that they have no need of such encumberances as female companions, such is their admiration/love for other, insane-r free climbers - half-dome, dude!) - oy.  took me YEARS to move on from that one.  god but I was a hanger-on-er.  (fitting, given *his* love for climbing, I just realized.)  also dated someone else from there, a (needless to say, divinely cute) boy who I blithely assumed was gay and so was totally knocked on my ass when he requested that I go on a date with him.  and even further knocked out when he asked for the first kiss.  I just *never* saw it coming with this one, even though we dated off and on for some time (turned out later that he was completely addicted to meth the whole while, and EW, because, wow.  I mean, I had NO FUCKING CLUE.  truly.  that was sad, actually.  he was so - nice, somehow, and just, sweet, and -- nice.  poor fella.  he had to call me years later to tell me, as part of his rehab routine, and WOW did I, once again, get completely knocked flat with the surprise of it.  he was forever doing that)

* stripper (where I eventually expanded my conception of flirtable types to include those of the female persuasion, and, indeed, this career was the place to do it, if one were prone to something of that nature.  iow?  i made out with many, many girls during that time.  even dated a few.  again, this is totally irrelevant to my work experience, but not, because it's kind of related to the meme -- oh, right, the meme! -- in that I discovered I'm bisexual.  wooters!)

* hostess at an Olive Garden (it was the first of many cover jobs for what I was really doing; an excuse to provide for my parents and other types, to halfway account for where the money came from to pay rent, etc)

*part-time work for my dad, who was managing a specialty food company's route on the west side of Portland's greater metro area, so we'd service all these different, high-end grocery stores, like Stroheckers, oh, the late, great Stroheckers, the Beverly Hills grocery store of P-town.  I dug that gig, and still kinda miss it.  we'd go into a store and stock the health- and gourmet-food sections with all kindsa stuff.  there were many, many cute clerks and other stocking persons to flirt with when my dad was blathering to the store manager, and it suited my adhd to a T.  capital

* hostess at a TGIF in San Diego, also as a cover for stripping - I got fired b/c I decided to take a road-trip with my cool-as-shit friend, Brandy, to Portland on a strip-tour, b/c we'd both been tanking in the San Diego scene (which was SO weird at the time, I'll go into detail at some other point, b/c oh my god this post), and I didn't adequately cover my shifts.  woopsie-doodle!, this is always the reason I've been fired - well, except for, oh, we'll get there

* one whole day training to be a cook/cashier at a taco bar in SE Portland, and though I only spent the one measly day there, I totally learned how to chop parsley and onions and garlic like a fucking PRO; my mom has yet to become underwhelmed by my ability to crush mounds of those items to bits beneath my rapier chopping blade - which RULES, b/c of my cooking issues re: minha mamae

* a few days at the first Noah's Bagels, on Hawthorne, when the initial series of people, including me, were trained, prior to its opening; the reason I quit? - because Gretchen was in town from Bend and we stayed out late the night before opening day of the store, and I made out with some random fella at Saucebox, after which G and I got in this screaming match about the dumb make-out sesh, she accused me of ignoring her, which I kind of totally was doing, since it's difficult to manage conversing with your friend when some lame-ass has his tongue in your mouth; this occurred in my car after I'd parked in my drive, and we fought until my old housie began a rain of pebbles onto the roof (we were parked immediately beneath his room, nice, huh? - yes, I was quite the thoughtful housemate).  the woman who managed the store was super-cool, though; I totally flaked on the shift altogether, because when I woke up around three hours after going to bed, hung like a mad dog, blearily, to the sound of bleety alarm noises paining my ears, Gretch was all, DUDE.  you aren't seriously going to work?  at six in the a.m.?  don't. you. dare.  and I was all, yeah, you're so right.  and promptly rolled over and eased back into soft, comfy, padded dreams.  I felt kind of bad later, but then, when I snuck back into Noah's a few months hence, just because I craved one of their delish sammys, the manager totally hooked me up - gave me the whole bag of bagels and trifles that I'd ordered, free.  winked at me, too.  whatta cool betch *she* was

* student at a two-year acting school (yet another stripper smokescreen, but also, because I really wanted to do it).  I actually finished it, too.  the whole damn thing.  highly unusual behavior from this adhd-slave

* a karaoke dj, for about a month, at this terrible, awful place my friends and I used to frequent regularly back in the day (aka the early-mid nineties), and the owner, a really sketchy dude who was supposed to be some kinda ex-con or something, was forever asking me and my friends to work there as servers or bartenders or the dj; I finally took him up on it one night because it sounded cool, + I was on a constant hunt to find a job to replace the eeevil stripping.  I had to quit, though, finally, because he was an absolute FAH-REAK.  I only really remember the last straw, that he pulled me away from a teeming throng of people trying to give me their song choice, on a Saturday night, and over to the area by the door, just beyond where a speaker was attached, and yelling at me about how, if he could hear it there, it was TOO GODDAMN LOUD, and I was all, okay!, and finished my shift, never to return (I wanted that night's tips, and I'd fucking earned them)

* band member in a paid-gigging band (even if it was only for a few gigs, it counts)

* paid gig in a short, beyond multiple-gag-reflex-inducing (legit, though! - somehow the gag-thing makes me think of pr0n, which it was NOT - too bad, because that might have made it slightly less godawful, I KID, kidding, so. kidding., remember when I said I was the prude of the adult entertainment industry?  yeah, I was not lying) film

* paid gigs in theatre (like, under $100 for the whole thing, but it counts!, 'cause it wasn't the tainted stripper money)

* (still) stripping (at this point, having worked in Portland, Seattle -- for 1/2 hr, on the strip-trip with Brandy, before we realized there was a WHOLE lot more than stripping going on up in that joint, and we split -- San Diego, LA, Vegas, and I regret to say, NOT SF.  oh, Lusty Lady, how sad I am to have never spent any time shimmying inside your cool-ass co-op walls of hallowedness and dim, dankly odd beauty)

* host/guide for Princess Cruise Lines on their series of cruise-cars attached to the Alaska interior cruise train from Anchorage to Fairbanks (can't dredge any of that up right now - too many broken, heart-smashed-to-smithereens moments to tally while I waste all this time on this effing meme, and Lotta, maybe NOW I know why you threw this at me, b/c you perceived my love for you would tarnish a little as I tried to complete it, and, hey!, but you're savvy, aintcha); fired for having overslept - it was one of their tidy ways of getting rid of employees before the end of the season and not having to lay so many off, which kept their quotas low.  smart bastards

* server at a lousy cocktail dive in Anchorage, but only once a week, which blew, because it was SUCH good money, and the owner paid me under the table, and if I'd been able to even talk him into giving me two nights regularly, I wouldn't have taken up stripping at the annoyingly cheesy well-known strip club, the name of which now escapes me, and I'm not gonna look it up, but it's something like The Great Alaskan Bush Co., ew, I think that's it.  yechhh.  that was a weird effing place to work, the end

* stripping again in LA when I came back to the lower 48 (the term used affectionately by Alaskans to refer to the bulk of the US) - I was really getting the hang of that particular club, too, but then I got SO fed up with my friend who was hosting me in order to be there in the first place, and just, oh, no, nevermind

* coffee barista at a stand inside a grocery store (NOT a Starbucks; also, where I acquired a solid education, firmly and certainly, thanks to a righteous bitch who completely freaked out on me one morning when I had a queue about eight people deep, in the knowledge that rice milk IS NOT soy milk) -- was known to drink sometimes as many as seven or eight shots of espresso in a shift, "just to see what would happen" (I would crash afterward and slump through til the end, napping when I got home for an hour or so) - my friend, Gretchen, our fellow team mate, K, and I referred to ourselves as "Team Peppermint," such was our love of the divine peppermint latte - and:  Gretch just texted me at Xmas of '07 to announce "Go Team Peppermint!," something I appreciated muchly

* stripper, after K fired me 'cause Gretch didn't have the stomach to do it, but it needed to be done, so I don't blame her (or K, for that matter), because I was flaking often and regularly (and by that, I simply mean that I was rolling in *awfully* late, like, easily an hour past opening time, sometimes - I never missed an entire shift) at le coffee bar, and this time was the very last rotation into the stripping scene; it's also when Justin Timberlake hit on me with his gigantic, puffy yellow afro and stupid faux-religious crucifix and dumb-ass coolier-than-thou attitude - oh, that stupid boy, I always thought, until he started cleanin' up awful nice and now?  yeah.  kicking. myself. more than enough to make up for everyone else who would've rolled with that action in a heartbeat -- I just HATED boy bands when they were happening, and was so beyond unimpressed, also, I didn't know who the fuck he was until I saw his picture the next day, but dude, trust me.  he was NOT the fella he is today.  also?     oy.

* temporary employee at another insurance company - I got so bored I finally just didn't show up one week, and was, naturally, let go, but only because I let *them* go *first* - my employment agency was, uhm, not super-happy with me and I sort of never got another job with them.  ever

* customer service rep for the sales office for one of the ski resorts on Mt. Hood

* student at a beauty school, which resulted in my being licensed to work as a nail technician and an esthetician, and I did nails at several racket-y salons where I paid more to work there than I made before I got out of it altogether and went back to the ski resort for another season

* ticketing agent for the sales office of the ski resort at Hoodie - preferred this position to the other one, and kicked ass at it, if I do say so my damn self, but felt like I needed something more regular and less seasonal

* worked at a very posh spa as a nail tech where they paid me hourly if I didn't have a client, SHOCK (srsly, this is not the norm in Oregon, or elsewhere, for that matter; you have to rent a station and acquire clients and it's hard and it takes years to build a business and I don't have that kinda patience or time, people), and the spa was part of a hotel so we always had clients which was good 'cause I made decent money there and worked almost full-time (but was attending school at a rate of 16 or 20 hours a term, depending, so had to have a little extra time to study and write papers and shit, also I was planning our wedding and doing most everything myself so, yeah, busy-ish)

* post-wedding crash-and-burn (got fired from the spa but, for the first time, it really wasn't my fault; the new spa director was gutting the old employees so she could replace them with people she hired and weren't influenced by the old manager's style), had, as I *finally* began my senior year, taken a job working for the english dept. of university, supposedly in order to DESIGN A WEB PAGE for the dept., which is the most laughable fucking thing ever, no rly, it's hilarious, because I?  don't know a fucking thing about web design or html or anything.  I just wanted that job because it paid better than the other ones in the dept., and it seemed more interesting and I figured I could use dreamweaver and it would be fine, and then?

I got pregnant.  and very, very sick.

* pregnancy break

* bought the embroidery machine and started learning to digitize

* digitized for awhile, then decided to start a baby clothes company! -- that went well.  as you can assuredly see, based on how impressive the site is now (iow, uh, flop)

* still digitizing, but probably going to either take another job at a fancy spa across town as a nail tech, working for my old manager, or go back to the seasonal gig at the ski resort, because I really liked that job and was proficient, at minimum, if I recall correctly, and maybe even quite good, and also, I really liked it *and* the people involved (plus a family pass would kick patoot, since I haven't snowboarded for three years, and DAMN would I like to crawl my outta-shape ass back up that hill and do some snow slidin'

Oh, fuck this meme.  Lotta, I love you, but I can't do this.

You totally knew, huh.  You knew I'd end up feeling rabidly anti-meme afterward, and my ardor for you would cool a little, and GOD but you're clever.  Diabolically so.

(don't hate me for not finishing it?)

(everyone else?  you're welcome.  I know.  it was horrid and endless.)

Only, wait, I have to add one more.

6.  Jack.  My little almost-three-year-old man alive.  Wow. 

7.  Blogging.  (okay, two more.)

Fucking blogging.  You are such a wench/my master.  *shakes fist*

It reminds me of the time, *it* being *this post*, when I was in LA, hanging out with a girl whose initials were L.A., srsly, and she and some other friends were about to smoke some pot and be silly and I was all, I'm out.  Nope.  Not gonna.  And they were all, dude, why?, and being total pushers, and I was all, no, because I'm a FREAK when I'm high, and they were all, c'mon, you're with friends.

And then I smoked and scared the living PISS out of them, and they were all, oh, I see, and I was all, TOOOOO MOTHAFUCKIN LATE, YO, and throwing signs and running wild in the local Sevvie (7-11) and they were all, uh.  Woops?  And I was a raging behemoth of ridiculous.

Which = this post, and why I never take on memes, because it's ragingly behemoth-y.

the. end. already.

Comments

[kate]

i am half way through. maybe less. back to read more soon. am interested especially in bullet 5. tgifridays. blargh.

[Melanie]

Holy motherfuck. You were SO NOT KIDDING about the Epic Blog Post, holy shit.

But you made it to seven! You rock. :)

[Defiantmuse]

I love you.
lol.

[qt]

WOW - there are jobs in here even I didn't know about, and I thought I knew about them all!

[Feral Mom]

OMG, you are bisexual too? I'll come back to the rest of the post later.

[Lotta]

Bring on your Alpha baby I can take it. I think.

Most excellent post. I too have done every job from shower inspector (true) to dry cleaner employee.

Can't wait to see you!

[Lotta]

PS - I'm not bi, but if I was I would totally double team Debby and Jenny (Bloggess). Totally.

[Jenny, Bloggess]

7 more reasons to adore you.

PS. Featured on Good Mom/Bad mom on the Chronicle: http://tinyurl.com/6lwlue

[kaytabug]

I figured it to be rude not to comment since I did loose, wait I can't remember when I started reading this.
Nah, really I have TOO many things in common with you from just this post that I had to leave a comment.

Came from Good Mom/Bad Mom.

[apathy lounge]

Man! You're so brave for taking on that meme! So much reflection. It's like trying to clean out a closet and then you get hung up on the nostalgia...or the pain and you quit before you're through. Me...not you.

[Audrey - Pinks & Blues]

Well I'd say you've been busy. BUSY. Not bad for 10 years. I think you have squeezed more in in 10 years than my 89 year old Nana has in 89 years!
You go girl!
I'm a lurker... so it's time to delurk! Love your blog!
You crack me the f up!
- Audrey
Mom Generations
www.momgenerations.com

[Mignon]

This is totally the Where's Waldo of the Portland from my 20's. What band? I went to Noah's on the first day it opened. I worked for a company that worked for Intel. I went to dorky karaoke places. Your life was the one I was chasing, except that I had to get up at 7 every morning to get to my desk job. And yet here we are.

And I have to fully warn people of the psychotic wrath of Stoned Mignon. My behaviour usually involves seeing how strong and cunning I am. Charming stuff like that.

[Kristen]

Your meme attempt and content feel like the personification of my posting and writing block for the past year or more -- there's just way too much, how can we ever say it all? I have to say, though, this was an amazingly good try.

[Motherofbun]

It cracks me up how so much of your energy and charm come through in your posts.

Oh and as for the listy-list... You've been busy in the last few years.