Thoughts about the New Job

Sometimes I sleep on one of my hands and when I wake up it is still asleep. Yesterday morning was such a morning and when I tried to turn my bedside light off--yes, I'm afraid of the dark--my hand was so asleep I couldn't tell what I was doing. I might as well have been using a cheese grater to turn the thing off. It's feeling a little better now, but not completely awake--kind of like my parents after 8pm. But the reason I got up so early yesterday because I WAS GOING TO WORK! WOOT!

Friday after my body had gotten up, my brain felt like it had maybe decided to go jump in the toilet and push the flush lever a few times. I got my coffee and went and sat by mom who told me she had found me a job if i wanted it and that we could go right now. All I could think was that I should probably go fish my brain out of the toilet for this conversation. When it was put back in it's proper place (a place it seems to be constantly trying to make a break from), it finally sunk in that I had a job. That Mom had just thrown me an inner tube to rest on in the dark waters. And the little air spout hadn't even cut me when I climbed on.

The job will be working outside at this farm that is part of a camp that promotes healthy lifestyles for overweight young girls (How random is that? Pretty freaking random). I'll be doing odd jobs and the like. Friday after "we can go right now!" turned into "I'll need a minute, Mom" we went out there and I helped prime part of a fence with a 19 year old girl who maybe the very picture of lovely. I met her parents (the ones who hired me) and they were so kind and funny. They felt like my own family not so long ago. I had vivid memories of people dad had bought at the FFA auction coming out and helping us to spray beans with a powerful herbicide (Once sprayed, plants actually disintegrated before our eyes) on one of the four comfy seats with umbrellas situated in front of the 4440 John Deere Tractor. The contraption was fittingly called, The Bean Bar--which i'll name a tavern/coffee shop should i ever come into ownership of one. I tried to find a picture of what The Bean Bar looked like but I couldn't find one. So I took the liberty of collaging you a picture. Unfortunately my "Paint" program is a little primitive. I apologize if any of the sprayers look a little phallic.

Growing up on a farm made me feel like maybe I would be the rockstar of the summer at this job. But then I had just a few worrisome doubts. Like last summer when I was in Nebraska and I was helping my cousin, Matt, clear some branches from a tree he was cutting down at my grandparents house. Well I was doing pretty well, what with my jeans and bandanna on. Sometimes looking the part is half the battle, and it's usually a battle I don't win very often. In this book I recently read, a little girl comments on the same thing, "That was the thing about Julie; she always looked exactly right for whatever she was doing, whereas I always looked like I'd walked through the wrong door into a story that had nothing to do with me."

Anyway, Ranessa and I were tossing branches into a big pile. Probably around the first or second branch I tried to ho-heave caught on my piddly target jeans and ripped them asunder. I'm talking from the side seam at about the bottom of my left front pocket to the middle of my leg. It wasn't a cutesy tear that you would spend $80 for, it was a rude opening, practically pornographic. I imagined my conservative and modest grandparents looking out the window at all that skin and clutching their chests and having to breathe in paper bags. But luckily when the door is shut a window that I can shove my fat butt into is opened. In this case, the almost too small window was my bandanna. I pulled it off my hair and tied one corner on a belt loop and another corner on the next belt loop creating a little curtain of privacy. It also helped sop up some of the blood from where the branch had also scraped my leg. Like most things it wasn't perfect, but it managed.

So, you know, there's that to worry about this summer.

I have to say, though, yesterday went pretty smoothly. Aside from when I accidentally painted over a spider which caused me to throw my paint brush in the air while I did the heeby-jeeby dance.