this-is-furious replied to your post
Aug. 23rd, 2016 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2bdtKq3:this-is-furious replied to your post “this-is-furious replied to your photo “Heirloom tomato tasting for a…”
What a weird and fascinating thing! A lady in jodhpurs! Senators! You tell the best stories, about everything.
I don’t think there was really a senator, that was embellishment.
I did used to know some senators, I worked behind the bar in the VIP club in the airport for a while and the local senators had twice-weekly flights to and from the capital (300 miles away) and hung out in the club. They were boring and sort of patronizing old men and never tipped me but never bought anything either, I just poured them free sodas for less than minimum wage because it was technically a tipped position so they didn’t have to pay me minimum, but if it’s free nobody tips you because they don’t have their wallets out. (I worked there one day a week, and the other four or five days a week I worked in much more lucrative airport bars so that was why I put up with it.)
It was funny though because I went to a really exclusive private high school and then on an exchange program after that, and was surrounded for those five years with really sort of glittering-elite-type people who were my peers, and were all girls my age going through the same awkward phases, so I got kind of used to the blithe unimaginably-wealthy heiresses kind of mixed in with the scholarship kids and I could never tell the difference, but I sat through like a billion wine-and-cheese-type receptions as one of the attendees [they never served us wine, but it was around; on the exchange program, they stuffed us full of wine and learning how to get genteelly smashed was part of the unofficial curriculum], so later on, being a waitress and going to them as one of the invisible staff was really really illuminating. (And that was the thing about my school; great academic stuff, of course, was what they did on paper, but in real life, there were all sorts of Mandatory Extracurricular Events that involved basically training us by immersion in how to behave at dinner parties and receptions and concerts and things, including bonus levels if you were paying attention on how to walk in heels on marble staircases and the like (and probably bonus lessons on drug-using etiquette that I was far too naieve and oblivious to ever get invited to), and of course you’re not going to admit that you’re running a finishing school, but I tell you what, having spent my formative years up to my eyeballs in absorbing manners like that has proved far far far more useful in my real life than any of the classes I took; I’m awkward as fuck but I know which fork to use and where your water glass goes and how to properly pass a pitcher of water and how to cut from a loaf of bread to genteelly serve everyone present and where your napkin should go and who to serve in what order and a few bonus-level tidbits about different levels of dietary restrictions and thus what’s polite to offer to whom and what’s not kosher for Passover and so on, and that goes an enormous way toward being graceful at parties even when you’re the most awkward asshole ever to attempt to occupy a physical space.)
Anyway. Long story short. Telling stories is pretty much the only thing in this world I’m any good at and I have worked harder on it than I care to mention.
(I was super into self-improvement as a kid; I realized that you had to work to pick up skills, so I really wanted to be good at a few things and worked my butt off to acquire them, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. I’m reasonably good at tracking animals and people in rural settings– pavement’s a bitch though, I can’t really do much in urban settings– but I’m absolutely atrocious at estimating distances even though I really really really wanted to be good at that. It’s the numbers that defeat me, see, I can’t keep a number in my working memory long enough to count that high.)
What a weird and fascinating thing! A lady in jodhpurs! Senators! You tell the best stories, about everything.
I don’t think there was really a senator, that was embellishment.
I did used to know some senators, I worked behind the bar in the VIP club in the airport for a while and the local senators had twice-weekly flights to and from the capital (300 miles away) and hung out in the club. They were boring and sort of patronizing old men and never tipped me but never bought anything either, I just poured them free sodas for less than minimum wage because it was technically a tipped position so they didn’t have to pay me minimum, but if it’s free nobody tips you because they don’t have their wallets out. (I worked there one day a week, and the other four or five days a week I worked in much more lucrative airport bars so that was why I put up with it.)
It was funny though because I went to a really exclusive private high school and then on an exchange program after that, and was surrounded for those five years with really sort of glittering-elite-type people who were my peers, and were all girls my age going through the same awkward phases, so I got kind of used to the blithe unimaginably-wealthy heiresses kind of mixed in with the scholarship kids and I could never tell the difference, but I sat through like a billion wine-and-cheese-type receptions as one of the attendees [they never served us wine, but it was around; on the exchange program, they stuffed us full of wine and learning how to get genteelly smashed was part of the unofficial curriculum], so later on, being a waitress and going to them as one of the invisible staff was really really illuminating. (And that was the thing about my school; great academic stuff, of course, was what they did on paper, but in real life, there were all sorts of Mandatory Extracurricular Events that involved basically training us by immersion in how to behave at dinner parties and receptions and concerts and things, including bonus levels if you were paying attention on how to walk in heels on marble staircases and the like (and probably bonus lessons on drug-using etiquette that I was far too naieve and oblivious to ever get invited to), and of course you’re not going to admit that you’re running a finishing school, but I tell you what, having spent my formative years up to my eyeballs in absorbing manners like that has proved far far far more useful in my real life than any of the classes I took; I’m awkward as fuck but I know which fork to use and where your water glass goes and how to properly pass a pitcher of water and how to cut from a loaf of bread to genteelly serve everyone present and where your napkin should go and who to serve in what order and a few bonus-level tidbits about different levels of dietary restrictions and thus what’s polite to offer to whom and what’s not kosher for Passover and so on, and that goes an enormous way toward being graceful at parties even when you’re the most awkward asshole ever to attempt to occupy a physical space.)
Anyway. Long story short. Telling stories is pretty much the only thing in this world I’m any good at and I have worked harder on it than I care to mention.
(I was super into self-improvement as a kid; I realized that you had to work to pick up skills, so I really wanted to be good at a few things and worked my butt off to acquire them, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. I’m reasonably good at tracking animals and people in rural settings– pavement’s a bitch though, I can’t really do much in urban settings– but I’m absolutely atrocious at estimating distances even though I really really really wanted to be good at that. It’s the numbers that defeat me, see, I can’t keep a number in my working memory long enough to count that high.)
