Decided to try the local library for internet service since, a, you'll remember i have no home online capacity at the moment; and b, it's free, and thus cheaper than the local internet cafe, which by the way has been a waste of time the last few times i tried to use it. You get a half hour here, you just have to sign up. The guy on computer 5 didn't wanna leave just now! I made a comment about how he must be special, loud enuf for him and everyone else to hear. Now he's moving! I must have my internet access, youdig? Only problem is the library here in Astoria is closed, at least the one nearest to me. Isn't that great, to live in the richest city in the world and the fuckin library is closed on Saturday & Sunday. It's a workers' paradise I tell you. No library, but thousands of overpriced little cafes and boutiques and spas... that's where our priorities are in this meaning-bereft society. Anyway...
Worked a double shift last night, so I'm dragging a little today. Wanted to sleep a little later this morning, but helicopters hovering all morning, seemingly outside my bedroom window, made more zzz's implausible. We did a teachers luncheon at one school from 9:30 to 2:30, and then a retirement dinner at another school from 3:30 to 9:30 -- 11 hours or so of work. We did eat good, though, when it came time to break. I was passing appetizers at the beginning of the second gig, so i made sure to sample each and every one. The second one was much harder than the first, as dinners are typically more work than your average luncheon. Three of us worked both parties, so there was a lot of fucking around during the last few hours, in between busting your ass breaking down the party so you can get the hell out of there at a decent hour.
Have 3 days off and then I'm working Monday & Tuesday. But then it slows down considerably from what I'm told. I am trying to get on a summer party list, work the Hamptons or something. I received two major recommendations in the last week or so for what that's worth, some woman named Regina i think who runs another catering company. We will see. Haven't worked a proofreading gig in a week, which really sucks. I have to get the job search in high gear pronto, but for whatever reason I've hit a mental roadblock.
Returning a book I just finished called Oh What A Slaughter -- Massacres In The American West: 1846-1890, by Larry McMurtry; yes, that Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove, among many other books, and of course the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain, as well as the dad of criminally underrated folk rock troubadour James McMurtry. It doesn't cover Little Bighorn, only those "skirmishes" where under 200 folks died. Here's how he describes massacre: "The image of a meat shop seems apt to me, since what massacres usually do is reduce human beings to the condition of meat, though the bits of meat will be less tidily arranged than the cuts would normally be in a decent butcher shop." In addition to well known ones like the Fetterman Massacre, there's the story of a Mormon-led raid on white settlers in Utah. Someone is hovering over my shoulder now and my time is up, so let me post this sucker and continue from the internet cafe later... I have 5 minutes so I wanna quote from an eyewitness to the Fetterman massacre on what brutality the Indians wrought that day: "Eyes were torn out and laid on rocks; noses cut off; ears cut off; chins hewn off; teeth chopped out; joints of fingers, brains taken out and placed on rocks with other members of the body; entrails taken out and exposed..." and you get the idea. Myself personally, i always root for the Indians, since you can make the case that no matter how brutal an Indian attack, in some manner it can ultimately be justified as self defense. Outta here!
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