My sister-in-law had a job interview today, so I spent the morning at Junibacken with my brother's daughter. As always, it was far more fun than I anticipated. I should cut that kid some slack, we're always having an awesome time and yet I always feel apprehensive beforehand. I can't help it, most kids make me cringe. It's just this little mini-me that I like hanging around.
Museum interiors look like they'd be so much fun to design. Forced perspective, stylistic choices, no need to design anything 'real'-looking... seriously, if someone were to come to me and say "Hey, we're thinking of making this room into an exhibition hall. We want a giant gorilla with a slide in there somewhere", I would be the happiest camper.
My sister-in-law totally understood when I told her about work and why I was quitting, as she's in a similar situation and just doing whatever she can to get out of it (thus the job interview and my playdate with a four year old). Granted, she's around ten years older than I am and in a much more stable situation both financially and socially, but it's still nice to have someone who thinks you're making the right choice and not telling you to just tough it out. It makes me feel a lot better about things.
Not everything was happy camper-mode today though. I had another argument with T, where he got pissed about my fluctuating mood. "I never know what to expect with it. It's like a ticking bomb," which is a reference I've literally never heard before in regards to me, but all the more often with my sister K. I thought it was an unfair thing to say and started arguing about it. Yeah, I've been pretty far from stable the past few weeks, but T's far more moody than I am. If he's pissed off one day, trying to get him to talk is like pulling teeth. Anyway, the whole thing didn't end terribly - I recognized my fault in the scenario and he recognized his, so we got it sorted, but I was left feeling like everyone's fighting me right now. Maybe it's because I'm subconsciously fighting them. I just feel this tension from T when I talk about going there. Maybe two years of feeling like the other person is a figment of our respective imagination isn't doing wonders. Turning real is pretty intimidating.
Speaking of fights: while I was taking care of my niece, Norimaki-san called me, telling me that she'd quit her job at the other restaurant. Just like that. Apparently she'd had a fight with Karate Husband where he'd gone above and beyond his usual dick-ish-ness. I wasn't completely sure what had happened since Norimaki-san was very agitated and was venting into the phone at light speed, but things were undoubtedly bad and Karate Husband had just gone too far. "A normal Japanese person would probably just apologize and try to smooth things over, but I'm not taking that kind of disrespect. He's messed up in the head!" She quit mid-service and went home. I was a little jealous at her ballsy attitude, and I really wish I were that cool, but I need to stay on Karate Husband's good side for a little longer. Surprising nobody, Shan came to Karate Husband's rescue. "You know, Norimaki-san isn't like you or Mafune. She talks too much. I mean, we love her and it's fine when it's to us, but you can't talk back to Karate Husband. It's against the culture! Then again, I don't have to tell you. You know it already, and you never get in trouble." It's true and all, but I still wish I were more like Norimaki-san. There's something really liberated about standing up for yourself like that.
Then he went into nostalgic mode when thinking about my replacement. "I hope it's someone good like you. It's very rare though. Most people don't last. They can't handle it. Even guys crumble under the pressure and fail." Little does he know that I'm not dealing with the pressure all too well either. I just bend backwards for it not to be visible to others, especially at work. "You can do anything," Shan continued. "That's what I always say. If a person can do this, they can do anything." It might even be true. Waitressing is harder than it looks. Keeping everything in order in your head, in combination with cardio from running back and forth and weights from lifting shit, all wrapped into a smiling package of 'Would you like anything to drink with that?'. I felt touched after hearing my Sri Lankan extra dad say all those lovely things about me though. I did what I did, and even though it was terrible in a lot of ways, I still take pride in the fact that I did it well.
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