The Unauthorized Autobiography of a Doppleganger

Yesterday one of my coworkers came into work during his free time with his boyfriend. As they stood in line, one of them had his arm around the other and his head on the other's shoulder. This was a pretty defining moment for me, being stuck in central Georgia in the midst of the bible belt. I felt extremely comforted to suddenly have this knowledge and see this moment, and in some way it sparked a hope I sometimes get that one day I might be doing that.

After they left my manager said to me, "I don't know if I can handle that." Confused, I asked her what she was talking about. "Him and his boyfriend coming in here all... kissy kissy."

I spent the rest of the shift quiet. I'm pretty sure my newfound level of discomfort wasn't obvious to anyone.

. . .

Today I made some drinks for a regular female customer and her lady friend. It was a pretty normal transaction, I don't remember anything weird or noteworthy about it. I made the usual small talk, rang them up, marked their drinks. I saw them at the condoment bar getting cream and sugar, nothing noteworthy.

As soon as they walked out the door, my coworkers were whispering about how they never knew this regular was a lesbian, and remarking how they were so obvious about it. They said you never saw them being hetero in public...

When I first got here I was sad to be leaving a lot of people behind. After a few days I felt like I got over it, I was okay day to day and working on the new life and goals. I was actually rather upbeat about how well I was adjusting. The last few days have been getting hard though. A lot more so than I thought it might. The little holes were clotted but are now starting to bleed out again, worse than initially.

I had my first shift at the new Starbucks yesterday.

Two negatives first. I've already griped to some of you about the tip situation. Every time I've transfered to a new store, it has been to worse tips than before. I think I've reached a low point here where things can only go up! My first store was about $3-4 an hour in tips, second $2-3, third $1.50-2. This store, when asked, said proudly that they made $1.25 an hour this week. My sister and I just stared at them blankly.

Secondly, the drive thru situation bothers me. While one person might be assigned to the drive thru, almost everyone wears a headset in order to hear or respond. Working with on ear covered and an order conversation going on in half my head doesn't sit well with me. Everything sounds muffled and I absolutely can not wear that headset and still pay attention to my full surroundings or the people talking right to my face. It's going to take a lot of adjusting.

On the good side, the people range from cool to okay. I think there'll be at least one person I actually like on most of my shifts. Also, I seem to have made a really favorable impression as far as how I work. A few people were impressed by me. Hopefully this doesn't mean I have a reputation to live up to now.

My next shift is tomorrow at, unfortunately, 4:45 AM.

. . .

I've been looking at digital cameras a lot lately and doing some price comparisons at different stores. Apparently my mother noticed this and today offered to loan me the money to get one. I gladly took her up on it and now have this amazing modern wonder. Of course, now that the capabilities are in my hands, all the things I wanted to take pictures of elude me.

The house we're buying is new. Nobody has lived in it before and it is supposed to be a finished product. Upon today's inspection, the house was found to be riddled with unfinished work and problems upon problems. Apparently within the first hour of inspection they realized the roof was half done, most of the insulation wasn't finished, and the wiring job was shoddy and already falling apart. They lost two circuits just starting the inspection. All of this can supposedly be fixed within the next month before we move in, but we're skeptical. Naturally my parents are quite tense now. It is their money and their decision, but I can't help but wondering if a building company could sell a new house with all these problems, how much better would it really be once it is "fixed".

I founded my World of Warcraft guild on the Moonrunner server: Awesome Stag Party.

I'm waiting on my last assignment to be graded by my instructor, so there's little responsibility for the next day or two. I start work next monday, bright and early at 4:45AM. I'm not looking forward to be working in Starbucks again, but I am looking forward to getting a paycheck.

I'm coming down from missing everyone like crazy. The days are getting a little more normal and I'm worrying less about the fact that I have no friends here. Or that everyone I already love is 16 hours away. I listen to podcasts, spend very little money, and work on the medical transcription. I'm back into World of Warcraft some even though I'd rather spend that time working on music, in retrospect.

I've been listening to the Harry Potter books on audio CD. I'm actually pleasantly surprised. I could never read them because two or three chapters in I would find myself saying, "Uhg, this is such a ... kids book." But when someone with a stunning british accent and excellent character voices is reading them to me, they're rather nice.

My sister and I start work at the local Starbucks next week. Neither of us have ever worked in a store with a drive-thru and I have never been a daytime shift supervisor with real responsibilities, so this will be interesting.

. . .

We have a house now. However, due to whatever combination of mortgages, contracts, paper work, etc., we can't move into it until August 18th. It is a pretty nice house for the four of us; my sister and I will have our own full bathroom, there is a porch worth sitting on in both the front and back yards. The rooms are a little bigger than what we had in Jersey.

. . .

In other news, we've seen a few brown recluse spiders and a lot of fire ants.

Your result for The Attachment Style Test...

The Cling Wrap

46% Anxiety Over Abandonment and 33% Avoidance Of Intimacy

Take The Attachment Style Test at HelloQuizzy

The assistant manager at the store I'll probably be working at is from Deptford, New Jersey. She moved away from there about 2 years ago. Also, one of the other employees is from Macguire Air Force Base. So with my sister and I aboard, that will make 4 New Jersey refugees on the staff. Creepy, eh?

One of the things that amazes me about this town is how many iterations of the same business can exist in such a small area with so little to do. There is a Flash Food gas station almost every mile. I've seen 2 Sonics, 2 Hardees, and at least 4 Waffle Houses. In a drive down Russell and Watson, the two roads on which all non-residential life is centered, my sister and I found no less than 6 small businesses that specialize in giving you a loan in exchange for the title on your car. 4 of these were actually the same company - can there be such a compelling demand for that service out here?

A note on Waffle House - the back of the menu proudly proclaims that the world waffle eating record is 23 Waffle House Waffles and was set in Stone Mountain Georgia. Also, you can get a 'double' slice of an extremely good pie for $1.90. This pie puts any New Jersey diner to shame and costs half as much.

In more negative news, the local library is the same size as our apartment. The children's section is twice the size of the adults. Over 75% of their audio book collection is still in the format of cassette tapes. There's a Books-a-Million store that has an immense amount of books for its size and a small cafe, but it seems nobody is payed to sort them. Other than a vague indication of genre, even a brief glance reveals crimes against alphabetizing that make the library assistant and bookstore clerk within me writhe in pain.

. . .

In other news, I bought a number of pairs of shorts. It is amazing how much difference it makes in the heat. It is equally amazing how obvious it is that my legs haven't seen the light of day in years, except perhaps by accident.

Since I'm always capable of finding the negative things in any situation, especially this one, lets put together a list of things that are positive.


• I told my parents I smoke and no longer need to hide this.
  
• Cigarettes are only $3.50 a pack.
  
• I use far less gas.
  
• The apartment complex has the most comfortable swing I've ever been on.
  
• $2 movie matinees at a theater that only shows slightly old movies. This weekend they get The Happening, Strangers, and Harold and Kumar.
  
• I should be working at a nearby Starbucks sooner than expected.
  
• $5.50 gets you all you can eat pizza at Stevie-B's, and if you don't like what is at the buffet you can request a topping combination that fulfills your every desire.
  
• Sonic
  

I've been in Georgia for about 24 hours now. It's a noticeably slower place than New Jersey. The last two hours of the drive here was nothing but fields and farms - not even a gas station, but there were a few churches. I saw a dead pig on the side of the road in the same state you'd see a deer in NJ.

There is one mall nearby. I explored it today in about ten minutes and then left. It's about a quarter the size of any mall I've been in - comparable to the Wayne Hills 'Hall' near William Paterson. A few defining characteristics: it has no Hot Topic, one place to buy music (FYE), 1/3 of its space is taken up by the food court, and it has a small wing devoted entirely to recruitment offices for each of the 5 military branches. I like to imagine going to hang out at the mall with your friends and, how convenient, signing up for military service.

I asked a group of teenagers at the local Starbucks where a good place to see movies would be. They responded that the only place to see movies is at the mall down the road.

Everything of note seems to revolve around about 3 intersections worth of space.

I spent a few hours reviewing my medical textbooks at the Starbucks. I overheard a few different groups conversations and kept hearing the same sentiment expressed in a few different ways. The sentiment was the same, the expressions slightly different. My particular favorite was, "Well, it is Sunday in Georgia. It's a long day without liquor."