A short list of things I am bad at:

1. Math
2. Basketball
3. Serving

I thought I’d get used to serving.  Not to sound like a dick or anything, but I’m a fast learner and become reasonably awesome at most things with just a little bit of experience.  But serving?  It eats my ass.  I’m terrible at it.  I hate it more than I’ve hated almost all the jobs I’ve ever had (with the exception of dog grooming, because any dog that requires its anal glands to be squeezed before bathing is disgusting).  Only lunatics want to be servers.  There’s a huge anniversary party at the bar tomorrow and I hope they’ve decided to have actual servers wait tables instead of me.  I have half a mind to chain myself to the bar and refuse to move unless I’m pouring booze.  (Fine, appetizers at the bar aren’t so bad.  Everyone’s much more easygoing when I’ve been serving them beer and joking with them for the past 20 minutes.)

But I am nothing if not committed to a goal, and I’ll keep doing whatever I have to do to make my down payment larger.  I seem to have stalled at a certain amount.  I don’t know if it’s because all my yearly expenses are happening at once, but it’s getting hard to hurl myself over this money fence.  Thanks to all the friends who take pity on my plans to be more frugal – Courtney with the free music (I’m drawing the sleeve art right now, Courtney, really, I’m halfway done and it’s right here next to me!), Stephanie with the free books, anyone who wants to buy me free drinks – your efforts are hugely appreciated.  You’ll have places of honor when I throw my housewarming party.

Speaking of housewarming parties, wouldn’t it be a great idea to throw a bar stocking party?  Like, everybody brings their own booze to drink, but they also bring a bottle of something to start building the home bar?  Well, I think it’s great.  It’s not like I’d annihilate the home bar by myself; it would be used to drunken those who contributed at future gatherings.  I guess some people might think it’s obnoxious, but if these are the social problems you have when you don’t have kids, I suppose I’ll put up with it.

As much as I like living by myself and will (I’m sure) sorely miss it once Graham moves in, I concede that for being on my own, there are an awful lot of things I need help with.  Moving.  Painting.  Pretty much anything I should be able to do but usually fail at because I suck at staying focused.  I’m no San Fran Toothpick Man, that’s for sure.

The best way to get me to do something is to challenge me at it.  Be better than me at it.  Tell me I should do it but probably can’t.  My response: FINE.  I will then.  Fine, I’ll apply for the job.  Fine, I’ll write that story.  Fine, I’ll get myself a goddamn house and make it liveable and convince everyone to bring me alcohol.

(Lest you expected a revelation at the end, I’ve thought I might be able to apply this to serving, but it turns out I can’t.  Because I hate it.  And it sucks.  Fine.)