Don't You want to be an Artiste?

Today, The Chef came into work, and as usual everyone tightened their assholes and "focused" on the dainty duty at hand.
I didn't think it was going to be a particularly stressful service-- so I didn't wear a kerchief around my throat like a noose and I decided not to wrap bandages over my tattoos for fear of offending "Corporate". I knew there was some kind of "Riddle me this Peasant" bullshit steaming in the Chef's mash of a mental colander though, so I was prepared when he headed straight for my mise en place and started snacking with a thoughtful face.


After some minutes of him sampling my roasted beets (golden, red and candy) and after him tasting my frissee, my endive, my raddicio, my goat cheese, my maytag blue cheese, my perfect german soldier granny smiths, raspberry vinaigrette, my caesar dressing, my sherry vinaigrette, my champagne vinaigrette, my ancho cobb dressing, my rustic garlic croutons, my chili pepper tortilla strips, my candied hazelnuts and all of the other wonders I am under ward and weary to put forth under duress with the most prep work of anyone in house (his words to all) .... he pauses and says, (with no criticism of my food)...

"I thought you wanted to be an artist." or "Don't you want to be an artist." I am not sure which.

It took me about two seconds to turn and face him and say, " I am an artist." To which he responded with an "oh right" kind of pause and then said, "i mean, wouldn't you want to work in a gallery or something?"

I have been thinking about this absurdity since he brought it up. There was no time to put all of my thoughts together and out there for pick up, because like a lot of Chefs, you have about 5 seconds to discuss something not related to the Chef-- before his figurative wang drops and his eyes go cloudy like a dead cod out of water. He might actually walk right away as you are answering the most important question ever posed, but that's not the kind of business Chef need waste his time on. Just stay whimsical. Build your salads as tall as tossed architecture will allow and then go home.

Thought I wanted to be an artist? You mean like when I grow up? Because I am 35, you know. Maybe I confuse people with my youthful appearance and knack for taking things lightly and saying what's on my mind. Maybe all people notice is that I haven't filled my closet with the uniform of career moms everywhere. The Marshal Fields high school counselor look or the Marshall Fields high school counselor look. And the hair that women in their twenties and thirties opt for as a "professional look" is fucking dismal and it just shoots the life right out of them... or maybe all over their face-- like a jetstream of gratitude from corporate headquarters, topped with a bow that human resources rounded everyone up in the break-room to make, by promising a long overdue treat and finding out that the treat was human resources wasting your time as they took photos of people smiling to hang on the Happy Wall that hovers over broke ass fuckers as they eat during a forced lunch.

Was that a run on?

I asked the Chef why he asked me about being an artist and working in fine dining, and he said it was because someone had applied to be a server yesterday who wanted to be a nurse. He chuckled and told me the most hilarious and ingenius thing I had ever heard. "I mean, if you want to be a nurse... uh, duh... why don't you work in a hospital?"

Knowing I had no time to make any points at all before the body snatchers took him away from me again, I just said... Shit happens. Shit happens to all kinds of people all the fucking time all day long. Grandmothers are scrubbing walls in hotels while young hotshots shit the bed and laugh at the mess they leave in their wake... "Its job security, man." If my job was to clean up bodies of homicide victims... I would love it if someone could give me some job security by liquidating some of these boring one dimensional privileged bastards. Have a fucking heart for chrissake, and stop thinking you are so fucking great. Because, you're not great. You're not even a pimple on a man's ass.

I had a point, but will apparently have to return to make it. I will return later to post a painting recently commissioned and completed in its various stages. So, yes I am an artist, but I still have to have a job. I wish my job could be judging and dismissing all of the people in the world facing intense adversity in my fantastical dictatorial debut... but for now- I'll have to settle for making fancy salads for people who don't worry about paying rent, and never imagine that the hands which plated their stunning lunchbox are as calloused as my heart is driven.