Tonight after work I somehow lost $90 cash out of my pocket.
It could have been while I was scurrying around finishing the closing duties.
It could have been while I was rushing to the elevator.
It could have been while I was standing inside the elevator.
It could have been while I was bee-lining for the men's locker room.
It could have been inside the men's locker room...or on my way outside...or perhaps while I was walking down the street or even climbing inside Sheila's car.

The fact is it could have been any number of places.
But the bottom line as of this moment is that I am without money that I worked incredibly hard to earn.
Tonight was not the easiest of nights up in the glitzy glam of Departure.
I was bustling from one table to the next, taking orders, making conversation, clearing dishes, running food. And I was contented in my devotion to efficiency because I had this boon in mind, this goal of gratuity.
And then, when finally the last check is closed, the final table is vacated, and my paperwork is done and approved, I come to find that it was mostly for naught.

Don't think that I only see the value of my job as monetary. I realize that I encounter hundreds of people and situations every week that broaden my perspective on humanity. This is something I would say allows me to better concoct the characters, stories, and lives I put on paper. But the money is the thing that makes it all systematic; that permits my seeing to the facts of life so that I may create the fictions.

And when the money is gone, there is only me. Me and more tables.
Me and more nights solemnly resigned to spilled alcohol, late food, and drunken inanity.

To lose the profit I make is to lose the one thing that makes me able not to work when necessary.

And I feel like a failure.
I know this feeling won't last.
I know I'll eventually let go of the meager sum.
It's just that until then I feel like I'm somewhat unfinished, incomplete, inconsequential.
And I begin to let those odious feelings of permanence creep under my skin; those notions that I will never be anything more or do anything more than what I am and do right now.

And that thought drives me mad.
Mad to the point of feeling utterly sick to my stomach.
Mad in the head and mad in my heart.
Like I'm ill and my only cure is to work my way out of sickness.
And losing any part of that battle feels like its own brand of insurmountable defeat.

I just wish I had a patron.
I long to let go of these petty worries.
They are cumbersome, stupid, banal, and completely without inspiration.
I do not know how much more of them I can withstand.