Working out.

There are the actors that fill the indelible need for stock characters. They fill the monotony of the day with predictable compliance to their roles. Robert stumbles around the lounge in a drunken haze, forgetting and fucking up, and stopping every now and again to recite some little known factoid, harassing me for being a grave-robbing archaeologist, or telling me a story I've heard several times before. If you share a name with a famous song, he'll sing it to you whenever you walk by. I keep running his drinks to his tables each time they sit for more than five minutes. He seemingly has the pity of management for the degree to which his dogs replace human contact, and he's been there for ten years, so no one really cares.

Martin started working at the lounge when he was only nineteen. One of those "it's okay I'm in school right now" jobs that you don't plan to last. That was twenty-one years ago. This would depress me, but he seems content. He's one of those characters who makes me question my own tendencies to beat myself up over any lacking of motivation. Twenty-one years is a long time, and to top it all off, he's vehemently right-wing Christian and openly gay. This curious combination has resulted in both celibacy, and the occasional blatant gross-out comment, usually made after a gaggle of female employees get bored and start talking blow jobs. I secretly bait him, and he always laughs like a vulture at the sight of a dying zebra. Today he's off early and telling me about his plans for the weekend. He's already told me four times about a play he's going to see, and as he polishes off his latest Strongbow, he starts telling everyone who walks by.

The number of people who have been fired recently disturbs me. First, my counterpart, the other bartender. I don't know what she did, but she simply was not there one Friday afternoon. She was replaced by a loud, odious wildebeest of a woman named Kimmy. She's worked in this industry for nearly two decades, and that means two things: that she feels entitled to give me unsolicited 'advice' (which sound more like commands), and that she is probably going to figure out who I'm dating and pretend to 'know' him. My boyfriend is a rather notorious figure in this city, if not for his charm and attitude, then for his unwillingness to put up with idiots and his surliness. I quite adore him. Others seem to fancy being associated with him. Everywhere we go, we run into people he 'knows'.

Kim grates my nerves like no one else. She makes random bleating noises--sound effects that probably go along with some thought freighter in her head--and speaks with a booming authority, laughing at her own jokes in a low-pitched staccato. Her worst offense, however, is the fact that any question asked of her is met with an intensely aggressive retort. She gets a raised eyebrow from me, a mental "what the fuck?", and I wander off to giggle and busy myself with other matters lest I become angry and actually give her the time of day. I can honestly say that I have never loathed another person's social style more than I loathe hers.