Is It Tuesday Already?!

So restaurant training goes well and I'll be on the floor next week.  I'll only write about waitressing these days if it poses any significant ADHD issues.   Otherwise, please assume work is going fine. 

So to the music festival... 

An accomplishment this week: yesterday I submitted an application for a grant requesting $3000 of support.   I won't sugar coat it, working on that grant was difficult.  There were moments I felt very dispirited and lost in a morass of, "in what order do I answer any of this?" but I pressed on and knew that no matter what I would be turning in that application.   The more pleasant aspects of it were writing about the festival as in the following:  

["Mary Ann's music festival ]is a free community event.  Participating residents (and businesses) within walking distance of a central [local city] location will host bands of varying styles and ethnic genres on their front porches over a four hour period.  At the end of the festival participants will gather at the [Jane Doe] Urban Park on West Avenue after 6pm for a big picnic and music performance.  Over the four hours of [Mary Ann's Music Festival], local residents and those from the surrounding environs, with map in hand and perhaps a picnic, will walk around to listen to the bands. This will be an opportunity for neighbors to meet neighbors and for local residents to share their musical talents.

I enjoyed answering the questions that asked me to paint a picture of the event.  

Harder to answer?  Any budget or "tell us in exact detail how you plan to get this event done."  These are the questions that could paralyze me and make me feel sleepy and demoralized. 

Luckily this is where two friends were of great support to me.  They helped me talk through what I had in my mind and to decipher what questions HAD to be answered and which ones could be answered in the subjunctive, as in "this is what I hope to do during the festival."   

The best validation the festival has received so far is from my friend Ron (not his real name).  One drawback to this grant is that the awardee receives the money AFTER the event.  In essence I have to find some way to pay bills in the meantime and then I'm reimbursed.  Very annoying.  However, Ron offered that if indeed my festival is awarded the $3000, because there is collateral, he will gladly loan the festival the money. 

Very lovely validation, indeed. 

Hints of Things to Come

With a great sense of relief I've completed my 15 hours-over-three- days of classroom training for the restaurant where I will start working this coming Sunday.   Sitting relatively still for that long can be painfully difficult.  That said, learning all about good customer service  IS interesting to me because I am made for and am very good at it whether I like that or not.  The difficult part is just making the necessary decision to dedicate myself overall to a job and industry for which I have no interest in advancement.  Waiting tables is what I need to do now to survive.  I would wait tables for the rest of my life though before sitting at a desk or work solitarily ever again.   

But back to the training.   For what could have been a mentally excruciating time, the trainer managed to make the time mildly entertaining.

High praise indeed.  

I did experience one adrenalizing, validating and yet bittersweet moment.  The trainer, whom I'll call John, pulled me aside before the start of the class to chat with me semi-privately.  Now I'm someone whose been fired before so in half a split second my immediate response was, "oh, shit, what embarrassing, shame-filled reprimand is about to be handed to me."  I stayed myself though and listened.  John simply said, "I first want to thank you for always being early.  Also, unlike most people in this training class, I think you'll do great here."   I felt a few responses bouncing around in my brain.  First, I felt very gracious for his words and that I agreed with him.  I'm 41 and have worked on and off for years in restaurants.  I'm emotionally mature and know how to work as a (very fun) member of a team.  Now the very cynical amongst you may say, "yea, he probably says that to everyone.  Like a parent saying to her all her children, 'you're my favorite one'."  

This is what I saw happen.  John did pull aside about six of us (amongst a class about 30) to say what he said to me.

Now considering I've been laid off or fired in the past five years, his praise is both welcome and graciously accepted.  But why is this whole moment, "bittersweet?"  No surprise, I'm just kinda sad it's about waiting tables.  It reminds me that at least for the next few months I'll be working a very physically demanding and exhausting job (a job without health insurance I might add).   

So I end to say that my response to this compliment lies somewhere in the middle ground.  I'm truly happy that I have begun to get good feedback on my efforts to slowly change the direction of my life and yet heavy hearted that it's still in an industry I want to put behind me. 

Essay - lite

Today I begin training for yet another job as a waitress.  It's mostly certainly not what I want to be doing with my life or time, but it's a financial necessity.  It's not all bah-humbug though.  I genuinely enjoy the high energy, fast paced and salty-tongued, blue-humored nature of restaurant work.   It's physically exhausting though and one of my goals is the put waiting tables behind me.  In the meantime, I train.  

Short essay today but I wanted to get something out.  I have some thoughts brewing and will most like be posting more than one essay this week. 

Rolling in the Deep (of Music Festival Planning)

Yes, I stole an Adele song title.  Please don't sue me.  

One of the struggles of the ADHD mind, or rather my ADHD mind, is that with so many failed projects in life's rear view mirror, projects in the present take on a feeling of unreality. The brain and wounded heart thinks, "naaah, that's not really going to happen.  You've never managed to get it together before.  Why would you now?"

The idea for a music festival hit my brain last May.  Months passed and that sense of unreality set in.  In that time though I did mention it to some key people who then expressed great interest in the project, people who had the social and business power to help me get this thing going.  

However, as anyone with ADHD knows, it's when you're by yourself, sitting at you computer trying to organize yourself that things fall apart (to steal another title).  Sleepiness, boredom and anti-inspiration settle in.  

I can honestly say that this time around slowly but surely things are different.  

Why?  For one thing, I understand better what I need and what I need is people around me guiding me towards my goal.  Two, the truth is I feel braver.  I am more comfortable with the unfamiliar choas the swirls around the planning of this festival yet I feel the emotional and social confidence to find the right people to guide me.  

Lastly, maybe it was sort of a rock bottom moment, but I knew that I had to make this festival happen for my own sense of confidence, period.  It was that simple.  I want to work in music but don't want to go back to school and get into debt to do that.  If I want to work in this musical world that I love then I just have to make it happen around me and let the chips fall where they may.  

This week has been wonderfully productive in moving the festival forward.  I've:

• written a press release (with guidance from a press experienced friend) and sent it out.
• created a grid that lays out the basic organization for the day's events.  Did that myself!  Not easy.
•  communicated with two local government officials to solicit their guidance and support.
• contacted a local web design company for a quote and
• scheduled a day for creating a fundraising video.

This event finally feels real to me.  
  

The Planning Has Begun

For readers of this blog, you may remember from a previous post that I am putting on a music festival in May.  

This is the most, "fake it 'til you make it" thing I have every done.  

My first act in fakery was last night when out of sheer need to create order out of chaos I created a drive folder in Google with the following folders in alpha order:

1. Accounting
2. Advertising
3. Communications to local businesses
4. Fundraising
5. Marketing
6. Permits
7. Porchfest Articles
8. Music Submissions
9. Post-show Assessment
10. Post-show Celebration
11. Post-show Clean up
12. Press
13. Streets and Porches Maps
14. Tchotchkes
15. Website

I also created this list because today I will be meeting with an older friend who has been booking music acts for years.  She is one of the lovely people who has offered guidance to me and I want to come prepared.  

I have no grand insights in this post but wanted to share with you where I am in this very intimidating yet exciting process.