Tessie D

It’s Wednesday. It’s April.  What I really mean is “Crap, it’s April.” I graduate next month, and I needed to send out my college applications already.  I haven’t sent anything out.  I am going to graduate in a month. I have no idea where I’ll be next year.  I’ve been thinking and I’m just going…

I didn’t get a chance to post last Thursday, and now it’s already Monday.  Where to start?  Home. School. Work. That’s about it right now. I am either at home, school, or work. I haven’t hung out with anyone in a few weeks because I have been working evenings and weekends. Lisa and Amy said…

I wasn’t supposed to work last night, but Alex called the house while I was at school and asked me to come in to cover Deidra’s shift so that she could study for an exam. Momma gave me the message as soon as I walked in the house, so I changed into my uniform and…

I worked again last night on the floor from five until closing. I am not training any more so I have my own tables and can keep all my tips, which, I’m not going to lie, are pretty great. I don’t have to take customers’ orders because they go through the line before being seated.…

It’s Monday, and I’m tired and sore after my first weekend working at the restaurant. I have never walked so much, so fast in my life. My first shift was Friday night, “5 ’til slowdown,” they called it, and it was hours of go, go, go. Everyone running around filling drinks, bringing out food, carrying…

Something still feels off.  When I got home from school yesterday, Momma was in the kitchen wiping off the countertops with a dishrag. We started talking about the job and for a moment, I felt like I was playing make believe, pretending to be an adult.  Alec had called while I was at school to…

I did it. Yesterday, after school, I drove over to the restaurant in Flugerville about the waitressing job.  How do I explain what happened? I don’t know if anything even did happen.  Let me at least put it all down. If you’re a freshman, sophomore, or junior, you have to go to school all seven…

I’ll head over after school today to see about the job at the diner.  I told Momma and Daddy, and they both seem lighter—like they’ve been lifted up.  Watching them move around the house with a renewed sense of hope—Carnival Daddy is back—I just feel frustrated. Where is all of this…momentum…when we need it? Before…

Momma suggested this weekend that I get a job.  The only places that hire high school students are the Dairy Queen, the Buckboard, and the grocery store. And, they all pay just $4.25/hour, which hardly seems worth the gas to drive into town for $15/night. Besides that, just about every high school junior and senior…

So, that was that.  Prince was gone.  Daddy came out later that morning and dragged Prince to the back pasture and buried him. It was the first time Daddy had done anything resembling work in months. I half expected him to be angry about Prince but he wasn’t. The Daddy of the Carnival was gone—he’d…