So my roomie got a night job and now I get alone time. When the house is completely empty and Smarty the Overweight Chihuahua is whimpering and howling and anxious as hell, I get scared; but I like having the room all to myself because I can watch movies without using headphones. The little things, am I right?
I volunteered at Lit Crawl L.A. tonight. I was scheduled to come in at 7 p.m. and came in at 6 p.m. The organizers of the event were emailing volunteer schedules just today and yesterday and when I got to the venue, it was clear I was the one expected to cop the heat for all the dysfunction. I was like, um, Nah. The only things I got out of this gig were: half a dry chicken burrito from Chipotle; a glass of wine; and the realization I’m great at selling raffle tickets. I didn’t meet anyone I liked.
After two shifts of very muted readings and a handful of mishaps, I decided to bounce for a coffee and pie. It didn’t seem like I needed to set up for any party, which was what I thought I would actually be doing. At some point, other volunteers came up to give me donation envelopes and I was like, okay, I guess I’m in charge of money now. I went back to headquarters around 10 p.m. to return my walkie talkie and hand over the collections. I was ready to go home, but on my way to the metro I passed by my venue again and caught the eyes of one of the organizers, who motioned me back in.
I spent the next hour picking up event skills and getting people to buy raffle tickets for an item I had no clue about. I was surprisingly successful. The organizers barely acknowledged me, but they had a grand time drinking and eating hors d’oeuvres at the bar. The restaurant workers and I shared each other’s sentiments, sighing. Here we were, once again, catering to annoying, overdramatic, overprivileged people. It was pretentious, but a girl with pink hair told me I was adorable, so that’s really all that matters.
I left at 10:45 p.m. to catch the red line. On the gold line back, I sat across from the skater boy I wrote about a while back. An older lady carrying a load of things sat next to me, falling asleep. A man slipped a box of leftovers next to her as he was getting off the train and I found the act to be genuinely kind, but the woman left the box when she got off the train. I looked at her swollen legs and wondered.
I had fun volunteering, despite the organizers being dumb and scatterbrained. It was what I needed to get me through the rest of this week. I wasn’t inspired by anything or anyone at the event, but I inspired myself by not leaving after I got my free burrito. Would I do it again? 2/10, would barely recommend.
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