Flight

As I considered the overweight middle aged woman in the SUV beside me stuck at the red light earnestly popping a zit in her rear view mirror, the thought occurred to me I might be in for an unpleasant day.

It was a bitterly cold, albeit thankfully bright, morning and I was off to San Jose for a full day of interviews. I've decided that getting divorced, moving into an apartment and immersing myself into the Love of my life wasn't enough change and stress (both positive and negative) for me. So, I've added looking for a new job and making a, what I hope to me, total career and industry change.

In reality, the move is not a masochistic one, but mandatory. I've tried to avoid changing jobs, but in the process rode my current situation down a bit too far for comfort as my company, customer and industry hit a chaotic confluence.

I found myself blankly staring at my computer screen, unwilling (actually, unable it seemed) to focus and read the red e-mails peppered with exclamation points dually reporting that the message is "urgent" and the sender is an asshole.

I recently completely missed an internal preparation breakfast before a customer meeting. I had never before even been late, let alone absent, for a meeting. I had been talking to my Love on my mobile and she asked me why I sounded so glum.

My response, "I'm driving in a car I don't own to a place I don't want to be to meet people I don't like to discuss matters I no longer care about to keep a job I don't like to make money I don't need to pay for a house I don't live in and an apartment I wish I didn't."

After that, I pretty much puttered around aimlessly for the next few hours, getting gas, vacuuming my car, going through a wash, drinking coffee and eating some donuts in the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot sitting in my car (something I hadn't done for years since hitting rock bottom back then).

The real eye opener came afterwards in a crowded airport terminal in the midst of many members of my team. I had what I later realized was a panic attack and decided not to board the plane to Florida for the customer event I was hosting. I wasn't nervous about the flying part, I've flown over 600,000 air miles and I only thought I was going to die once (just for a split second as the plane banked suddenly in the right during a wicked storm over Lake Michigan). I just shut down thinking about more wasted hours traveling to meaningless meetings.

My team was very compassionate and talked to me like I was a scared 6th grader which at the time I really appreciated because my racing mind couldn't compute.

I remember sitting there in the empty terminal calming down and gathering my thoughts for the drive home. All my life I desperately clung to the myth of total self control as my primary method of survival, so the whole episode was unsettling.

I now sit ensconced in 1st class (upgrade, baby) penning this blog on my way to San Jose. When I say penning, I mean that quite literally. I had hoped to write this on my laptop during the flight, but I am not able to do so.

Because I left the fucking thing at the security checkpoint.

Ah yes, another sign that this day might prove to me a bit of a challenging one.

Now as I sit here hearing the vestiges of ways I have relegated to the past ringing in my head ("You idiot, how could you have forgotten such a thing?! You've never done so before! Pay attention!") I calmly inquire to myself instead, "What can I learn from this?"

The first thing I learn is that my handwriting sucks. (I am laughing now because I wrote the word "sucks" so poorly I had to cross it out and write it again. I hope the guy beside me doesn't think I'm laughing at him because he just dropped some of his omelet on his sweater.)

My hands first found a keyboard during 6th grade when my father introduced me to the membrane keypad of the Sinclair ZX81. Since then my fingers have been tickling the QWERTY of many a typewriter and computer (and, being an engineer and a computer geek, that was the only thing those fingers were exploring for decades, believe me).

So, I forgot my laptop at the screening area for the first time. It is getting increasingly difficult to get through the scanners anyway. I've started having to remove my belt because it seems they increased the sensitivity lately and the buckle was triggering the alarm. As I prefer to avoid the gruff man handling of a pat down (keeping that activity shared exclusively with my Love and my tailor) I obediently de-belt, de-shoe, de-watch... demean?

It makes me wonder why I'm able to fly with a belt at all. Couldn't I use this thing as a weapon of strangulation? Shoe bombs we worry about, belt nooses, no problem.

I did read about a nude flight starting to operate and I think that would basically be the sure fire method of preventing highjackings. There are many fun things to do while nude, but commandeering a jet is not one of them.

Although I find the concept of sailing through the clouds unburdened by clothing rather calming and appealing the downsides cancel it out.

As I understand it, you are asked to disrobe while on the plane instead of, more logically, in the security line. At 6'4" it is difficult enough for me to sit on the plane, let alone strip. In fact, on this flight while I was walking to the bathroom I stood up and immediately slammed by head into the overhead movie screen. I shook my head in mildly amused embarrassment and kept walking up the aisle. Only to bang my head into the next overhead TV screen.

Back to nude flying, the deal breaker for me; the overweight gentleman sitting next to me by the window just asked me to let him out to the bathroom. I notice his vacated seat is filled with crumbs and one discarded paper clip.

Imagining his bare bottom embedded with such debris brushing past me brings me back to harsh, clothed reality.

Harsh reality I am better equipped to deal with nowadays, allowing myself to embrace melancholy without slipping into depression but also ride the highs of happiness without flying into fitful fancy.

So what, I forgot my laptop. What is the worst that could happen? I made a fresh full backup rather recently (sweet) and I have paper to write on and books to read.

It reminds me of the last flight I took with three colleagues (and, more importantly, friends) of mine; the return one from the internal meeting I talked about in Hotel blog. We were sitting at the airport restaurant / bar patiently awaiting our departure while scanning the monitors noticing that every 15 minutes or so our flight was pushed back another half hour. Not a comforting trend, but all the flights to Chicago that day had either been cancelled or delayed. There was a blizzard passing through the area and that spells trouble for the busiest airport in the world (placed in one of the worst climates).

Undaunted, we laughed and drank a few local beers and ate some lunch consisting of local food (pulled pork, which despite being served at the airport was actually quite tasty). (Traveler's tip: Always eat and drink local. There are rare exceptions; like when your chopsticks pull out a rooster's head from the boiling pot in the middle of the table in Beijing, China. Don't eat that.)

One of the guys joked around with the waitress, playing one of our favorite table games, "Guess the country of origin from the accent." I was correct with eastern European, but none of us got Bulgaria right. It was fun until one of the guys told her his diet Coke was flat and she responded walking away, "What do I look like, the bartender?"

We moved closer to our departure gate and sat down at the restaurant / bar there (which was the exact same one as the one we just left. Apparently the designers never heard the term "variety is the spice of life". They just assumed alcohol was enough.)

It was there we watched solemnly as all the flights to Chicago on the monitor were changed to CANCELLED.

None of us fancied the idea of another night in Raleigh, no matter how pretty it was there. We wanted to get home, and I was still hopeful I could make the party my Love was having at her house for a few of our friends.

We checked the monitor for the closest destination to Chicago that was still available. Oddly enough, there was a flight to Milwaukee still on the board. That would give us a 2 hour drive to home, so we went to the desk to transfer. Coming back through security grasping our newly found tickets home, we were flagged by security. It freaks them out when a group of people suddenly changes their destination city, even when there is a logical explanation.

The security guard used a loud Monty Python accent to corral us into a special area and none of us found him funny, much to his disappointment. After we were cleared, we crammed into the small full jet headed to our next destination. The people on the flight were not happy. The businesswoman sitting next to me was so bitter she even complained about the descent. "This is the longest descent I've ever seen! What are they doing!". I was going to tell her to chill out, the pilot was landing us into a blizzard and we should be happy to be alive, but I figured that would just get me a well manicured finger nail jabbed into my eye socket so I nodded sympathetically and turned up the volume on my iPod. (Yes, we were able to fly a small jet into a smaller city experiencing the same weather as Chicago. It isn't logical, but I wasn't arguing.)

We rented a car and were soon making our way south on the highway. There were plenty of accidents, but luckily they were all on the northbound side. Seeing the miles of slowly moving vehicles on the other side, the police with their flashing lights, and the cars in the ditch was a chilling sight, but we were undaunted.

That is, until, we realized we were rather hungry and really could go for a bratwurst.

Much to the chagrin of the Scotsman in the group, the Italians and I were hankering for some pork products and what better place than the Mecca of Meat, Milwaukee?

We found the Brat Stop on our GPS and stopped in for a pit stop. It was snowing heavily and we were almost the only ones in this huge place. It was late, the weather was terrible and we were still hours from home, but at least we had each other.

Feasting on fried cheese, fried jalapeños (stuffed with cheese), fried vegetables, fried chicken wings and, for the main course, bratwursts, sauerkraut and German potato salad all washed down with a local beer (Spotted Cow from New Glarus: Hard to find in Illinois, but worth the trip to Wisconsin.) we joked and laughed and forgot our shared problems at the office. We talked about women as well, and this reminds me about one of the unexpected perks about working with nerds; they are for the most part able to carry on a conversation concerning women without using words like "tits" or "bitch".

I even got to talk about my Love, being gently grilled by the guys as to whether or not I was running away from something horrible rather than to something special. I appreciated their caring inquiry, and talked about how my new relationship was an unexpected gift. Unbeknownst to me, my Love was at her party with the two intrepid people who braved to storm to attend doing basically the same thing, talking about me and our relationship.

In a few more hours, we were all safe and sound back with our families at home (except for me, I was just back at my apartment alone, but safe).

So, what started out as a potential disaster ended up being a pork laden journey drawing my traveling and I companions closer together.

And, what stated out as an unpleasant day and trip to San Jose turned into a job offer.

Next flight: out of my crappy company!

Valentine

As this in the first Valentine's Day I have truly enjoyed experiencing, I offer the enclosed poem to My Love as a public display of affection.

"Eternal"

As I knelt, I felt
Reverence to you
Severance from shame
Fear & hatred

As I kneel, I feel
Fealty for you
Faultless & blameless
Love & lust

As I bow, I vow
My body to you
Purified by the searing
Heat of your soul

My love is not blind
But rather divine
And, you will find,
Eternal

Court

The first question on my mind as I left my car in the parking garage was not if I had reached the courthouse correctly, but whether I had arrived in a different country altogether.

It started with the young couple in front of me walking downwards in the urine tainted concrete stairwell. They nervously exchanged Polish phrases through bitter shivers in the zero degree gray morning wind.

It continued as I neared the entrance and a blaring loudspeaker commanded us in Spanish to, as far as I could tell, not bring camera phones into the courthouse.

I had been warned solemnly by my lawyer's assistant that camera phones were strictly prohibited. Although I never use the camera function in my cell phone, it is difficult to get one nowadays without this feature and of course mine has one. I left it in the car after saying good-bye to My Love.

They really took this camera phone thing seriously, though. There were multiple signs with big red letters (in English, oddly enough) that read "No Camera Phones". It was evident somebody later added in smaller print "or cameras of any kind". That is the kind of small rose I like to stop and smell during an otherwise menial and meaningless meandering.

When I was told I needed to be in court, the first question I asked myself was, naturally, what should I wear? I discussed this with My Love and decided upon a suit and tie. Wintertime is an especially good time for formal dress, giving one opportunity to accessorize with gloves, scarves and (theoretically) hats (which I do not wear because there is no way I am messing up my hair just to stay warm up top. Stay warm outside, look dorky inside. No thank-you.).

As I stood in the security line removing my overcoat, suit coat and belt for the scanning machine, I realized I was better suited for what appeared to be the shorter "lawyer/judge line" than the ordinary citizen one. Apparently a visit to the court house for most of these people involved no more modification to their normal attire than, perhaps, not wearing the shirt in which they committed the crime lest the blood stains weaken their alibi.

The chubby guy in front of my removed his pullover sweatshirt (which doubled as a coat for him, so he obediently removed it for the scanner. I think he could have gotten away with wearing it, but I admired his thought process.) His shirt came with the sweatshirt so there I am stuck behind Mr. Harry Bareback in line with his jeans falling off his ample waist, empty belt loops bemoaning their useless existence.

Since I breezed through security (save for setting off the alarm with my "dress watch" I had forgotten I was wearing. Nowadays I normally wear my running watch just for convenience and comfort whenever I check the time I can think about my last workout or event. Plus I like to think it makes me look like a runner, which I admit is stupid.) I headed down to the cafe for a Starbucks I was happy to find served there (gee, do you think they can dilute their brand image any more? It's bad enough to have them at the Dominicks, but at the frickin' court house? Yeah, that says sippin' luxury). $2 for a small cup later I sat down in front of the filthy floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the frozen retention pond / waterscape amongst a throng of lawyer looking and sounding people.

I was comforting to sit & sip among similarly suited men and women. It was, however, a bit unsettling to overhear their conversations. (I am able to hear simultaneous conversations and keep track of their content, even if I don't really want to. It is very helpful in my job at meetings where several things are happening at once. It can be a bit challenging in public as there is basically a constant noise in my head. I have gotten better at sorting and somewhat silencing this cacophony, but it is difficult to "turn off".)

"You can't take a fucking day off, you know? He gets to take off for surgery, but oh no, I miss one fucking day, and he's pissed off. You know?"

I didn't know. I gulped down the rest of my coffee and went upstairs to anxiously await the arrival of my attorney outside my courtroom. She never showed up. But these people did:

An attractive young woman trotted by wearing a nice gray wool turtleneck sweater paired with "anti cruelty society" sweat pants and running shoes (shamelessly inflicting cruelty upon anybody with a halfway decent fashion sense and working eyeballs).

An older gentleman wearing suit pants tucked into his over sized cowboy boots which were themselves fitted with goulashes. (I appreciate the effort of protecting your dress shoes, but I think these steel-toed shit-kickers could have handled the snow and salt. Besides, I can never wear shoe coverings because my father always wore them and referred to them repeatedly as "rubbers". "Mother, where's my rubbers!?" He never understood why my brothers and I giggled at this, and yelled at us to settle down to no avail.)

Cowboy hat and Bluetooth headpiece guy walks by. Screams, "I'm a high tech hick." Yee haw.

Then I see an older gentleman with nicely slicked back silver hair sporting a solid silver tie to match. Very well done, talk about aging gracefully. He enters my courtroom, and I realize it is past my appointed time so I enter in case I missed my lawyer.

She is not in there and the cramped room is packed, the bailiff asks me to please have a seat (rather politely, I might add, which I appreciated since she was packing heat and could have easily been rude to me and I would have sat my ass right down nonetheless).

After awhile, I see a sign that reads, "This room is monitored by surveillance equipment sensitive enough to record any audible conversation in the room." I wish I would have read that before muttering "where the fuck is my lawyer?" to myself like one hundred times.

I find myself looking at the silver haired guy wishing he was my lawyer. He seems to know what he is doing, smiling at the other attorneys, getting his case scheduled with the judge with ease and, I might add, style.

But, I am left alone. I give her a half hour and then bail (pun intended). The last case I see involves a slick eastern European lawyer in a pin striped suit and hiking boots arguing custody for a bald headed, washed out jeans wearing, sunglasses tucked into his tight shirt father. He ex wife is "representing herself", and this piques my interest. Unfortunately, the judge doesn't have time to hear the details and instead tells them to schedule a time with another judge.

At this point I leave, and I see this unfortunate trio emerge from the room as well. The woman looks at her ex's lawyer, "Well thanks for that total waste of time!" They start to argue in English, but then switch to Polish (probably to really get nasty).

And so I walk in a circle, and my futile court date ends as it began.

Food Court

Tonight my children and I dined at Gino's Pizza and I heard a song in the restaurant that brought me back to my high school job at Pizza 'n Pasta in the mall in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

"Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard off their "Hysteria" cassette tape. (I realize it is so uncool to use the term cassette but I grew up in the sucky 80's so I am not old enough to say album and not young enough just to use CD or Disc. My generation can best be characterized by a useless pile of thin shiny dark brown tape sitting in your lap as you helplessly put your finger in the tape hole, struggling to rewind the wheel and get the guts back into the plastic body).

"Step inside, walk this way
You and me babe, hey hey"

It was the summer of 1988 and I had a day job working at the Pizza 'n Pasta at the mall. At nights, I was a bus boy at the Red Lobster also on the mall campus. Each day I would drive my family's Ford Country Squire robin's egg blue station wagon with dented crappy fake wood barely hanging on the sides from my little town of Brandon, South Dakota (population 2000) to the big city of Sioux Falls (a half hour away with about 200,000 people back then).

I was able to get the job at the pizza place from a woman (Monique) who went to my church. She worked for the owner "Vini" in another establishment. I got the Red Lobster job on my own, going in and filling out an application. During my review, I told the manager Kevin Z. I wanted to grow up to be a Red Lobster manager just like him. He drove an IROC. I'm glad they didn't hold me to that statement.

The best part of that summer was that I ate free pizza all day for lunch and seafood all night for dinner. The worst part was that I had to resort to eating seafood mostly taken from the customers' leftovers or old fish that the manager needed to get rid of. By the way, leftover crab legs are gold in a seafood restaurant and only the waiters can eat them. Bus boys have to eat the non-shelled stuff. Another pecking order item you might not know until you experience it; when you close up the restaurant at midnight and divide the "example dessert platter", the most senior dishwasher gets first dibs and the bus boy once again gets last. Luckily nobody else liked Key Lime pie.

Every morning, I "stepped inside" the group of fast food restaurants in the round in the middle of the food court. These were tiny establishments, each about an eighth of a circle.

I "walked this way" through a tight little hallway to my summer cell.

"Love is like a bomb, baby, c'mon get it on
Livin' like a lover with a radar phone
Lookin' like a tramp, like a video vamp
Demolition woman, can I be your man
Your man"

Vini was a gangster. Actually, it turned out he was THE gangster of Sioux Falls. One of his legit operations was to be a bail bondsman. He would also employ prisoners on work release. I believe he did this not only keep in the good graces of local authorities, but also to take care of former and groom future "employees".

There were two types of workers at the pizza place. The cute high school girls working the register and taking the orders out front, and the convicts and guys like me working in the back making the dough and the pizza, safely out of sight of the customers.

One of the work release guys was in the back with me and I remember him motioning me over to him as he was talking on phone. He cradled the phone to his chest (the 80's version of the mute button) and pointed out into the crowd.

"Do you see that chick on the pay phone, you know, over there?" he gestured.

I nodded that I did indeed see the young lady using the nearby pay phone, over the counter, though the seats, near the crappy mall jeweler.

"Women know that guys in the joint are ready to go, and she's calling me to hook up, you know what I mean?"

I had no idea what he meant.

To this day, I don't know if he was able to copulate with this young lady who was interested in his unleashing his heretofore caged animal desires. You have to admit, it was impressive for him to get that far simply by eyeing her over the counter and slipping her a phone number.

"Razzle 'n' a dazzle 'n' a flash a little light
Television lover, baby, go all night
Sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet
Little miss-a-innocent sugar me, yeah"

I don't remember their names, but the little miss innocents that worked the front counter were relatively sweet and harmless young ladies who spent the work day dreaming about a better life and the rest of their free time, it appeared, lying under a tanning bed.

"Take a bottle, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up

Pour some sugar on me, ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me, oh, I can't get enough
I'm hot, sticky sweet from my head to my feet yeah"

The best part of the job was making the big glob of pizza dough. We would take the base ingredients, which included sugar, and mix them together. The worst part was opening the vacuum packed box of yeast. Yeast stinks, let me tell you, especially when it is expelled into your face under heavy pressure.

I would sing the above verse from this song while I was pouring the sugar into the mix, it was entertaining.

What was not entertaining wass watching Ray, the high schooler with full facial hair and a bad straw colored mullet, shaping the large lump of dough into a torso of a woman. He'd crudely form the breasts up top and then a slit an the bottom (complete with oil for proper lubrication). He would then simulate sex with his Dough Girl, luckily just using his fingers. I guess it was safe since we always wore clear plastic gloves. I didn't like leaving him alone in the back.

"Listen
Red light, yellow light, green-a-light go
Crazy little woman in a one man show
Mirror queen, mannequin, rhythm of love
Sweet dream, saccharine, loosen up
I loosen up"

One of the most depressing things I ever experienced was passing by the Pizza 'n Pasta years later, both during college and afterwards. I saw the same "once high school girls now grizzled women" working the counter. Crazy little women, mere mannequins in this small town life.

"You gotta squeeze a little, squeeze a little
Tease a little more
Easy operator come-a-knockin' on my door
Sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet
Little miss innocent sugar me, yeah
Give a little more"

My younger brother worked for Vini's son a few summer's later until Vini's son was put into federal prison for strangling his wife to death using her own pantyhose. Squeeze a little more.

"Take a bottle, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up"

The jailed man on work release (whose name I unfortunately forgot) taught me that the Non Alcoholic beer we had in the fridge actually contained a trace amount of alcohol. He would slam the contents of the N/A bottles and report that he was able to catch a little buzz.

"Pour some sugar on me, ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me, oh, I can't get enough
I'm hot, sticky sweet from my head to my feet yeah"

Ray had a girlfriend, a girl older than his high school age who had a full time job. Their relationship was way too serious, and I got the impression it made them feel like such adults to act this way.

During a span of a few weeks, Ray became demonstrably more frustrated and kept talking about how horny he was. He could get enough, but his "old lady" was having some unspecified female problems and so he couldn't "go there". He was very bitter about this. Sweet.

"You got the peaches, I got the cream
Sweet to taste saccharine
'Cos I'm hot, so hot, sticky sweet
From my head, my head to my feet
To my feet
Do you take sugar, one lump or two? "

As the lowest person in the ranks of Pizza n' Pasta, I was asked to do all the unpalatable jobs. Even the convicts got a pass as they couldn't leave the premises. I had to root around in the storage cellar during those hot sticky South Dakota summer months, getting more yeast, more boxes of soda concentrate and huge jars of the "secret pizza sauce".

Vini once asked me to help him carry some pizzas to his car and I was happy to oblige (for many reasons). I remember walking right past this Rolls Royce as he stopped and popped the trunk. My small town brain could not compute that this gentleman actually owned a car I had only seen on my 13 inch black and white TV during an episode of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous". I remember stupidly asking him, "Is this your car?" He laughed and replied, "I sure hope so, because if it isn't that means I stole it!" Perhaps he had.

"Take a bottle, take a bottle
Shake it up, shake it up
Break the bubble, break it up
Break it up"

I didn't really appreciate it at the time, but my managers (who shared time at Vini's other eating establishments) were all drunks and drug users. Professional, clean ones. One even did jail time, much to the chagrin of his wife and young daughter. I didn't even know what cocaine was, but I would overhear stories of how they were racing down the street in cars driving backwards, out of their minds, screaming at the top of their lungs. I recall wondering why they would do such a thing. Perhaps this is a reason I never touched an illegal drug (still haven't).

"Pour some sugar on me, ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, c'mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me, oh, I can't get enough
Pour some sugar on me, oh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me, get it, come get it
Pour your sugar on me, ooh
Pour some sugar on me, yeah
Sugar me"

Hotel

Leave it to my Boss to turn a four hour internal motivational meeting into a two day ordeal wasting both time and money and leaving pretty much every employee embittered.

I flew down to Raleigh, NC on Wednesday for this meeting to be held Thursday morning. Raleigh is in the South but not the Deep South. People still hospitable, talk funny and move slowly, but they have more of their teeth.

The meeting was scheduled in the morning which made it convenient for my Boss to depart that afternoon on to the next city / group of victims. It also made it impossible for the rest of us to fly in during the morning, have the meeting, and fly home to our families that evening.

So the 20 people who weren't local all got to stay in a hotel; this in a company that since being taken over by Private Equity is totally fixated on cutting costs. They are also focused on making sure we all know our overpriced underperforming asses are the only things standing in their way of flipping this company, cashing out and moving on. Our executives, most of whom were reasonable people before the takeover, are now fond of using phrases like "Do or Die", "Now or Never" or, my personal favorite, "Push like Hell!". In fact, my Boss' Boss that runs sales globally is being pushed so hard he has stopped making any sense whatsoever. Check out this e-mail I received from him in reply to my announcement of a key design win at my customer:

War congratulations
well Sone
regards,P

Ah, a nice warm congratulations note that also says "I am too fucking important to spell check and have way too many high priority e-mails to really care".

Back to the hotel, I've stayed in a number of flea bag flophouses before and this certainly was not one of the worse ones but nonetheless made this metrosexual's skin crawl. When I was growing up, staying in a hotel was a rare treat. We either stayed in a camper or a tent. That is, if my dad didn't make us just sleep in the car as he drove like a maniac straight through to our destination. The few times we rented a room the establishment was selected on lowest price alone and I shudder to recall the stains on the floors and fecal matter still caked to the toilets.

Ok, let's get back to my room. Sure, it was a "suite" (which I guess meant it was kind of large and contained an empty fridge and coffee maker) with 2 king beds. Two major things bothered me, though, the first type of which were things that were actually not there.

As I laid on my bed reflecting on the day and relaxing towards sleep, I looked up at the wall to admire the artwork and was greeted by the following site:

Ok, so somebody stole the picture. Interesting, I guess there is really no need to replace it, right? The next morning I go to take a shower and hang my clothes on the inside of the door so that the steam will start the de-wrinkling process (Travel Tip!). I closed the door and, viola, somebody must have needed the hooks more than the hotel:


My favorite troublesome item, though, was the "office chair" in this so-called business traveler's suite:


Yeah, I am going to plop my bottom down on that surface. This necessitated me putting a towel down before doing my e-mail in the morning. I usually put a towel down before sitting on any of the furniture in a hotel room, but that is because typically I am not wearing pants.

When presented with the freedom of being alone in a hotel room on the road, I typically frolic freely in the nude. I find it very calming to privately practice my personal penchant. It was almost a compulsion in year's blessedly past where I felt trapped and suffocated in both my personal and professional existence. Now that I have found love and freedom, it is more of a pleasant pastime (and, mind you, not a prurient one).

I'm sitting there trying to check e-mail after firing up the coffee maker and I can't get the connection to work. Undaunted, I open the door to discretely check for the morning paper. Apparently $90 a night does not include enough margin to cover a USA Today or even a crappy local rag. By the way, my room was located at the top of a flight of stairs coming up from the main lobby. It was the most exposed room possible, even having a full view of the glass walled main office. I guess it was a good thing I had my running clothes on (I'm sure the people ascending the stairs at the exact moment I opened my door for the peek would agree).

Into the shower I went, protected by my flip flops (Travel Tip: hotel showers are putrid fungal Petree dishes from which you must shield your feet). When I got out I was assaulted with towels thin enough to be see-through (exaggeration) and more abrasive than my loofah (accurate). Yes, my Love got me into loofahs (I sometime hold them in my hands and ponder wistfully, "Where have you been all my life?") and I now am the proud owner of four of them: one for me and one for my Love hanging in my apartment shower, one in my gym bag, one in my travel bag. Although I elicit some glances at the club walking around in a towel casually swinging my scrubbing sponge, it is worth the mild embarrassment (which I am calloused to, for the most part anyway).

I then went downstairs and decided to have breakfast. This consisted of my grabbing a white Styrofoam cup and plate, filling them with coffee and scrambled eggs (respectively) and heading back up to my room.

I also checked with the front desk about the network. "Weeeer having problems with the eeeenternet, sir" the rotund lady behind the counter assured me. She didn't seem that concerned about it, and she looked at me like, "it's free and you get what you pay for, nerd."

My cup of coffee consumed in the room, I was ready for (TMI alert!) my standard morning elimination routine (stop bitching, I warned you and you kept reading). (One of the side effects of being a runner is that you get very comfortable and in touch with your body and bodily functions. At this point, I actually find it extremely intimate that my Love and I openly and without shame can discuss bathroom stuff or anything else. Ok, we don't sit in front of the fire with a glass of red wine talking bowel movements plumbing the depths of life's mysteries such as "Did we eat corn last night?" It's just that not only are we both runners but also we've exposed every intimate detail about ourselves to each other already. Yes, everything. Yes, even that stuff. Yes, I do highly recommend it.)

Just because something is difficult and unpleasant doesn't mean it can't be wonderful in the end.

Like this business trip I was on (and, yes, I'm as thrilled as you that I found a way back to the main story line) which I will continue in the next installment of this blog (titled "Flight)!