Helloo "travelling for work"

I was away! For work! Work paid for me to eat awesome food!

Something about being alone in a strange city with no real ambition to go out in the morning and explore was at first luxurious and too quiet. Staying in a hotel room yourself when other people are occupied only has certain charms. I resorted to an old standby: hours and hours of TLC’s What Not to Wear, which always is a good thing. I could have gone to museums and strolled around, but I let laziness take the hold in a sea of soft sheets, cheez-it crumbs and the occasional tissue.

After the first day, things were a bit better. Exploring and the like, when I had time in between conference -type joys. I’ve never stayed in a hotel by myself before, and it’s weird to have your clothes in drawers and not feel “aahhh I’m home” when you let yourself in. Just more of a “aaahhh… I just might take my 5th free piping hot shower of the day”, which is its own joy to be sure.

People have different ways of functioning in hotels. Some people, like me shower. Some people actually do some work or go to the hotel gym. Some people relish the time alone. Right then was sort of one of those times that I didn’t want to be alone. I am sort of bad at being alone, unless it’s on my terms. It was a strange place with a marble desk wasn't my terms. There’s no Food Network there, you see.

As I got busier with my conference, it was WAY more fun. I had two beds. One was my "living room" and the other my "bedroom". I took joy in resisting the mini bar and $5 potato chips that loomed large before me in my hungriest hour, even. I didn't do a thing, except flood the bathroom and eat one gi-normous meal a day after a long day of "learning". What can I say? Foreign shower curtains and I aren't really friends-- it's not like my OWN shower curtain isn't a co-dependent whiner stuck on the right side of my body.

Also the interwebs were like, 500 dollars a minute, which is why I am back-posting. I don’t have $500, and if I did it would certainly be spent on shoes.

Since I've become a whiney asshole

Here is a list of day dreams I play out in my head when I am upset.

1. Arriving home to find a wicker basket wrought with pink ribbon full of soft, wriggling, white puppies on my doorstep (for me to keep and be nice to, don't get any awful ideas).
   
2. Singing karaoke (current song idea: "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse, past songs include "Stolen Car" by Beth Orton) only to be discovered by record company and brought to fame, fortune, and total skinniness.
3. Turning my knitting habit into some sort of arts and crafts themed bar/bookstore on H street with a greeny-blue decor, hodge-podge tables and hilarious drinks.
   
4. Meeting a celebrity while riding public transportation (movie star/ musician preferred) and having them be instantly charmed by me, but sweetly decline because i have a "boyfriend".
5. Starring in MTV faux-reality show about being self indulgent, the trials and tribulations of living in a warm place, being thin, and surviving.
   
6. Like Marge Simpson, I close my eyes and think of items I'd like to purchase.
7. Dream up situations where the offender finds me walking down the street with a single perfect tear rolling down my cheek and suddenly realizes how awful it is to wrong someone so attractive, and then something dramatic happens (catch up with me with a "Breakfast at Tiffany's" style kiss in the rain, apologize profusely and hands me a large check, tells me I won the lottery, has pizza, etc.)

it's in the air.

As a Taurus, it's in my nature to stand at an impasse with my arms folded and bottom lip out refusing to budge. I am completely resistant to change. I am the champion of the way things were.

Even when I left my old terrible job, I felt guilty somehow that I was letting them down for leaving and thought about changing my mind. Just to keep things the same.

I moved to a new neighborhood. It's a very nice neighborhood and I like living on the Hill in its own right, but the 42 bus doesn't go here. I used to live and die by the 42 bus. The orange and blue lines are somehow not as successful a lifeline. The 42 always took me to happy places with butterflies in my stomach. Now I long for those days before the butterflies turned to wasps.

I complained about my stompy upstairs neighbor. I bemoaned her awfulness to everyone and anyone. But now that things are too quiet for me to bear, I sort of wish for her squeaky, thunderous warning signals that someone else was here, living and breathing right above me, so I wasn't completely alone. Just quiet in my own little box of an apartment and she (less quiet) in hers.

I miss the whizzing mechanical hum of stability. Right now everything could change, and I don't know how else to kick and scream and say NO. I am fighting for last week, last month, last year. If I could frame my pace before any missteps I would. I saved pieces of paper documenting what last felt normal. People can't leave. People can't give up. People can't die. People can't change. That much. Time is so short yet so slow. How do people reconcile?

Because I can't. I can't even deal with how I rearranged my refrigerator for Christ's sake. I've been growing out this damned pixie cut for months and I'm sort of grateful you can't really tell.

But all around me it's looming large. Faces are in my head of people who are gone, and people who might be next. People who are shrugging their shoulders and threatening to go, and people whose shoulders are bent from hanging on.

And I'm just sort of here, with my arms folded waiting for the hubbub to die down before I try and put things back where they belong. Asking me to change against my will is difficult. I never go down without a fight. It's in my nature to ride out storms with my chest puffed out for what I want.

The trouble is other people. And what they want.