By Beauty Damned

As Good As It Gets

Man, I feel like complaining about work. My shoulders are aching like crazy. I'm exhausted. The crankiness has subsided a bit, as I've been home for about a half hour trying to unwind from this weary day, but I am drained. I guess the last thing I should be doing is sitting down at my computer and typing. I've been typing for eight hours straight already today. Somebody call me a waaaaambulance.

I had a great weekend with Rob and Kathleen and Charles, but it left me pretty tired this morning. I slept through my alarm, didn't have time to shower, didn't have coffee, couldn't find a blouse or the right shoes to go with a nice new pair of pants, got a grumpy attitude with Rob (it's actually a bad idea to try and talk to me within the first half hour of me waking up). Those things combined made it a rough morning. When I got to work I had a lot to do. And more and more and more. I did all my work. I put on my headphones and listened to music while I typed days and weeks worth of my boss's time entries. I put documents in the copier on my way to the bathroom and picked them up on my way back. I ate a little lunch while tracking a lost fedex package and simultaneously meeting with another secretary to help her with her boss's time entries. I assembled twelve packages to be sent for next day delivery. I sent bills to accounting to be paid. I pushed through. The funny thing about those days at work where you really just bust your butt and give it everything you have, is that just beneath the aching shoulders and exasperation is a sense of accomplishment and self worth. I've always felt that way about work. If you do it and do it right, even if you're spent at the end of the day, you feel like you've earned your spot on this planet. Of course, I could earn this same sense of self worth through other things that I perhaps would prefer instead of the practice of law, but so far it is what I do, I've been doing it for a long time, and I have pride in my own diligence and efficiency. So I ain't too mad about it. Just relieved now that the day is done.

Like I said, the weekend was great. We packed up the car and Kathleen and Charles and drove to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Friday night. We arrived at the Holiday Inn around 2 a.m. The rooms were fine, but some strange things occurred. First of all was the annoying tapping sounds in the wall that Robert maintains were definitely mice. Then there was the fact that someone came into our room in the middle of the night, turned on a lamp near the door, and then left. No joke.

I was sleeping like a log. Rob woke in the middle of the night to the sound of the door of our hotel room closing. He said the lamp was on. He thought I'd gone outside and come back in. I hadn't. I have no idea how someone got into our room, but someone definitely did. The room was pitch black when we fell asleep and I've never been known to sleepwalk. When we told Kathleen and Charles in the morning, Kathleen told me that someone had come and yanked on their door really hard in the middle of the night and shouted "fucking let me in! Let me in the room!" She was terrified. Charles thought she'd dreamed it because he was asleep like a log too. But when they heard my story they were sure it wasn't a dream. Kathleen told us a story about when she was a little kid in a hotel room in Chicago with her dad and the same thing happened except that the person got their entire arm into the door and was demanding they open up. Scary. But in our case I think it may have just been some drunk person who ended up in the wrong rooom, though I'm still mystified about how that person got in the room at all...

Aside from that weird shit, I was excited about the hotel pool. It was nine feet deep and I dove in several times. I am so sick of pools that are only four feet deep. Fucking kiddie pools. Even the olympic size pool we were in last weekend was four feet deep all the way across. Total bullshit. Since when were pools designed for people who can't fucking swim? So the pool at the Holiday Inn had me at hello. I was the only one who made time to go in and I cherished every minute.

We had a demo to do around there at a skateshop called Fishbone. They had a fun setup outside the shop in the parking lot with hotdogs and snowcones and cold drinks. The local radio station came and set up a booth and Dickies (the clothing company, not the band (that would have been so awesome!)) showed up with some racecar driver that they sponsor. There was a dunk tank and some other games. Kathleen and I decided to volunteer for the dunk tank. I went first. Rob came and bought three balls and hit the nail on the head all three times, dunking me over and over again. He was clearly enjoying watching me in my bathing suit get dumped into a tank and drenched repeatedly. It was a hot day so the dunk tank was a wonderful salvation from the heat, though it left Kathleen and I with a few nasty bruises.

After that demo we went to Philly. We checked into the Marriott which was a far cry from the Holiday Inn. We were much happier there. The service was excellent and the rooms were nice and there were no creatures in the walls or maniacs trying to break into our rooms. We went swimmng when we got there and then got ready to go out on the town. We had dinner plus huge margaritas. We were so full afterwards that we tossed around the idea of going back to our rooms and passing out. But we didn't. We gathered our youthful spirits about us and got our asses down to where shit was happening. We checked out a few bars and clubs before settling on a "billiards lounge." It was the best place ever. The decor was awesome, the billiards were well taken care of and the drinks were good. We stayed and got tipsy over a few games of pool.

When we left there Kathleen and I were the drunker out of the four of us. We swaggered side by side, doing silly voices and laughing crazy. I really liked laughing in the big hearty Santa Claus laugh and she really liked her high pitched Wicked Witch of the West laugh and the boys didn't like any of them. They just kept saying "you guys are drunk." Yeah. I thought that was the point of paying all that money for drinks. If we hadn't been drunk I would have been demanding a refund and no one would have been laughing then.

Robert busted his ass on Heelys across from the Liberty Bell. Friends don't let friends drink and Heely. I've learned my lesson about that one. Kathleen and I stood on the wall in front of the big cracked bell for a picture and got yelled at by the police. We laughed it off and continued on our merry way. The last of the night's drunk in public antics came when I rode the luggage cart like a skateboard through the Marriott Hotel lobby. I was not going very fast, but I was having a wonderful time. Until I heard "ma'am. Ma'am. I'm sorry. You can't do that." I apologized and saw that he was not mad at me. In fact, he was smiling. I chalked it up to him having a boring job. Drunk hotel patrons are probably one of the only entertaining things that happens in that lobby at that hour.

I know I know. Robert already said it. When will I grow up?

NEVER. If I'm lucky. Even when I'm seventy, I still think it will be fun to ride a luggage cart like a skateboard along the marble floors of a hotel lobby. So long as I don't break a hip.

In the morning we ordered room service, which is my ritual if I'm in a hotel on a Sunday morning. Eggs and bacon and hashbrowns and danishes and fresh fruit and yogurt and orange juice and coffee. There are few things in life that are more enjoyable than having that delivered to you in bed in the morning. I think it's pretty much tops.

We did our demo at Nordstrom on Sunday (working shopping working shopping it's hard to prioritize) and then drove back to New York last night. It felt good to get home, but the weekend lived up to all my expectations. I had such a great time with Kathleen. Everything is so much more fun when she's around. (Boys are smelly and not as much fun as girls. It's a fact).

Now it is back to everything else that resembles reality. :o)

Posted by Maria at August 1, 2005 07:29 PM | TrackBack