tales from the front desk

I started working at the front desk of a hotel right off the I-10, mostly overnights...

A somewhat crazed, big-haired, lady just checked in and told me to put her in a room that was inbetween other occupied rooms. i thought it was odd because usually people want to be away from other people, but before I could ask what it was about, she told be she has a kind of a stalker who's an independently wealthy millionaire. She says he is very slick and sometimes employs friends and acquaintances to rent rooms next to hers so he can tap on her wall at 3 in the morning. Apparently he follows her all around the country doing this, just tapping on walls in the wee hours of the morning. Never anything more harmful than that. At first I thought she was a schizophrenic or something, but who knows? maybe he's the crazy one...

pillow talk

I just bought, for the first time ever, a pillow. Two, actually, and I'm cursing myself for not doing it sooner. I've always had hand-me-downs, the most recent of which is this lumpy monstrosity that feels something like sleeping on an emaciated cat with clumps of fur matted to its skin. Its not furry though.
I don't know why I waited so long. I think I figured they'd be more expensive than the seven bucks each I dropped at Sears. I want to try them out, but I'm too excited to sleep.

Fuck art, let's dance!

If you're reading this... what you should be doing, is dancing. To dance is divine. Sinner.

Heat

It's July, the dead of summer, and sometimes, at night, I have to wear a sweatshirt and possibly a jacket just to be comfortable. Summer, to me, has always been a time of intense heat and finding ways to relieve it, because when you do, it feels so good. I miss that intensity. How do people experience their intensity here? How do you?

fireworks

I just spent my first 4th of July in the state of Washington. I can safely say that I have never before been in a place where amateur fireworks displays were so common and extravagant. It only reminds me of the people who have the Christmas lights that everyone hears about and drives miles just to see. Certain neighborhoods here are known for their $th of July fireworks displays. Thousands and thousands of dollars were spent by neighbors within a 5 block radius. I don't know what's legal and what isn't and none of the people I talked to seem to either. A general consensus seems to be that the ones you shoot off into the air are not legal, but no one does anything about it. Anything that has no source of propulsion can be purchased at one of the hundreds of fireworks stands that started popping up everywhere about two weeks ago.
The neighbors two houses down where making booms that didn't sound like they could be bought in stores. Apparently they were making them out of empty gas cans and sparklers. The neighborhood was shaking and it was basically just air pressure. It was a fun night and I barely left my backyard.

Happy Birthday!

I’ve been struggling lately, with the point to posting my inane observations and feelings toward this life, in this tiny corner of the internet. That’s all this is, right? A place to comment and describe the world I see around me and display my perspective to a potentially “world wide” audience. But, why should anyone care what I think when I don’t even know what I think half the time and the other half may just be a more permanent mood-swing based on some unseen stability in chemical reactions.
What I mean is: why document these tiny slivers of human existence? Are they for the documenter, or the few that may actually read what is written? What’s the point? Does it matter?

“I'm not a teacher: only a fellow-traveller of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead--ahead of myself as well as you.” GBS

It’s early, relatively speaking, for a Friday night, 10 minutes past 10, and I’m about to go to bed because I work at 6 in the morning. It’s July 1 and thanks to our nations impending birthday and the over-abundance of newly erected fireworks stands, there is a loud explosion of a varying proximity, outside of my window every 5 minutes or so. If I close the window, it will become too hot, though it may help to muffle the sound a bit. I realize that this is the most challenging question I’ve had to answer today. I had a pretty good day. heeheehee. I’m going to sleep either way.

Rock Candy Mountain Sinferno

I’ve had a good couple of weekends, and this impending one seems to have that recipe as well. I have to be at work soon, so this is going to be brief, but then, I’ve always been a fan of brevity.
Two weekends ago basically started on Saturday morning. I worked the night before and just watched a movie or something when I got home. Or maybe it was Wonderfalls, my latest Netflix DVD addiction. It was a show that they made almost a season’s worth of episodes, then aired only two before it got cancelled. Stupid Fox. It is a well-written show and odd. Inanimate objects speak to the lead character, telling her to do things. But enough about that. Its good.

Saturday morning. I woke up and went into Seattle with my mother. It was the weekend before Valentine’s Day, which made some of the shopping that we did even more unbearable than normal. We went to a place called Bellevue first, which is what Scottsdale would be like if we’d had Microsoft and Boeing money. Some of the oldest thirteen-year-old girls I’ve ever seen. And the Botox count made double digits. Then we went to Pikes Place Market on a quest for fine honey, too crowded to browse like I would have liked, found the honey and headed for home.
Saturday evening. I drove down to Olympia to visit a friend of my sister’s, B. Evergreen, the university she attends, was doing a production of the Vagina Monologues and I was encouraged to go. My sis had been in one up at her school, plus it seems that every girl I’ve ever met has seen it, so I gathered my $6 worth of feminine hygiene products for the entrance fee (to be donated to a woman’s shelter, I believe) and went on in. It was quite good. Funnier than I’d expected, with moments of jarring reality of the atrocities that some woman in less fortunate parts of the world still endure. I’ll spare you the details as some of the visuals still make me shudder. After that, I went to a college party, got drunk and passed out.

Sunday morning. Woke up and went to breakfast at “The Place”, not to be confused with the one in Flagstaff. Different owners, same place. It was a lovely day so we, B and I, went for a drive to the top of a mountain where here friend Forrest once took her for a view of Washington’s Capital. The mountain’s name was Rock Candy. Love it. So we drove around this mountain on dirt and gravelly, logger roads in search of a view. It reminded me of driving around Prescott to “The Spot” and Emerald City. We found views (though not of the city), and big, powerful trucks, men with large guns, and a series of dead ends. The men were guns were gruff at first, but opened up with a little Jackrabbit charm. I think everybody wants to be friendly if given the proper opportunity. We left the mountain, got some coffee, watched a movie and I went home refreshed.

Last weekend.
I worked until 9pm on Friday then drove back to Olympia to crash for the night before the further trek to Portland. B wanted to hitch a ride to visit XO and I went to see Mr. Chair. We awoke early, ate some breakfast and went on our way. Details upon arrival are slightly hazy so I’ll hit the finer points. We drank good beer at wonderful Portland bars. They are all wonderful from what I can tell, tastefully dark ambience with amenable service. We had plans of hopping bars all night, but when Chair got a call about a BBQ with some friends, how could we pass it up? It was great. Good people (no coincidence they were largely Arizonans), good food and ahhh, the laughs. I met Shankara Chase (a TS Lounge regular) and then we went to a bar. I think. Hazy.
Sunday morning. Woke up, slightly hung over. Went to eat breakfast in Hawthorne at a lovely little place called Jam. They make the stuff there, you say. And its good. Bloody Marys came next at the bar that adjoined this beautiful little, old-time movie theater (the name escapes me and there’s no time for research) and then we went back to Chairs to try to catch the UA B-Ball game. We missed it and watched Robot Jox instead. Ha! All the BBQers came over shortly after that, more beer was shared, more food, laughs, Robot Jox again, The Amazing Mysterious Actor Show, and an incredible view from Chair’s building’s roof. The whole city. Beautiful. Makes you want to meditate.

The evening. We went to Dante’s for Sinferno. Words cannot express its glory. Burlesque, Cabaret Show with an incredibly likable host. Fire Spinners. Acrobatic strippers. Suicide girls. London. It was all mesmerizing and the drinks kept coming which only helped. I talked our little group into sitting on the floor, directly in front of and slightly below the stage. There was apprehension at first. Dirty bar floor? Classiness? I don’t know, but there were no complaints after the first act. Best seats in the house. Hello London. Hello London. Oh there you are London. Sleep came easy that night.

*sidebar* I forgot to mention the glory that is Powell’s Bookstore that we visited on Saturday. One city block, something like 4 stories. It puts NYC’s The Strand to shame. I could spend a whole day there and not feel satisfied. I felt that way at the Louvre.*

I had called in sick to work so that I could stay until Monday (I love Presidents too) and there was some drama due to that because of poor communication skills on my part but everything worked out lovely. They even gave me extra hours to make up for lost ones.
Monday morning was spent lazily with B and XO. Nice breakfast, stroll around Hawthorne, ice cream then home. Wonderful, wonderful.

Now. I’m going to get a haircut, then to work. I work from 6am to 10am in the morning (make-up hours) then its off to Seattle to try to get into the UA/UW basketball game, back to Olympia after that for an evening of drunken relived college days then back to Seattle on Sunday evening to see a show that a guy I work with is in. I can’t remember the name of his band.

So much for brevity. I love you all. I’m late.