This week I was unexpectedly sent out of town on business. I usually hate business travel. This time, I don�t know exactly when I�ll be home. I had to email Nicole and tell her that I may not make an appearance on Friday. She sympathized. She just got back from doing 4 cities in 4 days. The breakfast bunch at the hotel this morning were so humorless and muted that I started feeling sorry for all these people sent out of town on business, being forced to eat hotel breakfast while reading email on their blackberry�s. Their personalities obliterated by whatever business details swirling around in their heads. I felt sorry for them; that is, until I became terrified that I could become one of them. ACK! Thank God my job doesn�t make me travel too often. However, I kind of like staying in hotels, as long as I can spend time in them. I know that sounds crazy, but I enjoy being in a room with unlimited fresh towels and linens that I don�t have to clean myself. Towels especially. I wasn�t joking about my As for the rest of the room, I prefer neatness and cleanliness but I hate organizing and cleaning. I would rather it just be done through no effort of my own. I adore hotel maids. I like the isolation, too. It�s more than just being alone. I�m in an anonymous room in an anonymous hotel. A person couldn�t find me if they tried, and no one is going to try. I�m both difficult to access and uninteresting to those around me. That is just how I like it. I don�t have the time and energy to delve into my reasons for this, but it�s pretty obvious to me. There�s something else, too. I think it�s because there are so few of my personal items with me, that they are easily organized and tracked. I often feel so bogged down by stuff. Although, I must wonder, if that is the case, why do I have 265 different kinds of bath products with me? A long time ago, I had a coworker-friend who was similar to me in that way, except even more so. He once told me that he wouldn�t own more things than would fit in his pick-up truck. This was back when everyone was buying their first DVD player. He liked movies, so he got one. A few days later, he took it back to the store. I can�t remember all of his reasons for not liking it, exactly. The only one that really stuck in my head is that it put him over his pick-up truck limit. If he ever chose to suddenly pack up and leave, there would be no room for it, so back to the store it went. This was coming from someone who lived in the same apartment for 20+ years � with no bed. I like to travel light, too. But, I also like sleeping in a bed. No one has ever asked me to justify my desire to sleep in a bed, over sleeping on the floor, so I figure it must be a pretty sane choice. As for the other stuff, I don�t know. Fear of chaos, maybe? Just plain insanity? I�ve also turned the thermostat up to 80F and I have on sweatpants and a wool sweater and yes, that�s the way I like that, too. I started eating a stick of string cheese just now and I noticed that it was soft and melty, and that�s when I realized that maybe this isn�t all that typical. I wonder how long I could live in a hotel room before I started to desire something else. I think the first thing that would get to me is realizing how silly it all is. Am I really that delicate? Then eventually, I�d determine that I�m not that delicate, but that I like it. Then eventually, I was start wondering how the other half lives. Obviously, I�d get outside, which inevitably leads to interacting with people, and then forming bonds with people, and then it�s all downhill from there. |
| Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 at 12:02 AM |