Alarm didn't sound. It's 11:30 am. As much as I may have needed this extra sleep it is very unlike me. Looks like that road ride is off this morning's schedule.
There's a white bill on the floor by the door. My checkout isn't until tomorrow, so an immediate boot would leave me thirty minutes to collect my scattered laundry and sanity. I head down to discuss things with the lobby attendant.
There's a couch flipped over in the hall outside my door.
The airconditioner has broken in the lobby. There are four fans blowing over an overweight moo-moo clad attendant. Papers are blowing everywhere. She's given up on catching them.
I explain the check-out error. She never makes eye contact, but extends her hand for the plastic room key I'm holding above the chest-tall marble countertop.
My eyes wander over the clutter and stumble upon a three ring binder. There is a spreadsheet listing each individual room, next to each room a square box to fill out any problemmatic activities worth checking into. I paruse while she pounds away into her computer, mumbling to herself.
102: television won't turn on
106: jaccuzi not working
111: spray this room for cochroaches
121: ants under table
130: toilet running
132: ants under table
I'm starting to feel like I just asked for a kitchen tour of my favorite restaurant. Somethings are better left unknown. I hesitantly take back the keycard from her and tiptoe back to my room.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Red Oak, IA
"I can tell you're very active."
His hand brushes against mine as I'm torquing down the handlebars on the bike balancing between us.
"Your veins are just so large I want to stick an IV in them."
I look up from the bike.
"I'm a nurse."
I don't find this to be an acceptable excuse. Nor do I really believe this guy has a nursing background.
This is the creepiest thing that has happened to me at Ragbrai. So far.
Considering this was in a parking lot during Ribfest shortly before the Barenaked Ladies took stage, I think I got off easy.
His hand brushes against mine as I'm torquing down the handlebars on the bike balancing between us.
"Your veins are just so large I want to stick an IV in them."
I look up from the bike.
"I'm a nurse."
I don't find this to be an acceptable excuse. Nor do I really believe this guy has a nursing background.
This is the creepiest thing that has happened to me at Ragbrai. So far.
Considering this was in a parking lot during Ribfest shortly before the Barenaked Ladies took stage, I think I got off easy.
Friday, July 17, 2009
translated in Minneapolis, MN
ONE
I’m sitting in an airport in Denver, my tongue burning from the early sips of a chai latte and belly aching from the over-sweetened dinner choice of a brownie that alternated layers between chocolate chips, chocolate cake batter and cheese cake. The scenery is more like a public library. Silently folks shuffle by. Every once in a while a cart stops in front of me, checking literary titles of distant cities and comparing them with a piece of paper clenched in hand.
A bird flies by.
I pause for a moment in the bewilderment of seeing a member of the outdoor community choosing to be indoors. Ticket attendants pause briefly watching it fly overhead, as a child would watch a plane before returning to the on goings of a sandbox. Murmurs amongst the ill-fitting blue blazers breaches the silence in sector C38. This is not the first bird they have seen, nor is it to be the last. The obvious question looms over them, how does one tame an uncaged bird? In an area so vast, with no nest to be found, the grey bird pauses on window sills, glancing outside and turning back to the life cart vendors and shot glass souvenirs.
TWO
I’m sitting on the matte carpeted floor of an airport in Salt Lake City, leaning against a glass elevator attempting to put words to my last ten days. The exhaustion is setting in as the amber ale begins to settle in my belly. Any words, thoughts, episodes from the week deteriorate amongst the gorgonzola cheese and raisins from a California inspired salad I consumed in a mock 50’s airport diner, where feeling depressed at a table for one was the least of my concerns. My eye lids are growing weary.
I board. My bags properly shoved above and below me I stare out the window into the peaks of orange cones below me. I awake to a large thud. My head aches. People are staring. The business men in front of me have turned around to meet my gaze. I’m rubbing my forehead squinting, wave on the attendant who has begun a catwalk inspired lurk my way. The weight of my eyelids fractured the support of my neck causing a collapse when an unassuming sleep found me in seat 7D. My head slammed into the window at the moment of first collapse. I check for cracks. The woman next to me is avoiding eye contact, though I think she’s relieved that for the moment the attention isn’t on her oversized arm cast. The over plastered mass featuring individually wrapped fingers gives the impression of an elementary paper mache project poorly executed by a premature Dougie Howser. Health insurance costs are expensive these days.
THREE
The busty woman sitting across from me is playing with her cell phone while sipping pink contents through a clear straw from the smoothie booth around the corner. The second button of her blouse has come undone just below the ruffles dangling from the collar of the black and white blouse. While I have no problem telling casual encounters that their zipper is down I have no intention of telling her. Does this make me a bad person? Likely just adds to it.
I’m sitting in an airport in Denver, my tongue burning from the early sips of a chai latte and belly aching from the over-sweetened dinner choice of a brownie that alternated layers between chocolate chips, chocolate cake batter and cheese cake. The scenery is more like a public library. Silently folks shuffle by. Every once in a while a cart stops in front of me, checking literary titles of distant cities and comparing them with a piece of paper clenched in hand.
A bird flies by.
I pause for a moment in the bewilderment of seeing a member of the outdoor community choosing to be indoors. Ticket attendants pause briefly watching it fly overhead, as a child would watch a plane before returning to the on goings of a sandbox. Murmurs amongst the ill-fitting blue blazers breaches the silence in sector C38. This is not the first bird they have seen, nor is it to be the last. The obvious question looms over them, how does one tame an uncaged bird? In an area so vast, with no nest to be found, the grey bird pauses on window sills, glancing outside and turning back to the life cart vendors and shot glass souvenirs.
TWO
I’m sitting on the matte carpeted floor of an airport in Salt Lake City, leaning against a glass elevator attempting to put words to my last ten days. The exhaustion is setting in as the amber ale begins to settle in my belly. Any words, thoughts, episodes from the week deteriorate amongst the gorgonzola cheese and raisins from a California inspired salad I consumed in a mock 50’s airport diner, where feeling depressed at a table for one was the least of my concerns. My eye lids are growing weary.
I board. My bags properly shoved above and below me I stare out the window into the peaks of orange cones below me. I awake to a large thud. My head aches. People are staring. The business men in front of me have turned around to meet my gaze. I’m rubbing my forehead squinting, wave on the attendant who has begun a catwalk inspired lurk my way. The weight of my eyelids fractured the support of my neck causing a collapse when an unassuming sleep found me in seat 7D. My head slammed into the window at the moment of first collapse. I check for cracks. The woman next to me is avoiding eye contact, though I think she’s relieved that for the moment the attention isn’t on her oversized arm cast. The over plastered mass featuring individually wrapped fingers gives the impression of an elementary paper mache project poorly executed by a premature Dougie Howser. Health insurance costs are expensive these days.
THREE
The busty woman sitting across from me is playing with her cell phone while sipping pink contents through a clear straw from the smoothie booth around the corner. The second button of her blouse has come undone just below the ruffles dangling from the collar of the black and white blouse. While I have no problem telling casual encounters that their zipper is down I have no intention of telling her. Does this make me a bad person? Likely just adds to it.
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