I sit in the back row, peacefully unable to hear the speaker. Yet, I am present. My first thought is: How many people in this room are thinking what I am thinking? There are 100-200 people in this room, enrolled at this conference right now. Surely I cannot be the only one whose thoughts are wandering off the topic and into the absurd. I need to find these people and buy them drinks. I find myself paying attention just long enough to catch the buzzwords that will be invaluable later at a meeting when I go back to work, and my superiors want to know what it is exactly I have learned. Laser Light Scattering, Anion Exchange HPLC, Adenoviral Stability Through Cryoprotection. I will impress them with my grasp of the obvious. I will lie and say I lost hundreds in the casino. My second thought is that these people are technically my professional peers, and I am quickly realizing that I don't like them.
I am not a fan of the Gambling, yet each time I pass the casino which lies in between my room and the conference area, I cannot help but check the action at the tables. San Francisco is only three hours away.
Someone talks for 35 minutes, and then there are 10 minutes of questions. One woman near the front gets up for questions every single time. Slide runs into slide. The red laser light pointer is out and it is being abused. The words wash over me. I think that half of scientific jargon is maybe necessary. The other half is for members only. It is a code. A language to know - to be able to be in the club and to feel as if something secret is known. If the pen ceases to move, I will surely fall asleep. Every now and then someone will nod their head in agreement. They know. It comforts them know what it is the person with the laser pointer will say next.
I find myself pleasantly distracted by the girl sitting in front of me with the black sweater and the blonde hair. Later I will talk to her and buy her a drink. I can only hope that her level of distraction is similar to mine. Together we will dominate the world. Our children will run naked in the streets.
Day Two.
Teenage girls just out of class, four to a car. Passenger in the front has hoop earrings and blonde hair. Long nails. I could spend several hours listening to her talk. Another girl now standing outside of a convenience store. Not sure how old she is. She is leaning up against the wall, wearing cowboy boots and smoking a cigarette. The casino people make me sad. I was one last night, steadily donating my $$ to The Fund. The House never loses - at least not over time. It's really the senior citizens that get to me. If I spy my Grandmother in a place like this, I will yell at her in a very respectful and nice way.
I think of senior citizen and I think of fireside knitting. I think of sherry and a mellow crooning voice coming from somewhere in the next room. The last thing I expect to see is a seventy-seven year old woman sitting in front of a slot machine with a plastic cup full of quarters in one hand, and a Misty burning in the other. There are men who sit at the bar and play games there. These are games which are part of the bar. They are built into it. Women do not sit here. Women do not sit here because the men that sit here don't have lady friends, and this is evidently an obvious thing. I do not see what the commercial on Casino Channel 19 shows me. In the commercial version, there are cheering groups of attractive people surrounding the Craps table, winning big. In reality I see no happy faces, just faces that show happiness for a moment as they double their money, and then revert back to a waiting disappointment. Maybe I won't lose next time.
Day Three?
I've just ordered room service for the first time in my life. It may be the most perfect thing available in the world. I have gotten a sandwich and french fried potatoes + Coke delivered to me on the classic cart, complete with a white tablecloth on top. There is a vase with flowers on the table. I want to check under the table for a guy with a knife in his teeth or some red sticks of dynamite taped together with electrical tape, complete with the egg timer. I resist the urge only when I remember that no one is out to get me.
My sandwich is in Club-style complete with avocado. Who puts avocado on a Club sandwich, I ask. The answer is Caesars Lake Tahoe. I now will be forced to sleep in the other bed because I have eaten in this one, which now has parts of the aforementioned sandwich all up in it, and this simply will not do. I want to live here, become a permanent resident.
I could totally live in a hotel. Provided they had room service. This detail has now become crucial to the plan. I imagine the housekeeper yelling at me as she picks up after me. As she makes the beds she is asking me: Do I think that she is my mother? I am sitting in my chair by the window smoking a cigarette and watching her clean in a non-erotic way. I do not respond, fearing she will stop asking her rhetorical questions. She is here because I am here. In other words, she needs me as much as I need her. Ok, I need her more. I'm certainly not going to pick up my own shit, and I can't see 1 good reason to stay in a hotel if it doesn't magically become clean every day at the same time.
Day Four.
An airline pilot whose voice is raspy and jagged. One of those guys who has had his larynx removed because he smoked too much and now has to speak through that electronic device, pushed up against his throat right where the larynx used to be. You don't see a lot of this in the airline industry today. The voices I hear over the PA are golden and smooth. They inspire confidence in the hearts of the travelers. They make me think of floating in a cool pool. I remember that I am rocketing through the air at 600mph at an altitude of 35,000 feet only when the flying boat we are on hits an air pocket.
I'd like to know what my discount would be if I opted for the flight with the larynx-free pilot and the steward person with unassigned gender who is missing teeth and smells oddly familiar, but also unpleasant. I'm guessing it would begin to approach free.
