Sorry it’s been so quiet around here–the Internet where I’m at is only available in drips and drabs… and coffee shops, mostly.
Normal service (whatever that is) will return on Monday. I will be returning slightly sooner than that, since my flight leaves in just a few hours time.
Happy Friday the 13th!
Ut oh…
I’m not the sort of person that most people would describe as a “road warrior,” but I’ve been around. And every time I go anywhere, I always end up asking myself the same question: I wonder if I would enjoy traveling.
Most of the time, when I find myself having to spend a night or two away from home, it’s because I’m traveling on business. This means having to pack up my goodies and hit the road, with very little advance notice, often to places that I would probably never have chosen to visit otherwise. When I get to where I’m going, I of course have to work, which means I see very little of where I end up, and lack the energy to do anything afterward. I don’t really enjoy business trips; but then, that’s not what they’re for.
I have traveled for other reasons, of course. However, being perpetually broke means that, again, I can’t do much once I get to my destination–though I do have slightly more time with which to do it.
In both cases, I have found that traveling is not exactly all it’s cracked up to be. It is, however, an excellent spur to anxiety.
It’s funny: People I know take at least one vacation a year. They go off for a week or two to some interesting locale, have their fun, and come back more stressed out and broke than ever. For this they’re willing to miss work? They always seem to spend the next month catching up on all the stuff they didn’t do while they were away. I fail to see the benefit of it.
I might take some time off now and again, but I never take vacations. Rather, I use the time to get things done around the house that need doing, but more importantly, I just enjoy beinghome for a change. Then, just before I go completely stir crazy, I go back to work and I get to enjoy that for awhile.
Anyway, by the time you read this, I shall hopefully be somewhere above Northern California on my way to Washington state. Business, don’t you know. I’m not sure what the Internet situation is going to be up there at the hotel, but I will try very hard to check in now and again over the next few days. If I can’t manage that, just know that I will miss you all terribly.
If you started digging straight down from where you are right now, where would you end up? Wonder no more. I’d end up in the ocean, hundreds of miles away from dry land. I don’t know why I find this as disappointing as I do. {via}
I’m back! Did you miss me?
I know, I know, this past week has been a collection of pointless ruminations on travel, a subject about which there is nothing left to say. Also, I was being a little cryptic–but I swear that had more to do with exhaustion than artsy pretension.
So, here’s the deal: I have finally gotten a new job. As usual, I can’t speak too much about it. It was part of the paper work that I had to sign, in fact. It’s nothing sinister or anything like that, it’s just that they are protective of their brand, and as an employee, that is now my responsibility as well. Not that I tend to name names anyway.
As part of my introduction to this new company, I was required to visit their home office to go through orientation and training, and that’s why I was up in Washington state. I’m not moving or anything; I’ll be working in one of their Northern California offices.
I had a pretty good time (well, considering it was work), and I met some nice people there. I also got to meet some interesting folks in the hotel bar and in the local restaurants and watering-holes. Not bad for Mr. Alienation, eh? I actually made an effort.
Well, I’m back now. I am glad to be home.
I will be on the road and incommunicado for most of today. Have a great weekend, everybody.
I mostly only ever travel for business reasons, simply because I can’t afford to go anywhere on my own. This is good, because I get to go neat places without going completely broke. On the other hand, you know, I spend most of my time working in these neat places.
The other thing that bugs me is that the hotels in which they put me up are too nice. Not that I have anything against these places, but I am a simple man, and I have simple needs. I am comfortable with simple. And that’s really what it’s all about, too: comfort. I mean, I’m just as pampered and coddled as a lot of people, it’s just that I’m more cheaply comforted. If you need an entitled prick, but you don’t want to pay a lot for one, I’m your man. This does mean that any money spent on pampering me above a certain point is wasted. I don’t like it when the companies I work for waste money, because that’s when I start feeling guilty.
I also feel bad for the hotel employees. Being nice to guests is their job, but their guests are usually either wealthy or important. Since I am neither, I feel as though I am committing some kind of theft of services. It’s sort of like those movies where the protagonists arrive at an airport, and make off with somebody else’s limo. “Guys,” I want to say to the hotel, “You don’t have to be this nice to me–I’m basically scum.” I just think they deserve a break is all.
Sorry, I am too tired to post anything. You aren’t reading this. This isn’t happening.
There’s this weird thing that happens to me whenever I travel out of state. Perception shifts by minute degrees, and time slips ever so slightly out of joint. Unbidden, unexpressed thoughts begin to emerge from the murky depths. And slowly, gradually, I experience a growing awareness of a plain and normally unrealized fact: I kind of like California.
What follows is a blast of disorientation. California is normally the target of my bitterest complaints! I need to sit down.
I think the problem is that, having lived in California my whole life, I have no idea how to truly dislike any other place. I could give you any number of complaints about a whole host of locations that I’ve never visited, but those are mere assumptions and stereotypes. That’s all I know about most of the world. Rumors. And rumors tend to travel on the strength of their novelty and shock-value, which has only a cursory connection to veracity. But I know my home turf well enough to be contemptuous of it, sometimes.
On the other hand… I don’t know how to like anywhere else, either. If the bad news about elsewhere comes to me in rumors, then the good news comes in dreams. For example, take Washington State: I’ve always admired its cold, wet beauty, and its culture. But having never actually been there (at least until recently) it’s more of a dreamscape on which to project one’s fantasies.
The reality of it is that I have no idea what’s good about the place, where to find the things that I like. Neighborhoods look slightly different up here, so I have can’t quite tell what the hell’s going on. It would take years for me to figure it out. In some parallel universe, alternate-me will look up from his scrambled eggs, with a faraway expression on his face, and say to himself, “Yessir. I like this place.”
But I could say the same thing about all the other places I’ve been.
If I’m honest with myself, the reason I like California isn’t its familiarity, exactly. It’s that I have no other options. As long as the most basic needs of safety and comfort are met, most human beings not only make piece with their local habitats–they actually develop affection for them. We subconsciously make the best of what we’ve got, lest it break our hearts.
In the end, my love of California grows with my distance from it, chiefly because I know that I have to go back there. I have to. And my brain knows that it’s more fun to look forward to something than to dread it.
Also, that’s where all my stuff is.
Lord, do I miss my stuff.
