Riches Lost

Sometimes I think I see him -- in a crowd, walking along the street, in a car on some random bit of road. It's never really him. Still, in that brief instant of imagined recognition, I want to abandon my securities and fly to him. I want to take a running leap and give him a huge hug, and tell him... what?

It drives me insane. I find myself looking for him. I mean really searching, as if I expect him to show up at any moment and sit down to lunch, or ask me how he's supposed to know which tomato is just ripe enough. And it hurts. It hurts because he's not really gone. We live in the same area, and we probably go to some of the same places. It would be easier if he were dead. I could mourn, and grieve, and visit his grave instead of wondering what he's doing right now and if he's happy. Wondering if he's forgotten me.

The stupid thing is, it was always me pushing him away. I lied, and I broke his heart too many times to count. And always he came back to me. I guess it was love. Near the end, I was trying so hard to pull myself together to make things right with him. I left him when he said he stayed because he was too afraid of change. I guess it was only fair that I should have my heart broken as well.

I hope he remembers the good things. I hope he remembers the tickle-wars, and the quiet phone calls before bed. I want him to remember the park in spring, when we would take turns in the grass and giving each other massages. Or sitting in the shade and watching other people's kids. I know I do. I remember making love -- we almost never had sex, it was always making love -- in the middle of the night, or suprising him at the door on his lunch break. I remember walking together, and how it was always a stroll even when it was just from the car to a building. I remember all the joy and happiness that we had and I hope that he remembers, too. I hope he never settles for anything less than that. I hope that the next person he finds who enjoys thunderstorms as much as he does is better at loving him than I was.

I still look for him. I think I'm really looking for that feeling. I'm looking for the energy and the being alive and the.... Lightening.

The thing is, I don't really know how to speak plainly. I can be vague, and metaphorical, and make all sorts of nonsense with words. When it comes time to simply say something, though, I lose all sense of language. It either comes out as complete gibberish, or it comes out blunt to the point of rudeness. I don't know what's wrong with me.

Generation Gap

As a generation,
we are socially accepting
and internationally minded.
We are activists,
much unlike our silent parents.
The internet links us
–to members of our generation
both in America
and around the world–
and there is a sense
that we are all in this together.
There is a sense that
the generations before us
have done us wrong
–from the policies of George W. Bush
to the allowance of the Middle East
to spiral so far downwards
following the world wars.
As a generation, we are optimistic.
We await the day when
we turn old enough to rank higher,
change more, and do better.
We await the day when
we will right these wrongs
and make future generations
respect our label
–our Millennial label."

Quote

"When our hopes give way to reality and we finally have to surrender to the truth, it just means we've lost today's battle, not tomorrows war. Here's the thing about surrender, once you do it, once you actually give in, you forget why you were even fighting in the first place."

These letters, these notes. I read them from time to time. You give so much and yet, I know nothing about you. I get curious. I seek you out. I read, I watch, I listen. And then I get busy and go away for awhile. We are connected through pages and phrases and words. But we know nothing of each other, really. I see that sometimes you struggle. I'm struggling too and we both want happiness. I wish you to find it. I really do.

Rain rain go away,
Come again another day,
All the world is waiting for the sun.

I Hope It Gives You Hell (All American Rejects)

I wake up every evening
With a big smile on my face
And it never feels out of place.
And you're still probably working
At a 9 to 5 pace
I wonder how bad that tastes

When you see my face
I hope it gives you hell,
I hope it gives you hell
When you walk my way
I hope it gives you hell,
I hope it gives you hell

Now where's your picket fence love
And where's that shiny car
Did it ever get you far?
You never seem so tense, love
Never seen you fall so hard
Do you know where you are?

Truth be told I miss you
Truth be told I'm lying

Tomorrow you'll be thinking to yourself
Where did it all go wrong?
But the list goes on and on

Now you'll never see
What you've done to me
You can take back your memories
They're no good to me
And here's all your lies
If you look me in the eyes
With the sad, sad look
That you wear so well

When you see my face
I hope it gives you hell,
I hope it gives you hell
When you walk my way
I hope it gives you hell,
I hope it gives you hell
If you find a man
that's worth the damn
and treats you well
Then he's a fool
you're just as well
hope it gives you hell

Okay, people, let’s get a few things straight:

If you see a phone to my ear, and I turn my head toward you, DO NOT ask me where the vending machines are before I even have a chance to TAKE A BREATH to ask you to wait a moment. Got it?

DO NOT crowd the desk. I can only deal with ONE guest at a time. Wait in LINE like you were taught in kindergarten.

When you call me, DO NOT keep talking to whoever it is in the room with you while I’m trying to answer the phone. I won’t bother waiting for you, I’ll just go on with my spiel. For that matter, you only need to press the zero key once, so don't press it again if I can't get to the phone in less than two seconds. Thanks for busting my eardrum with the button-pushing.

If you ask me for a pool towel, and you really want two, say so to begin with.

Don’t shove your credit card and rewards card in my face. Please just wait until I ask for them. And when I tell you the rate, DO NOT say, “That’s not what you’ve been charging me.” Kindly INFORM me you’re a regular guest BEFORE complaining about the rate, plskthx.

Is it THAT difficult to understand that I CAN’T tell you the room number for anyone else? I told you your son will be close to you, that should be sufficient, especially considering we’re BOOKED SOLID tonight. He is next door to you, but I am not about to tell you that. For one thing, I can’t always guarantee it. For another, I can’t tell you because IT’S NOT YOUR ROOM. Chill

Go ahead, interrupt me with a question while I'm trying to answer your last one. I will interrupt your current question to answer it, since you're just going on and babbling and giving me more info I just don't need..

QUIT INTERRUPTING MY CHECK-IN PROCESS! You throw me off and make me forget things when you do that. Wait until I am done to ask your questions.

When I ask you to hold, DO NOT ASK ME IF YOU CAN BE CONNECTED TO SOMEONE’S room. I asked you to hold, not what you wanted. Did you not hear me?!

Coming Around

You know, I've been thinking.

For a long time now, I've had practically no patience for people, especially with regards to romantic interests. I never thought it would be the case, but after a few bad relationships, I felt like I was completely incapable of giving anymore. I bought-in to a flawed mindset: I figured that I had already given too much. Looking back, I felt that I had compromised too much of myself in order to make poor relationships work. While that's true to an extent, I was missing the point all along. During these relationships with men I was actually incompatible with, I lost things.

I lost self-confidence. Not in myself, per se, but in certain facets of my personality. I noticed recently that I'll say things that are innocent and/or acceptable on their own merits, but because I'm so accustomed to the mentally unstable inquisitions of former lovers, I'll immediately justify what I've said to minimalize any confusion. Any friction. When you've had "what the hell is that supposed to mean?" thrown at you over and over, you start to immediately go into damage control. This is usually unnecessary with emotionally-capable adults,

I also lost a lot of perspective... or, rather, I gained a new perspective. Once I realized that the problem wasn't with me, I ran full-steam ahead in the other direction: I lost any and all accountability for myself. I started thinking that I would just wait until I found someone who would be exactly what I wanted, having little patience with any sort of compromise. I'd keep myself closed off, and once I felt that there was something I didn't like, I'd cut them loose and move on. I used to pray for someone to care about, and who would care about me. Then I just started hoping for someone to tolerate.

I'm starting to come around again, though. I think I'd be pretty happy with finding someone to care about, and taking the time to figure out the balance between who I am, and who he needs me to be. Life is about balance, and compromise, while keeping perspective on what is important to you. Maybe I'll find him soon, maybe I'll have to wait some more... and maybe, just maybe, we've already spoken.

"What is an archer Without a target?"

"Our goals should be entirely personal. No one knows us better than we know ourselves. There is only one universal goal: a gracious death with no regrets."
--365 Tao -- Daily Meditations; by Deng Ming-Dao

A death with no regrets.
That is a goal indeed.
I have very few regrets.
(One major one,
with several minor tie-ins.
The story is familiar
and not the purpose
of this writing.)
Shall I live each day
with this in mind?
What will I regret?

What would I do
if I could live perfectly?

Not as a perfect being, no.
Who could live that way?
But as a life that I can
look back on with a smile.
A life I can claim proudly.

What if I died tomorrow
-- would I regret the way that I lived today?

What if I die a hundred years from now
-- will the way I live bring me graciously to that end?

What are my goals?
What do I hope to accomplish today?
Tomorrow? Three months,
or a year, or five years from now?

A target.
Something to shoot for.

A bulls-eye.

If I miss... Well.
So long as I have practiced,
and aimed to my best ability...
So long as I have picked
a goal worth shooting for,
I don't think that's anything to regret.

To love. To care.
To create and to share in beauty.
I cannot and will not regret that.
Even when I miss.

Unsaid

Okay. I'm saying it.

I'm hurting.
And there's not jack to be done about it.
Quite simply cause I'm too proud
to come outright and say it.



But yes, I'm hurting.
And it's the last thing I would tell you.

There is only one way to really get over
someone who you have been in love with,
and that is to become another person.
This is really the only reason
why people fall out of love with each other.
The fights, and tantrums,
the small and big flaws
(he makes that noise when he chews, he has no ambition)
are never enough to really make you fall out of love.
Feel betrayed, or irritated or angry, yes.
But falling out of love requires
shift of perspective, and thus, shift of desire.
Like looking at an old shirt and thinking,
'God, how could I have ever thought that was cool?"
Sometimes we do it together,
each person growing and changing
till you turn around and look at each other
and know that's it, except for nostalgia.
Sometimes it happens while you are still together,
whether you want it to or not,
and it hurts like hell,
wishing you were still capable
of being that person you used to be,
the one who fell in love,
the one your lover fell in love with.
Sometimes it doesn't happen
till a long, long time afterwards,
and there is still the three-in-the-morning ache,
the in-jokes with their pointed poignancy,
the missing.

We are like jigsaw puzzle pieces
made out of modeling clay,
firm and fixed in our outlines
as long as we fit together,
variable lumps otherwise.
You reshape your edges
and become something new,
a tab where there used to be a hole,
straight where you were once curved,
and everything changes.

Higher Ground

I read a familiar story over the weekend – a tale of a jar, filled with golf balls, then pebbles, then sand and finally two cups of coffee. While I think that the audience at which the tale was targeted at might not have gotten the jist of it, it wasn’t a waste of the writer’s time – someone heard what his message was.

It has been a bit of a topsy-turvy time, making me question a lot of my judgment calls and the decisions I have made. Things that I clung on to my dear life, turned out to be nothing but pebbles and sand.

Walk me over this horizon
Let the sun’s light warm my face
Once again the times are changing
Once again I lost my way

What have I learnt in these 25 years of living? A whole lot of lessons, I must say. I have seen and done things that others only read of, or watch on tv. I have always thought that it was these trials that made me the strong person that I am. But in actuality, I did not just land, hitting the ground running ~ I was burying myself deeper into the ground each time, losing a bit of my soul.

While the words of ancient poets
Fall like dust upon my shoes
Greed has robbed me of my vision
Turned my heart from higher truths

They say carpe diem – seize the day. And I realize that I was holding out for one big day to seize, grab and call my own. I forget that each day is THE day, and there is something in it for me, to call my own. A laugh, a smile, a thought, an idea, a memory recalled, a memory made, a hug, a kiss, a compliment, a pat on the back – it is what makes each day.

I have walked too long in darkness
I have walked too long alone
Blindly clutching fists of diamonds
That I found were merely stone

Each year since the day I was born, has been filled with nothing but it. Yet I have failed to see, to appreciate, to cherish each and every one of them. As I spend the next 24 hours, I would like to count all my blessings for once ~ to really sit and take stock of all my achievements and gifts.

I would trade the world of ages
For a warmer hand to hold
The path of light is narrow
But it leads to streets of gold

I used to think I know it all, having been there and done that. But I do not. So many of life’s lessons I wrote off as inappropriate or old school traditionalist way of living. And the words of Michelle Obama’s speech about her husband, comes to mind – "there is a way that the world is, and a way that the world should be. And that if we work as one, together, the way the world should be, would become a reality".

I think almost everyone who reads this, has at some point or other, spoken till they were blue in the face, trying to thread me back into the way my world should be. I have been walking against the tide, driving myself nowhere, trying to prove a point to everyone when I had no need to. I am my greatest enemy, undermining my own self without reason but with the false logic and rationale that that is the way my world is.

It’s not to say that my demons hiding in the closet have been absolutely cast out – that would be an exaggeration of the truth, for they still lurk in the dark recess of my mind. But the dust bunnies are no longer accumulating, and those that remain – they are progressively getting bored idling around.

In this world we move through shadows
Never sure of what we see
While the truth that lies between us
Come and share the truth with me

We only have once chance at this thing we call LIFE. And it is pointless to become a year older, and a year wiser, if all that we do is lose sight of what is real and now. For that would not be being wiser at all. And so, what then do I hope to achieve in the year to come?

I haven’t quite figured it out yet. There seems to be so many things that I feel I should do. But for starters, I’d go with a stab at being ME, and being alright if the real ME was less than. I think I’ll even try my hand at being honest at admitting that I am fallible and being alright with not being infallible. And last but not least, I would definitely go after what I want.

So take my hand and lift me higher
Be my love and my desire
Hold me safe and honour bound
Take my heart to higher ground

I feel free and light ~ as if I have the world at my feet and seeing the skies, the clouds, and the stars for the first time. And so as the calendar turns to a new page and the computer printout changes my age, I am looking into the mirror and alright with what I see. I may not be all that I am, but I’m alright being me.

Happy Birthday Me! Welcome to the rest of MY life!

Higher Ground
Barbra Streisand

Gotta Love Working The Night Audit

So, what an interesting night I had. Let's detail:

So, at about 11:10 I get a call from the third floor, telling me there is a guy passed out in the floor. As luck would have it, "P" is standing at the desk talking with me about my birthday plans. So, he heads up there to check it out.

About five minutes later, "P" calls me down at the desk and says "Hey, do we have a Generic Name staying here tonight?"

"We sure do. He's in 319."

"Great. He passed out right outside his door. I can't get this guy to wake up."

So, I ask if I need to come up there to assist, "P" says why not, so I throw up my "Be Back Shortly" sign, and run upstairs.

Sure enough, this guy is sprawled out on the floor outside his room. "P "gives him a hearty series of shakes, rolls him around, nothing. This guy is passed smooth the fuck out, to coin a phrase.

So, we discuss what to do, and decide that we can't just drag him in his room on the off chance that he aspirates, so I grab his phone off his belt to see if we can't find someone to call to come get him, or to take care of him. Of course his phone is dead. Great. So, I use the cordless phone and give the PD a call. I call the non-emergency line, and the Desk Sgt. has a good laugh because I described the guy as 'passed the fuck out'. She says she'll send out an officer right away.

I run back downstairs to the front desk, to get the phone number off his reservation, and about that time the Officer walks in. We ride the elevator back to the third floor and he asks a few questions. "Is he a guest? Do you know how much he has had to drink? When did you find him? What did you find with him? Is this his room?" etc. So, the officer gives the guy a good sternum rub (for the uneducated, you basically rub someone over the sternum with your knuckle. It hurts pretty bad, and will generally wake someone up from a drunken state) and the guy doesn't really stir much. He sort of flops his arms around. So, the officer grabs his phone and tries to turn it on. Nope, it's still dead. So, we head into his room to look for a phone charger. The officer checks in the guy's one bag while Pete and I look around the room for one. No luck. Just as we give up, a second officer pokes his head into the room. He points at the guy, the other officer shrugs. They grab his wallet (which he has been laying on) and right behind his driver's license is his work ID. He's a Firefighter. Fantastic!

So, first cop holds down the guy's arms, so he doesn't flop, and the second one gives him a sternum rub while going 'Hey, firefighter! Wake up! You gotta wake up, buddy!' After about two minutes of this, the guy sits up and his eyes pop open. Super. We're in the clear. Or...not so much. He looks up at the officer and goes "Oh. It's you." The cop tells him that he needs to get up and get into his room. The guy goes 'So you want to play this game?' and the second officer says, 'I don't think you know who you're playing with.'

At this time, drunk guy smiles and kicks the second cop in the groin. Out comes the pepper spray, and drunk guy gets it right in the face. All four of us ("P", Me, Officers One and Two) get a nice blast of it too. So, they grab him and drag him down the hall away from where they just sprayed him, so they can cuff him, me and "P" step back so we can do our coughing. "P" suggested that I might want to go get a fan.

Basically, the story pretty much ends there. I get a fan, we get a luggage cart and haul the (probably soon to be fired) Firefighter out to one of the police cars, and I get to fill out a great big incident report. Super!

Hope you guys have a Happy Easter!

Dear Room 415

Why would I lie to you?

Don't you realize that the best way to start any interaction is with the truth (no matter how painful)?

Don't you realize that I WANT you to have an awesomely pleasant experience here at my hotel?

Don't you see?

So, when you call down at 7:05am, as I'm waiting for my replacement to come in so I can go home, and demand that a shampoo and a conditioner be brought to your room, and I politely inform you that we do not have conditioner at our property (I know, cheap bastards), there's no reason to interrogate me!

ABL: Annoying Bitchy Lady
Me: Night Auditor from Hell

Me: I'm sorry ma'am, we do not have conditioner at this time.
ABL:How is that possible?
Me: ..... excuse me?
ABL: I said how is that possible? I just saw a box of them on a cart yesterday.
Me: Well... you must have seen our lotions, as all we have is lotion and shampoo.
ABL: Whatever, well is there any way to get a shampoo in my room?
Me: Of course! You can come down to the desk, and I can give you a shampoo.
ABL: UGH.... *click*

Seriously, these people expect me to come running for them after being hostile and rude?

Yea right, they got me confused.

April Fools Day Post

I'm so April Foolish, I posted a week late. That's just how I roll, you know? I'm slick. I'm clever. I'm like the Michael Jackson of wit, and you are all children visiting me at Cleverland Ranch (yepp). You know, riding the rides and such. As it were. Things of that nature. Do I still have you? Good.
Did you know that some people prefer their cucumbers pickled? So I've heard anyway... I think from a television show. Who can say, these days. The economy makes it harder for everyone. You know, I just used the words "harder" and "cucumbers" and was not being filthy or perverted in any way. But *you* were. I know it.
Did I ever tell you about that time I... wait, of course I told you about that. It's like my best story.
Well, I'll wrap this up. It's almost time for me to get off work. I'm ready to go home.

Dear Dad,