atlantic pity

Spirits are high this week (both alcoholic and melancholic), I'm happy to report. It's amazing what a little sun can do. Keeping really really busy also helps quite a bit.

So here I sit in the business center of an old, musty hotel which for some reason reminds me of watching Dirty Dancing - except I'm sitting in it. I'm sitting in Dirty Dancing. This resort has the same sort of nostalgic, 1950s adirondack family get-away with hunky-yet-not-so-cute dance leader who would like to whisk me away and expose me to all sorts of other-worldly (or just worldly) experiences that I'm far too naive to understand but will think that I do understand, feeling that for the first time ever my life is significant. My nickname is not "Baby" though - instead, it's "Bubby" and I'm a little on the hefty side. And we're not in the Adirondacks, but instead in an old, musty hotel off the Garden State Parkway with yellow-ish walls and a limited room service menu, just shy of the Atlantic City limits. And the only dirty dancing I do is the shuffle from my bed to the shower in the morning.

I've had enough of this joke.

I have sort of been on vacation the last several days though, hopping from San Diego to Atlantic City with less than 24 hours in between. I'll go ahead and confess that San Diego, while far more tiring and stressful was a lot more fun. This Atlantic City business (so far) is cake. Literally - I just had some down at the lobby restaurant. It was so-so. I'm not really a cake person. But regardless, this gig has been a little on the light side so far, and promises to remain so the rest of this week as I prepare for International Corp. to sweep in and be bored to tears with sales meetings all week while I sort-of entertain them. Probably a lot of older men looking for a good time while away on a business trip. Don't worry, I won't show them a good time... but they might think that they've gotten one. I'm the queen of illusion. I work in New Jersey politics - I've got to be, right?

And I'll have to take another trip to San Diego sometime because I didn't get to see all that much of it (really only my hotel and the Coors Amphitheater). I was tempted to take the rental car down to Mexico, but my father was very worried, letting me know that Tijuana is only full of "booze and hookers". I wasn't allowed to take the rental out of the country anyhow. Next time...

The concert in San Diego passed like a dream. Flashing lights, loud sounds, a satellite patch-through and a very happy Hank Williams, Jr. The show was a success and I'm still glowing from my run-in with Charlie Daniels (Hank's road manager and I got buddy-buddy and went on a secret mission to get my photograph taken with Charlie... very sneaky, but very fun).

Kids, I need to go on the road for a long time. I'm beginning to like this hotel stuff. I'm becoming a bit high-maintenance, and maybe that's not all bad.

Damn, it feels good to be a hamster.