Room 508 and I...

For those of you who have only seen Omaha in the movie "Up in the Air", or who have ever dreamed of making it over to the World Series of College Baseball, you can always stop by Room 508 in the Doubletree Guest Suites - and chances are, that I may be there - then again, now that everyone knows my secret hideaway in the wonderful Hilton property, I may need to change locations...

I have been staying at this hotel for about eight years now. The exterior is a little tired, the interior has gone through two renovations, and I believe that they change the mattresses every two weeks, because everytime I am here, they seem new - maybe they haul them down to the parking lot and just beat the shit out of them - you know, like you used to see folks doing in the Westerns that they play on late night television - just pounding the hell out of the mattress, then dragging it back through the dusty walkway and threshold to throw down on the artfully and tastefully decorated early Americana furniture (tonight was Antiques Roadshow night on PBS, and I find it fascinating that there are actually furniture periods - my house would be considered "Poorly matched broke divorced guy eclectic roadside gathering period"). Perhaps this is why I feel so comfortable in hotels - they have shower curtains and a shower liner, albeit I don't like the shower liner touching me, it just amazes me that they have both. The chairs, with their cutesy little accent patterns actually match and contrast the carpet and the curtains at the same time! Walk into my house, and on any given day, and you will find the hurricane blinds that I pulled out of some trash bin (I cleaned them and they were the right size) and hung up in my windows - white matches the walls, even if they do a very ineffective job of keeping the Florida sunrise from waking everyone up at the ass crack of dawn. Everything in Room 508 is manageable. The shampoo bottle is manageable. The soap bar is manageable. The water bottles are manageable. All sized down to a convenient hand held single serving use. At home, I deal with the four gallon shampoo bottle from Costco, and have to have my son lug the 800 pack toilet paper up the stairs. Here, it is just room 508, and if I run out, someone from downstairs will bring up a new bottle. Pretty nice.

Room 508 does not get mail. I check my mail every three weeks, whether I really need to or not. Two escrow refund checks sat in my unread mail pile for six months, and both banks called and asked if I planned on cashing them. An automobile insurance refund got hidden somewhere between the penny saver and the invite to the local fundamental church now holding services in the middle school down the road. Numerous bills remain, and if Shirley McClain is right, each is feeling a little shitty about what they did in their past life to get reincarnated as one of George's unopened bills. With any luck, they will get thrown out in short order so they can graduate to the next level and become a bird or some other enlightening creature.

Room 508 can be dark in the middle of the afternoon. They have these sliding glass doors, but they also have these curtains that are heavy enough to be pieces of old carpet - but when you shut them - magically, the room is now the middle of the night, and you trip over shit on your way back to bed. I like that. Unfortunately, I sleep with the curtains open, and figure if anyone is wierd enough to be a peeping tom on a forty year old fat guy, then have at it. For a couple of extra dollars, I would pose (and probably not use that money to pay one of those bills awaiting death sitting on my kitchen counter).

Yes, Room 508 and I have been through some pretty good times together. Folks don't get it when I tell them these stories. I think they believe I am half nuts, half lying, and half drugged - and they are probably half right - but Room 508 has seen me through my kids first day of school, one divorce, three houses, numerous pounds shed and gained, one girlfriend, probably thirty hangovers, two presidents, one nervous issue, and at least six pairs of running shoes. I get to move every six months or so, into a new Room, but Room 508 definitely is first prize in memorable rooms...

Getting back into blogging is like getting back into working out - doing both at the same time is a real bitch. Four years ago, I was doing seven miles every three days along with the sit-up and push-up routine - today, I hit two miles and thirty sit ups and push ups and felt like I had just given birth to a full grown Fat Albert (not that I know what either feels like, I just think that me giving birth to a three hundred pound man would cause both my stomach muscles and leg muscles to spasm uncontrollably, shake, and hurt like they do now). Both writing and exercising require discipline - and as Nell says in the movie "Ta Ney Da Sooooooo" - and I think that means "George has no fucking discipline". I am pretty sure that is what it means, because everytime I Netflix that movie, I tear up at that line, and wonder what my life would be like if I was born a woman and left to fend for myself in the woods of West Virginia. I also wonder what my life would be like if I was born Jodie Foster, but I am pretty sure that besides the fame and the money, most of the other stuff we like is pretty similar...(come on, that is a good joke).

I think the difference between casual exercisers, writers, poker players, whatever and real folks who are good at those things, is that us casual dabblers don't have that need that makes it a necessary thing for them to feel right - for the folks who are good at it - they have to do whatever it is they do to feel good in the head - to make their right brain and left brain get along with each other and to make them tolerable at cocktail parties. I am not quite there yet. Cocktail parties are fun, but I do less and less of those, and I am pretty sure years of abuse and lack of proper training have forced my right brain and left brain into a singular being now known as "the gumball pink thing" - and are in constant struggle to control my reality. (I really hope folks who don't really know me too well don't take this too seriously - I can see it now, I run for public office, and have to explain, among other things, why I affectionately speak of my brain in the third person as "the gumball pink thing").

Your mind wanders when you have a favorite hotel room. I guess that is my point. There is a large amount of wandering when you are actually wandering in a familiar place - don't worry, that did not make much sense to me eight years ago, but now, the lust is gone from the wander - and I just enjoy Room 508.

Let's see what I have to write about tomorrow...

George