Monday

May 15, 2000

"I like the very kind of music I can't write write and don't write."

Arthur Schwartz, Quoted in Singers and teh Song II by Gene Lees

cheap souvenir for sale on ebay

a pack of Saltines

These conferences start with a massive keynote. It's usually well-attended as it follows a paid-for breakfast and everyone has good intentions to go to all the sessions at the beginning. I watch demos that are supposed to impress but either don't work or don't really show anything.

My allergy or cold has morphed and changed but I've kept it under control with various drugs and herbs. By lunch, I'm falling out and I take a break in my room. Then I go to get the lunch with 2000 of your closest friends. No table settings are left and they have to set some and it takes a long time to get lunch with the result that going to the next session on time is impossible. So I rest through that one, too. I make it through another session but I'm definitely feeling poorly.

Room service in this hotel is really not bad. But selection is somewhat limited. An early bed and just the right drugs ought to get me ready for a presentation tomorrow.

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Last night's room service was set outside by the maid, because I was too lazy. The soup came with wrapped packs of Saltines. I didn't touch them, but I noticed that when the tray was sitting in the hall there were empty Saltine wrappers. I wonder if the maid finds such stable and clean food and uses it to offset hunger. I think about the cake sent as an amenity at the Lancaster in Houston and its fate, to be partially eaten in a gesture hoped to go unnoticed. If these things don't make you pause and see that your life is not the same as the person's who cleans the room, nothing will.

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