Here I am in Mexico City. So far, nothing scary, even if I fear work and work functions.

I’m in the hotel room. Hotel rooms are always such a weird combo of oasis, like, yeah, time enough to think, read, whatever and enjoy myself, and horrible, horrible alienation. I whiplash back and forth from peace to loneliness to peace to loneliness. Like in the internal head soundtrack (made famous by Allie McBeal), one minute it’s Aretha (all R&B anthemy) and the next Bessie Smith (feeling all the shit that done bring you the fuck down).

Part of me is just getting used to the old domestic routine. I don’t know how to use the hotel phone and call Cali, and I am too tired to figure it out. No boyo, reassuring me it’ll be fine and probably this job is OK, and the evil is likely behind me (and I guess, um, not curing cancer).

Must sleep, big exciting day just jampacked with meetings tomorrow. (The other thing that kind of sucks about work travel, apart from say hotel-room alienation, is they fucking make you work.)

On vacation, I swell with the pleasure of a hotel room and room service and foreign lands and exciting adventures. At work, I just get exhausted.

And, GODDAMN IT, someone explain the water to me. I’m deathly afraid of the water.