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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2016 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: September 19, 2018

Today is my second full day off since August 26. I've flown 8,000 miles since then, been home twice, been to a Killing Joke show and a trade show in Chicago. Sunday I button up my life down here (for the fifth time!), get on a plane, have half a day with my family and begin 21 credits of school. Mondays are gonna be killer; I've got two hours off between 7am and 9:30pm. But hey it's 5 credits less than last quarter.

I realized in Chicago that much of my hatred of Los Angeles is where I stay. Simply having a hotel room for two nights gave me defensible space. I told a friend that in my "other life" I drive a Porsche and am married to a hot doctor. Down here I ride a bicycle through Silent Hill to stay in a room barely big enough for a bed and share a bathroom with a 350lb schlub who broke the toilet by sitting on it too hard and gave me athlete's foot of the palm when I cleaned his hair out of the drain in the shower (which is only cold for 30 seconds; fucking SUCKS when you're biking 16mi through 100 degree weather). He left the stove on last week, unlit. It's a good thing I'm sensitive to whatever odorant they put in natural gas because I woke up choking at 4am.

I really hate Los Angeles.

Soon I will be able to walk barefoot without my soles turning black. I will be able to cool the room by opening a window. And I will be able to eat decent cheese without flying it a thousand miles in my carry-on.

It's 1 in the afternoon. I got up at 8. I've been ploughing through my inbox, listening to Birthday Massacre and watching the Tofino livecam to remind me what it looks like where I actually want to be. My life is truly blessed - I have more "free time" than all the members of the average fantasy football pool combined. Yet I fill it completely.

Statistically speaking, most people struggle to make ends meet. I struggle to maintain my airline mileage status so I don't have to sit with the people who struggle to make ends meet. I don't know whether to feel guilty or accomplished.

I'm trying to get out of here without buying more groceries. I have two boxes of mac'n'cheese, eight tortillas, half a pound of cheese and a packet of trail mix filched from work. And 24/7 catering for the next three days and the ready ability to eat Uber Eats every meal from now until December if I chose to live that way. Don't cry for me Argentina.

Sunday morning I will drink champagne. Monday morning my real life begins again.