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eh... I am. Ok, yes. I am and you are too. Not me, but also an I am. We should connect on that. "Hey, opposable thumbs! My primate!" Is that dismissive? Sorry. I am made from the same things as you and rearranged maybe just for the purpose of easier identification. I've seen things you have and haven't. We have lots in common. Ask Linnaeus. So now what? If you were a neighbor I'd try not to talk about the weather AND not bore you. Here you'll see the inner monologue that I forget to tell people. The things that get lost in translation. I've not been so good at this lately. I'd like to catch more of these things because it is easy to miss the delicacy in life. I'm just gazing at clouds. No agenda. You're welcome to gaze along if you have nothing else to do.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Thoughts on Corporate Business Functions on Valentine's Day

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Current mood: content Honey, I got plans for Valentine's day and you won't believe it! I have reservations at the Grand Hotel! Sounds romantic... I know, but you're not invited. I'll be rooming with a 52 year old man named Terry."


A corporate valentine to my wife. I proposed to her on a cold Valentine's Day 13 years ago. Its a date I don't like missing. One of the few I get, frankly, but these guys pay the bills. That's not romantic, but its love.

So I went to the conference at the fancy hotel, oddly in my own little midwest town. Overnight stays a requirement due to the fullness of the schedule. I had four hours of materials to present on materials I could not yet read, on a laptop not yet returned from the helpdesk control group out of India. And my beautiful wife, at home outnumbered 3:1 by half ferrel children while I get mints on my pillow, valet parking, and room service for 3 days. Yeah, I felt some guilt.

Work meetings finished at 5, I went to the gym til 7, when attendance at a dinner program was required. I walked the downtown streets alone in a sea of coupled lovers, strolling arm in arm or in hansom cab. So alone. The people at the dinner were so nice. Like me, we had forsaken our loves in order to demonstrate our dedication to supporting them. But the emptiness in my heart grew as my time droned on. Introduction after introduction. Anecdotes. Old humor for new people. They like it. Its a shell. They stare stupidly at the outside and never know the person beneath it. You can know what someone does, yet nothing about them and that is who I am there. Frankly to so many, many people. And the one person who knows me, intimately, who sees through the zen bullshit and the scientific trivia, the one I love so dearly, was only 20 minutes away.

So I decided to hell with the rubber chicken dinner with it open bar of pallid, low-end alcohols. I wanted the comfort of mutual appreciation, that companionship and communion. I went home and loved her until the moment I had to leave again.

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