Truth Vomit

I'm sitting in an airport in the midwest, the bar has closed. I leave on a red-eye flight for one of the coasts in a short period of time.

At first, I arrived at the airport fully expecting to slide into the private airline lounge (a perk if you fly a bazillion miles a year like I do), take a nap, and get escorted to my business or preferably first class seat. That didn't happen.

Instead, a bar was surprisingly open. They're never open late on a Thursday, but there were 8 people in a bar and they stayed open. God bless those who take the red-eye.

Red-eye flights are interesting. MOST search engines don't list them, including Expedia and Orbitz. Even the main websites of airlines don't always have them in their default. Who wants to fly at 3am?

So I wander to the bar, sit down, and the cute old man bartender walks up. "Mr. Sane, it's been awhile." Umm, who the hell are you, bucko? "We met in a bar in Atlanta. Wait." He flips through his wallet and producing a business card of mine.

It says Chicago Sane, Man on a Mission. Holy crap, I haven't had that card in 8 years. How does this man remember me? "It's my job to remember names and faces. Why do you think a guy in his 50s would work in an airport?" Win. I'll have a... "Tequila on the rocks?" GEEZUS. "$7." I leave him a $20 and tell him to keep the change.

As my drink is poured, a lady 2 seats over to me slides over to the seat to my right. "He didn't know me, but I had met him once before." In Georgia? "Denver." Oh. "I'm flying early, figured I may as well get drunk before boarding the flight." I'm staying sober.

We chat. She's really attractive, maybe late 20s. I'll call her Xena, because she's gargantuan tall but probably a size 2. We end up discovering we have 3 mutual friends on various coasts, we may have met at a party just 3 years ago. She was drunk, and after 2 hours I was drunk. Her hands were all over my body, something I haven't gotten properly with the last few gals I took out. Damn it, mile high club here I come. Again.

She's also flying to the same destination I am. Alas, she's flying cattle class. Too bad, because she's a trip, and she knows all the punch lines to every bar joke imaginable. Still, we had a good talk, and it's always nice when a gorgeous Amazon woman gives you her number, her business card, her email address and all that without you prompting her for it. I promised to call her the next time I visited her home town.

So here I am, completely shitfaced, using whatever WiFi one of my cell phone companies provides free of charge. It's OK, I needed this. I board shortly anyway, and I was pleasantly placed in the last remaining first class seat on the plane.

So I'm heading to a coast, allegedly to meet to friends of mine who were miniature rock stars in their previous lives. In reality, of course, I received a phone call from a client who is in quite a bind and needs superior assistance with whatever it is he's gotten himself into.

I wasn't going to go, in fact I was going to go visit another friend in another town and drink mass quantities of vodka and put my face on hers and see where it landed us. But then he pitched a price, and I couldn't say no. Imagine that you own a crappy microwave oven made in 1995 and someone you know calls you and says they'll pay $1000 cash for it if you can deliver it. Even without a car, you're going to schlep that bastard on the bus and the train to make $1000 for a microwave work $20 or less. So here I am.

I love the coasts -- New York and Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle. The first two have a disgusting amount of gorgeous women, and in this economy, beauty gets you jack shit. So you have gorgeous women who can't get jobs as baristas because they're too pretty and the fat dyke who manages won't hire them. It means that "actress" gigs are gone, and even the good bar jobs are hard to come by. I love recessions, personally, because I make a shit-ton of money when things are supposedly slow, so I can conserve it until things pick up financially for the Joe Six Pack, which means more vacation time for me.

I hate the coasts, though, because people are blind to reality. My friend on one coast owns a $2 million condo that is about 2000 square feet. Idiot. It's filled with another million work of junk that I would scoff at for 1/100 of the price. Then there is me, Mr. Opposite. I drive an old car, I live in a tiny apartment in the ghetto, I tell women I meet that I'm an unemployed writer. Why? Because I can hide my wealth so simply, and no one has to know I'm taking them out for $6 burgers and then taking myself out for a $100 steak alone the next night.

It's a love-hate relationship, me and the coasts. I'm a Midwest guy, hell I AM CHICAGO. There is no doubt in my mind that I am more Chicago than Mayor Daley, Chicago-style pizza or a "drag it through the garden" hot dog. They all came after me, at least that's how I'll rewrite the history books.

I need the break, but I think I need to makeout with some random stranger and run before she can give me her spare hotel room key. Chances are, I won't do it. The girls on the coasts are DIRTY, and I'm clean. Sane and clean, that's me. Sane and clean and discrete and mysterious, etc.

So here I am, sitting in an airport, drunk. Xena is sleeping in a chair about 10 feet way from me, the last thing I noticed was her lips mouthing "call me" or possibly "caw eemee." Probably the first. She's passed out, though. My flight leaves eventually, and I'm in no rush to take off. But that's my life.

Sometimes people I know say they wish they could disappear for a day or two, maybe a week, tops. For me, that's part of the job. I fly on big planes to big cities with big hotels. I do a big job that I finish in less time than it takes a woman to get a manicure and pedicure. I get my payment, haul ass back to the Midwest, and resume my path to being known as an author and an entrepreneur.

And I love life. I really, really do. I feel bad for those who are duped into thinking life is about HUGE houses with 2 $80,000 BMWs parked out front. Maybe for most it is, but I could never let life pass me by that fast. Instead, life feels slow, like I can feel it, the palpable heartbeat of life. In an airport, drunk, hopping a flight to the edge of the border of the U.S., that's where I want to be. That brings me sanity.

Staying Sane is the most important activity in my life. It's what I do for others, it is who I have become.

Sane's List of Predicament, Item #1: Forgetful

I guess I was supposed to meet someone for dinner yesterday, but completely flaked out on her. Not a date, per se, just a get together. This happens. I try to warn people I am friends with, those who I date, that I tend to drop the ball on getting together. Like a little kid in a candy store, my eyes are constantly spinning looking at interesting things around me. I get side tracked. Reservations go unfulfilled at the nicest restaurants when the churro-and-elote cart guy rolls past me. I've missed concerts, I've even missed flights entirely.

If I'm seeing someone, I try to let them know: send me a text in the morning so I don't forget. It's not that I don't care, I just don't have the concept of time like most people do. When did we agree to get together? "Two weeks ago." Oh. Has it been that long?

When I was younger, I pretty much only had a phone in my room, so missing out on events was more common. Now that I have twitter, email, text messaging, a cell phone, an answering service and all that, I still tend to get forgetful. I've tried various programs and phone apps to keep my to-do list of stuff I promise to do, but it rarely happens. I forget to actually ENTER the to-do list, and that's that.

Grocery shopping is a nightmare. One time I went to the grocery store 3 times in a week and bought the EXACT SAME ITEMS. Forgot I already bought them. I try to make grocery lists at home, and I only pick up what my two arms can carry (no shopping carts for me). Clothes shopping can also be a nightmare. Yes, I really did need 4 pairs of slacks in the same color. Oops.

There are some things I'm good at remembering to do: laundry, feed the cat, change litter, buy cigarettes. That's because they are things that can be seen (or smelled, meow). The unseen, the future, is a bit topsy turvy. It's a reason I want an assistant, and I need to get back to that work. Again, my brain forgets easily.

I do feel bad when I blow someone off, but in the case of my friend yesterday, I did warn her twice to text me so I'd remember. It's not that I'm playing hard to get, I'm playing "ooh, look at the shiny thing!" At least my brain is.

I can be a terrible boyfriend for this reason. I'll forget birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, favorite foods, etc. I may forget your best friend's name, even after 6 months. A few times, early on, I forgot the girl's name who I was dating. A lot of "hey doll," "honey" and "sweetheart" until I sneaked a peak at her driver's license or credit card. I've never been caught, yet.

The benefit of having horrible short term memory is that my brain can make connections faster than most people who are not oblivious to reality. This makes me a great listener, and I can also motivate people to work sad feelings or angry desires. It makes me better in bed since I am focused on the now rather than where my body wants to be. It makes me a good beer pal because I don't worry about responsibility 2 hours from now, but for having fun NOW.

For most of my friends and family, they feel sad that I am so forgetful. I'm not. I rarely get hurt feelings, I never remember the bad stuff, and the good stuff gets put on this site or on my private blog. Reviewing things brings back a flood of memories (taste, feel, smell, sounds) and I'm really happy for it. Who needs the clutter of drama and baggage in their mind when the world is so large and there are so many things to do?

And that's just it: I love doing things. I love meeting people. I love eating and drinking, smoking and dancing, kissing and fucking, loving and laughing, driving and arriving. It's exciting. For all my upcoming items from my list of predicaments, I wouldn't trade it for the world. Excitement is the taste of life. Are you missing out on excitement?