Here in White Center

Listening to Damien Jurado this morning. I love that guy. If you get a chance, download the song "White Center" or pick up the new album it's on, "On my way to absence."

Things have been pretty steady for Sarah and I lately. We've had setbacks and blessings evenly spaced. Ahhh... now I'm listening to Wilco. "Bob Dylan's 49th beard." What a great song. Thank you George. Tomorrow is church. I can't wait. It's such a place to be recharged for us. A place where people love us, and care about us. It really hurts to be so far away from family. We've been talking about that lately. It's likely that after our lease is up, we'll consider moving back to the midwest. Of course, the friends we've made here, and the life we've been forming will be astranged at that point, so that makes it hard too. It's all weird. But as Charles Dickens put it in the Christmas Carol, "Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it." I'm listening to the fantastic song "Good Woman" by the band Cat Power. It always catches my heartstrings. It's not that the situation in the song is near to my experience, but it just puts you in her mind.

Sarah made blueberry muffins with artificial blueberries last night while I was at work, and man, are these things good! We watched the original 1933 version of King Kong the other day. Very good. I can't wait to see the new one. I can see why Peter Jackson was so impressed. It tries so much harder, as far as effects are concerned, than the other movies of its era. The acting was great, and the plot was well carried by the action. It's strange to see such politically incorrect cinema from time to time. It has a certain innocence, and a buried animosity toward the different, the unusual.

I work tonight. I hope tips are good. Things have been going great at work. For the second day in a row, I've eaten my lunch with the Hotel Manager. He's a tough cookie. Never smiles. It made it funny the other day during orientation when he made an appearance to give us a speech on what really matters at the hotel. When he said "The most important thing that you can do is smile. We want smiles." with a completely stern look on his face. We all had to stifle our smiles at that point. But when you get him by himself he's pretty cool. We talked computers. He started his hotel career in Chicago at a hotel near Ohio and Michigan Aves. One of his jobs was to load the punchcards and reels into their computer. Yeah. That beats my commador stories. Last night, things were hectic, and I sort of slipped into the management position. The bus captain, who's experienced, but not a great leader, kept sliding into a subordinate role and looking to me for direction. So I directed. Things started going better. The hotel manager happened to be the active manager at the time, so he got to see what was going on. He congratulated me at the end of the night. I can feel things slipping into place. If things keep going right, I'll see that management position soon enough.

Well, that's it for now.
Peace.