The craziest thing happened to me at work tonight.

Actually, two of the craziest things happened to me tonight. The former - which I'm too scared to talk about - will change everything, for the rest of my life. The latter - which I'm about to talk about - is really more amusing than life-changing.

I worked the desk tonight. And I have to wait for all the guests to leave before I can leave. Around 11:30, the valet guy radioed in, saying he had 5 sets of keys left. But I told him all the guests appeared to be gone. I checked the West Side Dining Rooms - no one. I checked the East Side Banquet Rooms - no one. I checked the pub. There were 4 people left.

But valet still had 5 sets of keys.

"Capital Club to valet: you should only have 4 keys."
"Valet to Capital Club: well, I've got 5."
"A couple went down a few minutes ago. Maybe they're number 5."
"10-4. I'll see if they show."

That's when I noticed - the EMERGENCY signs in-between the elevators were blinking. EMERGENCY. EMERGENCY. USE STAIRS.

There were people stuck in an elevator.

Only problem: there were 5 elevators. Which one was broken?

I ran back to the desk and called security. Security called the fire department. And then I radioed Valet.

"Mike, I'm coming down."
"Bring the radio with you."
"Will do."

I slung my bag over my shoulder and entered the stairwell. I'd never been in the stairwell before. But I'd always wanted to try it. So I descended all 21 floors - all 42 flights - as quickly as I could. My knees began to hurt. When I got to the bottom, the door was locked. I couldn't get out of the stairwell. So I began climbing all the stairs I'd just descended, until I was back on the 21st floor.

That door was locked, as well.

There were emergency phones on every other landing. But I didn't want to call the police department to get me out of the stairwell. So I stood on the landing at the 21st floor, staring at the ceiling in abandon.

Just then, I heard the door alarm go off, and a security guard entered the stairwell; he brushed by me and started down the stairs. I caught the door before it closed, and I was back in the Club.

Now I had no choice but to use the elevators.

When I got to the first floor this time, the doors opened, and I walked out to find firemen and police officers standing in the hallway. The people were still stuck on that elevator. I went through the revolving door, down the outside steps, past the escalator, and entered the valet guy's hallway. I gave him back the radio.

He was still sitting there waiting when I left around 12:15. I wonder how long those people were stuck.

I'm applying for a loan right now.

The school's already agreed that I'm eligible for a certain amount. So I applied through the mail. I was sure I'd gotten the loan, and I hated myself for it. I didn't want the loan. I don't want to be in debt. My parents got into severe debt when I was 2. And I've seen what it does. It's affected me every day since then.

School is not worth ruining my finances before I'm even old enough to have them.

Especially a school I don't even want to go to.

Now the school's sent me a letter saying I have to apply online. So here I am. Applying.

Subsidized loan.
Unsubsidized loan.

What the hell.

What should I do? Is this worth it? Should I work for a few years to save up the money? Or should I go ahead and do this? People tell me that if I don't do it now, I never will. And I'll be working in restaurants for the rest of my life.

I'm moving in January. Into an apartment with my sister. Most of my work money will go toward living expenses. It'll be hard to save anything for college. Should I tell my sister to find somewhere else to live, and then stay here with my parents? Save some money?

I don't want to be a bum, almost as much as I don't want to be in debt.

I work at a Private Business Club. And we're not usually open on Mondays for dinner. But tonight we were, for the Holiday Open House. So I had to work the desk.

On the upside, I made good money in coat-check tips. I've noticed that the men tip more often than the women. And the older men tip more than the younger men.

It's interesting, really.

I've got a headache from smiling so much. Rich people like to be smiled at.

Tomorrow it's back to the banquet hall. Lighting candles. Pouring Chardonnay and Champagne. Shining silverware. Serving chocolate cake. I'm better at that stuff anyway. Working the desk is too complicated - what, with all the phone lines and voice mails and questions I don't know the answers to.

At least I got to sit down at the desk, though.

Clicky for some randomness I stole from melancholyecho:


( teh MEME / survey / I was bored )

Well what do you know... I'm back.

A month without a computer.
It was certainly interesting.

During that time, I became incredibly bored. And lost quite a bit in the process - like my hard drive. All my programs. And my mind.

But on the flip side, I gained a full-time job, a phone relationship with Mary, and a tattoo. I started writing in my journal again. I came to terms with losing everything I'd worked for and saved and held dear - I thought I'd lost all my files. My papers, my music, my art, my pictures. My novel. My only saved conversation with Phillip. I came to terms with it all being gone. And the slate of my life being wiped, like my hard drive.

The metaphor is lost, now that I've got all my files. But living through those eyes for 35 days... It was an experience.

Hey everyone! This is princessklutz04, and I've hijacked my friend's account per her request.

I am to tell you all that she is not gone forever, she is just too busy playing with her barbie playhouse unable to access the internet. Her computer is on the fritz, and when I talked to her last night she told me that the repair man said to give it a week.

Any comments you leave here, I will pass on to her!!

clink. clink. clink. clink.

Branches on the window.
Wind on the roof.
Rain, pouring, pouring, on his bedroom.

He's drowning.

Glance at the clock. Roll back over. Wrap himself up in his burgundy sheet.
clink. clink.
He washed it today. His pillowcases, too.

He figures it means something: normalcy, maybe. Caps of detergent. Gyrating washers. Sitting on the dryer while swinging his feet.

But it didn't bring him back to his childhood.
He tried.

Then he drank.

Now he tosses back and forth.

His arms make a diagonal stretch across the bed.
His fingers touch the corner.
His hand grips the edge.

clink. clink.
She knocks. And he listens. And she stands in the rain.
Avoiding the river pouring down from the roof.
She knocks. He listens.

She lets herself in.

House becomes an echo. The branches on the window nearly drowning it out. But he listens. And she finds him. And she opens the door.

He stays on his stomach, with his nose in the sheets.
Burgundy springtime.
It's wrong - it's euphoric.
It's so damn dark.

Thunder shakes his bed and he smiles.

Because he thrives on the contradiction.
And the clinking.
And the footsteps advancing through the carpet.

Warm pressure.
A woman on his back.
Her skin on the skin of his arms, and he wonders:
Whose skin is colder? Her hair soaks his shirt.

You're staying. She nods.
Open like an eagle, above him. Atop him.
She breathes on his shoulder and he sleeps.
At last.

His nose buried deep in the sheets.

Their arms make a diagonal stretch across the bed.
Her fingers link with his, and she whispers,
til morning.

Thunder shakes his bed and she smiles.

Continuation of comments for So Many Vases.

Yeah, I didn't want to delete them...

I'm burnt.

Everything on me is burnt. I think I have 3rd degree burns. It's befitting. I deserve to burn. So I don't wear sunscreen. And then I blister and my face peels off. My skin is bleeding. It hurts to smile.

It always has.

Everything in life is coming together. Physical metaphors for all my emotions. I was in a hotel room when 12:00 struck. On the one-month reminder of his death. And I announced it before-hand. No one spoke. Except for, "It's been a month?"

And then silence. Another metaphor. It's driving me crazy.

I don't want to go to college. It's always been expected that I would. But I was ready to die, and end it all. Nothing mattered in the moment. And now I'm in the wake of it, piecing things together. One by one, getting them back. I'm still deciding if I want them back. And college - I never wanted anyway.

Magna Cum Laude. Latin-speaking graduate. Highest score in America on SAT essay. It seems like it should be enough. It seems like I should go to college. It seems like I should have bragging rights. But all I want to do is write. And write. And when I go crazy, finally, I'll write. And then write some more.

It's all I want in life.

That, and for it not to hurt when I smile.

Tomorrow is the one-month anniversary of his death. The word anniversary sounds fun. I'll be at the beach. Or driving. Or eating. Probably in a hotel room when 12:00 strikes. But I don't deserve to have fun.

The world should be silent at midnight tomorrow. It lost a comedian. Maybe a politician. An aimless 18-year-old; it lost Phillip Turner. The world is less funny now that he's gone. And I don't deserve to have fun.

I see the signs in retrospect. His MySpace display name was Fuck me in the brain. That shouldn't be poetic, but it is. He wrote in my yearbook, 2 years ago:

Cry for me
Once the moors fall.
They're me.
-Phillip T.

And he traced his hand.

I put my hand in his hand, and know he'd disapprove. He was hesitant against my hug. But he sat beside me and touched me with his knee. Ordered Apple Pie he didn't even want. And then laughed when he left it in the restaurant. They way I left my pizza in the back of his car.

I'm so scared of forgetting. That his favorite band was Pearl Jam. That he wanted a tattoo of them somewhere on his arm. That he bothered me in journalism every single day. And chased Anthony all the way to high school.

He called me and we talked 'til 3 in the morning. He said...if he could stop the world from spinning, that he'd know what everyone's thinking. And he sat on the floor, next to the outlet, making funny comments and making me laugh. His charger was a pain, but it gave me these memories.

I'm glad he asked me to do things I didn't want to do. Like eat at a college bar and drink his Jack Daniels. Stand in a porn shop for 3 and a half minutes without my ID in my pocket. Like switch to Marlboro and stop attending church. Like question everything in life.

I'm glad I let him drive my car, and almost wreck into an SUV. It scared me for the moment; it prepared me for now. When I'd have to rely on petty memories to keep him fresh in my mind. I'll always have his picture; I'll always have this frame. And the candle, and the rose petal, and the cross. And the calendar that's stuck on the day he died.

August 16, 2006.

I remember, Phillip.
I remember.

Field Interviewer.

It's not the money that drives me now. The job is perfect, for a different reason. The empty hotel rooms. The weeks away. The nights in another time zone. I long to live from a bag, and be lost. And fall asleep in the lights of Dallas. Again.

But this time alone. And aimless.