Service For One

Hello from Houston. I was going to write a post tonight called "Traveling Sucks." Why - cause it sucks. It sucks for a lot of reasons. It sucks having to check your bag cause you use so many bathroom products that you can't fit them in 3 ounce bottles all in a quart size bag. I can manage to get everything into small enough bottles - but I have a whole gallon size bag of products. The TSA people suck - they are just plain unhappy and they take it out on the travelers. It sucks flying on a small plane that only holds 60 people and having to deplane on the runway because the plane is so small. Then take a bus to the terminal and wait 30 minutes for the shuttle to the hotel. Oh, and it also sucks that the only thing to eat in a airport terminal is junk food. It sucks being trapped at a hotel in Houston with a bunch of people drinking and unable to get to a meeting. This sounds like a bunch of complaining to me, but I really set out on this trip thinking it was going to suck miserably in every way.

So I got to the hotel, checked in - only to find I had been upgraded to a suite. I unpacked - went to the cocktail reception for 1.5 hours and now I am sitting here on the Internet, awaiting my service for one, watching Grey's Anatomy and pretending like I am on vacation. Later, I will sit in the bathtub. The only thing missing from this small apartment sized hotel room, is a tub with jets. Oh - and I have the heat on. This is funny because I went through the entire winter in Chicago without turning my heat on. And here I am, in Houston, where it's 80 and I had the air on so high earlier that I have now had to turn the heat on to compensate for it. But see, like the food, the Internet, the heat - it's all free to me and courtesy of my law firm.

Service for one this evening consists of tortilla soup - which I hear is really good - it comes with chicken and fresh avocado on the side, a salad of mixed lettuce, red and yellow beets with a balsamic vinaigrette, mango sorbetto, and chamomile tea with honey and lemon. Later, after my bath, I will read the Big Book, do some step work, and retire to the king sized bed and listen to sleep 101 - the meditation cd in every room. That's odd isn't it? It's like they knew I was coming or something and they knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. Ha ha.

Anyway, the coolest thing about this whole experience, so far - and I have been dreading it - was the cocktail reception that I just went to. How is a cocktail hour cool to an alcoholic - ha, a sober one? Because not once did I even think about alcohol or drinking. Okay, for all you "normal" people, I know how this must sound - but to someone like me - it is truly a relief and an accomplishment to be able to be around alcohol and not feel like drinking. Not feel compelled, not feel obsessed, not have every single thought be about alcohol. I thought before I got here, that I would be so uncomfortable, and I'm not. What a relief. What a gift. I honestly didn't even think about it all. I have heard people say that when you work the program - this is what happens - but I wouldn't have believed it. I never thought it was actually possible.

Okay, I guess I thought about it enough to realize I wasn't thinking about it! Ha ha!