It’s been bothering me for a few weeks. That concept of “ten years on the road” is wearing me out. I thought about it as I was having “chez hotel” food, reading the local [Friday’s edition> newspaper, Sunday morning. Another reader asked if I got my breakfast coupon. Huh?
“Yeah, five bucks off the price of breakfast. Ask at the desk.”
If I have to worry about $5 off the price of breakfast, in fact, if I have to eat hotel food, then there’s a problem.
Love the area, the love the people. Learned a lot. But I’ve got to face a few facts, like I’m barely covering expenses on this last trip. Might actually be a few dollars in the hole. That’s not working.
Ten years ago, I was a younger man.
Doesn’t mean that I won’t visit, or I won’t still consider the Permian Basin as a possible home away from home, but it also means I won’t work any more events out this way. Gave it my best shot, tried the best that I know how to do, but I’m not making it.
Two hours southwest of MAF [airport code for Midland-Odessa airport>, there’s some of the prettiest country in the world. Maybe that’s more like 4 hours. I guess it depends on how you drive.
Love the countryside, love the stories. But with profit margins that are razor thin, I’ve got to watch expensive overhead that doesn’t carry its own weight.
The requiem part plays in when I think about the stories.
At one location, we were in the ballroom on the second floor of the hotel. “You don’t have to be psychic,” I quipped, “look out the window and you can see next week.”
I got called “delicate.” Now it’s a joke. Then it was serious.
Watching clouds recede as the company plane made its hasty ascent, the sun just setting, first to our left, then behind, blazing back to Austin, I thought about the clouds. Watched a tornado funnel form then go away on the road to Lubbock one time.
There’s usually a reading or two that tickles me, either the chart, the client, something. Sunday afternoon was no different.
