I am in Tampa. Or near there, anyway. On the Gulf somewhere. Treasure Island maybe? Is that a place or just a novel? I mean, is it anything other than the name of a million hotels, crab shacks and one pirate-themed gay dance club (I presume, but that would be the best club EVER). I’m at a resort, which is like being on a cruise ship, only you’re on land. It’s actually a little better than the cruise ship, because my room is the size of five of those cabins put together, and I’m not taking a shower in a shower the size of a suitcase. Anyway, I’m here because I was invited to attend this weird big corporate thing, which I realized today is “work summer camp”. We made a boat out of cardboard today and then kicked all the kids out of the pool so that we could race ’em. My design got second place out of six, but only because the rowing team didn’t want to hurt kids along the side when they veered off course. Stupid kids. Anyway, I got a medal on a red/white/blue ribbon. Just like the Olympics! The Olympics of cardboard boats! This teaches us to be better leaders somehow. I don’t know about that, but if you need a cardboard boat designed and built in twenty minutes? I’m your girl. I doubt I should put that on my resume.
Tomorrow I go home and then in four days, I get on another plane and take off again for another very hot place, only this time without the humidity. Which is good, because in humidity, apparently my hair goes FOOM! With sound effects. It’s hard to sleep at night, with all the fooming.
I’m off to eat dinner with some other camperscoworkers at a restaurant named “Crabby Pete’s”. There’s not nearly enough irony in all of Florida.
Ooh, and I’m back, after a delightful chunk of medium rare yellow fin tuna that all the guys couldn’t believe tasted exactly like steak. I accidentally laid down 12 feet of rubber with my rented Cadillac DTS (cooled seats? A necessity in the summer when visiting a)Utah b)Vegas c)Florida) in front of some porters. Whoops.
After dinner, we didn’t go up to the rooms but instead went out to the “adult” pool (they were showing the movie Cars in one of the kid pools, which was, I don’t know, adorable or something… kids floating on neon tubes with their faces flicker shadows while Owen Wilson’s voice drifts through palms) where we crashed out on some chaise lounges and sipped alcoholic beverages. There was a wedding happening next to the pool, so we were treated to the typical wedding-y type music, lots of disco, lots of Usher, etc. They had to wrap it up at ten, since it was next to the hotel, and the guests held sparklers as the couple walked down an aisle blazing with fireworks. A guest in the seventh floor leaned out the window and took a photo from above, and I hated her, just for a minute, because that vantage was perfect and she undoubtedly was shooting with some little point and click piece of crap that would never do it justice. So instead, that’s how I’d like to remember the image, as seen from above, a beaming couple in white running hand in hand down an aisle of dancing sparks.
