On Orbs and Politicians

I wish I could tell you everything that is currently in my brain.

There are not enough hours in a day. It's 7:33 PM, and I am holed up in a corner of the Portland International "Jetport", which is quite possibly the tiniest and loneliest airport in all the land. Although, since Starbucks closes at 7 PM on the dot, they will take pity upon your ass at 7:12 and provide free cups of decaf joe. So there you go.

Which brings me to "go-go juice", which is what they call coffee at a certain Rockland, Maine bed and breakfast I stayed in last night.

And fuck me, I hate bed and breakfasts. Look, man: they are all haunted, and you know it.

Once, I visited a B & B in Gettysburg, PA, and the owners took pride in the pictures they had captured of GIANT ORBS OF LIGHT by guests' heads.

GIANT ORBS! Ghosts of Civil War soldiers, just meandering about the inn. Isn't that rich?

Yesterday I arrived in Rockland at 8 PM, having driven three hours from Manchester, New Hampshire. I was ill-prepared. I hadn't expected a bed and breakfast. Moreover, I hadn't expected to be placed in the "carriage house", doomed to sleep in a foreboding room marked PRIVATE.

"You've even got a washer and dryer!" Chirps Bob*, the inn-keeper. "How do you like that?"

"Wonderful," I say through clenched jaw. "I may have to do some laundry later!"

"This apartment was renovated for our 92 year-old neighbor," Bob tells me. "She asked us to build her a place so she wouldn't have to go into a nursing home."

"Oh," I say. Inside, however, I am screaming: HOLY FUCK!! That 92 year-old lady died in the bed I am about to sleep in! And she roams the apartment at night! She pokes guests as they slumber, wagging her bony ghost finger and shouting, "GET OUTTA MY BED, MISSY!"

(Now seriously, Internet. Tell me you wouldn't have thought precisely the same thing.)

My coworker arrives and we grab dinner at a local restaurant. I drink Dewar's to prepare myself for the inevitable confrontation with the spirit.

Mercifully, she leaves me alone throughout the night. (Perhaps because I woke every half-hour to turn on the light. Oh, and I slept with my contacts in.)

(ORBS!)

Was that story a bit anticlimactic?

Journey with our blog's heroine then, if you will, one day prior. An important professional conference in New Hampshire, the Granite State.

I am meandering about the exhibit hall when a short, friendly man approaches me. He extends his hand to me, and asks what we do at our company.

I give him my best spiel. I talk about markerting, and "re-branding". I wax poetic about our national television advertisements.

"Wonderful," he says politely. "So how's business?"

"Fantastic!" I claim. And then I blather on about business, finally taking a breath and asking, "And what line of work are you in?"

Beat.

"I'm the Governor of the State of New Hampshire."

Naturally.

"Oh!" I exclaim, as my face turns crimson, and I notice the security guard a few feet away. "Um, yeah. I, um, had no idea. But I'm from Philly."

And the gracious Governor chats with me for a few moments about Philadelphia, and some work he did there in the past. Soon, we part ways.

Another man saunters up shortly thereafter.

"How about when you asked the Governor of the state what he did for a living?" He asks.

Yeah. That was HILARIOUS.

Boarding. 'Night, y'all.