NEEDLING

EARLY MORNING GETTING READY FOR A NEW DAY

Back at my coffee, my computer, my dirty studio. Scrubbed the toilet bowl yesterday. Slept most the afternoon, trying to recover from my fourteen day stint at the hotel. Might even get some laundry done this morning. Asked my boss what he thought about the end of my contract coming up in three weeks. He said he thought I would stay, that he was interested in me staying at the hotel. I then asked him how much time I had to think about it. When should I tell him I’m staying or I’m leaving. Two weeks before the end of said contract, was the answer. I told him I’m thinking about going back to the States. What a time to go back State-side. And to Texas no less. Like a German-American going back to Berlin in the early 1930’s. Obviously one can’t make those kind of comparisons. Different shit-hole all together, shit-hole nonetheless. Back at my coffee…

Got a writing assignment for my writer’s group. Was so numbed into stupid-hood by the never-ending hours at the hotel… I’ve been home sleeping every single minute out of the hotel trying to recover from… for example: two American women in their fifties from Texas right outside of Dallas, asking me, wearing black felt berets with pictures of the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe emblazoned in gold colored threading on the back… walking around with plastic cups filled with red wine… they were asking me if the statue in the middle of the Place de la Republic represented the French Independence day. Maybe you’re mistaking the column in the middle of Place de la Bastille, I proposed, which stands where the Bastille prison used to sit, and which represents the taking of the Bastille during the French Revolution. As far as an independence day, France has been an independent state for way too long to have such a day. Ohhhh…. gulp, gulp… plastic cups plank plock in the trash bin… I’ve had to put up with them for three days. Three mornings where I sent up perfectly nicely decorated and arranged breakfast trays. That was so nice, my god, they told me the first morning after the first tray went up to their room, that we took a picture. Did they give the maid a tip for bringing said tray to their room? No. Did they give me a tip for putting said tray together and making sure all was in order? No. Did they then come down to the reception area and talk my ears off asking me a million silly questions? Yes. Did I keep smiling throughout, trying my best to give half coherent answers to half gurgled up questions? Yes. And no, I’m not describing myself as the good guy here, I was hopping for a tip, I was doing this because I figured there was a pay-off, that doesn’t make me the good guy, that makes me the cheap materialistic, calculating waiter.

Back at my coffee, which is getting cold… Clementine the maid was laughing at me when those two American sisters from Texas kept hanging out in the reception area. They’re hitting on you, she kept saying, the thin one, I think she’s eying you. Drop it, Clementine, they’re just American versions of you. They won’t stop talking. That’s all they do is talk. It doesn’t matter what they say, as long as useless meaningless noise is coming out of their traps. That shut her up for a couple of minutes. Then she said, you’re mean, Francois, I’m not like that. Then she went pouting up to her rooms, and left me thank god by myself.