hotel x contd

i'm working overnights now - 11 PM to 7 AM, five days a week. it's been interesting and awful. it's funny  how i can't trust my body to do what's best for me anymore, within the constraints of my sickening work obligations. i sleep from 8 30 AM to about 3, and then maybe take a nap at 7 or 8. on my day off, it was funny lying in bed at 4 in the morning, being v nice to myself, telling myself to just stay awake a couple more hours because thats what was best for me. its like if i took charge of my heartbeat.

i don't have a hat for the job. dad said i oughta get a picture of myself in my uniform, and ill have to do that.

for overnights, i mostly just need to get a list of 24 hour food places memorized. thats the main thing. ppl occasionally need cars parked or retrieved or taxis called. ive seen a bunch of famous ppl the last couple days because of the all star game. i brought down grant hill's luggage at like 4am this morning. and ive seen shaq and charles barkley and kenny smith and chris webber and rick fox. webber and hill are esp beautiful human beings.

i drop off newspapers in front of ppls doors around 4. i worry that it makes too much noise when i drop them, but i cant be bothered to bend down. the hallways are really creepy, or maybe the shining just affected me too much. i don't know why it's so creepy. is it because there are so many people everywhere and i cant see any of them? it occurred to me at one point that somebody could open a door and snatch me. or is it that the hallways are immaculate but there's no one around? the carpet is gray overlaid with swoopy red shapes. there's definitely at least a couple miles worth of it.

the food part of the cafeteria gets unlocked at like 2, and then we can get the food from earlier that day out of the fridge. i never bother to heat it up.

i work with one other guy (ill be alone after im done with training). it's unpleasant because he's not smart and takes the job seriously. and he's very kind so i feel bad about wanting to run away from him all the time. there's data entry to do on all the cars in valet parking. it's offensive how clunky it is to do - how worthless my time is. for instance, one section requires you to punch in a password every time you change the parking spot number of a given car, which you reliably have to do 30 times.

sick

been in bed sick the past couple days so ive watched a million movies and forgotten most of them immediately. taken 2 and tak3n (taken 3, haha) are pretty indistinguishable. it's funny to see dad jokes about killing boyfriends come to life. they both take place in a world in which dad is an OCD lunatic and that's totally justified. the highlights are the inventive secret agent stuff, like when he's telling her exactly what to do without explaining why. it's this whole military ethos of following orders, and it can be thrilling. if he just told her to grab the map out of the briefcase in the closet that wouldn't have the fun of him saying to "go to the closet" "remove the briefcase" "open the briefcase" "take out the map." it's almost kinky, maybe, to never explain and only order.

anyway. i also watched some shitty sean penn movie called the gunman. it's amazing to me that women still shriek throughout all of these movies. i thought we were past this. but that's all they're ever depicted as doing as soon as anything goes wrong.

but the HIGHLIGHTS were inside man and coming to america. inside man is a delightful heist movie. it's a nifty conceit and it's great watching denzel washington swagger all over the place. it also just meanders in the best way. there're random snippets from interviews with suspects/victims, which are great. there's a construction worker summoned forth for random delightful banter, and then his ex wife gets hauled in for the same. there are lengthy asides with police officers showing them as both bigots and sane human beings. it takes its time. it's wonderful

coming to america is great too. it's funny. it's also rare and great to see all these black protagonists. was super anxious at the end that he wasnt gonna get to marry lisa.

more hotel x

when i get off work i find myself sitting in the locker room for half an hour. i stare at my phone or my shoes and i don't think anything.

i resent how bellhopping has creeped into the rest of my life. i find myself nodding my head at ppl i'm not professionally obliged to acknowledge, and i can't stop holding doors open for everybody. i'm really good at the introductory nodding and helloing. but its so canned that i get thrown when somebody opens by asking me how i'm doing. i rarely manage to tell them that "i'm good."

some of the cars are nice. the nicest was this bmw that would project the km/h onto the bottom left corner of the windshield. so space age-y and practical and great.

the biggest thing with cars is how they react to you not buckling your seatbelt. there are chimes and chirps and some of them talk to you. some freak out within the first 30 seconds while others will give you a couple of minutes. there are also cars that will beep when some part of the car is close to touching something, which is an awful feature when you're parking, because you're going very very slowly and you know the column is there and you're finessing it, but the car is beeping like crazy which only makes things worse. i have stopped to open the window because i got so anxious.

some cars adjust the seat and the position of the wheel after you start them up, which is funny as a large person. because i get in and then have this budding terror as the car closes in.

three different cars have had the james bond soundtrack playing, which is to say ppl staying at this hotel are leaning into their awfulness, which is endearing.

i stand all day with my hands clasped (WHAT AN AWFUL WORD) either in front of me or in back of me, and i stand straight and never lean against things. sometimes i walk quickly but i never jog because having two feet off the ground at a time would be indecent. this builds up in me, and whenever i have to go fetch a car i run as soon as i reach the back of the house. i run down the ramp into the parking lot. even the cold becomes something interesting. i'm inspecting the way the cold feels as opposed to just feeling cold.

red heat

that was a densely bigoted movie. swaggeringly racist, and not really sure how absurd to be. the villain's voice is pretty absurd. i liked how arnold never broke character - stayed absurd the whole time. i guess it was absurd.

hotel x

i've worked two days at a medium swanky hotel in downtown toronto. vin diesel checked in today. i'm a "bellperson." i park and retrieve cars and carry bags and say "good morning" or "good evening" or "hello" to people arriving, and "take care" when people leave. i get tips when i give someone their bag or when i'm holding open the door of their car. it's intimate and sad and nothing like tipping in a restaurant. it feels like something out of the 1800s. 

above all there is nothing to do. i stand there and look professional. it's by far the least work i've ever done. it's boring.

i had to park a chevy suburban today and when i got out of the car i had sweat on my forehead. those things are unbelievable.

people constantly tell me i'm good looking, way more than anywhere else i've worked, and i don't know what it means about the work environment. maybe it's that everybody's under great scrutiny in terms of hair, attire comportment, and so a person's face is fairer game than usual. i now understand how ppl itched, back in the 60s or something, to grow their hair out. all the higher ups just wear ugly suits. but the right to pick out your own ugly tie each morning is a privilege in the hierarchy so i wish i had it.

i smile a lot and fantasize about sitting down. the lobby is mostly marble, but there's a big purple rug in the middle and i stand with my heels on the rug so it's softer. i got reprimanded once for leaning. it's a nice looking place. i wear a black jacket that looks like a mao suit without buttons and black pants and black shoes. i also fantasize about when the health benefits will kick in so i can get these special shoe inserts sculpted to fit my foot. 

the back of the house is comically dingy the instant you step through the door. there's apparently about one employee for every person staying at the hotel when it's at full capacity. there are tons of good looking people staying or living at the place.  

i make like $12.50 an hour plus tips, which i'm not getting now because i'm in training. i hand them off to my colleagues. the newest one has been there for eight years - the longest tenured for 30. they make the same base pay as me, despite all the years. one also bartends and another also drives a cab. tips way down from what they used to be - probably the economy in recent years. but the old timers remember when luggage with wheels got big about 20 years ago. that killed tips. now it's $30-40 for an 8 hour shift.

the doormen all seem to be burly guys with beards. most of the bellpeople are people of color - all men. the concierges supervise us, sort of. the ppl at the front desk are all preppy and young and cheerful. the managers all seem to be either white men or asian women. the managers all sit at the big central table in the cafeteria, and no one else. the food is mediocre.

shooter

mark wahlberg is the alpha bro. he is the bro paragon. i love watching him. he is the best. this movie is coherent and exciting until wahlberg surrenders, from which point it makes no sense. also, his character is named Bob Lee Swagger.

i love snare drum soundtracks and gun jargon and video game fight scenes and perfect perfect planning.