Day 3: Still in LA

More work to be done. Contrary to those pastoral ads for banks or retirement funds, I can't imagine reconciling and actualizing costs of this project sitting at a campsite, even if it is by a lake with the sun going down.

What a rich gimmick: The poor schlemiel salaryman sitting at an airport or in a waiting room pages through Forbes with a hundred worries on his or her mind, perhaps even wishing he was somewhere elese, comes across an ad that shows a handsome guy sitting on an adirondack chair at the lapping foot of a lake surrounded by pine trees and solitude, his face lit by the cool window to the world of his laptop.

See, the beleaguered salaryman dreams, he's on vacation and getting work done. Or at least, he's out on his own, out of the office, no one telling him what to do, secreted by nature, where all things are at peace. And glad of it. Getting work done. That's all I really want.

I'm thinking about these ads because I am that poor schlemiel, caught between wanting actually being on vacation and yet still working, but without the pretty countryside all around me. And I'm here to tell you that if I were having to double check fringe costs on overtime labor to the sound of baying wolves or keeping an eye on the rustling of nearby bushes, I should be fired.

Meantime, my vacati0n goes on without me while I set up shop 0n Andrew and Damon's kitchen table, working off a little Office Depot handheld calculator. Where I daydream about getting away from it all some day, maybe going on a long cross country drive, king of the road.

...

Also, don't let the chattiness here fool you. I'm plenty sick. Came down with a rotten stomach flu overnight. It's the complete package: numerous trips to the powder room, sulfurous stomach, fever, dull eyes. Andrew and Damon continue to feed me and let me take over their kitchen. If it weren't so hot, they'd be wearing Florence Nightingale capes and hats. The Saints of Agnostica.