It’s cold outside.
Hell, it’s cold inside. I can’t seem to adjust the thermostat in my hotel room. I didn’t bring a sweatshirt. The floors of the en suite are marble and my socks are thin…
I sit huddled in my “down alternative” comforter, intermittently changing the position of my laptop so that I can sit in the warm spot it created on the weirdly crisp white sheets. I made a cup of tea, brewing hot water through the coffee maker. I can only hold it. I will not drink it because I’ll have to pee… and again, the en suite is marble.
On the same floor are several “friends” with whom I spend my weeks. Yet, no one knocks. We work. We send email next door and across the hall. The distance is odd; the closeness comforting. Though we’re together for more than 12 hours a day, it’s a lonely existence. People don’t talk much about themselves or their “real” lives. We don’t share photographs in wallets of our dogs, significant others, or family. And no one asks to see. Instinctively we all know that it’s just a sad reminder of the things we miss.
We live in the moment, in the crisis, in the solution. We are engrossed. We are thinking. We are strategizing. We are working. We are Consultants.
