True Affection/Do You Miss My All Time Lows

At 7:30 PM in Houston the brightness of the day wanes. The sun plays it's last song of coral and pink as the curtain of night falls. The air smells like grilled meat. Family time. Soft chatter is overcome by base behind the house. The front yard is filled with accordions. Everything is in bloom. Every tree and every garden. The yards are crowded with wildflowers. A cluster of small oranges hides in my neighbor's tree. Despite the noise there are no people on the street, so the world feels unusually still. As if the life that was there has been stolen away.

I have had some great weekends lately.

Even though I recently tried to start a race war. 

The reason is unclear. 

Helter Skelter? 

Serial killers are really big right now. One can't blame me for wanting to jump in on the trend.

Jokes aside, as Thursday night became Friday morning and I had no idea where I was I spent perhaps 15 minutes trying to explain why my Jewish friend would also probably experience oppression like all my friends of color- which just kind of became me saying the word "Jew" a ton. I realized that I am probably entirely too comfortable with saying Jew instead of Jewish because in high school we were all terrible and had friend nicknamed Jew, which looking back was probably stereotypically pejorative. So, there's today's admittance that as a teenager I was a terrible person, and to a certain extent I remain a terrible person. The reason behind my attempt to establish that my Jewish friend was not really white was an inebriated flashback to a point earlier in the evening that carried much more weight than I tried to internalize.

The day was beautiful. Sun and traffic. Austin had been consumed by hordes in a way that I couldn't imagine happening the year before. I thought on a Thursday the plague of SXSW would be relatively contained as most Austinites were probably still at tolling away at their jobs before trying to make their way to free shows and free alcohol. The drive into Austin was as easy as I had predicted, but after picking Maeve up from campus the drive back to our hotel in South Austin was a horror show. For much of it there was simply no where to go and I was on my best, rage-less behavior. I did warn Maeve that I am typically a very aggressive and road-ragey driver, but it didn't seem worth it to react to the crawl of cars. No one could be doing any better. This was not like the drive on the open road that was often needlessly delayed by a few drivers going very slowly in the passing lane. I told her, "I realized on my way into Austin, that if I died in a fiery crash speeding around someone going 55-65 in the left lane when the speed limit was 75, I would not regret it." Maeve agreed those were the worst kind of person. As we crossed the bridge traffic parted and there was enough wiggle room for my rage to build up to measured cursing and urging other drivers to "figure out your life!" It's hard to resist getting upset when there seem to be no consequences. My own sanity and blood pressure are already in bad shape, so I feel as long as I'm not actively hurting these people this was simply theatrical.

It took almost an hour and a half to get to the area the hotel was in, which was right across the street from where Issa works. It was sort of hot out, so we decided to just wait outside her office and drive over together instead of waiting at the hotel for her to walk over. We're good friends.

About 35 minutes later we drove across the street to the Casulo Hotel where I had checked in 3 hours earlier. At the time I had not completely unloaded the car because I live in constant fear of judgement. At 2:30 I had walked in with three bags, had a nice conversation with the girl at the front desk about her hair and her nail appointment she was looking forward to after her shift. I was pleasantly surprised I got to go in a full half hour before normal check-in at 3 PM. I put my bags down, took a Snap of the room to send to my gurlz...and then housekeeping came in. At first I thought maybe the room had been double booked, then she announced herself and I sheepishly tried to excuse her from doing any more cleaning, the room seemed fine. She explained she just had to make the bed, she had gone to get the sheets before I came in, so I guess I just missed her. I apologized for being in her way and explained I had a few more things in the car, so I could come back. How long could making the bed take?

30 minutes.

I went out to the car and brought in two more bags. It felt like bringing in any more might raise suspicions. I feel that I look very suspicious. I am almost constantly lying, so it's easy to assume people are weary of me. I think small parties in hotel rooms are not entirely uncommon. They happen in movies, at least- and what are movies if not documentaries? And what are documentaries if not the truth? Still, in the event that this would create an additional fee, or a difficult conversation, I left the remaining 4 bags in the car. If you are keeping count- that is a total of 9 bags for a single night's stay in a hotel. I feel like your suspicions have been raised, and now you can see why I did not bring all the bags in on my own. I rolled in a small suitcase full of alcohol, and the supply cart was slightly blocking my way in. I had to dance between the cart, the door, the bathroom and her. Profusely apologetic about such an awkward situation I offered to go out to the pool area or somewhere else as she finished up. She dismissed the thought, so I sat on the steps to the in-suite jacuzzi (the whole reason we had gotten the room) and trying to channel all my focus into the phone. I couldn't help but glance up from time to time hoping that we would be near the end of this. I paused in horror when I saw her tucking the sheets in, wishing I could tell her she needn't bother, unsure if that would be inappropriate, and wholly willing myself to just melt away. Perhaps, if I focused on my phone hard enough, this would become less real, or I could move myself through time to a point where I had not impeded on her ability to do her job in peace.

As we pulled up to the hotel and unloaded the remaining bags, which now included two new ones from Maeve, Elle drove up with some bags of her own. We scurried through the lobby, past the cute bar with strange white puffed chairs and the Asian inspired decor, to the room with the well made bed that I could never touch. We began settling in and filling the jacuzzi. Drinks were poured, gifts were given, small talk made and slowly the water built up in the small bath on the far side of the room. We were pleased by the amount of space there was. An adequate amount of sleeping space, it turned out, for 6 girls. We assumed 6 very drunk girls would be fine with a bed and large comfortable sofa-ottoman combo. The room was dim, but light came in through a large window looking out to the pool area. There were cabanas, loungers and hanging wicker egg chairs. The day was warm and the shimmering blue water looked so inviting. The single toilet among the patio furniture was curious. The venue was perfect. We tried to find a way to watch Josie and the Pussycats as we lounged, drank and got ready. Finally, the water had passed the jets and we flipped the wall switch to turn them on. Nothing. We waited. Nothing, We tried flipping it back down as though that might do something. Then up. And press and turn several things in the tub itself. Nothing. Finally, because this was the entire draw of the somewhat expensive room, after several failed attempts at calling through the haunted land-lines, I ventured to the front desk. The new attendant with a sleepy eye asked if we had used the switch on the wall. I explained that I had. She asked her manager about it, I asked her for extra towels, and she said she would be by to look at the jets. Ten minutes later she came by with some more towels. She asked again if we had tried the switch, and I politely repeated that it did not seem to be working. She said she would be back. After another ten minutes she returned and said, "I'm sorry, I know you're all settled in, but we're going to move you to another room. [The maintenance person] is going to have to look at the wiring and he's not here, so we're moving you to 123." She handed me new keys and shuffled off.

We packed up the mixed drinks, the non-mixed drinks, the snacks, the gifts, the clothes and purses. This was probably a loss of about an hour between starting from the engagement to get the jacuzzi working to situating ourselves in the new room. There was less sleeping space, but the tub was larger. We determined quickly that it was working. I returned the key to the other room (a foolish attempt at lawfulness I shall not make again.) A few minutes later we realized that the screen to the oddly open showering area was broken. It sat on the edge of the bath tub. So no one would be able to shower or rinse without everyone being able to watch. We had spent several minutes in the other room wondering why a large window in front of the shower might be beneficial anyway. Our best guess was some sort of sex thing. It's always some sort of sex thing. Our room was probably meant for a romantic getaway, not a fancy belated Galentine's.

So I ventured again to the front desk to explain the new problem. The one permanently weary eye looked slightly more disappointed to have yet another issue to resolve. The woman explained that there was a pully that should bring the screen down. I explained the screen was not capable of being pulled down. She looked to her manager again, who told her to go look, and she said she'd be right over. When she arrived we showed her the screen out of it's holder and explained that it looked like part of the area it fit into was broken. She tried to place it back in, but it wasn't clicking. In this moment I was made aware that I am the tallest of my friends, because I was the only person who could get into the tub and reach the area that screen needed to be inserted into without stretching. The attendant was precariously bridged over the tub to gain height and stability. We determined that part of the holder was broken, and she left to discuss another solution. Her manager returned with her and after a few minutes decided they would just nail the screen up. "Just for tonight." None of our party is confrontational, so we agreed with no request for anything further. The manager left to find supplies, and we filed out of the bathroom to let them do whatever it was they planned to do. When the manager returned, she knocked and I opened the door.

And this is the moment that caused me to later to have a very unnecessary discussion about white privilege at 1 AM while inappropriately inebriated. Certainly the best time to discuss racial politics is when one is blasted.

The manager returned, I opened the door, and she proceeded to explain her plan while handing me three thumb tacks and some sort of wrench. Confused by these strange tools, I stared at her curiously. "Are you going to help her?" she pressured, as though I was doing something confusing. I believe my face contorted even further, but I am instinctively helpful and didn't mind so I gave a small nod-shrug as I moved out of her way. It seemed in that moment we were both overcome with a greater understanding of what happened when I opened the door. She made a small noise, something like a gasp, shook her head and took the tools back from me and I knew what I only suspected seconds ago- she didn't know I didn't work for her. Startled by this new tiny encounter with racism I returned to my party in a bit of a daze. Unsure of when to tell them what happened. Disappointed that I would not be able to express my outrage in defense of myself. Understanding that if I couldn't no one else in the room could.

They finished their make-shift solution and as they were leaving the manager stopped to apologize. Which is perhaps the worst thing she could have done. Because what she said was, "I'm sorry, I came in and I didn't realize, I thought you were the new housekeeping..." she smiled and waved, I think, then left with the front desk attendant. My friends seemed a little confused, then a little less so, and I finally explained what we all understood but kind of needed to be said so the conversation of polite indignation could commence. The collective was aghast. We fumed, we schemed - "could this get us a discount?" I stated the obvious, that I couldn't raise a fuss. I never do. Even when I was vegetarian and people brought my dishes with meat in them. I just wouldn't eat. Or go get something else. The room was charged when I walked in, so it couldn't be discounted. A future discount would be nice, but when would we use it? Dejected, I shrugged it off and tried to focus on other things. This sort of happened. We got drunk. We got in the hot-tub. We threw in bath bombs, made more drinks, a slight mess, there was much chatter that no longer centered on microaggressions, we lost track of time, got dressed, got our make-up on, all our fancy shoes, called a Lyft and I stumbled out with a drink in my hand. It was like an early Ke$ha music video. It was the best. And I really thought I had let go of the hurt I felt because I was so happy to be around everyone.

I'm not really any better than the hotel manager anyway.

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NEXT: The Fun/Less Sad Parts That I Remember, And Those I Was Told About The Next Day