Let's Get Brainwashed.

I arrived thirsty. The cup of water on the plane was not enough, and by the time I was in the hotel shuttle, I wanted one thing: cool water down my throat. And I wanted it in a glass.

In the shuttle, there were 10 of us, and 6 of them seemed to know each other. I wondered, are they here for the same thing I am? They made jokes about corporate real estate going for $82,000 and how one guy purposely did not email another guy about dinner plans, but he invited everyone else. That got a big laugh.

When I checked in to the hotel, the guy complimented me on my t-shirt. Then he handed me an envelope with my name on it. There was a letter inside from the training academy. It basically said welcome, "we look forward to an exciting five weeks," and that continental breakfast would be served beginning at 7:00 am, and my class begins at 8:00am.

In my hotel room I got my water, and drank it from a glass - and refilled it 4 times. The room is nice. Not worth the $200 a night my company will pay for it, but it's their money, and it's the same place as the "academy" classroom.

I read Gary Lutz on the plane ride. Stories in the Worst Way is his first collection. I recommend it. Here are some interesting sentences:

"I lived in an apartment, defined as a state or condition of being apart. My life was cartoned off in three rooms and bath, one of several dozen lives banked above a side street. I convinced myself that there were hours midway through the night when the walls slurred over and became membranes, allowing seepages and exchanges from unit to unit; hours when the tenants, all asleep except me, dispersed themselves into the air and mixed themselves with their neighbors. This at least accounted for dreams that rarely jibed with experiences."

"Because I had colitis, I divided much of my between-class time among seventeen carefully chosen faculty restrooms, never following the same itinerary two days in a row, using a pocket notebook to keep track."

"The woman possessed an appropriately full, planetlike face."

"And here comes what your life will never be the same after which, the same way mine has already never been: my face was bent right over the kid's other knee. The knee was aimed right at me.

I got a whiff of it, all right. I got the hell out of there.

Who hasn't lived life expressly to avoid having to one day inhale something that entire? It was the complete, usurping smell of how the world had ground itself onto somebody else."

Good night.