10.18.04 - 10:32 p.m.

I took my first business trip for this job a few weeks ago. It was an in-and-out thing, arriving in DC late on a Sunday and leaving Monday afternoon, but I'm glad I got it out of the way. It was good preparation for this weekend's insanity that was Houston Business Trip 2004.

Thankfully, I did not have to sit with my supervisor/manager, who I may have referred to in these pages before but who will be known henceforth as Tim Blake Nelson, or TBN, because that's who he resembles. The stories I could tell about the stories WE tell when we get together for our dinners. Suffice to say that he has an off-putting habit of offering you plates of fruit when you enter his office, and is one of the nerdiest nerds who ever nerded. And I don't mean that in a good way.

I did not have to take the plane down with TBN, but I did have to go straight from the plane to the museum without a stop at the hotel. This was bad because instead of waking up at 5:45 am, I woke up at 6:51 to the sound of my phone ringing to tell me the car was here. Ooooops. Somehow I managed to wash my hair and make it out the door in 15 minutes, and I didn't even forget anything. At all.

So I looked decent for the long afternoon of work meetings, and was able to shower before our dinners at the Trustees' Houses to celebrate the opening. Someday I will have a house like the Trustees, possibly not as grand in scope but certainly with just as impressive an art collection. Who doesn't want a Bruce Nauman neon running the length of their foyer/hallway?

I made it through the Trustee Dinner on the strength of my sorority rush conversation skills, then back to the museum for a late night of sneakily drinking cans of beer instead of the nasty white wine without TBN seeing. He is too intellectual for cans of Miller Lite, you see.

Since we didn't have to do work-related hoopla for a good part of Saturday afternoon, I thought I might have some me-time for some extra museum viewing. Oh, how naive I was. The museums were far, far away from the hotel. There was only one rental car for both myself and TBN. It would have been blatantly rude of me to take a cab anywhere, since it would have made it quite obvious that I didn't want to hang out with TBN any longer than necessary. So. I had to visit three different museums with him before lunch. SIGH.

It actually wasn't that bad, due to the Joseph Beuys show at the Menil, of whom we're both fans. That gave us a little bit of a conversational thread to go on. Then it was back to work lunches, more hanging out at the museum, and a brief, shining hour and a half where I got to go to the MFAH all by myself and walk through the amazing James Turrell light tunnel no fewer than four times. I wonder what the guards were thinking of me.

Then it was champagne, and cake, and more hanging out with the same three people, and then a fantastic dinner which I have to blog about on the other site, and then yet another freaking drink and more conversation with TBN in the only bar near our hotel which was open. What is wrong with Houston on a Saturday night that they couldn't have a normal bar open at midnight? I had to run across a fairly large highway-type street to get to it, and given my traumas of the summer, that was not an easy task. Also, jaywalking! At night!

Thankfully, due to the closing of the restaurant bar, I made it back to the hotel in time to watch the Jimmy Fallon/Tina Fey "Summer Lovin'" sketch, and then to sleep. I had dreams that Cranky Old Man was denting my car, and then replacing the panels with ones from his relative's red Ford. Stress.

Then it was finally time for the plane ride, after chasing TBN all over the airport because he refused to drink Dasani or Aquafina and yes, I'd rather have Poland Spring too, but we're surrounded by chain stores and fast food places! You don't have much choice! Luckily, he got his rodent ass upgraded to first and I got to sit blissfully by myself in coach, watching Dodgeball and dozing off while he no doubt type-type-typed nerdily away on his laptop.

And I will not have to take another business trip until January at the very earliest, and for that I am very glad.