Apparently the Florida Gators are playing. I have gathered this information by the scads of obnoxious people walking around with orange and blue face paint, or flags. One Floridian at the hotel bar had an orange and blue lei. I saw him throw something (a cigarette butt?) directly on to the floor. Hey turkey, do they not have trash cans in Florida? Do you just throw your trash directly onto your floor?

I think I may hate people from Florida. They try to trick you. "We're not really the 'south'", they seem to say. "Enjoy our beaches and our Disney Land. There's no cars on blocks. The majority of our citizens have indoor plumbing". But it's a trick. I could see it in the eyes of the man who looked like the principal from Back to the Future, only wearing blue and orange plaid shorts. Jeb Bush is from there.

I was going to hunker down in my room and order a pizza but I couldn't find anyone to deliver it to me. I was going to treat the Final Four like the fog in that Stephen King story. I decided to leave after remembering what a fucking mess downtown Atlanta was, and how I couldn't let some poor bastard drive through the traffic and the screaming Florida Drunks to bring me a peperoni and cheese.

The woman at the next table at the restaurante talked and talked and I wanted her to be quiet. This is not what I envisioned when I left. I wanted to sit outside. Eat a big steak and drink a dark beer. Maybe smoke a cigar. I don't really like cigars but it fit into my mental picture perfectly. Instead I had to sit around and watch a bunch of fucking simps in orange and blue standing around and being insufferable.

I went to Paris and Prague last October and when I got back I had an acute appreciation for how horrible people sound, myself included. Maybe it was only communicating in one and two word sentances and hand gestures for a week, maybe Americans are really horrible. Maybe both. On the plane on the way back I heard a woman say "I bought three hats! I don't even LIKE hats!"

Being lonely and quiet in a strange place has similar effects.

When the talking woman and her party got up to leave two of them went to the bathroom. By the time they came out, the table was completely bussed and ready for the next person. No trace of their onion strings and watery ceasar salads were left. All the vibrations from her conversation about her hatred for bread and butter pickles or which parent is responsible for her child's genetic disposition toward disliking mushrooms had bounced off all the walls and was no longer displacing enough air to be audible to anyone. They may as well never had been there.

What I really wanted to do was escape this whole scene. There was a cigar and martini bar on the walk home that I was going to stop in at, but they had a huge plastic "FINAL FOUR!" sign outside. I was really looking for some detachment; some relaxation. I am having a hard time detaching from things. Work particularly. I was sitting at the restaurate waiting for my food thinking "if I had my laptop I could be doing something productive right now".

No. I need detachment. I need a quiet, smokey bar where I can sit alone and not be looked at, and not look at anyone. Maybe with some laid-back band playing and no one really listening. I keep wondering if I can buy detachment in a bottle, or maybe a baggie. Maybe I could catch it in my car. I was sitting in the restaurante thinking about how I could be being productive right now, and wondering if I could eventually drive myself crazy this way.