I’m at an IHOP. I am sipping a hot chocolate, which I almost never do. I think of cavities. I feel how hypersweet the syrupy mess is. I really savored eating the cool whip and chocolate syrup that was on top. I love it. I am helpless to nostalgia and chocolatey warmth. I’m realizing I don’t allow myself things without self-critique. I find it hard to connect with myself and others for similar reasons.
I’m thinking about today’s journey. I got 2/3rds towards San Antonio for a 2-day work deploy, only to find out from the PM that they’re so behind, my part won’t happen until Monday. Well. We’ve had some shuffling and I will be home by Friday eve, I will simply be pre-labelling all these sensors, pre-determining where they’ll be placed on-site. First time doing a deploy, it’s starting out really interesting.
I am at an IHOP. This pancake rocks. The “butter” in the eggs and on the pancakes is definitely butter flavored whipped vegetable oil. It’s still delicious. I don’t eat this kind of food very often. Nor, I might add, this amount of food. Especially <4hrs before bedtime. In this case, bedtime is even earlier than usual, I have to be up 2hrs earlier than usual.
I am at an IHOP. The two hot chocolates and pancakes plus the rest have triggered sleepiness for me. Carb overload. This was the morbid goal. Assistance falling ungracefully to sleep. I’ve been feeling really lonely and unloved lately, makes sleep hard. Being alone in a city I don’t live in, well it exacerbates that for me.
Taking the check and leaving. Flustered from fumbles in brief conversation with the unnamed, kind crone serving me. Her interactions with the families with kids are so cute and kind and grandmotherly. It makes me warm and depressed at the same time.
I am no longer at an IHOP
It took me an entire hour to settle on IHOP. I started at the hotel. It is my first time staying at a Tru. It feels like I’m at a minimalist co-working space. Some liminal synthesis of startup and hotel. The soaps are different from normal Hiltons. There are hex bit screws securing splotched wood panelling to all the walls here. The lamps are shaded in modern forms, but their switches remain the same ovalesque variety.
It took me an entire hour because after stopping by a QuickTrip on seeing the message that I wasn’t actually needed yet, I had to wait 10 minutes to get a response from my manager on what he wanted to do. Aside, I suppose they’re just called QT now, but that’s a name collision for my addled programming mind. I am so addled. Disorganization bothers me. The PM could have told me this morning.
I was at an IHOP. I can feel the echoes of “butter””milk” pancakes. I love those golden yellow bastards. The country fried steak was the only perfunctory bogey in the meal. Oversalted to hell and back. The gravy was shitty and crusty. That caramel brown of overcooked white gravy. Two hot chocolates is too many. My teeth feel scummy. I forget sometimes what this feels like. It’s the actual cavity party, the gingiva curdling excrement from a billion well fed bacteria.
I was addled even after checking in. Pre-pre-overview call about work tomorrow. Dissociative? Addled. It’s whatever. Pick a spot. I need to eat several hours before bed. I need to find somewhere that serves actual fucking vegetables. Go towards a local bbq chain. Get in line. Jump out of line, I can’t do this. Drive thru bbq feels fucked up. Go to Texas Roadhouse. Packed full. Get on the waitlist anyways. Can’t stick around, I really need to eat Now. Text REMOVE to get off the waitlist. Start heading to the icehouse grill next to the hotel. See a Chick fil a, ignore it, they hate the gays. Keep driving towards the grill. Almost there. Oh fuck it there’s IHOP. The fact is, I haven’t been to one in over a decade, but they always coyly wink at me when I pass by. This is just enough throughline for me to want to give up on anything else at all. I didn’t want to hang out at an icehouse anyways.
I am pulling into the IHOP. I was at an IHOP. I am at an IHOP. I am heading to a destination that is only blurry and “???” in my mind, but the truth will have been it was IHOP.
I have ADHD.