I fly into Cleveland - the Clevelandites are totally unimpressed

Cleveland greets me with pissing, freezing drizzle and snow.

It has been a long, fairly crappy day.

I went into work, where I worked like a man possessed to put together all the extra documentation we need for trial. Then I dashed to the airport.

I flew into Cleveland, only to land in snowy, slushy, overcast drab muck. I had no umbrella, of course. The took me to an exposed (of course) rental car area, and gave me a Pontiac that was fine, unless you needed to back up. The back end was tilted up, and half the rear view mirror was taken up with a charming view of the rear dash. What little view there was over the dash was further obscured by a spoiler, covered with snow, and the condensation, since the wires for the rear defrost stopped short of the top and bottom by a good 4 inches. After backing up - VERY gingerly - I headed for the highway. In the snow. Usually when it is weather like this, I stay the fuck home. I made it to the hotel, finding my way despite snow-covered signs, and had to call them to figure out how the parking worked, since I was staying in downtown Cleveland.

After the (mandatory) valet took the car, I went to my room, and collapsed wearily on the bed. Of course, 20 minutes later, it stopped snowing. Since there were no restaurants around, I ordered Chinese delivery for dinner. So much for living large on expense account.

Now a sensible person would at this point have stayed in, gone over his briefs for trial, and gone to bed early. I imagine most sensible people tend not to hear Rosalyn Russell's voice from Mame in their head going "Live! LIVE!"

So with Rosalyn still echoing, I called for the car, and headed for the local watering hole. Where I was resoundingly snubbed. By everyone there. Now admittedly, there wasn't much of a crowd because of the weather, but I was thinking that would work to my advantage. So wrong. When this happened in Ft. Lauderdale, I kind of understood. That's kind of the East Coast answer to LA, shrine of the body beautiful. But even there, I eventually found someone to talk to. I would also have understood if I had wandered into some kind of nest of Adonii (a standing and modeling bar or the like), or a twink bar. Not so. These guys were no beauties. And not kids. But not one of them had the time of day for me. All friendly overtures were soundly rebuffed. So I went back to the hotel and went to bed.