The romance of business travel, part 312

It's a Friday night and I'm checking into the Hilton Huntington on Long Island for a business meeting the next day. The lobby is filled with a variety of colorful characters. Many are sporting tattoos. Others are walking around with drawn faces. A few sport the jersey of their favorite team. Each wears the conventioneer's necklace with the attached nametag. The theme line is, "Miracles happen."

I ask the desk clerk what sort of convention this is.

He replies, "NACNA."

What's that?

He hesitates. "Narcotics Anonymous."

In the elevator on the way to the room, two attendees have a conversation. "How's John?"

"He can't come."

"Why?"

"I just got off the phone with him and he's puking."

Yikes. 

Let the record show that what the Hilton Huntington lacks in beautiful people it more than makes up for with a beautiful, by hotel standards, gym. The next morning, at 4:30 I wake up without the alarm or the benefit of my dog's pre-dawn mighty WOOF.

I get in a decent weight workout.

Perhaps I'm just as much an addict as the NACNA folks but my drug of choice is the burn, the sting, the endorphin rush. In sweat, there is salvation. And you don't have to go to some jackass meeting to talk about it.