EDIT: Julie and I just spent the weekend in glorious Cumberland, Maryland. It's a sort of could-have-been kind of town, with a seemingly pleasant pedestrian district where there are far too many skinny tattooed cuddermen wandering around with their shirts off, and a bank lobby that looks like they built it as a set for Mad Men. At any rate, I only bring it up apros pos of this older post because we stayed in a shitty Holiday Inn right next to a train station, where we heard the constant chugging of trains all day and all night! It was terrible! We loved it! It reminded both of us of our 3 week honeymoon in Europe, which we spent predominantly riding on trains.
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I am a business traveller, and I spend a lot of time in hotels. In recent years I've taken to staying almost exclusively in medium to large chain hotels, such as Marriott Courtyards, Springhill Suites, Hilton, Doubletree, Hampton, even occasionally Hyatts, blah bladdy blah blah blah. I've done this because a) miles. When you travel a lot, eventually all you care about is miles miles miles! I've racked up thousands of non-flight miles, and it's a good satisfactory feeling. Also b) those places are fucking cocoons. I've stayed in the desert, on the ocean, at a shitty airport, in New Jersey and Ohio... doesn't matter. When I get back to my room after a long hard short easy day of work, I'm always in the same room no matter where the hotel happens to be.
I used to not like the idea of travelling like that. But after a while, and especially when you're somewhere you'd rather not be, it's awesome. Laptop provides me with all the distraction I need, and there's usually a movie theatre nearby when there's a Joss Whedon movie I need to see for the third time.
But right now I'm in a shitty motel in Malibu. And It's awesome. All day the roar of the cars from the Pacific Coastal Highway are beating their way into my head. And in the rare respite, I hear an occasional ocean surf crash reminding me of the scary-ass waves I bobbed in earlier today, or the sound of the guy in the room next door talking in a real low voice about something he probably doesn't want me to know about, but I can hear it all. (he's into cartoon porn. I hope that's what he's saying.)
This kind of stuff usually makes me want to kill people. Messily. But I guess I'm in the right mood. Drunk. Because it's making me think about all of the shitty places I've stayed in my life, and there are a lot. With memories. And when I try to remember what it's like to stay in my lately usual, all I can picture is that one room, in that one place, where I've been a million times and been testy and uncomfortable anyway. Cut off. Something about the world coming through the thin walls of this place makes me feel like business cocoons are NOT the way to go all the time, even if it means sacrificing some solid sleep. And hey, it made me feel like writing this piece 'o shit post.
But then again this IS Malibu, not Cincinatti, Bethesda, Bloomington, or New Cumberland. That probably makes all the difference.
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