THE SEX MOTEL

For five nights, Evan and I stayed at the pricey, hip Ace Hotel just off Broadway in Manhattan’s NOMAD district. This is our fourth time together in NYC and we always stay at the Ace. We like its central location, the Stumptown café adjoining the hotel and I enjoy accessing the gym in the basement. Our visits begin with a sit-down session in the lobby’s photo booth for a half dozen tiny black-and-white photos. Our room typically has an unobstructed view of the Empire State Building. We’re close enough to walk to Times Square to catch a Broadway show but far enough away to have a healthy separation from the posing Elmos, the herds of people and the massive light displays that come from mammoth billboards. The Ace is our familiar haven to begin and end fully packed days in New York.

 

After yet another pleasant stay, we packed up last Tuesday and took a cab to LaGuardia to catch our Southwest flight back to Denver. Due to weather conditions, we taxied on the tarmac for almost four hours in an increasingly warm cabin until the pilot announced that we had to return to the terminal to refuel. 

 

At the gate, passengers were allowed off the plane to stretch their legs, keeping mindful about reboarding signage and announcements. An hour later, the inevitable happened: the flight crew timed out and the flight was cancelled. The LaGuardia departures board indicated a great many cancelled flights. Basically, no one was going anywhere Tuesday night.

 

Knowing that thousands of passengers were scrambling just like us to find accommodations, I hurriedly searched “hotels near me” while Evan called Southwest to rebook our flight which was not scheduled to depart until two days later. Flight and hotel booked, we headed out from baggage claim and grabbed a taxi. The hotel near me turned out to be nearly an hour away in The Bronx. 

 

When the cabbie finally pulled into the parking lot in the middle of nowhere around midnight, we knew we had left Ace standards far behind us. The two-story motel circled the lot, every room having a view of parked vehicles and red neon cherry tree installations. Pink, blue and white hexagonal lighting dotted the overhang on both floors and room doors were adorned with white and green vertical signage that alternated the words BLISS, MODERN, CHILL, RELAX, ENJOY, EXPLORE, REPEAT.  

 

My first impression was that the place was kitschy. Evan, however, through an oh-my-god-where-are-we laugh, managed to say, “We’re at a sex hotel.” 

 

I dismissed his comment as Evan being Evan and proceeded to roll my oversized suitcase to the lobby, a small room in which the reception counter was a fully sectioned off with protective glass. While I slide my ID and credit card through a metal slot, Evan told the man behind the counter, “We’d like a room for more than two hours.”

 

“Stop it!” I told him, tired from a long day of non-travel.

 

Grabbing the key card, we lugged our bags up a central flight of stairs and passed by the BLISS and EXPLORE signage to the end room. As I opened the door, Evan resumed his laughter while we surveyed the black-lit room that made the white pillows glow. A wall-sized mirror faced us from the far side of the room and, looking up, a giant mirror was mounted to the ceiling, fully capturing the king-sized bed which had a sheet but no blanket or duvet.  

 

“Sex room,” Evan repeated.

 

View from ceiling mirror

Even though the bed didn’t vibrate, the ginormous flatscreen didn’t play porn as a default offering and the vending machine sold soft drinks instead of condoms, I couldn’t argue. Yes, we’d checked into a sex motel.

 

Rather than think in terms of sexual things, we both thought about bed bugs and questioned how clean the room might be. Despite both of us being simultaneously amused and uncomfortable, we fell asleep in minutes, motorcycles and adjacent above ground subway trains rattling away throughout our two-night stay. 

 

In all likelihood, we’ll be back at the Ace next year but the sex motel will remain but a memory.

  

CAR ISSUES

Whew! It’s good to put the car in park. I just spent four days driving 2,700 kilometres from Vancouver to Denver, managing to fit in three morning bike rides and a couple of National Parks. 

 

A couple of decades ago, those would have been easy travel days. I once pulled three 17-hour days in the car to make it to the family cottage. Wouldn’t consider that kind of road trip schedule ever again. My back just can’t handle that long in a car seat. 

 

Instead of worrying about the possibility of hitting moose, elk or deer while driving at night, my primary concern now is about having car trouble in some remote area in Idaho or Utah. (Signs that say “No Services Next 42 Miles” are not comforting.) I drive a 2015 Mini Cooper which runs really well but, as I can personally attest, aging has its drawbacks. I sprang for an oil change the day before I left but said no to the other suggested work the mechanic pitched. (They always pitch other work, right?)

 

Everything was good until I pulled over to take yet another photo of yet another red rock formation in Arches National Park. An SUV pulled up beside me, rolled down the window and the driver said, “Hey…you’ve got something hanging low under the front end of your car.” I thanked him and he drove on toward a different pullout. 

 

I got down on my hands and knees, hoping to see maybe a plastic bag or a desert plant—I had a tumbleweed in my engine once—but, dang, it looked to be a dangling car part. Instead of hitting the road after the park to make my way to Denver I drove back into the town of Moab, Utah where I’d stayed the night before and pulled into the only autobody shop I could find. 

 

This was not going to go well. I imagined parts being ordered from Salt Lake City, taking several days to arrive, maybe having to fly out of Moab to Denver since Evan and I were due to fly to New York City two days later. I braced for being told I needed a new transmission or, hell, a whole new engine. I wondered how many thousands of dollars the repairs would cost. 

 

As soon as the prior customer paid his bill—good to see he wasn’t crying—I walked up to the counter and explained what I knew. Hanging part. The service guy then asked me a question. It might have been about a car part I’d never heard of. It could just as well have been something in Korean or Portuguese. 

 

This happens every single time I take my car in for a repair. The first question always feels like a test: How much does this driver know about cars? As always, I failed the test. The obvious implication is that the auto shop can run up the bill because who am I to argue? I know absolutely nothing.

 

On his computer screen, the guy started to create my customer profile. He went straight from name to zip code. Oh, no. Another big reveal. Canadian postal codes are a wonky mix of numbers and letters. I had to say, “It’s Canadian.” 

 

His next question: “So the plates are Canadian, too?”

 

My stomach sank and it had only twenty percent to do with the fact that earlier that morning I’d sipped one-fifth of the worst oat milk latte I’d ever had in my life before pouring the rest out. (WTF, Starbucks?) 

 

I leaned into that Canadians-are-so-nice schtick and hoped he would brush aside thoughts that a stranded foreigner was a cash cow for business.

 

“Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll be able to take a look at your car in about thirty minutes.” Before surrendering my key, I unlocked the car to take out a bag of Trader Joe’s chocolate-peanut butter pretzels which I stress-ate while the TV screen in the reception area blasted news about Formula 1 races. I was totally in foreign territory. I had no wi-fi on my phone so I edited my photos from Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, the whole time chanting in my head, Please don’t take advantage of me. 

 

Right on schedule, I was summoned back to the counter. The man smiled broadly. To my left, a rock. To my right, a hard place. How many days? How many dollars?

 

Apparently, the problems was the skid plate. Oh, yes. That was the Korean/Portuguese term he’d mentioned at the outset. “We just gave it a trim,” he said. “The dealer can get you a new one.”

 

Um, okay…

 

He printed out my invoice. Apparently, I was good to go. The damage to my credit card: $72.

 

I swear, I don’t recall the last time I paid so little for an auto repair. My oil change from days earlier cost two and a half times that amount.

 

Hello, early Thanksgiving. I was not taken advantage of. I did not have to book an extra night in Moab. I did not have to look into propeller airplane flights out of Canyonlands Airport. I was treated with the kind of respect I’m not used to when it comes to car issues. 

 

If you ever need a mechanic in Moah, Utah, give me a shout.

 

 

 

 

TOO MUCH TRAVEL?

I’ve long said that travel is the best antidote to the up-and-down swirls I feel due to mental health challenges. A quick trip to Whistler or Seattle can calm my nerves, lift my mood or just provide a preventive booster to keep me on track. 

 

I’m not sure how I’d feel about travel as part of work, the kind where you check in to one hotel after another and spend 9 to 5 in one office tower after another, then unwind in a bar seven floors down from your room. That seems like travel without the experiences that make being away from home so special. No matter how luxurious they may be, I don’t want to sign up for what are basically hotel room tours. A successful trip involves as little time in the room as possible (and time in an office cubicle doesn’t count at all). 

 

Still, I’ve often thought that, if I could land a kind of job where I’m paid to venture to cities and countries and hop on trains or roam in a rental car from city to beach from art museum to funky café, I’d have found my sweet spot. Bring on the next destination!

 

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

But here I am, momentarily between trips, three days at home after being away most of the past month and heading out again for two more months. So far I’ve covered Taos, Denver, Halifax, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton. Upcoming: Portland, Canyonlands National Park, Denver, New York City, Dallas, Aspen and another stint in New Mexico along with a few places that haven’t been slotted in yet. 

 

To be sure, I am lucky. Privileged, in fact. I’ve loved going to each place up till now and I have no doubt I will thoroughly enjoy the places to come but these three days at home aren’t so much about rest but instead are filled with preparation for the next two months: a bike tune-up, an oil change, a laptop repair, a volunteer shift, a mortgage renewal, medication refills, a library stop, an insurance appointment, a meeting with a writing colleague, unpacking and packing, hotel bookings and loads of laundry among other things. No doubt, there is an item or two I’m forgetting. It feels like a lot.

 

I’d be okay with it—I think—if one item weren’t left off the list: writing. I define myself as a writer. Writing essays, outlining a new story and revising a manuscript bring me joy. I don’t have the time or the focus for these tasks right now and they fell off my radar during the most recent week of travel. As I take to the road for another extended period, I don’t see a time in the near future when I can fit in a few decent writing sessions. 

 

That boost I feel from travel is taking a hit from the absence of writing as my passion. I just can’t balance the two at present. It’s put me in an unfamiliar sort of funk that is clouding the glory of travel adventure.

 

Writing just doesn’t fall off my agenda.

 

Even during my first stint in a psych ward, when they took away all my possessions, including my backpack with a writing notebook, I found the fortitude and the supplies—a single sheet of white paper and one of those teensy pencils they give you at miniature golf—to write. I wrote my ideas in the tiniest print possible, filling up every inch on both sides of the paper. In my deepest ever depression, writing was what gave me hope that I could continue to be something once discharged. 

 

It’s scary to not be writing. What if ideas and inspiration don’t come back when I’m ready to slot in more writing time? What if this unprecedented break just keeps going?  

 

I have four days by myself on the road beginning tomorrow. I have a pad of paper, pens and pencils always placed in the driver’s side door pocket. As I navigate some of the less scenic patches of highway, I hope to be that guy talking aloud to himself as speedier drivers pass. Let the ideas flow again. I don’t care whether they’re about a current project or something entirely new. Let me start thinking like a writer again. Let the ideas feel so urgent and compelling that I find myself pulling over at rest stops or even the road shoulder to scribble my thoughts on that pad of paper. I normally enjoy the quiet time but I’m hoping, as this trip begins, there will be a lot of noise inside my head. The good kind. The kind that affirms that, yes, I am still a writer.