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Travel Diary: Days 10-12 (New York, L.A., Melbourne)
I sleep in later than I mean to and have to shower, dress, and
pack so fast that I barely have enough time to steal a hotel pen.
I’m meeting my friend Charles for breakfast, and we decide to use
the hotel restaurant.
This turns out to be a mistake, as Charles manages to order the world’s most expensive
bagel, a whopping $18 because along with the juice and coffee it
qualifies as a “continental breakfast.”
Our plan is to walk to the Museum of Natural History, but it’s such an extraordinarily sunny day that instead we end up just chatting on a bench in Central Park. During this time I watch a lot of parents with prams go by, and enjoy peering at their babies until I see one with beady little eyes and a hairy face. It’s a miniature poodle. Yes. In a pram.
Travel Diary: Day #9 (New York)
It’s a choice between sleep and breakfast, and I go with sleep. I’m sorry
for writing about sleep so much; it’s just that
it has become very important to me.
I have realized that if I don’t sleep, I don’t do the things I need
to on this tour well—things like talking to people. So a lot
of my time is spent considering
when I will sleep, and where, and for how long.
I’m met at my hotel by Rachel, who is my publicist at Doubleday. Rachel has been working for months at getting me reviewed, interviewed, and hosted all over the country: basically she organizes everything, then I just turn up and take all the glory. She is terrific, and great company as we are driven around Manhattan in one of those tinted-window town cars. (It’s all tinted-window town cars here; that and cabs and stretch limos.) I ask her why there was no Chicago stop on this tour (which people keep asking me about), and she tells me it’s because everyone at Doubleday hates Chicago. Okay, no, not really. It’s actually something to do with the difficulty of booking enough media to justify the stopover. Which I think is fair enough, given the publisher is paying for all this. But I do let her know that if I don’t get any Midwest stopovers on my next tour, people may hurt me.
Travel Diary: Days 7-8 (Portland, New York)
Portland is a little kinky. I know this because people who live there keep telling me so.
When I check into my hotel, the glossy booklets feature not only local attractions and places
to eat but also the results of a nation-wide sex survey, which boasts
about just how much more sexually active than average are Oregonians.
This crosses my mind when my breakfast arrives via room service just as I exit the shower. I’m naked except for a towel, and the usual procedure for this kind of situation is for the hotel employee to keep her eyes demurely averted, set down the tray, then scuttle out of the room. But this morning, the woman makes bright conversation, her eyes flicking all over me. I start to worry that she is going to yank off my towel and snap my buttocks with it. I am, after all, in Portland.
Travel Diary: Days 5-6 (Seattle, Portland)
You wake up at LAX. You wake up at SFO. You wake up at Portland International Airport.
(Yeah, little Chuck Palahniuk reference for you there. I’m heading to his home town; it seemed appropriate.)
How late do I sleep? 10am, baby! Damn, that’s nice. I haven’t slept in like this since Fin was born.
Travel Diary: Day #4 (San Francisco, Seattle)
The phone rings. It’s pitch black and I panic, thinking, “How am I going to find the keyboard in the
dark?” Yes, it’s 3:50 a.m., and my brain is not working at all.
According to Jen, I sometimes run in my sleep. I must have been doing that, because somehow I have managed to strain a hamstring in my sleep. I hobble into the bathroom and start wrestling with the shower, which, in the manner of all US hotel showers, will only provide water if you turn the tap while simultaneously yanking a plunger on the bath tap. (Why? Why!?) Sometimes I find it’s possible to do this without getting a burp of cold water on the back of my head, but today is not one of those days.
Travel Diary: Day #3 (L.A., San Francisco, Mountain View)
Well, I walked into that one. In theory, I should get seven
hours
sleep after my L.A. reading and be refreshed and ready for the big day
ahead.
But instead, I write my blog entry until two in the morning, then lie
in bed thinking about how cool my day was. When my alarm goes
off at 7 a.m., I’ve slept for about three hours, and that in
roughly half-hour blocks.
I feel so seedy that I think I’m going to lose my lunch, and a radio station is due to call me in a few minutes for an interview. I think seriously about what I should do if I’m halfway through an answer and suddenly need to barf. My idea is to say, “And another thing, Carl—” then hang up. Hopefully everyone will think there’s been a technical difficulty.