Hotel recommendations
1. You can try to avoid the feeling. Go to work. Come home. Cook dinner, for one or two. Watch television. Scroll your phone. Smoke weed. Read in the bath. Fall asleep. Wake up. Go to work. You can make it never end, and sometimes, it is possible - to push through a single, monotonous feeling of never understanding how or when to relax. I have found it helpful, however, to save some money, here and there, and spend it all on a chance to get away, though you won’t go very far. To start, I recommend a glued-shut, impossibly-sealed glass jar, with a sliver of an opening cut through the top with a sharp knife. I recommend putting your money somewhere it can’t hurt you. After stowing away enough money, I recommend wrapping the jar in an old t-shirt and smashing it with a hammer. Then I recommend logging into Hotels.com. I recommend a minimum of a 2 night stay.
2. I recommend a 2 night stay in the dead of winter. I recommend scheduling your trip when a bomb cyclone is raging around the city. This is for both safety and for comfort. This is for putting the responsibility into the hands of another party. This is how you become children of the hotel. There will be a telephone in your room - I recommend using it. You can forget your toothpaste, your Q-tips, your dinner. You will be taken care of.
3. Though you have temporarily displaced your responsibilities, your new parents will not have everything at their disposal. I recommend not forgetting your contact lens solution.
4. If you do forget your contact lens solution, I recommend going to the 24hr Duane Reade before the acid kicks in.
5. If the acid has already kicked in, I recommend sticking close to your partner’s side as you walk through the aisles. You will find the contact lens solution quicker this way.
6. Though splitting up may seem like a good idea, in an effort to cover more ground, I guarantee it is not.
7. Your partner will mirror the same strange walk you are doing as you make your way along the fluorescent lighting. I recommend keeping an eye on them, in order to continually mimic each other until you find the contact lens solution together, each of you approaching the solution in a highly unnatural gait, funny to both of you.
8. I recommend standing on the sidewalk after you exit the 24hr Duane Reade and feeling the bomb cyclone rage around you for awhile. This will fully remove you from the place you called home just the night before. This will maximize the worried responsibility of your new hotel parents, waiting for you to come back to your new home. I recommend standing in the storm for a minimum of one minute, a maximum of five.
9. I recommend saying hello to the concierge (we’ve come back, don’t worry, we are safe) when you reenter the hotel lobby (they will say it to you first). There is a constant, mild eye on you both during your stay. If you forget to say hello back to the concierge, they may be able to tell you are on acid.
10. Outside of a quick hello, I recommend avoiding the concierge and avoiding a quick conversation. It is 2 a.m.
11. I recommend avoiding stairwells. You are paying for the luxury of elevators, after all.
12. Oh, I’m sorry — I forgot to mention this earlier. I recommend also picking up a bottle of DayQuil from the 24hr Duane Reade. But I can’t recommend whether or not you should turn around and go back into the bomb cyclone for it. How about this — if your partner has already buzzed for the elevator, do not go. If their hands are still in their pockets, go. Don’t worry about the concierge. They already know you’re on acid.
13. After you’ve taken the elevator up to your floor, place the bottle of DayQuil on the nightstand. Fill up two glasses of water, and place them on either side of the bed. Save these for the morning.
14. I recommend sitting on the window sill inside your room, looking across the street into the apartments of the people who live in the neighborhood of the hotel. Though you may have to pay extra for a window with a view, I recommend the slight upgrade. There are things to see. We are two of them.
15. If you are lucky, you will see people sleeping, people watching television, their faces jumping in the moving blue and white lights, people sitting on loveseats, people walking in and out of view of their windows, people stretching, a cat or a dog simply being.
16. You may see a woman, sitting at her desk for hours without getting up to take a break. Your partner will say they must be a comic book artist and you will agree. What other explanation could there possibly be.
17. You may see a man undressing at 4 in the morning (how ridiculous, just getting home at 4 a.m.). There is a bomb cyclone hurtling through the city (where are his parents). You will say this with a smile on your face, and as you turn to your partner, their smile will mirror yours. You will consider phoning dad at the front desk for a wake up call, but choose to stay on the window sill instead, comfort abounding in the knees of your cross-legged lap touching the knees of the person you love, inside a not-inexpensive room that is worth it for just 2 nights.
18. If you are not lucky, you will not see much.
19. If you are very lucky, they will see you.
Sarah Jean Alexander is a writer currently living in Brooklyn.
