From the Lobby of Hotel Insomnia

The following was originally published on September 6, 2007 on my old blog (www.jamesdeagle.wordpress.com), which I will be dismantling once I have migrated the better posts from there to here.

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It's 4:30 a.m. and my brain is refusing to power down. About an hour ago I decided that it's better to be up and doing something rather than staying in bed, cursing my body's inability to sleep. Maybe that's the key to dealing with insomnia -- if you can't overcome it, simply work with it.

I'm writing this from a public terminal in the lobby of a hotel in Vaughan, Ontario. I have a Unix laptop and high speed Internet access in my room but up there I have no respite from the distant whir of traffic on the 401. So, regrettably, I am here in the lobby, needlessly subjecting myself to WindowsXP and elevator jazz.

This is my second week of living out of a hotel while doing a training course. Business class transience, all expenses paid. I'm not complaining, though I'm looking forward to reconnecting with my usual surroundings. Am I simply starting to feel rootless? That's plausible, given that hotels -- especially corporate name brand hotels -- are a paradoxical monoculture unto themselves: they are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. When I look out the window, am I seeing the 401 in sort-of-Toronto, or Interstate 15 in Idaho Falls? The landscape offers no clues (dead grass, parking lots, the usual big box stores, a few ribbons of highway), and neither does the room itself.

Like I said, I'm not complaining. There's a constant supply of fresh towels, somebody comes and cleans up after me while I'm out, and if I use the pool around dinner hour I have it to myself. The scrambled eggs at the breakfast buffet may be a little cold and undercooked, but they're on the company.

Welcome to Nowhere in Particular.

We hope you barely remember your stay.