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in a hotel alone
Wednesday, September 13 2017
rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York
I took the dogs for my usual loop down the Farm Road, through the abandoned go-cart track and back home atop the bluff west of the Farm Road. They found something interesting somewhere along the way and ended up staying in the forest for about seven hours before returning home.
[REDACTED]
At about 4:30pm, not long after the dogs returned from their extended outing, I drove back north to Albany, drinking a beer and listening to contemporary pop music for most of the drive. Some of it is more contemporary than others; evidently Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" is now a classic (and its evident quality is a standout on pop radio). A surprising amount of pop these days seems to be built on top of simple instrumentals such as an insistent bass, vocals, and not much else (see, for example, Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself"). In that style of pop, my favorite song right now would be Ed Sheeran's "Castle on the Hill," whose themes are more country than pop. Of course, at my age, it's hard to find anything in the lyrics I haven't heard too many times before. But then again, that's not usually a job for pop music.
When I arrived at Gretchen's room (6210) in St. Peter's Hospital, she had a roommate in the form of a large African American woman who had just received a double mastectomy. She'd just been visited by a large group of friends and family (whom I'd seen leaving down the hall as I'd arrived), and Gretchen was not loving the new activity in her room. But at least her pain medication had been figured out and she was reasonably comfortable.
I stayed in her room working intermittently. Eventually Gretchen's parents went back to their hotel (Best Western Sovereign Hotel), where they ordered me a $79 room so I could also stay the night. It would be the first time in my life I would ever stay in a hotel room by myself.
Eventually I wished Gretchen goodnight and drove out to the hotel, where all I had to do to check in was sign some paperwork. And then there I was up in room 501. It was reasonably clean but had a worn, lived-in feel. I took off all my clothes, lay in the enormous bed, and turned on the teevee. I flipped through a few bits of programming before settling on an old episode of Treehouse Masters, the one where they built a huge treehouse in a large white pine in an apple orchard right here in the Hudson Valley. I'd brought my gin, and was drinking it straight for awhile. But at some point I realized I was more hungry than anything else, so I transitioned to beer (if only because it is more foodlike).
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