Apologies to All Except Those Who Key Bombed Me

I recently read a memoir called Heads on Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-called Hospitality by Jacob Tomsky. While this is an engaging tale, complete with crisp dialogue and admirable reflection, ultimately this book changed my perspective on hotel stays.

Hotels are wonderful places; they offer shelter, make your bed, clean up after you, bring you food, provide entertainment, and accommodate your myriad quirks. If I had enough money, I’d live in one. I’ve stayed in thousands of them over the years. As a kid in h sixties and seventies I grew up in a mobile family who enjoyed world travel in some first class hotels, such as The Mandarin in Hong Kong where a console next to the bed controlled the drapes, the TV, the music and the lights. There were phone extensions in the bathroom.

When we lived overseas, my family, along with many Americans in the community hung out at the Hotel Intercontinental. We paid for membership to use the pool, and often dined poolside, where my brothers and I signed the check to our account. We used the conference rooms for school dances and weddings, shopped at the hotel patisserie, pharmacy and gift shops, and made this hotel a western respite from living in a Third World country. This hotel was the ultimate comfort zone.

But the rate for an overnight stay reaches far beyond the list price. I always knew to tip the bellmen, the luggage guys, and the maids. What I did not know is it’s also crucial to tip the front desk clerk.

How could I, a world traveler who had circled the globe twice before her junior year in high school, not know this? There are thousands of front desk clerks out there drawing skull and cross bones next to my name. My apologies to all of you, except those of you who key bombed me. Key bombing, according to Tomsky, is where the front desk person makes you a set of electronic keys but only one of which these works. If you inadvertently slide the dead key in the slot, it will deactivate the working key. Thus, if you are traveling alone, you must shlep your crap all the way back down to check in and get a working key. The clerk will smile broadly and apologize profusely, all the time typing a note about what a cheap jerk you are.

I’m not a fussy guest. I am pleasant to whoever checks me in. I’ve worked in service professions, so I know people are high maintenance. I even worked in a hotel dining room while in college, and drunken solitary males often left me a room key as a tip. Waitresses shared tips with the busboys, who kept the dining room clean. We also tipped out to the bell boys who delivered room service, even though a tip was added to the room bill. So I know about tipping.

I DID NOT KNOW FRONT DESK PEOPLE ALSO NEEDED A TIP!  

If you have woken in the middle of the night to a clock radio blaring at two am, your drapes will not stayed closed, the toilet runs after every flush, your pee stream has more water pressure than the shower, or it looks like someone had sex in that bed an hour before, the front desk knew about it before he or she booked you in that room. You were rude on check-in, you slapped your kids, or you stayed on the phone during your entire transaction, and/or you did not tip the desk person. Think about it; the front desk guy is like the ship’s captain. He or she can decide if your journey will be bumpy or smooth. Handing the clerk a ten or twenty along with your credit card will guarantee an upgrade of some sort, be it a quiet room,

It’s so obvious. Why didn’t it occur to me before I read this book?

From now on, all desk clerks can expect a ten or twenty wrapped around my credit card. More when I become a rich and famous author.

I recommend ALL of you who travel to read this book. You will enjoy it for story as well as information. It will change how you perceive your next hotel stay. And by all emans, tip the desk clerk.

http://jacobtomsky.com

@jacobtomsky

Best Face Forward

Today’s essay has nothing to do with either of the Scintilla prompts. I’m tossing Friday confetti and writing rogue.

As we approach National Poetry Month, I feel it necessary to pay homage to Billy Collins.

I was watching Billy Collins’ TED talk earlier today,http://www.ted.com/talks/billy_collins_everyday_moments_caught_in_time.html

and his mention of cereal boxes ignited a string of childhood memories at the breakfast table, studying the back of the Grape Nuts or Cheerios boxes (my mom rarely bought us the good stuff like Trix and Sugar Frosted Flakes), sick days watching cartoons and black and white reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show. I also enjoyed watching my mother "Put on her face" each day.

My mother was so adept at applying lipstick she could do it in the dark while riding in a car with no mirror. Mom had an army of lipsticks; some platoons in the red family, others orange. Season dictated her hue. Pinks and peach for summer, red and burgundy shades for fall and winter. The color varied, but the application always went like this: She stretched her lip over her bottom teeth, making her appear as if she was going to sing, and swiped the color across in one stroke. She repeated the motion with the top lip. She pressed a Kleenex between her lips to absorb excess color, applied another coat, and pressed again. If she didn’t like that shade, she would erase it with cold cream and start over.

She applied the rest of makeup with the same painstaking care. Once her face was done, she took a lift comb and inserted it into her hairstyle to round out the teasing in the back of her hair. Her hair was naturally ash blonde, but she dyed it blue black, which created a striking contrast with her pale pink toned skin.

She checked her reflection in the glass, corrected any errors, and always asked, “How do I look?”
Even as a kid, I wondered, why aren’t we good enough without all the paint?
#

Here is a bonus TED talk by Andrew Satonton on story. Watch it, then write a great story
http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_stanton_the_clues_to_a_great_story.html

Happy Writing.

Turn up the Music and Dance

Today's Scintilla story prompt asks to write about when you first saw one of your parents as an individual adult rather than just Mom or Dad.

It was summer and I was six. We lived on the outskirts of Chicago and my mother took me to the beach with her single frind Diane. My parents’ social circle was couples, except for Diane. She belonged to my mother alone. Diane was tall, thin, with dark hair, resembling a young Marlo Thomas. They had met at a local playhouse where my mother performed in plays.

On this occasion I spent the day alone with the women, a girl’s day out: lunch on the beach, dinner out, and the evening spent in Diane’s beach front apartment. I loved her apartment. It was a single woman’s flat with one bedroom and a beaded doorway separating the kitchen from the tiny ding area. In the evening, Diane lit well placed lamps to provide a sophisticated ambiance.

I was young, and hurried off to bed as daylight faded. But I didn’t go to sleep. I heard the women chatting, clinking wine glasses and sharing an ashtray. It was too good of a temptation not to spy on them.

Diane was the same age as my mother, thirty-one, but she seemed younger, more dynamic. She worked every day, wore chic clothing, took trips to Europe and dated handsome men. Around Diane, with me safely stowed away in Diane’s bed (they didn’t realize I crouched at the door and watched them.), my mother replicated her friend’s carefree posture. Diane placed some records on her Hi Fi, and the two women danced. My mother erupted in raucous laughter, easy, casual, adult laughter.

Did my father know this woman? Or was she a mysterious side of my mother only Diane knew? Marriages can’t survive without holding a piece of your identity for yourself, so maybe the free spirited woman dancing in Diane’s living room was my mother’s secret self.



writing prompt: Play a favorite old song and freewrite for twenty minutes. Let the music lead you.
Happy Writing.

A Matter of Faith

Todays's Scintilla prompt is to write about an experience with faith.

I was ten years old the first time I saw my grandfather stand at the pulpit. This handsome, good-natured man transformed into a scary figure. “Damnation and Hell await those who do not believe!” I was stunned. I already knew I had to mind my Ps and Qs around my mother’s family, who lived their lives at a more conservative pace; they did not smoke, drink, dance or play cards. Visits with my mother’s family were sporadic because lived more than a day’s drive away. When I was small, my brothers and I attended Sunday school while the adults went to the service, but now I was old enough for the sermon. At home we attended the staid Presbyterian church, where I often daydreamed, but I did not nod off with my Grandpa at the pulpit.

His flock was engaged by his ranting and scripture quotes, and many of them eagerly skittered to his pulpit when he called for souls who were ready to be saved.

Saved from what?

I envy the faithful, those individuals who yield control of their souls, who believe in the intangible and freely raise their arms and shout, “Praise Jesus.” I don’t get it.

Yet I also envy those who staunchly commit to not believing. I believe in God. I think we should believe in something (just in case), but my faith is nebulous, undefined. I've tried to be one of the faihful, bu my wolf slaps her tail and the sheepskin falls off.

I feel like a foreigner at family reunions; so many of my relatives place their fates in the Lord’s hands, and let the Lord give them a blueprint for their lives.

Consequently I avoid theology discussions with most of my mother’s family. I attend church services when I visit, and I mumble the prayers and sing the hymns at the appropriate times, but in the back of my mind I wonder how much of Christian ideology is fiction. The Bible is a series of stories through multiple voices translated from archaic texts. It’s the human story whose major themes are the basis of western literature. But is it the absolute truth?

I believe in spirituality, but cannot agree that God condemns all non Christians to one way tickets to Hades. The whole concept does make sense.

In The Crucible, and there is a line by Judge Danforth defining people as “either with us or against us.” The black and white either or ideology limits ys humans. We’re all children of God, whoever He or She is. Each culture finds a way to finding Him.

God exists in the interstices of life, as in the marginalia Medieval monks scribbled on the Illuminated Manuscripts.
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/21/monk-complaints-manuscripts/


To quote Hafiz
“God courts us with the beauty of this world."

Here is an exercise: read a story from a Holy book of your choice. Let that inspire your writing.




Happy Writing.

Plan A, B and C

The Sunday Scintilla bonus prompt this weekend says to write about an outrageous idea.

It was a perfect plan; I’d buy a horse and ride it to Hollywood and get discovered. (I was oly ten, too young to drive.) I wanted to become a famous Hollywood actress, and with my additional equestrian skills, maybe I could star in a remake of National Velvet.
there were only a couple of problems with this plan:
How and Where would I buy a horse? I’d only ridden once at summer camp under supervision.)

I wasn’t nearly as attractive as Elizabeth taylor. I was pudgy, blonde, and had just gotten blue cat eye glasses.
I had no acting. This fact was later confirmed my Junior year oif high school when I played Joan of Arc’s mother. Every time I said opne of my lines the audience erupted in laughter.

So much for my dreams of getting an Academy Award.

Plan B- write a movie!

I’d written and performed plays for the neighborhood kids. Okay, so I had to bribe them to watch by passing out candy and popcorn.)

The closest I had ever come to writing a movie is again in my junior year I put together a three act play. After getting laughed off stage I still had a burning interest in theatre, so I concentrated on reading and writing plays. The problem with this plan was I didn’t have enough direction in life to enable me to create compelling characters. I’d had plenty of interesting, and even traumatic events happen, but not at sixteen I lacked the perspective to write a serious piece.
That play, along with most of high school scribbling, ended up in the trash. I kind of wish I could see how my mind worked. Maybe I had more talent than I imagined.

You’ve never heard of me, so it’s apparent my plans for stardom and fame fell through. But I still have shelf space reserved for that Oscar. I have written three YA novels,(Under the Veil, Chasing the Dragon, and Parallel Lines) and who knows? Maybe one of them will become the next Hunger Games or The Lightning Thief. I can always dream.

Writing prompt: What was your childhood dream? Write a short narrative on how that dream did or did not get realized.


Happy Writing.

If I had Any Sense I’d have Scriptophobia

I felt disappointed and adrift without a Scintilla prompt. It’s like crack for writers. Then I saw a twitter feed for a bonus prompt to write about the time you left home. My family moved a lot, so leaving home was not a new experience for me. I looked forward to new adventures, locations and people. I was a fairly easy going kid, and usually made friends quickly with each move.

One summer I flew to London, England to spend a few weeks in England and Kenya with a British family Caroline, a Brit, was in my class at school, and her mother, a college professor, was journeying to Kenya for some anthropological research. Caroline and her brother each invited a friend to go along for summer. Caroline chose me because I’d had overseas travel experience and we were good enough friends to spend long stretches of time together. We’d be staying three weeks in England before jetting off to Nairobi.

This trip occurred only a few months after my mother passed away, and I had not yet exhibited residual effects of this trauma. Within a week of her dying, my brother Paul and I moved across the country to live with our dad, who had just started a new job. My oldest brother stayed behind because he was in college. When kids at my new asked where my mother was, I lied and said my parents were divorced and she stayed on the west coast. I couldn’t say the words, “my mother died.” My brother appeared to adjust well to the move, attending school each day, making new friends. With Mom gone, I cooked diner each night and the rest of us shared in housekeeping. We all kept busy and never talked about my mother.

A few weeks before the England trip, Memorial Day weekend, my father and I went boating on Lake Erie with some friends. I’d enjoyed boating since I was a kid, but as soon as we pulled away from shore I experienced ineffable dread. I clung to the side of the sailboat and did not want to keep my father out of my sight.

A few weeks later I flew over to England with another friend (who was going on to Germany after the rest of us left for Africa.) The three of us bunked together in Caroline’s room, and there were others in the flat; but the first night, after the lights went out and we settled down to sleep, I was engulfed in deep sadness.

I stood at the window, rain pelting on the window, and felt tears on my own face. I had been away from home countless times: summer camp, and sleepovers. By the time I was thirteen I’d been around the world twice. But never this far from my now fractured family before.

I think this is the first time I realized the weight of the past few months. My mother was always eager to hear stories from my adventures. She would not be hearing about this trip.

Teenagers resemble adults physically, but they lack the skill and development to process life changing events without consequences. This trip ignited seeds for phobias I developed in the ensuing years. I didn’t seek therapy because, other than my new fears of flying, boating and riding in a car, I was highly functional. (When I got my driver’s license I was afraid to drive on freeways.) The things that scare normal people like public speaking, snakes and heights have never bothered me.

Oddly enough, I credit Cosmopolitan magazine with helping me a few years later manage my irrational behavior. I read an article about fears and phobias and using behavior modification to get over tem. It took me forever to get to school and work because I refused to drive the freeways, so as a way to cure myself of this, I got in the car and drove to Oregon from Ohio to see my brother. Those first few miles I screamed and cried. By the time I reached Dayton the rhythm of the road calmed me down, and spent the next five days driving alone to Portland, Oregon.

I still have lurches of fear when friends and family go on journeys, either flying or driving. But these days that concern is rational; the world has gotten scarier. And reasons to hate flying go beyond fear.

I don’t like this prompt. It’s hard to “go there.” And remember that freakishly phobic girl. I didn’t HAVE to write this, but real writing comes from those dark corners we don’t want to visit.

So here is your prompt: What are you afraid to revisit? Go back there. Write about it.



Happy Writing.

Songs Are Like Tattoos

Day 3 of The Scintilla Project where the goal is to write a response to a prompt every day for two weeks. Today’s prompts are 1.) Talk about a memory triggered by a particular song, or 2.) what’s the story of your most difficult challenge in a relationship?

Funny how small things spark memories.

The smell of Jergen’s hand lotion floods me with memories of my mother’s hands. She would purposely pour out excess lotion, and say to me, “Oh look, I have too much. Bring me your hands.” She would grasp my fingers and our hands danced off the excess fluid.

I can’t clean the cat box without thinking about George Clooney (who ironically was arrested today). On a talk show Clooney a few years ago described an incident where a former roommate was sloppy about keeping the litter box clean. One day George himself pooped in the cat box. After that the roommate was vigilant about cleaning up after his cat.

Songs trigger permanent memories, too.

I was one of those kids who never wanted to go to bed. I might miss something. My mother had to bribe me with putting music on the Hi-Fi (For those of you under fifty, the Hi-Fi is a precursor to the stereo. It had a turntable for 45s (singles) or 33s (albums) and a solitary, giant speaker. And a closeable lid. It was an attractive piece of blonde wood furniture that could double as a table for a vase in front of a window. At bedtime, Mom would place up to five records at a time and bank on my brothers and I being asleep by the time the last album dropped onto the turntable. Her taste in music was eclectic. The best music to get elementary and junior high kids to sleep, (and most likely invite some romance with my dad if he wasn’t out of town) was jazz. My parents’ collection included greats like John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Gene Ammons, Ella Fitzgerald, Les and Larry Elgart, George Shearing and Thelonuius Monk. If Dad wasn’t home, Mom might select Etta James, B.B. King, or Louis Armstrong. We all liked show tunes, and owned soundtracks for West Side Story, Gypsy, South Pacific and Auntie Mame.

By the time we were teenagers, each of us had or own stereos( and headphones.), and our tastes grew more divergent, and my flavor in music devolved to The Monkees and David Cassidy.

My mother died a month after I turned sixteen, and I couldn’t listen to music that reminded me of her. The somber tones of Tchaikovksy and Sibelius cushioned me, provided a new soundtrack for my life that included years of veiled depression.

It’s too much of a cliché to say writing saved me. Writing was only part of the equation.

I listen to music when I write, paint, clean house, and read. Music plays in my car as I drive. I hate to fly, so in the 80’s and 90’s I carted cassette and CD players on board, and now my ipod serenades me to relax while 30,000 feet above.

I can’t identify a specific song as my favorite. In high school I ritually wallowed in broken-hearted breakups with boys during my Joni Mitchell years. (Her Blue album always sent me further inside my blues.) The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm” is a great driving song, and Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight” is my karaoke staple.

My first kiss and quasi boyfriend had a song: “In My Life,” by the Beatles. “There are places I remember….some are gone and some remain...In my life I have loved them all.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZpVxLjqXPE


Happy Writing.

Who Says I'm a Grown up?

When I was a kid I couldn’t wait to grow up so I could reach cabinets so I could reach cabinets without a boost and make decisions about not having to eat broccoli and other things I deemed gross. I grew to like broccoli, and my five foot seven stature ensures I can reach most of my cabinets. I wanted to stay up late and no longer be relegated to kids’ table. Chronologically, I have been an adult for many years, but am I a grown-up?

I felt grown up when I got a driver’s license and my first credit card, and paid my first rent check, but I still wanted to play in the sand and eat chocolate frosting directly from the can. Perhaps when I stopped liking the taste of canned ravioli and spray cheese and developed a preference for fresh foods I became an adult. Or maybe when I bought my first new car or signed the litany of forms to become a homeowner.

On a visit to my brother’s family, when his daughters were still small and I was close to thirty, I showed the girls how to make castles with their mashed potatoes. In a voice eerily similar to our dad’s, my brother looked at me and barked, “stop playing with your food.” After an awkward moment of silence, we all cracked up laughing.

Recently I visited with a couple of old friends from junior high who I had not seen in forty years. Time did not end our adolescence. We giggled and gossiped the same way we did back then. The difference is we did it over wine this time.

I don’t recall having a singular moment when I thought, “Wow, I’m an adult now.” My mirror reflects this jowly faced woman with silver streaks in her hair, yet sometimes I still feel like a teenager. Maybe spending the last twenty five years working in a high school has prevented me from fully becoming a grown up.

I will be retiring in three years (When did I get old enough to retire?) and I feel
I tell people I am finally graduating from high school because it feels like a second youth of sorts. My options are not as unlimited as my twenties when my body was more facile. But my mind is still flexible, and I get to reboot my life with a clean slate. I can choose to get another job, move across the country, become a beach bum, write full time, design jewelry, or return to school and get a doctorate.

On a rerun tonight of That 70’s Show Eric and Donna try on marriage when Donna’s father goes away for the weekend. She undercooks the chicken, and suggests if Eric doesn’t want to eat it, she says,” You can have Fruity Pebbles instead.”

Eric, who constantly tries to prove to his father he's not an irresponsible kid, says, "Grown ups don’t eat Fruity Pebbles."

Do you know what? Grown-ups can eat whatever we want.

Here is a no fail writing prompt for helping add detail: write about food. Food uses all the senses, and in a scene between characters, food bonds people.



Happy Writing.