The bathroom door is the foot of the bed. No, you heard me correctly, it’s not at the foot of the bed, it is the foot of the bed. So we must leave these bathroom doors open while we sleep, while we shower, while we use the toilet.
We are in a hotel in Manhattan, that 2005 Lynn (who lived in Queens) cannot believe we can actually afford to stay in. It’s in a neighborhood called “NoMad,” which I refuse to say out loud because nobody called it that when I had been a New Yorker. “North of Madison Square Park?” Once upon a time, my favorite NYC park. I used to commute on the N train with my dog in a bag there, to play in the dog run with the other pampered pooches. I wondered if anyone could tell we weren’t supposed to be there. That I was just pretending we belonged.
But 2021 Lynn still doesn’t belong. In fact, 2021 Lynn just doesn’t understand this city anymore. The line at Trader Joes that snakes around the entire store for a bag of ginger chews? The subway ApplePay system that accidentally double charges if I hold my thumb down for too long? The hotel SMEG fridge that looks beautiful but sounds like a horror film…
Oh yes, back to this hotel. There are the requisite plush robes and a safe with a code. There are snacks you can buy two avenues over at Whole Foods for half the already ridiculous price. There is an acoustic guitar balanced on the wall between two exposed pipes that have been painted matte black and even a turntable and records. There are full glass pumps bolstered to the shower wall, filled with shampoo, conditioner, and liquid body wash that you actually want to smell like. But where is the body lotion? Where are the furry slippers? Why won’t this bathroom door close?
Okay I’m exaggerating a bit. The bathroom doors do close, but the knobs are difficult to maneuver. The hinges creak so loudly that it just isn’t worth opening and closing them. Plus, when the doors are shut, that bathroom gets zero heat, and peeing in the middle of the night on a cold toilet is one of the reasons I left New York City for sunny, warm Los Angeles.
In our almost twenty-five years together, this is my first time staying in a NYC hotel with my husband. Usually we’re crammed on a sofa bed at my mother’s home office in Fort Lee, but not today. We are the real adults now. We have earned our right to step outside and immediately be a part of the rush of it all: the-24-hour-everything-and-anything-you-could-possibly-want. But all I want is my car.
What has happened in the last sixteen years that has made it so that I now don’t want any of it? Was it the pandemic or am I really this much of an agoraphobic homebody? All I want is to be back in my own home, in Los Angeles, where the bathroom is in the hallway far away from my pillow. I want my laundry machine, I want my car. I want my wifi to not have a password every time I log in. I want my unremarkable fridge filled with jars of kimchi that I eat from every night, with my favorite pair of chopsticks. Tonight, I am making do with the bottle opener (sanitized with the body wash) and a small, vacuum-sealed pouch of pickles.
Maybe the problem is that this trip is not a vacation, and so this hotel is not a fun escape. This trip is so we can finally see the people we love and they can see us back. And what I’m hoping they won’t see is this brat that I’ve become. I’ve adjusted and changed and am very uncomfortable wearing jeans, let alone jeans with fleece tights under them. Who I am right now — 2021 Los Angeles Pandemic Lynn — I’m grateful to her. She has kept me safe and healthy and sane for almost two years.
But I’m afraid nobody here will like her anymore, not one bit. This is no longer home, and I am no longer a New Yorker — just an annoying tourist.
