I’ll never forget the first time one of my aunts told me their grandmother Annabel “took up in a hotel” at the end of her life (I’ve been told this many times throughout my life by various relatives). Annabel just… went to a hotel and decided to live there. She must have been in her 80s at that point and she did not pick just any hotel, she picked the del Coronado in Southern California where Some Like It Hot was filmed. Can you imagine? A life, so fancy? I’m envisioning a lot of very big hats, martinis, and an unreal amount of sunscreen.
The phrase “took up in a hotel” has stuck with me ever since. To “take up” anywhere sounds so god damn dreamy. To walk in somewhere and think, “I live here now.” How incredibly freeing! But also how POWERFUL. To be able to make that decision and not immediately panic about all the people, stuff, and possibilities you’re leaving behind to, in fact, live here now. Clearly Great Grandmother Annabel had great conviction (something I do not! I’ve been claiming I was going to move back to California once a month for the past five years).
I have since been obsessed with the idea of living in a hotel, like Eloise. Does this mean I’m just dreaming of being rich? Absolutely. But also… maybe not. Remember that movie Curly Sue? I had it on VHS (obviously) and used to watch it religiously on the tiny TV in my bedroom. She got to live in a hotel and she was poor! WOAH.
Ok… obviously they were scammers but still, it had so much glamour to it! The scene of her downing pizza after having maybe her first bath ever is huge in my memory.
There are so many reasons to love hotels. I’m guessing a lot of it has to do with my love of tiny things. You get a looooot of tiny things in a hotel. Tiny soaps, tiny cups, tiny will to live. And is there anything better than when they give you stationary? Who doesn’t want to send a letter being like “I’m in this hotel, I met a random old lady at the bar, she was so funny and sad at the same time, anyway, miss you.”
But outside of all the fun strangers, robes, and giant TVs, I do feel that hotels are really about escape. Escape from yourself, escape from your home, escape from your life. It’s about living in the not right now.
Here’s an old reject from when I first started submitting to The New Yorker:
And here’s a recent sketch from one of my notebooks:
There’s a theme in my life, no!?
I know I’m not alone in this feeling. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a person who was like “Hotels? No THANKS!” And if I did meet that person, I must’ve blocked it out as a traumatizing experience.
When I first started cartooning I had a weekly column titled Toast & Such on the site Real Pants. I named the column after a section of a menu in a diner in a small town on the northern coast of Oregon. The hotel there, Gearhart by the Sea, will remain the greatest hotel of my life. Not because of the luxury or the amenities, but for the memories. The smell of the sea, the beige carpets, the old coasters and knowing I could run down the hall and find one of my (hundreds of) cousins in any of the other rooms.
Here’s a comic from Toast & Such:
I’m not sure my life in a hotel would be the fanciest because I myself am not a fancy person. I’m a total slob. Throwing my shit everywhere is how I *settle in*. My boyfriend has often reminded me that I look homeless. Not always but ya know… often.
Perhaps it is because I’m in my 30s now, but my main excitement in life has become booking hotel rooms. Obviously I am a cartoonist and the only way I could be made of money is if I drew fake money and taped it all over myself, so this new affinity for hotels is always on a budget, but that makes it kind of fun. Like House Hunters, but for hotels! My rekindling with this started earlier this year after discovering Hotel Royalton in Times Square has a fireplace in basically every room and it’s actually AFFORDABLE?
Leaving there was literally painful!!!!
So basically what I’m saying is… send me your recs?
Thank you for reading! New posts every Friday!
ICYMI: I’ll be at MoCca fest! Saturday April 2, 3-7 PM
Song stuck in my head: “Don’t Rain On My Parade”
Obsessed with: this IG account that tours romantic hotels
Recently watched: This funny horror comedy
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