Roughly Against the Dock

Late night hotel in South of Market, up now, suddenly at 3:30AM.  An extremely loud, primal, grinding, now part of my room.  It’s not a temporary matter.  It continues. Is everyone in the hotel awake, like me, confronting this sound?   Outside two blocks up, there is a construction site.  There is no way to ignore this sound.  I can’t return to sleep and consider getting on with the day.  Twenty minutes or more later the noise just stops. 

The gyms at the Marriott locations tend to be rather modest with a minimal number of machines to keep a small group of people swiftly rotated in and through their workouts.  At 5:30AM there are already two other people hard at work.  Mid way through a routine the human form beside me taps my shoulder and he takes the form of a colleague.  I pull out one of he headphones to greet him.

Later dinning by the water, I forgot about these vegie vows I’d taken with the family and went straight for the oyster bar.  No oysters, just ceviche left, which looked sour and delicious on a shelf of ice and I grabbed a plate and began to eat the moment I sat at the table.  Second bite?  As many as three?  I’m not supposed to be eating this, I suddenly consider.  Because I said so.  Right.  A pang or three.  Move the plate to the middle of the table then.  Reluctantly looking over at it then, for a while.

Outside, docklands in SF with their seventeen decades of stories that lead to this broad emptiness.  I watch the brutal water slap up roughly against the dock.  And uninvited the Otis Redding theme music begins to play like a commercial in my mind “wasting time”, away from others, absorbing for a moment.  Conversations at dinner lead to Fermor in Bulgaria, and memories of Turkey and I note how preferable it is to discussing software with this dinner companion.

US hotels seem to have done away with the idea of room service.  They’ve done away with having a Snickers bar in the fridge.  No thoughtful little complementary treat left for me?  Is this how it is in New York as well or do they feel obligated to provide food for you to order, through the night?  It’s best I don’t have a Snickers Bar or a big complementary brownie.  But I am definitely hungry tonight, heading to bed, ceviche-less.

Monday 02/26/18