Lobby, Hotel Monaco, Portland

A good hotel always has a good lobby.

A place to come when your partner's asleep and you aren't.

Playing the piano would be inappropriate at four in the morning--you're not Cole Porter or Billy Joel--even if you could play the piano.

So many nice places to sit! Couches, chairs with headrests made of soft chintz, a settee in the manner of a grand Austrian palace built by the Hapsburgs.

A civilized Eden, devoid of other human beings other than you, all the prattle drained from its sources. The silence, immaculate, polishes the china.

Insomnia's coddled for an hour or so while you read about Ernest Hemingway's boat and wait for dawn.