Not welcome Renaissance Marriott when you are doing your book tour

 I am travelling to promote my book tour. I recently stayed in the Renaissance (marriot chain) Newark - really Elizabeth, on Spring Street, New Jersey.
The cost of the room was more than three hundred dollars.
They are undergoing remodeling and the lobby, hallways, and exercise facilities were a train wreck. There was carpeting torn up everywhere. The pool posted a sign that it was closed to sanitize it. No humans have been in that pool in a while.
A few things tips for the Marriott chain. I have stayed in 900 Marriotts and your staff needs to be fired. The front desk woman was rude. The security is terrible. A local chinese food restaurant and a local pizza joint both seperately wandered upstairs with flyers which they slid under everyone's doors late at night.
This is a hotel you stay with only to fly out early the next morning.
I expect clean sheets. One of the double beds had long black hairs between the top and bottom. Messy.

The room has a nice mirrror and was large.

The elevator got stopped/ stuck.

Dry wall cut outs and plaster on the hall carpeting at night. No workers in sight.

Don't use the pool.

Out front the landscaping was ripped up.

Hallways with no baseboards and no carpeting

Out front two plastic chairs with summer colors which were cheery - but it was freezing cold and the heater in front is broken.

Wade Alan Steele

Wade Alan Steele's short stories have dark patches of nature and mystic sunlight. I found him accidentaly, as is the best writing discovery.

Awakening

photograph Caroline Gerardo Copyright 2011

MISSING

Caroline Gerardo Copyright March 2011

Pain exists on my lips. I do not feel it. The upper is not cracked or bleeding, the scar tissue is from the grief. I cut my finger with new Fiscar gardening shears. I see bones. I stitched it myself.

How long must I pull thorns from my mouth? Is there a measurement when I will no longer miss you?

Did my father die yesterday or in the Devonian Period? In dreams, he is a young man telling me penance things.

I awaken. I write down the words on a yellow stained notepad next to my bed. After little rest, in the morning I cannot read the language. The words are in ancient Panjabi, not Farsi. The handwriting is poor from not wearing glasses. I drink clouded moonlight. What did he say?

Tasbeeh phiree par dil ni phiriya Kee lena tasbeeh phair kay Hu- Throw the rosary beads away if your prayers remain unanswered. When the cross on my necklace meets the clasp I recite the whole rosary. This happens several times a day. It is beginning to suck up my waking hours.

I started sleeping with the blinds wide open. This allows peeking reflections off the swimming pool. A snow goose hit the mirrored surface. No, it was an owl. He has a pearly wingspan. A soothsayer who purposely hides the truth from those he loves.

I left the door open to the surf. I wake up at two and three and four. I look over on your pillow. You are not there with your hands on your chest. I believe I prefer the earlier trick of just going back to dream and seeing you in my head wound.

Awakening: A Sufi Experience

Some Girls Like it Hot, some like something else

It is controversial,  mostly for women I know. I bought it with a twinge of guilt, but read it as fast as a thriller. The Prince part is, well - a little dull to me; however her motivations were the nut inside the shell I wanted to understand. I am left a little without an answer.  Perhaps she does not know? It was not the presents. There certainly is an allure of glamour. The repression and community that exist were missed.  
An interview in person, yes some time in my lifetime is ahead.

Narrative Magazine's Friday Feature: Skip Horack's 'Borderlands'

Read Skip Horack's story
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost