Thursday, April 10, 2014

a formerly impressive experience ...


A long time ago - it might have been 1989, it might have been 1990 - I came to the US, and gave some lectures, when The Woman Reader was still being written - and Elaine Showalter graciously invited me to come to Princeton, and put me up in the Nassau Inn.  I could hardly sleep, because I was so excited at its opulence, at the marble (or so I thought - I'm now questioning) counter tops, at the folded face flannel, etc - very unlike all those Italian pensione that constituted a lot of my hotel travel experience, apart from Youth Hostels.

Twenty five years on - well, maybe I'm not so impressed (there was another stay here in 1999, I might add, but I was miserable, and had to console myself with eating the chocolate chip cookies laid out at bedtime - no sign of those on this stay, which is probably a good thing, but there's also no minibar, and no room service after 10 p.m., and I'm hungry).  All of which goes some way to explaining my rather tired and crumpled face in the makeup mirror ...

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