In a bubble

That I'm starting my day out with a tight little hangover caused by pharma-company-purchased wine does not conjure up expectations for a highly wholesome day, especially when I meet up with my cyber pals later on.

I've been in this bizarre, rarified bubble of fanciness for about 24 hours now, this Fairmont hotel perched right on top of the terminal building at YVR. Haven't even been outside since I got on the LRT at Yamhill and 9th in Portland yesterday morning at 7:00 a.m., except for the little walks from the rickety dash 8 to the terminal buildings. The place is highly soundproofed, with windows everywhere, rendering the airport a distant mise en scene, a Truman Show of planes and gates and little airport vehicles buzzing silently everywhere and people enactingg departure and reunion. There was a huge window in my room overlooking gates and planes taxiing up and taking off all night long, rain hosing down and reflecting the light in a melancholy way. It feels a bit like watching a baseball game from a box, with eager hostesses proferring shrimp and wine and coffee and fruit and anything your heart desires, while the scene outside is casually available for scrutiny.

From a pragmatic perspective, this hotel makes sense -- a nice place at the airport instead of the soul-deadening boxes most airports have -- and why not a Fairmont, with all its fawning luxury that they never quite get right. The offered coffee never comes when I'm waiting for my room, and the wait stretches to more than an hour and a half, instead of the promised 30 minutes; the wifi works only in the lobby. I observe myself moving from my laid back Portland self into the slightly indignant demanding patron -- when the promise and frame are perfection, it's easy to slip into tsking admonishments at every "flaw." ("I'm shocked that there is no wireless in the room!" uttered with a disapproving moue).

The clients, as always, are lovely, earnest, too-eager and anxious. What happens when good looking geeky science majors meet the corporate world. I worked for my per diem, and it was good to restretch myself into this role. And good to revisit YVR, making more stories on my own to cover up the slight wistfulness of memory of having been here so many times with A. The Bill Reid sculpture, which was our talisman that we had to visit and touch everytime we passed through here, is all shrouded for some kind of cleaning, which feels about right.

I need, now, to stretch my body in the excellent gym and then get myself together to go downtown to hang out for a while then meet my pals. Maybe stare at the little parades of luggage trains whizzing by a while, some pomo version of Pooh Sticks.