A decade on, I talk about this when I see old friends at hotel bars. It’s the kind of conversation we wouldn’t be able to have at a dark place full of thrum, or a pop-song bar with ironic cocktails. In a leather half-booth, in the emptiest bar in the city, there is no impetus to be decorous. I should clarify that I don’t mean fancy hotel bars — not the Ace, or even the W; not a storied corner like Bemelmans at the Carlyle. Return, for as long as you like, to the quiet place inside yourself that is always arriving, always traveling.

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Persons: Carlyle, Hilton, —, Kate Wagner, Jen, Sommer, Let’s Organizations: Marriott Locations: cacophony, The Atlantic, polyamory