The coffee maker just barked

I'm staying at the Hampton Inn slightly east of the middle of Illinois and like every other hotel/motel I've ever stayed in, it has two major problems:

1. not enough outlets
2. the coffeemaker in the bathroom

The first is mind-boggingly. Hotel designers and architects know that people travel with computers, iPods, phones, curling irons, etc., but only put in one extra outlet in the bathroom and one in the bedroom, forcing us to crawling under the bed to unplug the single lamp in the room and plug in the computer.

Have you ever crawled under a hotel bed? Don't. Ew.

The second is equally baffling. Food and drink in the bathroom? Not unless I'm hiding, thank you very much (and every time I see the coffeemaker in the bathroom, I think of the Frasier episode where Niles and Lilith hook-up, and when Frasier comes to Lilith's hotel room the next morning, Niles and his eggs benedict hide in the bathroom).

The arrangement forces me to use the remaining plug in the bedroom for my coffee, carrying water to it one cup at a time to make coffee.

And as people who know me know, that's a lot of trips. In fact, the coffeemaker just "barked." Spewing out the last of the hot water as it gave up the ghost. Sadly, the coffee it made is not worth the sacrifice.

I guess that's the third thing all hotels have in common. The in-room coffee leaves much to be desired.

Finding inspiration in all the wrong places

I sometimes get great, if somewhat odd inspirations from strange TV, particularly when I'm putting off revisions. If I know something is wrong with a scene or a character, but not what, a long walk or redirecting my attention for a few seconds usually helps me figure out the problem. Now while some authors clean house during those redirection moments, I don't.

I prefer off-the-wall TV to vacuuming. There's a gold mine of personality quirks just waiting to be found in those shows. For instance, the show "How Clean is Your House" is why I have at least one clean-freak heroine.

For a while, the show was strangely addicting, namely because I was trying to figure out why anyone whose house looks like the inside of a garbage truck would allow cameras and women in pink fuzzy gloves through the door. Or what if people came into your home all the time? Would you clean every day? Become immune to the clutter? The answer to those questions was Liza, the heroine of ANAM CARA who never met a dust bunny she didn't vanquish from her public house, The Knight's End.

For a while, the British show "Time Team" provided perfect fodder, too. The premise is a bit cheesy--think rescue archeology. But as the archeologists reconstructed life from bones found at digs, I learned much about fatal wounds. Unfortunately, it doesn't air in the States and the U.S. version doesn't offer quite the same fodder for a medievalist like me.

Lately, I've been finding slight artistic boosts in the ghost hunting, haunted travels shows that overrun the cable channels. I love the pseudo scientific explanations for the creepy crawlies, the psychics who "channel" long-past events and the unrehearsed reactions (i.e. screams) by the professional hunters who actually think they've actually spied a ghost.

So far the shows haven't inspired a ghost-hunting hero or a haunted heroine, but they don't require a lot of attention and are perfect for a quick four-second break while I focus on a problem. Mindless entertainment is often fertile ground for the seeds of a great story--at least that's what I keep telling myself.

Voting yes for universal healthcare

Sometimes I wonder why so many people work so hard to keep jobs we hate. Let's face it, most of us are whores. We work for the money.

And yes, on occasional, we experience a few moments of professional satisfaction for a job well done, but mostly we take it without so much as a kiss or a complaint.

I know from experience--and so do many of my friends--that no amount of money is worth the stress that fogs our focus, raises our blood pressure and twists worries so tight we can't sleep. And we know that stress is cumulative, building in our bodies over time--like plaque in our arteries--until our health is compromised for the rest of our lives.

Yet, when I say that slinging hash in a tourist trap has more allure than putting on my work clothes, many of these same friends react with horror. "You don't really mean that," is the most common response, followed by, "Be grateful you have a job."

Really? Does that mean the prostitute should just be grateful that the john didn't actually kill her? Sure, it's work. But at what cost?

Sadly, when pressed, most people continue to work in soul-sucking environments because of insurance needs. Either they have a condition that could kill them without continued medical care or they fear bleeding out in the ER if an accident happens because they don't have insurance and...

OMG, did I just talk myself into supporting universal healthcare?

Let me think about it.

Yep, I did. The stress in my job is short-term (I hope) and will go away soon. But what about other people? What about those who don't see the end of the road? The poor? Chronically ill? Children? Regardless of circumstances, I don't think insurance, or lack thereof, should drive our choices.

At the end of the day, most of us are willing to live with less stuff, and maybe even dumpster dive for dinner rather than work in place that slowly kills us, but few of us are willing to gamble with our health or our family's health in the short-term even if it means we saddle ourself with long-term, chronic illnesses.