Has anyone ever thought that suits have a smell?

Suits, as in, the fancy business dress that you wear. I'm sitting in a hotel room in a CASINO in UPSTATE NEW YORK (capitals emphasize things I DON'T like) and am sprawled out one of my huge beds, and for a second I swore I could smell my mother.

It's hot here in Syracuse, and I smelled hot polyester shirts and hot wool suits and my mother's skin, like she used to smell when she picked me up from school, the car smelling like warm skin and her pantyhose tossed off and crumpled up in the back seat, her shirt wrinkled in the back where it'd been creased from her sitting all day, and her jacket hanging carefully over the back of the car seat. I smelled all that.

And then I realized that my nose was against my own legs (shut UP, I get in weird positions to type) and that my warm polyester shirt had been tossed on the bed not far from me, and my legs smelled like, yes, warm polyester, and lotion--of course, since I'm my mother's daughter, it's the same kind of lotion my mom uses. I wasn't smelling my mother, I was smelling myself!

In other news: has anyone noticed that casinos have the absolute WORST food on the PLANET??? I'm so hungry that my stomach growls are audible 12 floors down, in the casino, over the noise of the slots, and even with this incentive not ONE thing on the menu looks good. Of course, I'm going off the room service menu, and I'm in UPSTATE NEW YORK--there ain't nothin' here, y'all, except golf courses. I wanted to take a walk around the grounds yesterday--because this Casino And Connected Buildings Resort is HUGE and has NINE GOLF COURSES, or some such ridiculousness. I mean, this resort complex covers half of the state. (Probably.) So would it be so unusual to ask if, on this rather large slice of paradise, there might somewhere be a nature trail?

If you're thinking, 'Obviously not', you're not good at reading comprehension. Apparently there IS something DRASTICALLY wrong with asking if there's a nature trail. The girls behind the desk at the Health Club (and, y'all, I am not skinny at all, but I was skinner than either of these girls--behind the desk at the HEALTH CLUB) looked at me like I was a crazy person.

"A what?"

"A nature trail, you know, or anything besides the concrete paths that lead to and from the damn parking lot?" (And I'd like you all to know that I'm not joking when I say there are shuttles. Yes, shuttles, to ferry people who are too sick to walk the few blocks between the parking lot and the casino--because god forbid they not get to the casino.)

"Uh...we've got...golf courses..."

Right. So I went out and walked the golf courses, and it was lovely, and I didn't see a single damn soul for an hour. I ran the sand traps, because they were the only hills I could find in Super-Flat Upstate New York. Yes, I did. Shut UP. And I didn't rake them down after myself either. (Although, in my defense, I had no idea you were supposed to. I saw the rakes, but I assumed they had been left there accidentally by the groundskeepers.)

I have decided on the mozzarella sticks and the chicken tenders, both appetizers. I figure they come frozen and the casino kitchen can't screw them up TOO badly. No, I don't want to leave my room--I've been on my feet in stilettos all day at a business exposition (thank you, B-----) and I'm sitting still in the air conditioning. Thank you.