Come back to me

I was just thinking about the movie "Somewhere In Time" with Jane Seymour and the guy who played superman who's paralyzed now (sorry, I forgot his name!). My family and I visited the hotel on Mackinac island in Michigan. It was a small fee to get into this fancy schmancy hotel to see all of the luscious furniture. Very worth it. They even had little nooks with real telephones that hotel guests could use to make phone calls and simultaneously look really classy. 

I was in the Barnes museum this afternoon. It is an art museum where paintings are hung (what's that word?)-style all over the walls along with metal door fixtures. The rooms are small and only a certain number of people are allowed in at a time. 

In this place, the Barnes, I felt the need to stand up a little straighter and put a little more sophistication in my step, and appear as if I was analyzing and truly appreciating the history and backstory and rendering, etc. of each piece of art. I felt almost like I had to follow the same rules as I might in a cemetery: no smiling, no talking, no laughing. There were people speaking different languages which led me to believe that this crowded place was so dang important that it was worth flying over from Europe to see!  And who was I to laugh and ruin their experience? I just drove an hour to get there. 

Side note: I saw a woman wearing a pair of pants from the retail location at which I worked; I almost asked her if they didn't make it hard to sit down because I'd heard that comment in the fitting rooms from other customers and wanted to know if it was always true. I'm curious about the products I used to sell. But the atmosphere was oppressive there; there was no talking to strangers except to apologize if I stepped between them and the object of their gaze. 

The bathrooms at the museum were lovely: floor-to-ceiling doors and walls and a sink in each stall, even the non-handicapped ones! But while sitting on one of their water-conserving toilets, I noticed that the Barnes used cheap old normal public-bathroom toilet paper. 

It was them that I thought of the Mackinac. At the hotel, which possessed a hoity-toity vibe rivaling that of the Barnes, the toilet paper came in separate sheets that came out of a box as if they were large tissues. They may even have been monogrammed, to match the "disposable" hand towels, which may as well have been made of thick cloth. 

If a place is worth flying across the ocean for, I think the toilets had darn well better have toilet paper you don't have to rip by yourself. It should be pre-ripped, folded, and in a box. And maybe even perfumed. 

Cheers to the Mackinac hotel. 

Though the movie is not with watching. Basically, reeves and Seymour are together in death. (Reeves!  That's his name!)