I love hotels the way I love a new handbag, a new wallet, a new book. It's a first. Beginnings. There is something in the ritual of opening the hotel room door or the smell of the wallet. It's almost an emotion that says "Here we start anew" We are new to each other. Not familiar. Let's see where we go and who we will be.

I don't roll my eyes and press delete when websites like Jetsetter come in my email. I save. I click. I dream. Eloise must have had fun. I would. She didn't have to pay her own way. That's about all that holds me back. The means to an end. If I win Lotto or get a great income tax refund I will spend it on weekends in hotels. That's after paying the accountant for the miracle of a refund and having barely nothing of it left. But I'm there already. I've checked in at Crosby Street Hotel or The High Line or The Plaza Athenee. I'm sitting on the most amazing settee I've ever seen with a glass of prosecco from room service. I have to remember to ask the front desk where they got it I think. It woud be perfect in my room. In your apartment? In your small bedroom? Not in this life whispers the voice of wisdom as it snaps me back to the here and now as I close the site and save the link.

In the meantime, I can always take my new wallet and notebook crisp and clean to the coffee bar or restaurant of any of these amazing hotels. It may take a reservation. And a little money in that new wallet won't hurt. But that feeling of the different from the everyday will be there. The Sweet Life is mine. Sometimes close is close enough to enjoy.