Melissa and I went thrifting together in Portland before the rest of our girlfriends hit San Francisco. We stayed at the Ace, which was perfect in every way. In addition to touching the elevator button with my nose, I also licked everything on the premises. It tasted like fixies and vegan donuts.

I find myself oddly in love with Detroit. I didn’t know much about it before we left, but it turns out to be kind of magically empty. There are people everywhere, just not as many as you expect to see given the infrastructure. All these gorgeous buildings are being left to themselves, like giant, crazy-expensive sculptures. Plus there’s all this amazing modernist architecture going for a song. It feels like it’s on the verge of a thousand artists descending and making it a freaky creative wonderland. Anyway, I didn’t have much time to go on photo safari, but here are a few shots I got. If you’re looking for shots of Melissa and her crew, they’re on Flickr.

In Kalamazoo, Melissa and I score an upgrade to a suite at the Radisson. It’s enormous.

Melissa: This room is the first time I’ve ever wished I was a teenager again, so we could throw a raging party.
Me: And have hot teenage sex.
Melissa: There’s no such thing as hot teenage sex.
Me: What!? You’re forgetting all about the hot teenage boys.
Melissa: I guess you could have like twenty seconds of hot teenage sex.
Me: Hot teenage hotel room sex with someone in the bed next to you who has to pretend to be asleep.
Melissa: Haaaaaaahhht.

Hank hearts Melissa, originally uploaded by MaggieMason.

Sorry for the interruption in service yesterday. I had wine-related technical difficulties. Mainly that I forgot to post until after it was imprudent to post. Detroit rocks so far.

My presentation is tomorrow, and then we’re headed to Detroit for a few days.

Best thing we’ve seen here so far? A girl in her car using the cigarette lighter to plug in her hair crimper. Not nearly enough hair crimping going on in parking garages these days.