What are you doing here?

The real action is over at Flickr, where I have been posting this year's Red Stapler portraits all day. I think I am almost done.

I apologize for the people whose names or blogs I couldn't remember. Hey, I took about 150 portraits, I think - YOU try to keep track of all those details. My brain reached max capacity by the second day and it was all fuzzy after that.

For BlogHer 07, I stayed at the W Hotel, where I instantly felt Not At Home.

The chic design, the herds of beautiful people prancing thru the lobby and the extremely loud music everywhere all combined to tell me "you don't belong here." I have seldom felt older, frumpier or crankier.

Those feelings were compounded by the $8 water in the rooms. I can't imagine what kind of drugs make people spend $8 on water, but they must be strong.

Then there is the shuttered opening between the bathroom and bedroom. "Hello! I'm POOPING in here! Can you hear me?? GOOD! I LOVE THAT!"

And anyone over 40 probably can't read the 4-point type on their incomprehensible menu of services (housekeeping is called "styling" and the gym is called "sweat").

I'm not saying it wasn't nice. Quite the opposite. It was way too nice for a white trash girl like me.

Now I'm snuggled up in a suburban motel, the kind close to the highway where moms in sweat pants lead troops of grubby children to play Marco Polo in the pool. Harried-looking businesspeople in cheap suits arrive late in the evening and leave before sunrise. Trucks with their reefer units running are out in the parking lot.

Parking is free, wireless is free (it was $15 at the W), coffee is free ($4 at the W), breakfast is free ($12 and up), there is an in-room coffeemaker, fridge and microwave.

The TV is not a flat-screen beauty, the bedspreads are a hideous green and pink floral polyester, and I don't even want to see what a black light would find. But it is perfect.

The dollar-menu yogurt parfait from McDonalds across the street was 1000 times better than any of the artfully arranged crap I got at "Wave," the W's restaurant where salt seemed to be the primary seasoning and the music was rocket-engine loud even in the "quiet" area.

I'm glad to get back to my roots.