If you go to New York City for a conference that you’re pretty sure will be full of literati snobs (as well as some really nice people!), where do you stay to get away from them? There is only one choice, of course: The White House, at $28 a night for a single and $54 for a double. Actually, they gave me a double but charged me for a single and I’m glad because even with a double, it’s kind of like staying in a storage unit (in the words of the immortal Ken Waldman). But where else in New York City, I ask you, can you stay somewhere for so little money? Somewhere that’s safe, relatively clean (if not a little run-down), and full of interesting characters, like the old geezers with no teeth always hanging out downstairs in the morning when you come down?
My friends Lora and Jonathan stayed there, too. I could hear them whispering at night, which was far more pleasant than the guy snoring down the hallway.
Like I said, it was clean, neat, and safe. Well, mostly clean. 
I think I got one bedbug bite–on my ankle. And maybe one on my nose.
