One Last Public Party at the Jane Hotel • By Paul Graham
Jane is the name of a great little hotel, in San Francisco, an hour away from the beach. I loved it for years, loved its staff and its service, never thinking that I would go to another hotel, and that it would be in a new section of town.
One day at the end of my third year, I decided that I would live the rest of my life in my old room, and use it as a writing studio and office, no longer the room to be used as a residence. So I set out, a month after I had graduated from business school, to find a place to live.
I had three options—San Francisco, Portland, Oregon or Eugene. I got to San Francisco first and thought back a moment to that conversation in the night club where we had met. I remember my conversation with the girl, and being very attracted, I think, to her looks, her enthusiasm and the fact that she was very fun, too. That, in the back of my mind, I think, was an important factor that attracted me to her. She was about 18, a senior at high school. I thought I would get to know her better and that we would get to know each other, even if I did not move in with her. So I went to her house on the weekend, and we made love.
Afterward, I drove to her school in a little town near Eugene. I got out of my car and went into the little town, got to the school and knocked on the door. There was no answer, but a little old lady answered it and invited me in. It was the first time I had been asked to come into a girl’s room, and I had this weird physical reaction—an electric feeling that I could not explain. I think it was the smell of the woman’s clothes, her perfume. I also felt nervous, as though I was about to be rejected. I did not want to come in, but I went in, and just looked around. It was a small room with walls of yellow wallpaper and a little table by the bed where a radio played. It looked very neat. I was
