Cool Fatigue

I feel like there should be a real name for this condition, but the best I've been able to come up with lately is Cool Fatigue. I've felt it every time an idea I'd had in the past launched as a fully funded app, or especially when an idea I'd never thought of launches, and is an instant hit. One of the hardest parts about working in tech is just the sheer amount of HOW MUCH cool stuff is happening constantly: how many cool ideas are out there, how great they look or function, and how many people are doing them faster than you.

This is all fine and motivational normally, but a weird thing started happening to me with some pretty real negative consequences. I felt defeated. I wanted to give up. And worse than that, I started to feel annoyed and repulsed by everything. Do we really NEED this much convenience? Is it going to make us happier? Isn't it all at some point just an egotistical way to "win" in a hyper-competitive environment about who can plan the most moves ahead of everyone else into a check-mate? I mean, WHAT'S THE POINT???

This kicked off the beginning of a kind of technological withdrawal, something I know isn't unique to me. Designers everywhere are going back to their more primitive, hand-made roots, yearning for camping gear, working with their hands, and any other forms of rugged simplicity. I bought the entire Little House series (for about 1¢ each on Amazon, I'm not giving up that much technology) and read them all in a month. I started little craft projects on pieces of furniture I already owned, painting and sanding and organizing. And instead of spending weekends partying, I tried to get out of town more and more often, back into nature and to breathe fresh air and feel alive.

This is basically a long segue into a particularly helpful weekend of recuperation, a week after our eleven (!) year anniversary. We found an incredible little house in Barryville NY called Hillside Schoolhouse. It's hard to call it a b&b because the owners don't actually stay in the same property, which is great. It's beautifully done in a very Brooklynized former logging town along the Delaware River, about two hours northwest of the city.

The owner had a pretty good record collection.

Even the general store was Williamsburgy!

We spent the weekend hiking, eating in surprisingly expensive restaurants in the area, and exploring. The day we left we stopped by Storm King. The whole weekend had been intensely foggy and damp but it hadn't rained at all, which was great and left Storm King pretty empty.

I think many of us can lose perspective living in the city. (And maybe everybody already knows this, but I just figured it out.) It's so easy to lose track of your life, of who you are, and what you even want. Without taking any moments to yourself to recharge, to re-center and balance, you can spin out of control. There was a point where I thought that that spinning on the brink of a breakdown gave me a rush of being actually in control, but now looking back I can see so clearly that it was all just an illusion. Or even worse, a delusion. I was never in control. But I'm glad that I found a way to start to get some back. 

Roofies are an inappropriately funny thing to joke about with your closest friends until you've been roofied

OK SO. Obviously I don't know with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY 100% that I was roofied, but I am pretty sure based on  my problem solving and critical thinking skills. Here are the facts:

1. I drink a lot. Like, every day. It's not something I'm proud of (maybe a little) but that's fact 1. An average night going out, I can put away 7 or 8 drinks. Of course there are times that I get sloppy or something, but I NEVER BLACK OUT. I can always get home. Last night, I had four drinks that I remember, which honestly is roughly the amount that makes me slightly more sociable.

2. I was at a show of a band I love and had been looking forward to seeing, which I missed because I became unconscious.

3. I literally remember everything super clearly up until one point where I completely do not remember anything after that.

4. I was alone at one point getting a drink while my boyfriend held our spots, in the break between the second opener and the main act. I do not remember anything after this.

5. I had plans with friends after the show, and I always try not to flake. I hate flakes.

This morning I woke up and realized my contacts were still on my eyeballs. This was a very startling thing, because I'm panicky about eyeball health (it's my moneymaker) and I always, always remember to take out my contacts no matter what. I immediately got up and took them out and had that wtf moment where I thought, What happened last night??

My boyfriend woke up around this time and proceeded to fill in the gaps for me. I came back upstairs after buying my last drink, where I got very belligerent and embarrassed him. I wobbled and bumped into people. I got loud, rookie drunk. He dealt with it for a few minutes before I confided in him that I GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE. He became anxious and tried to navigate me out of the venue where I tried to lie down on the sidewalk outside and passed out. The bouncer tried to help him with me and he hailed a cab, picked me up off the sidewalk, and put me in it. I'm completely unconscious already. He carried me out of the cab, into our apartment, and put me in bed, and tried to wake me up – I did not wake up. He considered calling an ambulance but the no insurance thing was a factor so he just let me sleep.

Being all detective-y, we tried to piece it together. He said my last drink, a neat whiskey, looked a funny color, and he noticed it, but didn't say anything. It happened extremely quickly. I was alone for long enough for someone to maybe think I was at the show by myself.

The feeling I feel most is PISSED OFF. I missed the show. I live in a neighborhood where people will roofie you. I have never paid any attention to my drinks because I never thought I had to, I liked the neighborhoody vibe of Williamsburg where bars aren't a scene and people look out for each other. I don't get hit on in bars, we don't get in fights. It's not fucking Manhattan. But I guess it is now and that really, really pisses me off. I feel tense and violated and under attack, like when someone once made a racist comment to me in a Dumbo bar – I'm reminded that I'm a girl, which is a thing I'd really rather forget.

Escape from NY

Last weekend, some friends and I rented a house on airbnb, upstate in a small town 20 minutes from Woodstock. We stayed three nights, without wifi and usually without 3G, and spent the time finding swimming holes, in the pool, grilling on the charcoal grill, and drinking hundreds of beers.

It was odd how much fun the simplest things were; throwing rocks into a river; lighting and watching gas lamp; a card game; saving a frog from the pool. The city constantly feels like there's not enough of anything – we're all in desperate search for more fun, more interesting work, more friends, more love, more alcohol, more everything. Something about being away from that relentless discoverer mode, in the quiet woods with only the bullfrogs and crickets and leaves rustling made it possible to isolate and find small joy in things that would ordinarily bore us to death.

We figured out both the VCR and DVD player. It was kind of fun to see how people used to have to deal with terrible, terrible UX.

We also headed up to Woodstock for one of their outdoor weekend festivals, which was amazing. The tiny pocket of a town felt like what would happen if you took Williamsburg and aged it by 40 years. We talked about how for us growing up, 40 years ago was the 60's. Now it's the 80's, our childhoods with synthesizers and mohawks and puffy lettering on sweatshirts. All these things are probably as foreign to today's youth as peace signs and headbands on boys were to us.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is. Overall it was an enlightening trip, and helped make an already overly tight-knit group of friends closer enough to send off one of our own to his new job in San Francisco. There were stick-and-poke tattoos, there were tears (mostly related to the tattoos), there was the thrill of climbing onto a big rock overlooking a fast moving river. I think it was a success.

Meditation on meditation

Last week, I attended a peer-led sit in at New York Insight Meditation Center. My friend Jack worked at Founder Collective in the same building, which was how he discovered it, and he recommended it to me one night over drinks while I was emotionally imploding. 

Each day has drop-in hours, but Tuesdays and Thursdays have guided sittings for two hours, 7-9pm. Tuesdays are the beginner classes, but they're more formal and structured. I had never meditated before and was a little concerned about my lack of impulse control, so we went to the more informal Thursday sitting.

The experience was totally different than what I was expecting. First off, I was great at it! I was instantly capable of shutting down my brain. Listening to the guide's recommendations for beginners felt like the easiest thing in the world. Afterwards I was even a little alarmed because I could suddenly see how people get brainwashed – there's something incredibly comfortable about giving up autonomy and responsibility. It's such a relief, almost like a little brain vacation.

At first, just sitting in the silent room with all the strangers, I focused on my breathing in and out and listened. There was the hum of the air conditioner, the dim, barely audible music from a dance class across the street, the breathing of the other attendees. There was the feeling of palms beginning to sweat on my knees, so I turned my hands over. I could feel my heartbeat – I have an abnormally high resting heart rate, around 100 BPM, and I could suddenly in all that silence only feel the strain of that overworked muscle, imagining the blood flowing out into my arms and legs and up to my brain. 

At one point early on, my eyes began rapidly twitching under the closed lids. As per the guide's recommendation, I let them go, not trying to stop them, and became aware of when they began to calm down, till the point where they stopped completely. I checked in on my heartbeat and it was slower than I had ever felt it. Eventually I couldn't detect the beat at all.

Then the strange part happened! I suddenly became aware of feeling like I was floating. It was like when you smoke just the right amount of pot to be really stoned but not scared yet, or almost that too drunk feeling when your brain is just spinning and gravity doesn't pull on you and you aren't afraid or agitated by it, but happy and enjoying it. There is no thought in your head at all except how good you feel. 

Someone got up, and the wooden floors creaked. I felt snapped back into that room, with those strangers, and suddenly my heartbeat was pounding in my chest again. I breathed slowly in and out and tried to go back there.

The first 45 minutes of sitting were just like that, dipping in and out of this mental fun zone. Afterwards, there was walking meditation, partner meditation, and a weird group therapy reading passages about Zen Buddhism from some book. My favorite part was definitely the personal meditation. I tried it at home again today for only about 15 minutes, and felt incredible afterwards. 

I also realized why maybe it came so naturally to me – it was a feeling I've felt before. Like being on substances, or being at an incredible live show, where you aren't doing anything but feeling something, experiencing something, and not really even processing it. It's something I'm going to try and incorporate into every day. I don't have much of a routine in life lately, but maybe this can start to help.

FIDLAR

I love FIDLAR.

Earl Sweatshirt

I usually hate teenagers whether they're musicians or not but I love love love Earl Sweatshirt.

Directed by Hiro Murai

I picked a good time to give up health insurance.

When you don't have health insurance but are a human being, you sometimes resort to things like ordering your contact lenses from Canada and going to Planned Parenthood for birth control. I debated even writing this post but then thought that was silly, it's not some big secret, is it? But I will confess that I didn't check in on Foursquare at the last second despite convincing myself beforehand that I would.

Anyway, going to Planned Parenthood is a harrowing experience even if you're not looking for abortions and candy. There are metal detectors, a pretty serious search for weapons and other crazy person accessories, and then you get in there and it's all terrified teen couples. I went alone, because, you know, independence. You fill out the kind of paperwork that always gives me an existential crisis ("Is it possible that your partner has had other partners in the past six months?" check: Yes / No / I don't know. Isn't it always I don't know?? How could you say 'it's NOT possible'??) and then wait a couple hours.

For those who aren't women, pretty standard procedure is a weighing, a pregnancy test (peeing in a cup), and blood pressure taking. The woman who took my blood pressure made a face before trying it a second time. "Did you run here?" she asked me. (It's 100 degrees in NY today.)

I showed her my shoes. "Is it bad?" I asked.

She looked at me up and down. "You're not overweight, so I don't know what this is...You have really, really high blood pressure. But the nurse will check you again, it could be a mistake."

I followed the nurse through a maze of hallways and felt like if my blood pressure wasn't high before, it definitely was now. Not that I knew exactly what high blood pressure meant, except that my father has it. And that it gave him a stroke last year.

The nurse took my blood pressure a third time and looked at me. "Do you smoke?" was the first question. We took turns asking questions and the haze started to settle and I understood what was happening. I asked her what the risk of my blood pressure was. "Well. Heart failure, heart attack, stroke. Oh, or kidney failure." She looked sympathetic and judgmental at the same time. "You need to see a doctor either today or tomorrow."

"I don't have health insurance," I told her, alarmed.

She gave me a printout of doctors in Brooklyn who take patients without insurance and told me about hospitals that have emergency-care offices you can walk into. The word "emergency" also bothered me. She seemed surprised that I wasn't getting dizzy spells, blurred vision or fainting. "Your body has probably just adjusted to this over time." What??

It's always an awful thing to find out your lifestyle is killing you more quickly than you thought. She strongly recommended phasing certain things out over time, since a drastic change could give me a heart attack or stroke(!), and also put me on a special birth control that doesn't contain estrogen which is also really bad for your heart. I came home, read up on foods that lower blood pressure, and forced myself to eat a quarter of an avocado and beans (both of which I love usually) without salt. I felt sick after. I still feel sick.

CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA

Our last stop in Colombia was Cartagena, a port city on the northern coast of the country. Although it's on the water, it's not really known for its beaches. The nicest beaches are actually closer to where we had come from, which you can get to in less than an hour on these insane speedboats that go a thousand miles an hour and feel like they're going to break in half and kill you.

We rented an amazing apartment off airbnb that had a courtyard with a pool in it. I don't understand why this courtyard concept isn't more popular. Backyards are so dumb, everyone can see you. When I'm rich I'm going to build myself a house with an open air courtyard that has a pool in it.

In medieval times (like, 1500s) Cartagena was often attacked by pirates so the city center is protected by a stone wall with cannons. It's pretty cool. We stayed within the walls, where the streets are narrow and winding and the houses are all painted bright colors with flowers dripping off the balconies. There can be a seedy kind of feeling to the place at night, but during the day it was beautiful.

For anyone attempting to visit Playa Blanca/Islas del Rosario, here's how we did it since info on the internet s pretty sparse. We hailed a taxi on the street and asked them to take us down to the marina. The minute we stepped out of the cab, tour operators raced up to us. The first who got to us was waving a little piece of paper (which they all had) that you could mark off or tell them what you wanted – to visit the Islas del Rosario (there are multiple islands, but I'd read finding a good one could be hit or miss), or Playa Blanca, or go snorkeling, or go to an aquarium. The internet also said the snorkeling/aquarium were wastes of time/money, and we had only wanted to go to the beach, so I tried to make that as clear as possible and marked the paper. For just the round trip boat ride (plus lunch is included for free) it was around 60,000 pesos for both of us, or roughly $30.

They shuffle you through a ticket window where they write your name on a list and make you sit on folding chairs with a bunch of strangers. After about 10-15 minutes, they started calling names and pointing to different boats to get on, long fiberglass boats with roofs that have six seats across split by an aisle. Each boat looks like it holds about 40 people or so, and the only difference I guessed was which destination you wanted.

Our boat was full, all Spanish speakers. We were actually taken to the aquarium first, but everyone freaked out and started yelling in Spanish about how they only wanted the beach, so I'm glad for that. (The aquarium and snorkeling were offered at an additional cost as if it were an unmissable deal.) Finally our boat operators gave up and took us to the beach. The actual ride was insane. I loved it but I like being scared, but if you're afraid of traveling over high speeds on a fiberglass boat that feels like it's going to crack in half any minute, you might want to consider taking a car (which takes longer.) It was going so fast I was afraid to turn my head in case the wind ripped off my sunglasses. I was also too scared to take out my phone to photograph anything.

You get a free lunch (mojarra of course) and then try and stay in sight of your boat so they dont leave you when they return. You learn to recognize your group and stay near them, and we had no issues getting back on three hours later.

The one photo I was able to take during a rare lull, on the way back facing Bocagrande.

Playa Blanca

ISLA BARU

 

Isla Baru is actually not an island at all, more like a little peninsula about an hour drive from Cartagena. I had wanted us to have some rest and relaxation after touring such big cities, and this was totally the right call. We had a terrifying time getting there, if you can imagine navigating a city you've never been in before where you only really speak 1/8 of the language. The owner of our guesthouse had arranged for a car to pick us up from the airport, where we had our first little twinge of fear (is this guy in a beat up pickup truck with lumber in the back our taxi driver??) and a second mega wave of fear after getting stuck in what seemed like a parking lot full of oil tankers and angry truck drivers after the sun set. "¿Qué pasó?" I asked him, trying to sound totally unconcerned and not terrified. "La línea para el ferry," he answered. We were waiting in line for the dumbest way I ever saw to cross fifty feet of water, basically a ferry where they squeezed four or five trucks at a time to float for 30 seconds to get to the other side.

We weren't murdered or robbed, and we ended up safely at the guesthouse I had booked. We were staying only two nights at the lovely Hostal Ecológico Baruchica, a tiny place with only four rooms run by a former photographer on its own isolated beach. There are hammocks and no TVs, the food is prepared by a staff of two, and there are beers you can take from the fridge and mark down on a little sheet that Olga, the owner, adds to your bill for when you leave. There are no stores to buy things like junk food or suntan lotion. (We got pretty sunburned). Our bathroom was open air, and the first two nights I had to chase giant spiders out with a magazine. (I learned I am much less afraid of things like big bugs and ghosts than my boyfriend.) There are two dogs and a cat, and no wi-fi. It was incredible. We spent the entire time laying in hammocks, reading, swimming, and eating. Every meal was at a big table where you eat with the other guests, but luckily the people who search out such an out of the way destination tend to be pretty cool. We had a fancy French family with three children who all looked like models and were incredibly well-behaved; an Argentinian couple of graphic designers; and a young midwestern couple who surprisingly lived in Williamsburg until 2008 before abandoning New York for their roots. (I hope they thought we were cool.)

Our bed had mosquito netting. I read Márquez, of course.

Our bathroom had the cutest lock I ever saw in my life. It was on the outside of the door, not to actually lock the door (NONE OF THE ROOMS HAD LOCKING DOORS) but to hold the door from banging around since the actual bathroom was open air and the wind would blow in. The open-air bathroom freaked me out at first, but when you're tan and full and happy, you'd be surprised how fast you stop giving a fuck.

One of the most common dishes in Colombia is Mojarra, a deep fried whole fish usually served with rice and smashed plantains. It's delicious and I actually think we got sick in Bogotá eating it, but that didn't stop us from eating it constantly. We resolved on trying to find it back in the states and were disappointed to discover it's basically just a type of tilapia.

Our last night, Olga lit a bonfire on the beach and everyone sat on logs around it, drinking beer and sharing travel stories. We drank her out of beer that night.

MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA

Medellín is probably most well-known for the Medellín Cartel, headed up by Pablo Escobar, the infamous coke kingpin, along with the Ochoa Vázquez brothers. Wikipedia tells me that the cartel made $60 million dollars PER DAY which is just fucking insane. In 1989, Forbes magazine ranked Escobar as the seventh richest person in the world.

All of this kind of sucks, because what people really should know is all that crazy violence and corruption somehow turned Medellín into this amazingly progressive city. In 2012 they won an international award for their cool ass cable car public transportation, which allows the poorer citizens an affordable, quick way to get down from the slums in the mountains into the wealthier center for jobs and education.  Crime still exists, but not anywhere near the astronomical rates it did in the 70's and 80's.

The city's surrounded by a ridiculous Jurassic Park level of greenery. I don't think I've ever seen so many crazy trees in my life.

El Piedra de Peñol

That big rock is El Peñol, and they built stairs into it so you could climb up and enjoy the view. Up close it's stripey and awesome.

A floating restaurant on the reservoir.

The Metrocable system.

We had an amazing time in Medellín, save for the gross bros who go there for the prostitution. The city is full of gorgeous healthy people and that's made it somewhat of a center for the seedier type of sex tourism that happens with all kinds of disgusting first worlders, but it's an easy scene to avoid, even if you're out partying and drinking all over the place. In contrast with Bogotá, it's a way more developed city with an incredibly temperate climate (70s-80s fahrenheit the whole time) that gives it a certain paradisiacal feeling. There are remnants of the edginess that made it the murder capitol of the world not so long ago, but we never felt any of it, and there will never be anything but a soft spot in my heart for the place.

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA!

This is going to be a long one. I went to Colombia in March for two weeks and I'm only now finally getting around to going through photos. I can't find the SLR but I hardly used it, I had been advised not to lug it around in certain parts of the country so most of these are iPhone photos. (So they aren't great.)

We visited Bogotá, Medellín, Isla Baru, and Cartagena. We booked all our domestic flights through Viva Colombia, a dirt cheap domestic airline. In Bogotá, we stayed at a hostel, in Medellín we did airbnb, in Isla Baru we stayed at this totally rad lady's beach house called Baruchica, and in Cartagena we airbnb'd again. I LOVED IT. I had a couple colleagues from Colombia who gave me great advice, and a bunch of random friends had gone and recommended it as a not-too-touristy, safe and awesome place. I'm super glad we went and would like to go back again one day.

Our hostel breakfast was always one egg, fruit, and two tiny pieces of toast which turns out isn't enough food for the amount of walking we were doing. The coffee in Colombia tends to be surprisingly shitty because they export all the best shit. BUT we did learn from this place about 'La Fina' margarine, which sounds terrible but is the most amazing tasting thing, better than any European butter I've ever had in my life. We even contemplated hoarding some to bring back home until I got the bright idea to google it and realized Amazon sells it.

There's this amazing museum of gold that houses a bunch of Pre-Colombian artifacts (and, obviously, a shit ton of gold.) I can't get over how much I loved this museum. Also it's so strange how a room full of shiny things can make you feel like some kind of weird, uncultivated animal that wants all the shiny things.

I really loved Bogotá, and it was totally not what I expected. The cool thing about Colombia is that all the areas we visited were just so different from each other that they felt like separate countries. Bogotá was massive, we realized up at Montserrate where we had a view of the entire city. The Plaza Bolivar still has damage from FARC bombing government buildings, and as recently as 2009 they were blowing shit up in Bogotá. There are policemen with dogs everywhere, I assumed they were drug dogs but found out later they were bomb dogs. There's graffiti everywhere, which I absolutely loved. For some reason, no matter how old I get or how much money I make, I feel like I'll always identify with the underdog and graffiti represents something really powerful to me that I couldn't do justice to articulating. Counterculture bullshit maybe. I only know how I felt.

The city is built into the Andes, so the steep hills and cliffs are exhausting. It's at something like 8,000 feet elevation, and that makes it worse. But it helps keep the people in Bogota that we saw super fit, despite a diet made up of foods like this:

Wow I forgot how much I missed this until right now. Bandeja Paisa is a typical midday Colombian meal, but I ate it for breakfast after my first killer hangover down there. And it solved EVERYTHING. This needs to be in America. (Side note: I ate basically an avocado a day while there, and I didn't get significantly fatter, but my hair looked like a goddamn Pantene commercial. If I could afford that many avocadoes in Brooklyn I could probably make a living selling hair.) This particular plate I have to confess I ordered at a mall – malls are all over the place there – although the caveat I would give is that they basically hand made everything. So I don't count it as fast food. The plate I ordered was a quarter avocado, ground beef, white rice, red beans, an arepa (FYI though arepas are also all over the place in Colombia, and this one was terrible), a plaintain, chicharron, an over easy egg and sausage. Best Breakfast Ever award.