Medicinal Korean soup

With this crazy neverending polar vortex end-of-the-world weatherpocalypse, the absolute worst thing imaginable happened to me: I got sick.

I never catch colds. Until recently, I haven't been full-blown sick for over TWO YEARS. Closer to two and a half. I get very short-lasting and debilitating fevers once in awhile, what with the hypertension and all, but usually these are less than 24-hours. This time, I was laid up a week and still have a bit of a cough.

I am a huge baby when I get sick, like many, but luckily have been able to hide out at home and avoid embarrassing myself out in public like the last time I was sick when I caught some deathly bronchial infection from my niece, who was a baby then. She's a toddler now, for frame of time reference.

To survive, I made pots and pots of soup, which lasted me weeks because the feverish kind of sick I was always makes me lose my appetite. One of my favorites is this monster-vitamin-fest Korean soup that's both super easy and convenient. Cooking with Korean ingredients is a cinch because everything's either dried or frozen fresh and basically lasts forever. I mean, I don't really know how long things are going to last in the freezer, and I eat them usually when I'm sick, and I never get sick! So I'm still alive. Who are you going to believe?

MY MEDICINE SOUP STOCK

This may seem like a lot of ingredients, but for most of them, once you have them in your freezer/cupboards, you're set for years. It takes less than an hour and you can make smaller batches so they don't go bad when you get sick of it and have to order a cheeseburger on seamless.

2-4 quarts water
Dried anchovies (similar to these on amazon, they freeze and last forever)
Dried kombu/kelp seaweed (the hard square ones you get in ramen)
Dried shiitake mushrooms
Dried Korean seaweed (similar to this on koamart, I think you can use wakame too)

Soup soy sauce (on koamart – maybe regular can be used, but use way less)

Sesame oil

Garlic

Ginger

1. Start boiling the water. Take a handful the mushrooms and the squiggly seaweed each, and throw them in a bowl to soak. The squiggly seaweed doubles in size, but the mushrooms stay about their wrinkly selves.

2. Throw a few of the squares of kombu into the water, and a few of the anchovies. Because I'm squeamish, I pull off the heads and take out the little black guts part thats attached to them, so only the bodies go in, but I don't think that part's necessary.

3. By the time the water's boiling, the mushrooms and squiggly seaweed should be rehydrated. Dump their soaking water and throw them in the pot. Add sliced garlic and ginger (I hate ginger so I only put a couple slices, but it's supposed to be amazing for your immune system.)

4. Leave the soup for about 20-30 minutes at a medium boil, then add the soy and sesame oil. Also start to sea salt for taste. Should be pretty good by now.

You can eat it at this point, but I like to fish out the kombu and anchovies and add things like frozen rice cakes (the little round ones), whisked eggs, tofu, rice or noodles. You can also add any kinds of hot sauce and turn it into something else – kimchi soup, tofu soup, anything. Or you could make it completely vegan and leave out the anchovies/egg and it still tastes amazing. 

Her

I'd been on the fence about Her for a few reasons, the main one being that when testing the plot against the one sentence summary (man falls in love with his operating system), it honestly sounded not interesting to me as a premise, and also kind of ridiculous and cheap. The concept of how we "love"/depend on our technology too much has been debated to death and I was bored of that conversation. Or, so I thought!

If you haven't seen it, I would even recommend not watching the trailer or even listening to anyone else talk about it. I managed to avoid it through a combination of being sick and homebound for awhile, and went in with medium- to low expectations. I mainly went to kill a night, and also because there are certain directors (Coen bros, Tarantino, Wes Anderson) where you kind of force yourself to go as a creative and then are pleasantly surprised. I'd been disappointed by Where the Wild Things Are, his last big film, and was prepared for a torturously slow, overly wrought film with forced poignant silences and a lot of wistful gazing off into space.

To be fair, for some people this film might have felt like it had all those things, but I was completely blown away. Especially knowing that Spike Jonze wrote the entire script. I used to have a pretty illogical dislike of Jonze (WHY does he spell his name like that? And why was he so dismissive to Sofia Coppola in Lost in Translation?? Why was Where the Wild Things Are so boring???)

But Jonze pulled a fast one on us, and made the first really deeply philosophical film I've seen in long, long time on the most universal questions of the world: What is life? What is love? When you love someone, why is it so hard to give, and when you need love, why is it so hard to get? Why are we so destructive?

Obviously I spent most of the movie crying, but it also was surprisingly funny. And it wasn't just the writing, the whole thing worked together beautifully for me. The story, which I assumed would be trite and overdone, was nuanced and compelling and fascinating for me to wonder what would happen next. The future-ish setting felt very restrained, and the art direction of the sets, the colors, the framing, I loved everything. I loved the camera work and editing, which is something that only nerdy wannabe filmmakers/critics say, but I'd felt especially moved by the camera work in Breaking Bad recently and have started paying more attention to that kind of thing. I'm bummed Joaquin didn't get an Oscar nom.

Anyway, that's a lot to say about a movie, I have even more but am restraining myself. I'm glad I forced myself to go out and see it, and even though I'm in a completely unrelated industry, that kind of attention to detail and plain old hard work that can create something which transcends "work" into something else, is something I need to be reminded of every day.

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.