Pretty good birthday yesterday. After a bit of writing, I headed to the float tank place for a superfloat, which is what I did last year. A normal session there is 70 minutes, and this is like three sessions back-to-back. Last year, I had a float chamber, which is sort of like a big bathtub with a door on it; this time, I was back in an old-school tank.
The problem with a superfloat is there are logical considerations that prevent one from sitting in the tank for almost four hours, mainly dehydration, the need for mass amounts of drinking water, and then the disposal thereof. I took a quick lukewarm shower before the float, to trick my internal thermostat to settle in on the tank temperature – if you take a hot shower and then get in the hot tank, your body will think it’s cold, for some reason. (You also have to shower to get all the chemicals and perfumes and deodorants and whatnot off your skin.)
(And yeah, I should pee in the tank, haw haw. Enough. I’ve heard the joke too many times, it isn’t funny.)
Last time, the superfloat basically ended up being three back-to-back floats with bathroom/drink breaks. This time, I settled in fast during the first float, and went deep within a few minutes. A tank is more claustrophobic than a chamber, because the ceiling is much lower, and the temperature keeps at a constant body temperature a bit more. I mean, you’re senseless, so it doesn’t matter if you’re in a coffin or the middle of a limitless empty universe, but I feel like I can tell the difference. But I like small spaces like that. I don’t know if claustrophilia is a thing, but if it is, I probably have it.
When I got to the point where I thought I had to take a break, I thought about 45 minutes had gone by. I got out, dried, drank a liter of water, and checked the watch – it had been about two hours and fifteen minutes. Got back in, couldn’t really settle in that deep, but I got partly there, and the next hour and fifteen went past. But the first segment was deep enough that it made the whole experience worth it.
Then came the task of washing off the salt. I brought my own soap this time, and did a two-pass shower, since last time, I spent all day with that feeling like when you wear a pair of stone-washed jeans without washing them first. They have some special hippy disinfectant soap, so I used that head-to-toe first, then used real shower gel and scrub, and that seemed to be the trick.
Like last time, I was fucking ravenous when I got out. I walked over a block or so to this place called Clove and Hoof, which is a neighborhood butcher that does whole-animal butchering on local livestock, but also has a small cafe with really off-the-hook food. It’s always restaurant week on my birthday, and they had a special with four courses of stuff, but I just went in on a burger and fries. Their burgers are insanely good, a double patty with pimento cheese and pickle mayo, and I added bacon. The fries are also incredible, beef tallow fries with more of the pickle mayo. A total mess, and expensive, but totally worth it.
It was suddenly a beautiful day out, sunny and in the sixties, so I walked up and down 40th. It has suddenly become a weird hipster mecca on that street, lots of kids with chunky glasses and ironic hair packed onto the sidewalk, waiting in line for two hours for vegan macaroni and cheese. I went to check out Broken Guitars, which is a shop opened by Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day, who still lives in the area. It’s a little place, but the focus is guitar for players, not collectors. Went through the stuff on the wall, and they had some decent-priced strats and teles, some older stuff, but a good mix of daily drivers, and good value players. I need a new guitar like I need a hole in the head – I’ve got two perfectly good Strats, and I’m not even playing much these days. So I went and walked around a bit more, then headed back.
On the way home, I stopped to try out an Oculus Rift, which was cool. I started writing about this and realized it really needs its own post, so I’ll do that separately.
Home, nap, then Sarah took me to a new place called Copper Spoon, coincidentally a few doors down from where I ate lunch. It is in the same space as an old classic called Art’s Crab Shack, which I never tried, but it has a cool old-school sign outside, which they fortunately kept. (This was just in an episode of Modern Family, which I hate to admit I still watch, but they did a joke about a gentrified bad neighborhood where cupcake stores and poetry collectives kept the same names and signs as body shops and welding fabricators or whatever.) Got the restaurant week menu, which was a good mix of stuff, plus dessert, plus cupcakes when I got home.
A good haul of books and a new hooded sweatshirt in the mails – I still have a ton of Christmas gift reading to do, and I’ve been stuck on that new Paul Auster monstrosity since the holidays. Anyway, overall, a good birthday this year.
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