Techno Remix of “Sound of Silence”: REID #235
Went to Mexico and spilled Pepsi everywhere all over entire hotel room
SHORT:
I have to remind myself constantly that attention isn’t love—it’s a funhouse mirror where you get to see yourself, but also your elbows are hot dogs.
But these days, it really does feel like: if you’re not their diva… who are you?
MEDIUM:
I spent the weekend in Mexico for my sister and her fiancée’s joint bachelor-bachelorette party, then woke up this morning at 7 a.m. and went to the gym after googling “Huberman Protocols” on the plane—because a 26-year-old startup founder named Josh1 told me about them at group dinner and asked if they’d “hit New York yet.”
I know it’s mostly fake/pseudoscience/bad, but I need somewhere to put my energy. The stock market’s fake and that’s never stopped anyone. And like all my obsessions, this one will last max one week2.
LONG:
Jess and I were the only gay people on my sister’s co-ed prenuptial trip. Everyone else was straight and works in tech. No worries!3
I got to the airport early and texted Jess to ask if they wanted a Jamba Juice. They said yes—Peach Perfection—so I ordered that and a Chocolate Peanut Butter Mood for myself (counts as a smoothie). Then I realized I couldn’t carry both while pulling my suitcase, so I wedged them under my chin and began the slowest, saddest journey of my life. It took 35 minutes to get from the Jamba counter to Gate 11. I don’t want you to picture what I looked like—or how many times I whispered, “Almost there.”
Once Jess arrived at JFK, they started blowing up the group chat we’d all been added to—despite not knowing who any of the numbers belonged to—and quickly became a fan favorite. No problem!
We landed in Mexico around 10pm, and the woman at customs laughed at how ugly my biometric photo was—perfect! :) It was midnight when we finally checked-in at the hotel. I got a quesadilla and ate it in the dark while repeatedly punching the shower faucet to get it to work.
The next day we had breakfast “with” my brother and his girlfriend4—we were technically in the same restaurant but seated about 50 feet apart. Neither of us wanted to get up and move, so we just waved occasionally like diplomats at a peace summit. Then we hit the beach, where giant lizards were everywhere, and I somehow managed to burn to a crisp. I spent the rest of the day under a towel at the pool listening to my sister’s fiancé’s intense friends talking about how “no, bro, you look amazing—girls don’t like it if you’re under 14% body fat.”
Later on, Jess took a bubble bath in the tub on the porch while I somehow kicked a can of Pepsi off a shelf and it exploded all over everything I owned5. My sister’s fiancée barfed from drinking and passed out before dinner, but then rallied and made it to our 9:30pm reservation for 17 people6. We ended the night playing Jeopardy with custom questions about my sister and her husband-to-be— the perfect game to play with some of the most intense Stanford grads alive.
The next morning, no one was awake except me, Jess, my brother, and his girlfriend, so we decided to get blessed by a Mayan shaman at 8 a.m. and then swim in a bunch of cenotes that are supposed to make you young and beautiful (delayed effect, I think). We jumped off some big rocks and everyone got to see my brother’s signature dive: big wind-up with the arms, then he keels over like a dead goat shot in the knees instead of getting any air.
We got back and the resort DJ was playing a techno remix of “Sound of Silence.” Awesome. We went to the spa for some actual silence and were handed intake forms with M, F, and T gender options. Jess and I gasped and whispered “WOKE! Thank you Emilia Perez!” in unison. Then we panicked and googled what T meant, in case it wasn’t “Trans”. We never found out. I did, however, steal about six cookies from the complimentary cookie area in the spa waiting room before my treatment even started.
Day two ended with another game—a newlywed-style drinking game where you drink every time the bride or groom answers incorrectly. I got to say, “Alli’s wrong! Drink!” (words never uttered during my childhood). Then we woke up Sunday and took a shuttle to the airport, where someone wanted to get off with my brother and his girlfriend to eat 60 potato skins at the TGI Fridays in their terminal.
Now I’m back in New York—I woke up and went to the gym at 7 a.m., even though we landed late last night, because Mexico radicalized me. I spent most of the time watching a big, bald YouTuber on my phone teach me “how to do cable crunches.” I’m still too scared to make eye contact with anyone at the gym, so I’ve decided to just stare directly into the sun instead; Huberman says it’s good for your circadian rhythm, but I think it’s mostly just easier than saying good morning. He also recommends listening to pump-up music before anything physically or mentally demanding, but I refuse to listen to Pitbull before noon, so I put on some jazz. My computer still isn’t at eye level like Huberman says it should be, but what can you do? At least I turned on all the lights in the house this morning—something Jess loved.
The woman at the spa in Mexico told me I should get massages more often because my shoulder is, quote, a nightmare. My sister knows a gal in the Village who charges $40 for a full-body hour-long massage, which is a great deal and also maybe how you meet the devil earlier than expected.
Earlier today, I read a blog for an analogue typing device that said switching tabs all the time is terrible for your brain—so I tried to deep-focus the way they recommended and ended up missing a meeting for the first time in my life.
I’m kind of joking about the Huberman stuff, and I’m kind of not, by the way.
I think next I’m gonna try the thing he says where you’re supposed to put an ice pack on your balls while in the sauna.
I love my sister and her future husband, and I hope they are not mad at me for this recap as it mostly was just facts.
Perfect!
C U Next Tuesday
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Sincerely,
Reid Pope
Bonus Jonas Zone:
We haven’t seen each other since we were 9, when his brother Sammy threw up on a Big Mac at McDonald’s. To this day, I can’t eat burgers without flashing back to Sammy puking. Good morning to everyone reading this over breakfast.
My therapist tried to empathize with my hatred of travel by saying, “It’s hard to break routine.” I was like, I wish I had one to break :) He said, “I knew you would say that.” BTW, I knew about Huberman before Josh told me about him. I just had never quite looked into the “protocols”.
Hotel’s Instagram photos included 1 gay-guy wedding! And Mexico is the land of Emilia Perez!
Huevos rancheros (Snack Of The Week)
Stone cold sober btw — I don’t drink
Wait staff adored us, obviously and had no issues at all with the way everyone was being