in at QC spa on governors island
trying something new where I take care of myself...
Did you know I host corporate trivia? And it rocks!? I’d love to bring holiday-themed pop culture trivia to your office or private party either in-person in NYC or virtually. More info here.
I’ve been asked to curate a writer’s retreat with Aweventurer! This would be sometime in 2025, we’d go somewhere fab (Egypt? Morocco? Bali?), do a lot of fun activities, and work on a Modern Love style essay. If that sounds fun to you, sign up for more info here!
This is a new iteration of the newsletter about nights…IN. Wait, a day where I relax and take care of myself? Unprecedented. Maybe my therapist and I are onto something…
Day of the Week: Tuesday
Neighborhood: Governor’s Island (what….?)
The Crew: Whimsical poet & comedian Brooke Finegold
The Fit: Leopard print knotted one piece bathing suit from Beach Riot (there are a ton super discounted on Poshmark too). The vibe was divorcée.
Home (jk an Al-Anon meeting) by 7pm
THE GAME: QC Spa on Governor’s Island
There is a picture that everyone who goes to QC Spa takes in the heated pool. They look utterly blissed out, waist deep in turquoise water, glittering skyscrapers in the distance, staring back at the very place that gave them the stress and anxiety that led them to take to the seas1 to escape.
QC is known for its 2-for-1 birthday discount. For $85 per person (honestly cheaper than a lot of nights out in this newsletter) or absolutely free admission for the bday girl if she has someone to treat her, you can spend all day in the self-proclaimed “spa of wonders.”
Truly the main wonder is…where…the…fuck…is Governor’s Island.
You walk on to the ferry and five minutes later you’re on a little nugget of land. Five minutes. It’s faster to get to Governor’s Island than it is to make a soup, to walk to my nearest coffee shop in Crown Heights, heck than it is for me to draft a text message to a crush. That can take hours! That’s getting to Staten Island.
And it’s home to pretty much only a spa and a restaurant with an oyster happy hour…which is my version of Narnia exactly. The only thing it was missing was a hot centaur to take us there :(
The ferry pretty much drops you off at the spa gates. It’s a less than five minute walk. The fact that the walk and the boat ride are the same length of time… by land…and by sea…something is not right. And immediately upon entry you are treated to spa air. The air just smells expensive. Yummy.
The decor at this time of year is Christmas festive meets woodsy cabin meets sometimes Grecian columns and fountains meets inexplicably framed black & white photos of men in bowler hats (maybe they’re the Governors…?!). There is no rhyme or reason, but also, this island shouldn’t and maybe doesn’t exist (Aesthetic: 9/10).
Brooke and I got into our robes and flip flops (included with admission) and high-tailed it to the 95° heated pool. I left my phone in the sleeve of my robe, and I didn’t look back. I abandoned it for hours? An hour and a half at least, surely? We lounged in personal metal cages (comfier than it sounds) surrounded by jacuzzi bubbles and gabbed. What is time, what is work when you’re revealing who you’ve kissed and who you want to kiss to your girlfriend. Who needs to check your crush’s stories…or see if he’s seen yours…when you can just gossip about him instead.
And I noticed something kind of crazy…I felt really happy. If I’m not physically doing something productive, I’m thinking about how I should be doing something productive. I respond to an email subconsciously, automatically like breathing. I think my body would forget how to breathe before it would forget to respond to an email. I compose emails in my dreams. And its not SSRI’s or Beta Blockers that healed me (though maybe they would), it was a pilgrimage to the pool-cuzzi.
On a Tuesday afternoon the pool was almost deserted (Wait Time: 10/10). There were a few couples, including in a fun coincidence my former college housemate born the same week as me and her fiancé, and if I weren’t soooo ooey-gooey relaxed, I would have been jealous. There is nothing better than having your ass grabbed in a pool. But that is a pre-poolcuzzi me thought. All to say, it’s a better place to bring your husband than meet your husband (Husband Material: 1/10).
After warming up in a sauna that we had all to ourselves, we headed into the little café for a glass of Pinot Grigio ($16) and an aperativo tray ($12). Brooke snuck in a full foot-long sandwich, was swiftly caught, and scarfed down the rest in the dressing room. And honey, that’s a Brooklyn girl after my own heart.
You know the feeling of having one glass of Pinot Grig where nothing in this world can ever hurt you again. Yeaaaaah, I was glowing. We should airlift bottles of Pino Grigio to war zones…jk…of course jk…unless…(Yummy-ness: 9/10).
A kind employee recommended we check out the new building so we explored the waterfall room (amazing, like being in Avatar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and then a room that looks to the naked eye like…an insane asylum…full of rows of twin beds underneath a nonstop black & white screensaver-style video. Think eyeballs opening, planes overhead, space… it’s B-Roll for National Geographic or when the protagonist in a movie has a bad acid trip. But get this, the beds were…heated..waterbeds…Brooke and I took the best nap of our lives. (Bliss Factor2: 10/10).
Then it was time to head back on the ferry to go to an Al-Anon meeting, another kind of therapy. Later that night, I mentioned Al-Anon to a friend, and he was like, what is that? A cool new bar? I laughed…well alcohol was definitely involved. Tell me you had a normal childhood without telling me you had a normal childhood. Sorry, sorry that’s a pre-poolcuzzi thought.
And for the five minutes I was on the ferry, approaching the beautiful city that I love and traumatizes me, everything was perfect.
Where should I go next!? Leave a comment, email me, or send me a DM, and I’ll wait in lines, try the cocktails, and shvitz for you!
And if you have any suggestions of bars and clubs you’d like me to try, please get in touch!
Where the fuck is Governor’s Island? A river? The ocean? Narnia?
For Night In, we’re replacing Shaking Ass Factor with Bliss Factor ofc.