My Week of Caffeine and Oversocialization
A party diary—from Ottessa Moshfegh’s auction to the Chelsea Hotel, an erotic reading, recessioncore at the strip club, and a surprise appearance from Candace Bushnell.
In My Year of Rest and Relaxation,
’s disillusioned protagonist drugs herself to sleep for an entire year in hopes of fixing her life. I’ve been feeling a bit stir-crazy lately, so after interviewing Ottessa the other week, I tried the opposite: hitting every party in the city, running entirely on caffeine and dirty martinis.It didn’t fix my problems, but it was entertaining. So, for my paid subscribers, I’ve chronicled a particularly unhinged week in my life: from an X-rated erotic reading to philosophical debates in the strip club to the launch of a new matchmaking service, and a surprise appearance from Candace Bushnell—the original Carrie Bradshaw. Plus, behind-the-scenes gossip from Ottessa’s auction of strange and unexpected items, and a late night partying together at the Chelsea Hotel.
Enjoy!
It’s 10:02am and I’m late to the podcast studio, lugging an absurd assortment of objects—plants, books, candles, and vintage Playboys—meant to outfit my new set: a sexy, ’70s-inspired conversation pit that I’d arranged the night before. When I arrive, the lighting techs are aghast at the transformation; turning a sterile studio into a seductive lair is no small feat, but when my friend Tony Notarberardino offered to help, I knew we were in good hands. He’s a lighting whiz, and his home at the historic Chelsea Hotel was once described as “the lair of a well-traveled, horny Victorian” by the writer Legs McNeil. You get the vibe.
Upon arrival, Ottessa flips through an old Playboy, then says archly that she hates Playboy. She has what the TikTok girls might call “black cat energy”—measured, self-contained, potentially intimidating if you’re insecure. But it’s not personal; she’s just smart, and wasn’t raised to pander. As she once told me: “Do you think I believe my book is a piece of shit? No. I worked extremely hard on it! Why should I be broadcasting insecurity?”
People often conflate authors with their characters, and Ottessa writes the kind of women people love to hate: self-obsessed and self-loathing, convinced they’re both better and worse than everyone around them. It’s easy to assume these thoughts come from her. But as we spend more time together, I’m convinced she’s not confessing, but channeling. She’s always believed that creativity is conjured from something beyond the self—and in her writing, she tries to attend to that belief. “It’s not about me, but about letting the book be extruded through my mortal form,” she says. “I take some responsibility, but I’m not in charge.”
In real life, Ottessa is funny, and disarmingly generous. “There’s nothing I own that I wouldn’t immediately give away to a woman who wanted it,” she says during our podcast episode, and I believe her: When I was profiling her, she sent me a scarf in the mail, and later this week, offers to buy a lost-looking 24-year-old a reading from her own Vedic astrologer.
Of course, people are willing to buy her things, too: that’s the premise of tonight’s Substack auction, which features an array of odd and unexpected items hand-selected by Ottessa and her co-host, Eddie Huang. From a lightly used toothbrush to a signed box of laxatives, a painting she did at age 27, and a martini date at the Chelsea Hotel, there’s something for everyone—but Ottessa urges me not to place any bids, especially on her time. “We can just have drinks,” she says, and I make a mental note to take her up on it.