Hello, goblins. Yes, I still exist. I have spent the last three weeks globe-trotting and working my ass off for the man. They say that once you move to Los Angeles your life becomes a magical, obligation-free fairyland of lollipops and fairy elves, but they are wrong. We still have to work hard for our money out in these parts. Of course, working hard in Los Angeles means spending 2-3 hours per day thinking sort of deeply. Everything is relative.

Yesterday I had had enough of stress. “Enough of you, stress!” I screamed, until I was on the verge of passing out. I called up my new friends Adam and Michael and together we decided to hit the Korean spa.

I’m lying to you. This isn’t the way it happened at all. We had been planning it for weeks. It makes me sound cooler, though, if I set it up as though I had a flash of inspiration to hit the Korean spa. It was actually Michael’s idea.

I met Michael and Adam through Sarah. They are burgeoning LA art scene megalos. I can’t think of the word I want here but I’m positive it isn’t megalos. Megalos isn’t really a word. Basically, Michael and Adam are going to take the art world by storm sometime in the near future, but I can’t think of the word for what that sort of person would be called. I’m pretty sure it starts with an “m.”

A few weeks ago at one of the many posh art events I frequent, Michael relayed to me his grand scheme of creating a gang. I have been craving a solid group of friends in LA, so I leaped at the chance to become a member of this gang. From what I understood, they were accepting non-artists for the mascot position. Yesterday was my trial run, my first date.

On a good first date, you always get to see your date naked, and yesterday was no exception. We arrived at the spa at around 5:00. I’ve been sworn to secrecy on the location because we don’t want the place to become overrun with non-artists and/or non-artists’-mascots. After paying our $15 entry fee, we went to the back room where we grabbed towels and dropped our trouels. Haha, trouels isn’t a word, either.

Although I didn’t know this until just yesterday, I have absolutely no problem being naked in front of a bunch of people. I don’t see myself becoming a nudist anytime soon, but any self-consciousness I may have had disappeared the minute I walked into the spa and saw a guy drying his balls with a hair dryer. It is absolutely impossible to be concerned about your own nudity in a place where this sort of behavior is encouraged.

From the locker room, we moved on to the main bath room (not to be confused with the main bathroom). Against the left wall were a number of showers, open to the room but separated by cubicle-like walls. To the right of that were the pools — first, the hot tub, which was the size of maybe 4 regular-sized hot tubs stitched together. Next to that was the cold tub, which was the size of a regular-sized hot tub. Beyond that, at the far end of the room, were two doors that led to adventures beyond our wildest imaginations.

The first step was to wash ourselves so we didn’t contaminate any of the pools with our disgusting naturalness. We did so, then moved on to the mysterious door on the right, which contained a sauna.

I haven’t spent much time in saunas, but I will share with you an observation: saunas are hot. Slightly stifling. It took me a few minutes to decide whether or not I should freak out from the hotness. I am not a fan of extremes. Although I have no history of heart disease in my family, I have a terrifying scenario in my head in which I enter some sort of extreme condition and my heart explodes. Today, though, I decided that maybe I should put all of that fear into my sweat, and let it all out. I’m not sure if it all came out, but my heart didn’t explode, either.

Next step was to take another shower, then into the cold pool. The cold pool was shockingly cold after hanging out in the sauna. It was then that I realized the Korean spa was not strictly an excuse to relax, as one who has never been to a spa might assume. It was more like exercise for your skin. It was going from one extreme to the other in rapid succession, accustoming your skin to different experiences. We were skin tourists.

After that, it was on to the left-hand mysterious door: the steam room. I thought the sauna was hot, but I was wrong. The steam room was a good 20 degrees hotter. And filled with steam. My heart did not explode in the steam room, either.

The next 3 hours were spent going from one thing to the next, with a shower tossed in whenever we got a little sweaty. There were all sorts of different people at the Korean spa. It was an international community. I saw one guy covering his penis with his hands. It’s strange how, when you’re with a bunch of naked guys, the guy who is trying to not to be naked is the oddball. The rule of thumb is: when you’re in a group of naked guys, the nakeder, the better. If you can spread your legs and wrap them around your head, you are the king of being naked. You gotta let it all hang out.

Adam got a body scrub. I was told beforehand by my neighbors, who are frequenters of the Korean spa, that the body scrub was a necessity. I chose not to get it because it was more than I wanted to spend. In retrospect, I totally should have done it. My neighbors told me to lick my skin after the scrub, and I would taste nothing. I did not get the scrub, so I didn’t get to lick my skin. I got to lick Adam’s skin, though, which made me more naked than everyone else and sealed my entry into the coveted mascot position. I am lying. I did not really lick Adam’s skin.

The last part of the spa adventure involved brushing our teeth (the spa is filled with free toothbrushes) and settling down for a nap in a room with a warm, clay floor. I did not fall asleep, but it was pretty relaxing.

We went to a recommended Korean restaurant afterwards. Adam and Michael are vegetarian and vegan, respectively. We were told by Michael’s roommate that this restaurant had vegetarian options, but we were apparently told wrong. Michael tried to impress upon our waitress that he was a vegetarian. After thinking deeply, she pointed to the squid. “Is spicy squid!” she said, proudly. “No, no,” Michael said. “Only vegetables.” He made the international sign for “vegetables,” which I could not replicate, but if you saw it, you’d think, “oh, vegetables.” The woman furrowed her brow, confused. “This only meat,” she finally said. “No vegetables?” Michael asked. She shook her head. “This meat restaurant,” she said. I’m pretty sure they had to have a few vegetables somewhere, but we didn’t want to chance it, so we went for Indian.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that at a certain point, we put our clothes back on. I can’t remember if it was after dinner or before, though.