I smoked this weekend for the first time in like, 5 months? I realized after I had gotten stoned that I had done so on 4/20. Funny how that worked out. I spent Saturday afternoon walking around Williamsburg and my self esteem immediately plummeted. The energy there is so intense. It feels really aggressive, like everyone is making a statement. I feel like I’m showing up late to the party, or maybe just passing through. I don’t think I have what it takes to invest in other people’s perceptions.
Williamsburg used to be easy. When I was off work for a year I remember I would spend so much time smoking weed and walking around. My life consisted of waking up, going to Whole Foods, making myself lunch, wandering around stoned and stressed out, talking to people, and then returning back home for more weed and sleep. Honestly one of the better years of my life. Not because I was smoking, but because I got to decompress. It was like hitting a much needed release valve on life. I highly encourage everyone spend a year stoned, unemployed, and reflective.
But yeah. My neighborhood is weird. There’s a butcher shop I’ve been visiting on the weekends and the energy there is so chill, it reminds me of what Williamsburg used to be. It feels like a floating remnant, a puzzle piece of the world I used to know. Everything shifted during covid. I’m trying to figure out why everyone left. I want to write emails to all the previous residents and ask them why they left. Did they find something better? Did the creatives sense the death of the neighborhood?
It was probably the increase in rent. The neighborhood went from somewhat affordable to astronomically pricey. I was walking around by the water and glanced at the rent for 2 bedroom apartments. It was hitting close to $9000/month. The crowd that these kinds of apartments draw are…not so chill. A lot of South Asians, a lot of rich kids. The liberal arts millennials with their weird ideas got kicked to the curb. It’s money, always, that rules the roost. I am the leftovers of whatever hipster energy was once cropped up here.
a soft death 