Westin Peace

By Adam Brownstein – July 2, 2024

In his much touted book, A Brief History of Intelligence, Max Bennet begins by asking why AI has little problem besting the finest grandmasters in chess but cannot wash a sink full of dishes.  I have long ago given up trying to beat my 11-year-old son in chess, but I can hold my own scrubbing-up after a big meal.  This form of sudsy meditation leaves me with baby soft hands and a reasonable sense of accomplishment.  

It also puts me in good company. Prior to becoming iconic sex symbols, Madonna, Brad Pitt and Sean Connery enjoyed stints as dishwashers.  The gig offered them flexible hours and a soapy stage to run through their lines on their way to the top.  Professionally, I loved my shifts doing the dishes as Noah’s New York Bagels back in the day. It helped me to bond with co-workers like Robert, the affable bassist of Wounded (San Francisco’s most beloved vegan thrash metal band of the mid-90’s) and Rafael, the master baker of our Cow Hollow location. 

Dishwashing at home is also good.  E-commerce gazillionaires do it, maybe because their publicists reckon it’s a great humanizing activity. I wash dishes too, probably because it’s a highly visible way for me to do my part around the house.  The best kind of dishwashing, I’ve found, is teaming up with a buddy to wash and dry at the end of a dinner party.  You usually make a new friend, and both of you get an extra big piece of pie for your efforts.

A few years ago during a big dinner party in the Wasatch Mountains I paired up with a new friend to wash after a sumptuous buffet of poulet de tangine and fennel salad.  Mr. K was an affable guy and a great story teller.  As we scrubbed pans and dried the dinner dishes, he regaled me with the epic sweep of history that he and his wife had helped to write.  They were the ultimate boomer westward ho saga from Yiddishkeit roots in New York and Montreal to the bright sunshine of California.  Mr. K dispensed pearls of wisdom on the art and science of parenthood, and as a soon-to-be dad, I took mental notes as we progressed from the dinner plates to the pots and pans. 

I would come to be mentored by Mr. K and his wonderful wife, Mrs. K, for years to come.  Simply by telling their stories they issued great advice on parenthood.  Moreover they had mastered the art of salty marital banter.  It came in the form of shots deftly fired at one and other over the kitchen counter.  Occasionally it occurred by issuing feedback through a trusted third party.  Sometimes that third party was me, and I particularly enjoyed one episode about a holiday South of the border that they had planned.  It came through split track updates from both Mr. K and Mrs. K during another excellent dinner party.

“We’re off to Baja soon,” Mr. K bragged.  “And I’m keeping it CLASSY!  We’re staying at the Westin in Cabo!”

“That is AWESOME!” I affirmed. 

Later that evening I had the chance to catch up with Mrs. K.  Her view of the pending holiday varied notably from her dear husband.

“Cabo will be fun, but we’re only staying at the Westin,” she admonished.

“Oh,” I replied.  “How UNCLASSY!”

Note to readers – if any of you are in touch with the CMO of Westin Hotels, please inform them of this crisis in brand perception.  What was once the hip home of the Heavenly Bed now appears to be in a hellish state of mistaken identity.

The story of Mrs. and Mr. K provides a first principle of married life; perception is a function of conviction not reason.  Or, as the legendary Danny Kahneman penned in his fabulous book, Thinking Fast & Slow “. . . the confidence people have in their beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence but of the coherence of the story the mind has managed to construct.” 

We will revisit this little pearl of practical wisdom later.

___

Recently I started a new job, and I really like it.  My colleagues are interesting, diverse and full of opinions.  They have been quick to welcome me and have exuded heaps of patience as they teach all about what our company actually does.  We have nice benefits at work.  At lunch we enjoy everything from dutiful kale salad to guilt ridden combos from Pizza Slice Daikanyama.  New colleagues are welcomed with fresh coffee and artisan pastries.  On Thursdays we let down our hair, sipping craft IPAs or lemon squashes, munching on crisps and poking fun at the boss (that’s me!).   Our office is nice, too, featuring all the latest in ergonomic furniture, a crowd-pleasing temperature of 23.5 C in summer and breathtaking vistas of Mount Fuji.   

The office sits in the heart of Shibuya Crossing, and at the base of our building you can find a panoply of retail goodness.  One can get a box of sweets from the Butter Butler, a measure of crispy tonkatsu, a baguette that would make Parisians swoon and a portion of seaweed salad to take home all in the space of about five minutes.  And that’s just the food!

What makes our area of Shibuya truly special is the array of high-end cosmetics products hawked with joy and precision to the growing masses of inbound tourists.  Morning, noon and night you can encounter happy travelers from Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore, wielding credit cards in one hand and fancy Rimowa roller boards in the other.  Cheerful sales clerks advise them on the latest Takami Skin Peel, Naturie Hatomugi Conditioning Gel, and Shiseido Ultimune Power Infusing Concentrate.  If you actually purchased all these products it would cost you a pretty penny.  

What is all the fuss about?  Well, as Oscar Wilde once quipped, “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”  And so self-care, bordering precariously on vanity, has become a real thing in East Asia. According to the latest data, 2024 consumer spending on beauty and wellness across Greater China, Japan and South Korea will total $1.1 trillion.  (If you add in the hair care regimen of a certain sinisterly charming dictator in North Korea, it might be closer to $1.2 trillion). 

The trend has hit particularly close to home this year.  About three months ago, I began to notice an odd pattern of behavior with my wife.  Walking by her in the living room I would steal glances at her Instagram feed.  It was peppered with doe-eyed women who were gently and meticulously massaging their own cheeks.  Within minutes I noted that my wife was employing the same circular motions to her own mug, a devoted pupil of her skin care svengalis.  Within a few days, the typically transactional nature of the evening shower and bath evolved into a slowly played ritual replete with plankton infused face plumpers and a device that appeared to be a microphone (or worse!) plucked straight from the clutches of Lady Gaga.  I would later be informed that the gadget helped to schluff away dead skin and to tighten pores.

And then, one afternoon things got heavy . . . literally.  I had gone outside to fetch the daily catch from Amazon.  A box that appeared to fit a new pair of shoes had a heft unbecoming.  My curiosity got the better of me, so I opened it only to find two dumbbells.  Next I grabbed a square-shaped carton which made the dumbell box feel rather light.  It housed the kind of kettle bell that friends bestow unto each other as birthday gifts in Bulgaria.

“What is going on here?” I inquired with my wife. 

“What does it look like?” she retorted.  “I’m getting fit and strong.  It’s Me New-point-oh!”  

“I am all for fitness, but don’t we have a gym membership?” I inquired.  “What’s with all of the home equipment?”

“I need BOTH,” she explained.  “Sometimes I don’t have time to go to the gym.  Even worse, sometimes the gym is crowded with unsavory weightlifting enthusiasts.  They are super veiny and have spray-painted orange skin.  And they frost their hair.  I don’t need that kind of bad element interfering with my workout vibe.”

Fair enough, I shrugged. Nothing wrong with one’s better half wanting to maintain a fitness regimen.  But all of the training and the skin care led to a broader set of questions.  What was the intrinsic motivation behind all of the buff and beauty?  One day I asked.

“Tell me about this whole new you thing,” I posited. 

“Look,” said my wife.  “I’ve spent the last 15 years of my life raising three children, four actually if I count you.  In that time it’s been about everyone else but me.  Well this year, that’s going to change.  Time for self care!”

At the risk of being canceled by the seven people who read this blog, I am now going to share why this seemingly healthy turn of events was actually very, very bad.  My wife, more lovely in appearance and more junior in years than I, would now be adding to her already ample lead over me.  My own regimen of running 20 miles a week, “micro yoga” sessions, and exfoliating my face once a quarter would simply not cut it if I wanted to gain any hard won ground. As I moved through the five stages of grief around this topic, the lesson of Mr. and Mrs. K aided in easing me into acceptance; what I perceived to be a bad turn was actually a moment of incredible revelation for my wife.  It was all good, or so I supposed.

One day shortly after I had come to peace with the whole health kick situation a calendar invitation popped across my screen.  As working parents of three vibrantly pugnacious kids, we live and die by the calendar.  But this invitation was different.  It read simply “Trip to Korea” over a long weekend.

“I see that you’re going to Seoul next month,” I offered.  “Is that so you can eat Michelin star spicy crab and those yummy pancake things?”

“Oh sure that’s part of it,” my wife replied.  “But the real reason we’re going is all of the amazing beauty and wellness experiences we have on tap.”

“We?” I beckoned.  “Who is “we”?”

She then explained that several of her work buddies were also fixated on self-enhancement.  This included her work wife who had previously done a lauded tour de piel in Seoul.  

“I’m sooooo ex-CITED!” my wife beamed. 

“That sounds great, Honey,” I acknowledged.  “But can’t you and your work wife do all of that beautifying right here in good old Tokyo?  I see gaggles of tourists from all around Asia flocking to Shibuya every day to do just what you’re talking about.”

“Oh dear,” my wife responded.  “You have so much to learn.  Tokyo is BUSH LEAGUE compared to Seoul!  Seoul is where all of the bleeding edge products and pamperings come together.  Amateurs get serviced in Tokyo.  Pros go to Seoul!”

In the days that followed I observed my wife prepare for her trip to Korea the way that a professional tennis player might ready themselves before a Grand Slam tournament.  There was an aura of both Zen calm and steely determination in her demeanor.  And, just like Serena Williams, Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer she devoted time and focus to packing her bag.  Not an over-the-shoulder Wilson bag stacked with rackets, energy bars and lucky charms but a carry-on roller bag stacked with workout clothes, kelp masks and . . . wait for it . . . lucky charms.  

My wife’s wellness weekend in Seoul finally came, affording the kids and me our own sort of therapeutic sessions together.  These included ample amounts of pasta, popcorn, ice cream and Netflix.  We ended the weekend happy as clams, only to be one-up’ed by Mommy, who arrived home from Haneda in a state of total bliss.

“How was the trip, Mom?” our daughter inquired.  “Was it all that you dreamed it would be?”

“All and MORE!” Mommy declared.  “It was amazing!  We had an incredible time, achieving all of our goals for the trip.  There was one point on Saturday afternoon when one of our team members was flagging.  But they got their second wind for our evening appointments.  Thank goodness!”

“Second wind?” I asked. 

“Yes, of course!” my wife responded.  “We had an ambitious agenda, and there were times when I didn’t think we could make it.  But in the end, we buckled down and persevered!” 

As I listened intently to my wife, her recounting felt more like the story of an ultra-marathon in the Alps than a spa weekend in Seoul.  The rhetoric smacked of sleep deprivation, endurance, sacrifice, and, above all, determination.  She beamed with contentment and satisfaction.

I too felt strangely joyful.  It was more than the whole happy wife, happy life thing.  There was something deeper that harkened back to the wisdom of Mr. and Mrs. K and Danny Kahneman.  We cleave on to what moves us and to what establishes a sense of meaning in our lives no matter how wacky the premise may be.  We direct our ears and hearts to the radio in close, late inning games because the outcome may determine the fate of our team when fall rolls around.  We enter houses of worship, Soul Cycle classes and book clubs because it helps us tell the story of community.  And we travel far afield to the spas of Seoul, the vineyards of Mendoza and the magic of Universal Studios Japan because it gives us a measure of cheer that lasts long after we arrive home. 

There was one other maxim that struck me about this great journey into beauty and wellness.  On the topic of marriage Poor Richard’s Almanac elucidates to “ . . . keep  your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.”  

Half shut and with a cheeky smile to boot.