#1. Flotation Tank [Members' Edition]

Where no one can hear you scream (except the staff)

I’d love to be launched into space.

Floating through eternal nothingness, ten million miles from the nearest person, I could finally be alone with my thoughts (are beans sprouts beans or sprouts? is cream cheese cream or cheese? why have I never felt truly loved? etc.).

It would certainly be easier to write (assuming I could still use a keyboard through my space mitts).

Yes, I am pathologically introverted – I was once the least talkative person at a book club – but also, the world these days is really fucking annoying. Plan a simple trip to the supermarket, and Google Maps will tell you to watch out for the rain, your car will beep in various tones if you forget your seatbelt or drive too close to (or far from) the curb, and the stickers in the supermarket will admonish things like, ‘Don’t open the freezer door until you’ve chosen what you want!’

I am sick to death of being cajoled, prodded, and nudged every minute of the day.

So, as I prepared my list of activities for the year, I scribbled ‘flotation tank’ at the top, far before anything else. In my mind, it would be the ultimate paradise, a velveteen moment of epicurean luxury.

It was basically a walled bathtub in the back of a terraced house.