4 Things I Bought This Summer

3 pants I wore, 4 books I read, 1 frivolous purchase,and more.

Some day, my routine will change slightly and it won’t cause me to get so discombobulated that I drop my least pressing commitments (ie, writing this substack.) This summer was not that moment, but here are some of the things I might have written about:

4 books I read

The Ten Year Affair | Erin Somers

This is one of those millennial ennui books, where most of the action happens inside the head of a woman who is observant, sarcastic, and has definitely taken cooking, fashion and/or life advice from Alison Roman. It is my favorite genre. This one follows a mom of a young kid who creates an affair in her head — or is it in her head? — with a dad she meets at a baby group.

Loved One | Aisha Muharrar

Aisha Muharrar wrote/writes for Parks and Rec and Hacks — between that and the cover there was no way I wasn’t reading this book, which I loved. This is a story about grief and friendship, but the details — the owner of a buzzy restaurant carrying a hastily arranged bouquet of flowers, a peanut butter sandwich in a small kitchen in Barcelona — and the understated humor you would expect from an author with these bona fides are what I can’t stop thinking about.

Wreck | Catherine Newman

Reading Catherine Newman is like reading my own journal, if the absolute funniest and most charming version of myself had written it. I was telling a friend that Wreck was, in part, about a woman who becomes too invested in a train accident that happens in her town, and my friend stopped me and said “I don’t think I can do a thriller right now.” I realized I was explaining it wrong — when I say she gets too invested in the accident, I mean she stays up too late scrolling social media for any morsel of information from the victim’s family to assuage her own insomnia-induced curiosity. If that’s a thriller my life is a thriller.¹

James | Percival Everett

This book won a Pulitzer, it doesn’t need my endorsement, but here it is. James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from Jim’s — the enslaved man’s — perspective, is quietly genius and the only reason I waited so long to read it was because I wasn’t sure if I needed to read Huck Finn to get it (and I did not want to do that.) It turns out, I was fine just reading Huck Finn’s Wikipedia page.

3 Places I Went

Hidden Beach | Minneapolis

I pass this beach all the time, and somehow had never been —though I had heard its lore (apparently people used to call it the naked beach?) After spending a few hours there for my friend Elyse’s birthday, I became obsessed with a sign I spotted near the shore: The Andrew J. Foss Memorial Mud Hole. I had questions: What is a mud hole (like, I surmised that it was probably a hole filled with mud, but is it a known geological feature, like a lake or a valley?) Am I supposed to get in the mud hole? And most importantly, How does one get a memorial mud hole? I eventually got some of my answers on Reddit (it’s a hole filled with mud, as expected, you are supposed to get in it, and Andrew Foss apparently was a neighbor who picked up trash on the beach for many years), but the mystery was fun.

Meow Wolf | Denver

Before I visited Meow Wolf, I couldn’t find a succinct description of it — I just knew it vaguely had something to do with art and was weird — and now having been, I will do my best to provide this service, though it’s tough. Imagine that someone wrote a sci-fi story, then rented out a giant convention center type space and hired artists to build out the world the story is set in, with impeccable attention to detail. You’re not explicitly told about the world you’re in, or the story that’s unfolding, but if you’re paying attention, you figure it out by walking around and experiencing it. (omg am I describing life). When we left I thought, “oh NOW I understand the word overstimulated.” My ten-year-old thought it was the coolest thing ever. (I might still be describing life?)

It’s described as a museum, and I guess that’s fair — you do walk around and look at things — but it’s more like the Museum of Ice Cream than say, the Met, in that it’s designed for you to be immersed in, not to learn something or view significant objects. But it’s not designed for you to capture and share on Instagram, which makes it less like the Museum of Ice Cream. I described it to my husband as a real-life open world video game, with the caveat that the last video game I played was The Sims in my childhood bedroom so my knowledge is limited.

Wal Mart | Destin, Florida

I took this picture of my friend Kathy in the Destin Wal Mart’s airbrushing boutique (where we were picking up matching airbrushed hats, obviously). She said, “I look like I’m in the Sistine Chapel.” We really were in awe.

3 Things I Wore

My dad’s Lacoste shirts from the 80s / Green Nikes found at a garage sale | This shirt that I pretty much wore anytime I was out after 8 pm (similar-ish)

2 Things I Made

Sheet Pan Artichoke Melts from What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking

99% of recipes we’ve tried from the book What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking have been winners, which is UNHEARD of. This one filled a niche need: an impromptu evening playdate/hang where the kids ate frozen pizza and the adults needed…not frozen pizza.

Rhubarb Daiquiris

Inspired by a perfect drink I had at the restaurant Pennyroyal in Holland, Michigan, and made with rhubarb from our backyard.

3 film photos

4 things I bought

Bunny mirror

I’ve had this mirror saved on a Pinterest board for years. It felt like a sign when I saw it in person at the Catbird store in Chicago. I picture my kids saying someday, “Remember that weird bunny mirror mom used to have?” Every time I do my toddler’s hair and she says “Can I wook in the bunny miwwow?” I’m reassured it was a good purchase.

Gap Horseshoe jeans / Uniqlo wide leg pants / Dickies white pants

It was the summer of pants, I guess. I also finally removed the last pair of skinny jeans that were languishing in my closet even though I haven’t worn them for at least three years (I put them in storage, in my box of “one day 25 years from now these will come back in style and everyone will be glad I saved them”)

3 Things I Noticed

Custom hats

At the beach in Destin, Florida, nearly every group of people had custom hats (my friends and I had two!) The beach was nice, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the amount of random hats coming soon to your local Goodwill/dump/ocean garbage patch.

Royal blue in Chicago (which I eventually realized is simply Cubs blue)

Banana toast

Earlier this summer I predicted that we were on the precipice of a banana flavor trend; Glossier and Blank Street Coffee and so many other brands have proved me right. In Destin, Florida over Labor Day, the dominant latte flavor was coconut, not banana, but every breakfast restaurant had a fancy variation of peanut butter banana toast on their menu (and I ordered them all.) It doesn’t feel poised to become The Next Big Food Trend, but what is it about Destin that makes its restaurants serve whipped peanut butter and caramelized bananas on crusty bread? (Semi-related: this Culture Study podcast episode unpacking food trends.)

1. The time I’ve spent this week on James Van der Beek’s wife’s Instagram this week is my version of this.