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How to keep a secret, what I think July smells like and watching The Sopranos with a boyfriend for the first time
July is my favourite month. it’s the only month that’s just summer. June is “early summer”, August is “late summer”, and September is “well you know September is so hot now it’s basically still summer”. July is just July, and I love her for it. It’s hot, and I’m a sweaty girl who lives in a fourth-floor walkup with a weak window AC unit, so I “hate summer” if we’re talking about the humidity, but I’m not talking about the weather. What I love about July is the smell of it. July isn’t quite hot garbage month, it’s chose your own adventure month. For me, that adventure is tea tree oil and wet hair. I’m a city girl through and through, but capturing the smell of the woods and the feeling of a shower at the end of a pool or lake day (for me its pool, city girl remember I just told you), will always be the best smell to bring with me through these months. If I could bottle that feeling I would. I wouldn’t even sell it, I’d just give it away. It’s worth sharing. I know can’t bottle a feeling but I can use the tea tree oil that’s already been bottled for me and lather my body in it after I shower. It makes me feel clean (natural antiseptic!), scares away the bugs, and helps with keeping my skin bump-less after shaving. I shave a lot during the summer. I prefer to be hairless, like a sphynx. I buy the oil at my local health food store. I love health food stores, they’re always dusty but in a good way. We don’t talk about the term “health food store” enough anymore. Remember when you could only get gluten free products at the “health food store”, now you can get them at the bodega! Not complaining. I love how they smell, too. It reminds me of my mom and her quinoa phase. I’ve got a great one down the street from my apartment, Park Natural, so I go there to buy this amazing lemon pepper Tofu, lactose free yogurt and tea tree oil.
Keeping a secret always feels like a test. Here’s something serious (or sad, or happy, or unbelievable or or or) but you can’t share it with anyone. Why? I mean, I know why, but it feels like a test, and I never liked tests. I was never really that good at them. Actually, that’s not really true. I was a strong B+ / A- student. Which was good enough for me and led me to a life of clothing. Beside the point, secrets feel like tests, and I have been tested a lot these past few years. I was in a relationship with a married man for the last two years of my 20’s (I’m about to be 31) and it was the only secret I ever kept. Until it ended of course. Then all bets are off! The test is over, I get to tell whoever I feel like, and sometimes whoever you feel like is everyone. If a secret really should never be told, then it should never have been told to you in the first place. The second a person utters the information from their lips to another person’s soft pillowy ear, there is a want for it to get out - set it free! At least that was the case for me, and my secret. It was deep and dark and personal and all I wanted was to tell people. Keeping a secret is hard, and no one should have to do it. In fact, maybe you’re being a better person by not keeping it. Its ok if you don’t agree, maybe its circumstantial. I will die on the hill that all secrets are meant to be told. Maybe not at first, but eventually, yes.
When I floated the idea of starting a newsletter to my friend, she said I should because people are always looking at me for advice on “everything”. What a nice thing to say to someone.
Somehow it’s the middle of July, but here is my June recap.
Highlights:
A pair of shoes that’s solved most of my getting dressed in the summer problems: they’re Maryam Nassir Zadeh, last season’s colour on sale on SS*NSE, the best metallic pop no one’s talking about… copper!
A Year On Earth With Mr. Hell: A great book for fashion heads and secret keepers.
Finding the perfect red toe polish: It’s from Butter London.
The first tan lines of summer: there is nothing, seriously nothing, sexier than a strappy tan line. The trick is to start early in the season so that you’re left with lines so deep they look like grooves by Labour Day.
Free bread pudding at the best new restaurant in Brooklyn: Lucky enough to snag bar seats during the soft opening weeks of Strange Delight, we got great advice on what to order, sipped on eXXXtra cold dirty martinis and were hit with complementary bread putting at the end of the meal. Nice touch. Delightful, even.
Lucas at Pilates: I got laid off and my boyfriend came to a Pilates class with me the next day. He loved it, obviously.
The Neue Galerie: no photos allowed, worth a visit for the furniture in the first room upstairs alone.
Diet Snapple in a glass with ice: lemon iced tea, diet, and so much ice the glass should be sweating so much it stains every surface. You can go full sugar if you want, but I like the fake stuff. Very health food store era… aspartame and organic. Like baked lays, oh my god I love baked lays.
A deconstructed eggplant parm after an outdoor shower: we went to Fire Island for our annual trip in June this year, which turned out to be the perfect time of year. Not too hot, not too busy, the perfect beginning to a hot summer. Have you ever taken an outdoor shower while the sun is setting, and then eaten a piece of grilled eggplant with sauce, breadcrumbs and cheese?
Embracing my natural hair: I’ve been blow-drying (and even straightening) my hair every morning forever. In fact, it’s been so long, people who I’ve known since I moved to New York 9 years ago have never seen my natural hair. Not even my boyfriend. I got my summer keratin treatment and said, ok that’s enough, let it go Emma. So now we’re au naturel and boy do I feel free.
James Blake at a church in Brooklyn Heights: I was invited as a guest and treated so well. Not sure why, but thank you. First pew of the chapel, 90 minutes. Beautiful.
Asparagus sandwiches: toasted baguette, homemade pesto, feta, roasted asparagus. Eat it with someone you love.
Lowlights:
In between my toes blister from my flip flops: a really bad one.
Getting laid off: after 5 years, it sucked and still sucks.
Things I want:
Sprinkles all the time: on ice cream… in cake… just a bowl of ‘em on the side. Have you ever had a banana split?
Pants I actually like: the search for pants literally never ends
This bag: I am not going to link it because its 1/1 on eBay and you’re going to buy it out from under me – I know it.
That new Ozempic pill (don’t get mad, I want to try it!): is it going to make me depressed?
Tomatoes with (or for) every meal: I know you know.
More back scratches
A silver vase: I haven’t decided if I want a large one or a teeny tiny one, thoughts? I like these as vases. I also like this.
The perfect going out top: actually I need a few of these.
To finally find the right shelf for my bedroom: there was this one from Hay that I liked but didn’t order because it was going to take 6 weeks to ship, it’s been 2 years. I could have had 4 of them by now. I want it to be cool. Please, someone make a cool shelf, or point me in the direction of one.
My boyfriend and I have been together for a little over a year now, and it’s as wonderful as ever. It gets better every day. Is that how it’s supposed to be? I feel like we’re having a delayed honeymoon phase. Or like, we had a mini moon upstate, and now were in Greece. Our trip to Greece is playing NYT games on our phones, cooking dinner, sitting on the couch to watch The Sopranos and me falling asleep halfway through the second episode every single time. Last Friday we made baked ziti, and I was able to get through 3 episodes with only a small sleeping interlude. It was perfect. Then we got into bed and spent an hour doing our best New Jersey Italian accents. I always end up sounding like Mario Bosco. I know you don’t know who he is.
Did you know a lot of sellers on eBay have a free return policy? I’m embarrassed to say I literally thought everything on eBay was nonreturnable. I was wrong, and after ordering more than a dozen pairs of orange tab 505 Levi’s I finally found the right ones. They were 34 dollars.