A Few of My Favorite Things

some splurges that take my mind off the state of the world and bring me joy

Have you been experiencing a constant feeling of medium-to-high-level dread? Has it become difficult to enjoy things, knowing we’re one short week away from an election that might decide the future of our democracy (or if our democracy has a future at all)? Do you feel kind of bad all the time?

First of all: vote, if you haven’t already. Please also pay attention to actual self-care: sleep, hydrate, talk to your therapist. But I’m not above some good old-fashioned self-soothing in hard times.

This post was inspired in part by an amazing shopping guide of Dark Academia-inspired looks my Eidolon co-editor

Tori Lee

did a few months back on the Pasts Imperfect newsletter:

Pasts Imperfect (8.29.24)

This is one of my favorite genres of content, but it’s also deceptively hard to make. When I asked Tori about it, she said that it was pretty labor-intensive to recommend products “while trying to be conscious of sustainability, size inclusivity, POC representation, and multiple budgets”, and honestly, just looking at that list of considerations makes me feel tired.

But I wanted to share some items that I use pretty much every single day, because I adore them and they bring me joy. And right now I’m having flashbacks to 2016 all the time except now we know just how high the stakes are and how bad things will be. There’s a lot going on right now that is scary and sad and heavy. It’s a great comfort to have things that feel good every time I use them.

As the subtitle says: these are splurges. But my philosophy on that is that I’d rather spend $200 on sunglasses I adore and have them for fifteen years (and counting!!) than buy 2-3 pairs a year. With that said, nothing here costs $200 and for a lot of these items I know for a fact that you can find great dupes with some research. Sorry about that.

Le Creuset pasta bowls aka “blates”

Allegedly, eating everything from “blates” (aka bowl-plates) is a TikTok thing? I’m not really on TikTok. Not in a sophisticated, “Oh, I don’t own a TV” kind of way, in a “I really really hate watching videos with sound when anyone else is around because it makes me feel self-conscious, so instead I read a million Substacks” kind of way.

But I can confirm that we eat everything from these. They’re perfect. It’s so nice to always have exactly the right dish for everything!

I learned about the blate trend from this Food52 article. My partner and I were in the market for dishware that suited us both, because I was still using the very cute china with birds that I’d gotten for my wedding in 2009 even though I’ve been divorced for five years and he had his own nice dishes that he’d shipped over from Berlin and neither of those felt like where we were now as a couple in the present day. So we decided to try out blates.

Aesthetically, I was definitely drawn to the blates with straight, high sides, but it turns out they are not fun to try and fit into a dishwasher, which is a thing my partner is already kind of a nightmare about. (You know that one tweet about dishwasher-loading? He’s the Scandinavian architect.) These Le Creuset blates stack nicely, and are sturdy enough that my erratic 11-year-old’s jerky motions don’t send them flying. I love them.

Negative Underwear Whipped A-Top

I feel like these were first advertised to me on instagram, and I saw a comment under an ad for Negative Underwear’s whipped boyshorts that said “looks like one fart would blow them apart.” Which is a fair hit.

But! I’m happy to report that they hold up surprisingly well after many washings and really are as soft as they look. Like, dog-ears soft. I live in them. Even if I’m wearing something else, I now usually have one of these tank tops underneath, because now I’m a middle-aged woman who likes layers that feel nice, I guess? Bonus: they come in sizes up to XXL.

Diptyque candles

I’m pretty sensitive to smell, so I’m picky about candles. I have a vivid memory of getting my first-ever migraine when I walked into a Yankee Candle Co. as a tween and was like, “Wait, I shouldn’t be able to see and hear the smell, what is happening to my brain.” But I also really like things that smell nice. It’s a conundrum.

Diptyque candles are my sweet spot. They smell wonderful and I never have any kind of bad reaction to them. I can even walk into their stores!! My absolute favorites, unfortunately, are limited edition: the Berlin candle, which smells like linden trees, and the Biscuit candle, which smells like sugar cookies. Other faves: Jasmin in spring, Foin Coupé in summer, Thé in fall, Feu de Bois in winter.

Ember mug

Back in 2019, when my partner and I were in a long-distance relationship, we were talking on the phone and he said, “Ugh, the battery on my coffee mug is dead.” I asked him what the hell he was talking about. It turned out he had not one but TWO electronic coffee mugs. I told him that was the dumbest fucking thing I’d ever heard, and he said, “Oh yeah? What temperature is your coffee right now?” The answer: I’d forgotten my coffee in the microwave hours earlier, and now it was completely room-temp with a thin skin on top.

So he bought me one of these, and honestly? I love it. I bring it with me when I travel, even. Every other mug in my house is just collecting dust. Level it up with a cometeer subscription, because all you need to do is add hot water to an artisanal coffee concentrate ice cube and you have a stupid-good cup of coffee.

Inkbox tattoos

I have one real tattoo, and while I’m definitely ready for more I haven’t quite figured out what I want. And I’m loving not having to choose. I’ve always enjoyed temporary tattoos, but I’m not a big fan of the sticky ones. Inkbox tattoos are basically stamps, and they stay on for about a week, and I love them. They start out light blue and then darken over the course of a day or so. These days I pretty much always have at least one on somewhere, and my mom always asks if they’re real.

left, my favorite ankle tattoo this summer; right, the one under my eye is just a regular temporary tattoo, but that "zero fucks given" stayed around for a week and a half and my eleven-year-old daughter really enjoyed it

For the Classics nerds among us: my favorite antiquity-inflected choices are Botticelli’s Venus, this Medusa (although they have several others too), and the Venus de Milo.

Athleta Powervita leggings 

I live in these. They’re soft, just compressive enough, have pockets, come in an excellent range of sizes, and don’t slip even during pretty intense workouts. Truly my Goldilocks legging.

Pipsticks 

I already talked about my favorite stickers a bit here, but this is where I admit: I actually have a freaking subscription. I know! But it’s the only thing that comes to me in the mail that’s guaranteed to bring a smile to my face.

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A fair warning: none of these items can cure anxiety or fix our democracy. Sorry. That’s too much to ask of one candle, even if it smells great. We’re going to need community, conviction in our beliefs, and sheer grit in the weeks coming forward. But at least I know what leggings I’ll be wearing.