my relapse of rest and relaxation
nihilistic malaise, manic pixie dreamgirl lit, february INs + OUTs, & shopaholic haul
Long time no see, my dear readerzz, unless you listened to me and julia’s valentine’s day loveline pod. I maybe exploited my personal life a bit too hard for that one, but such is the plight of the blogger girl.
It’s Monday night of the long weekend as I write this, and I have the Sunday scaries bad. This time of year can be weird and sad for me and I’m coming off a two week bender of sleeping too much (during the wrong hours) and slumping around doing too little during the day. It’s all very My Year of Rest and Relaxation of me. I even have the unpacked laundry in plastic bags to match. (couldn’t find the passage but basically the girl in the book gets her laundry sent out and then never unpacks it when it comes back and there’s a beautiful description of the plastic bags flapping in the breeze from her window.)
For those who don’t know me, I spent a good chunk of college in the same depressed, nihilistic malaise that the Narrator suffers from in MYRR. I’m better now, but there are times when I slip back into the old mindset/lifestyle. I just skimmed through the entire book and looked back at my annotations. I forgot how depressing a lot of it is. The humor usually comes in when the Narrator, in her depressed angst, offers scathing observations of her peers. A fun, style-related passage in which she absolutely annihilates hipster boys:
An “alternative” to the mainstream frat boys, these scholarly, charmless, intellectual brats dominated the more creative departments. As an art history major, I couldn’t escape them. “Dudes” reading Nietzsche on the subway, reading Proust, reading David Foster Wallace, jotting down their brilliant thoughts into a black Moleskine pocket notebook. Beer bellies and skinny legs, zip-up hoodies, navy blue peacoats or army green parkas, New Balance sneakers, knit hats, canvas tote bags, small hands, hairy knuckles, maybe a deer head tattooed across a flabby bicep. They rolled their own cigarettes, didn’t brush their teeth enough, spent a hundred dollars a week on coffee. They would come into Ducat, the gallery I ended up working at, with their younger—usually Asian—girlfriends. I’d hear them talk shit about the art. They lamented the success of others. They thought that they wanted to be influential, celebrated for their genius, that they deserved to be worshipped. But they could barely look at themselves in the mirror.
—Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Of course when I read this I initially thought of the quintessential sad Columbia boy of my college years. these days the passage conjures up an image of the downtown/Brooklyn fashion boy, or nolita dirtbag. They’re not my usual type but they fascinate me for sure.
Anyway, some things I did that pulled me out of my latest slump:
met my coworkers IRL for the first time ever and let a couple of them follow me on ig while I was drunk. We could see the equinox rooftop from our table at some restaurant in hudson yards. I distinctly remember taking a shot of sherry out of a shrimp head.
got my nails done
pilates (don’t worry, i never work out besides pilates sometimes, I will never betray my readership by becoming “that girl”)
hung out with friends who got me out of the house
I’ve been extremely uninspired lately, both outfit-wise and blogger commentary-wise. My brain has turned to cold internet mush with podcasts as its only remotely nutritious sustenance, and my days are spent lounging around my apartment. I couldn’t finish Eve Babitz’s Sex and Rage because the protagonist Jacaranda annoyed me so much. Maybe I’m not enough of a cool girl muse to relate to Babitz.
If anyone has good book recommendations, please let me know. I think I fell into the trap of mindlessly accumulating all the New York/LA manic pixie dreamgirl books and I need something more serious to ground me. The circumstances have become dire—I redownloaded Snapchat just because I missed reading the Daily Mail snapchat story. But, I need to hold myself accountable and read REAL LITERATURE. On my to-read list (many still fall in the NYC/LA cool girl bucket but whatever): Crying in Hmart, Eileen, Death in Her Hands, Gun Dealer’s Daughter, Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados, finish The Idiot, finish Natasha Stagg’s Sleeveless, anything Joyce Carol Oates, AND I want to slowly but surely reread (or read) everything Mary Gordon and Margaret Vandenburg ever assigned me in college. I also have Cat Marnell’s memoir How to Murder Your Life on the way as a treat.
While floundering in this weird period of terminally online urban malaise, my go-to loungewear has been: oversized button downs and tights with no pants, oversized t-shirts and tube socks and no pants, and vintage silk slips. I throw on sweats when I do venture outside in the daytime hours so the dog can pee and I can get coffee. There’s something about moping around Soho/Nolita while wearing a sloppy outfit that feels soooo chic to me. It screams, I don’t need to get dressed up to walk around because i live here, bitch!!!
The ins and outs that are top of mind lately:
IN
Smoking indoors
taking cabs everywhere
The Entourage (i’m spearheading this as replacement to the sopranos as the go-to pick me girl show)
Balenciaga city bag
Balenciaga le cagole xs shoulder bag
hiker chic (a.k.a. gorpcore for girls)
balletcore (going strong as i predicted)
^in that vein, Laini Ozark’s DIY miu miu flats
taking slutty pics in the snow
fur, shearling, or quilted down boots. i’m on a miu miu kick and i want them all
miu miu 
miu miu french-tipped acrylics. my go-to, I only ever get them in black or dark red these days
RPattz (as the ideal man, he’s always in obviously…but extra in rn thanks to Batman press + GQ March cover)
patreon-backed podcasts. my favorite is binchtopia. one i’ve recently discovered is throwing fits
blogger it girls (duhhhh)
sex workers turned actresses and entrepreneurs and it girls
eating french food - a classic NYC winter pastime
having boobs
being half filipino (example 1 & example 2 & example 3… the list goes on)
SUBTLETY. cannot stress this enough.
OUT
Jacquemus
uber
NYFW (will always be fun and exciting and glam, but it’s far too accessible to be chic these days)
parade underwear (has been for a while tbh)
Ray’s
finance boys
espresso martinis
Youtube – the influencers are running out of ideas, even emma chamberlain is stopping YT
sweatsuits (i still wear them every day oops)
having an artificial body or face
overly sexy thotwear (poster girl, stassie wearing a catsuit, etc etc)
I’ve been doing a fair amount of shopping this winter. the overall haul aesthetic looks something like this:
not pictured:
by far sock boots
poppy lissiman bag gifted to me by my grandma
camel colored beret gifted to me by my grandma
vintage PETA t shirt (from procell in LES)
vintage nike t shirt from 1992 olympics (also from procell)
betsey johnson fur vest (L train vintage)
other fur vest (L train vintage)
belted short leather trench from depop
tan aritzia puffer jacket
mejuri mini hoops
Earlier this month, I went to a galentines party and I wore: reformation sandals (not pictured), black tights, vintage silk slip, slouchy coat (& other stories), black beanie, and my falabella bag.
Sorry the blog has felt so surface-level lately, but I hope you enjoyed this style guide of sorts. I feel too unmotivated to think deeply about anything tonight. Writing itself is not that chic but the aesthetics surrounding it certainly are. such is the allure of low stakes “blogging” which I do purely for fun. If I ever come up with something actually groundbreaking, you all will be the first to know.
xx,
esmé