I have a thing for scalloped edges. I’ve written about it before, and I’m sure I’ll write about it again. Of course I still squeal with delight over the sight of my scalloped Marysia suits, shown above, many of which are on EPIC SALE, including this classic and this $100 one-piece (the perfect suit for a honeymoon!). You can also snag the look for less with this Kate Spade style. Today, a couple of other scalloped-edge finds that are tickling my fancy (click images to be taken to product pages, or see links below!):
+Chloe scalloped-edge flats — I’ve never owned a pair of these, but have heard they are made of the softest, butteriest leather, and that you don’t callous your feet breaking them in. (Bonus: on sale in select colors!)
+Aerin scalloped plates — I have these in solid white and I adore them. Juliska also has some lovely scalloped serving-ware, like this oval dish.
+Silk Prada blouse — the most fetching hydrangea blue with the most playful hem.
+Scalloped popcorn cups — I served kettle corn out of these at our inaugural Magpie book club. Speaking of: the next convening will be Tuesday, July 10th. Email me if you’d like to be included when I send out an official invite; there are only a couple of spots!
While home in D.C. two weeks ago, my father had me go through the twenty thousand books of mine gathering dust in their garage, plying me with promises that “it would only take a few minutes.” And he was dutiful in keeping pace: every time I’d linger over a book, flipping through its pages to scoff or nod my head with unanticipated approbation at my tiny, hyper-neat notes in the marginalia, or cocking my head in nostalgia over a tattered cover, he’d interrupt: “pitch or keep?” In this fashion, we made good time in sorting through several hundred books. I took a hard line on textbooks, placing those in the “donate” pile, but had a tougher time sifting through my childhood books, especially the ones that fell into the “not great literature” category, but bore intense sentimental value for me. Seeing my collection of yellowed Little House on the Prairie books, my Boxcar Children series, my Nancy Drews, my Ann of Green Gables, brought to mind a tumble of linked memories that had nothing to do with one another except for the quiet-cool feel of my childhood home in the summertime, the click-on-click-off of the air conditioner, the sward of long, shadowed hallway that led from the second floor landing to my bedroom, the solemnity and hush of my southeast-facing room when I’d lay on my stomach on my floral bedspread, reading. Those books mediated my experience of the world, ordered it: I assumed for many years that adult life was a sequence of mysteries and resolutions, cliff hangers and happy endings, and the catalysts for those ebbs and flows were not the curiosities of fate but the willful enterprises of a strong heroine, or a heroine and her siblings. Perhaps all children feel this certainty about things; perhaps it is the province of parenthood to establish and reaffirm an order to life. But then I started to lose my grandparents, and — this is hard to write, but truthful — though I missed them, it was not so much their absence as my parents reaction to it that mottled my crisp worldview. When my mother’s father died, I accidentally caught a glimpse of her crying into my father’s shirt in his study via a barely ajar door. I knew I shouldn’t have pried, and was sorry I had: the vision startled and scared me, and had the feel of trespass. My mother was kind, warm, loving — and composed. She would occasionally brush away a tear at the sight of something tender, but this — this was a different kind of crying, a wounded crying. When my father’s mother died not too long after, we were seated at the long, elegant table in my parents’ formal dining room, and my mother had just served us scoops of ice cream for dessert when my father said, without warning:
“Your grandmother died today.”
His lip tightened in an expression I’d never seen before. I didn’t know how to respond; I was too young and self-absorbed to offer comfort, but horrified at the prospect of this new, sorrowful expression on my father’s face. I stared down at the melting pool of ice cream and tears streamed down my face. I asked to be excused.
From my bedroom upstairs, I watched my father cross the circle of asphalt driveway to the crest of a hill that sloped down to Linnean Avenue, the hill he’d taught us to sled on, the hill he’d perilously traverse in his ride-along tractor, often swearing at stall-outs or debris, the hill he’d told us not to play ball around because they’d inevitably wind up in the street. He paused and turned his face upward. It was odd to see my father outside and not in motion, not in service of an errand — not taking out the trash, or en route to the wood shed, or with an armful of gardening supplies, or with a bottle of Neatsfoot oil and my brother’s ball glove in hand. It took me a minute to discern what was happening; maybe he had heard a plane, or seen a bird? But no — he was standing still, looking up at the sky, in what I can only imagine was a gesture of prayer, or quiet communion with his now deceased mother, or wonderment.
That evening, as with countless others to come, I took comfort in the escape of fiction, but something had changed. I now saw a disparity, a widening gulf. I felt that I had seen something in real life that could never be approximated on a page, that would be illicit or impossible in the world of fiction. I realized, for the first time, that whereas I had formerly seen the magical worlds of Ann and Nancy and Laura as greater than my own, the “right arrow” in the equation had flipped: I now saw my own experience outsizing theirs.
The arrow’s direction has flipped and flopped with time, with the quality of books I am reading, with the relative quietude or amplitude of the happenings in my life. There are stretches where I find myself drinking in the experiences I am reading in a hungry spectatorship, anxious for the thrill or drama of another world; and there are other times where I feel that everything I am reading is a footnote or a corollary to the enormity of my own life. There are times where the words of others seem to negotiate the terms of an experience — like when I saw that lilac bush while walking along the northside of Sheep Meadow and my day was instantly transformed via the magic of a poem it conjured — but there are other times where everything I read is adjunct to the swell and swing of my own emotions. And I am grateful for this give-and-take, this elastic relationship I have had with fiction as it alternately fuels and receives my soul.
I love the look of a color-coordinated book shelf — many visitors to my apartment ask whether I specifically purchase books for their spine colors (!!! ha!), but the truth is that I own so many books, I can afford to be choosy about which are displayed. (Also, secret hack: consider removing the book jacket cover; often the hardcover has a different color and can look rather elegant sans robe!) But some other shortcuts: browse Etsy for collections of vintage books, like Harvard Classics box sets or Classics Club volumes. Or, if you’re not into the rustic look, consider this pretty, colorful Jane Austen set or any of these Juniper book sets. I personally love the staid olive green of this George Eliot collection, principally and smugly because it includes Daniel Deronda, an important but admittedly overlong and overwrought piece of literature, the quality of which my sister and I routinely and volubly debate.
This brand of shoes, made from recycled waterbottles, is getting a lot of buzz — and their marketing is EVERYWHERE. I like these ones, which look like needlepoint!
Welp, I completely changed tack last week with regards to my birthday dress plans thanks to Shopbop’s sale last week and wound up springing for a rainbow-striped maxi designed by Gul Hurgel — a slight variation on the style shown above (her style available here), as sported by the ever-so-chic FashionBugBlog. The colors make me happy, and those frou-frou sleeves are the stuff of dreams. I’ve been a fan of this line for a long while now; I own this dress (on ridiculous sale!) in a different colorway and it’s just about the splashiest, most fetching thing I’ve ever worn. I also waxed poetic on their fruit-print dresses a couple weeks back, and I’m still waiting for the price to drop in an end-of-season sale…but, lucky for us, there are a number of the line’s incredible confections on sale right now! In addition to my birthday dress, there’s this, this, and this.
I’m also in love with the Gul-esque oversized ruffles on this Banjanan maxi and this taupe dress (sort of an elegant color, I think — unexpected!), which I dream of pairing with these slides, on sale for 60% off!
P.S. Pretty much every day of my life, I get into a heated argument with the nest of cords in a basket underneath my sink that contains three curling irons, a straightening iron, my blow dryer, and a mess of cords. Exasperated, I took to Amazon for some solutions — I’m thinking I might buy these (look at the cord hooks that keep the plugs in place!!! plus, like the idea of being able to hook it over a towel rack while in use rather than cluttering up my sink area) and this, though I won’t mount it on my wall; I’ll just stow it under the sink in lieu of the basket. And speaking of organizational geekiness, this.
P.P.S. I’m thinking of reorganizing mini’s toy/book situation in her bedroom; things are getting a little hairy. I love the designs on Petit Pehr canvas bins — especially these and these (and, for some reason, this one is $10 off at Barney’s!; so adorable). Also love their wearable blankets (on sale!) and scalloped-edged quilts!
In my eternal quest for a great undereye concealer, I’ve just started testing out YSL’s All Hours Concealer. I am super impressed with its lightweight, non-caking formula. It glides on and blends in super easily (very liquid-like), and it stays for awhile. I think I’ll be sticking with this for a good long while now!
Are you ever at an event where you know no one, and your options are either to stare at your phone or strike up conversations with complete strangers? Do you thrive in those environments, or is it your version of hell? I can’t say I’m comfortable in them — the introvert in me would much prefer to be at home with my loved ones — but I don’t mind them as much as I used to, and for two reasons: a) I realized that most people hate to approach strangers in social settings, but don’t mind being approached — in fact, in all but one encounter that I can recall, I have been warmly included in a conversation I’ve butted into, and b) I have two secret weapons that tend to work well. The first secret weapon is body language. In business school, a “networking expert” encouraged Mr. Magpie and his classmates to think critically about their posture, the positioning of their feet, their facial expressions. Instead of standing by a high-top table, belt inwards, she encouraged students to turn their bodies outward, toward the room of people, in a more open and inviting stance. She told them to avoid crossing theirs arms — possibly the universal signal for “do not talk to me” — and looking down or off into the distance. Instead, she encouraged them to smile and make eye contact. I have found these tips helpful and effective — consciously assuming a more “inviting” posture tends to help me fall into conversation more easily, whether that’s because people see me as more approachable, or I feel more confident in approaching others. My second secret weapon is my go-to question. While Mr. Magpie’s networking expert insisted that anything can be a conversation starter — the color of someone’s shirt, the crowdedness of the room, the hors d’oeuvres, the smell of the candle, etc, etc — I am occasionally not quick-witted enough to make such observations in any kind of interesting way, so I usually fall back on this: “Excuse me – I don’t know anyone else here, so I just thought I’d come up and introduce myself — I’m Jen.” People tend to take kindly to an earnest introduction and admission of out-of-place-ness. But if all else fails, and I’m just standing alone in a crowded corner, I excuse myself to the restroom, touch up my makeup, and return to the room to stand in a different spot and start all over again.
Are other people simply better at mingling than I am? Do others not need to rely on these tricks and strategies, I wonder? Am I flat-out anti-social in needing to lean on these crutches?
Please share your thoughts and advice! How do you make smalltalk?
#Shopaholic:
+These would look incredible installed by our tufted headboard.
+I want to own this in all of the colorways available.
After writing that post, Mr. Magpie and I enjoyed an evening of free opera in Central Park as a part of the Metropolitan Opera’s Summer Recital Series. It was absurdly romantic, the sun setting and the sky a rosy-peach color not dissimilar from the photo above (the exact vignette I walk by en route to the zoo with mini!) as we listened to a selection of pieces from iconic operas including Puccini’s “La Boheme” and “Gianni Schicchi” and sipped barely palatable wine (we call it “airplane wine” — the kind of wine they serve in those plastic bottles on airplanes that tastes overly sweet and bears no traces of earthiness, but get the job done). Aside from an uptight viewer who angrily shushed a group of friends whispering to one another in hushed tones (it was outside, and we were on picnic blankets, after all — speaking of, I ended up with this picnic blanket and I use it CONSTANTLY. I love that you can easily toss it in the wash, but the downside is that it’s not water-repellent on the bottom. More picnic blankets here), it was a blissful, peaceable evening. We walked home hand in hand, marveling over this magical city in which we have improbably found ourselves. (Mini is — most definitely — an urban baby; at the park, when her bare feet touch the grass after padding off the picnic blanket, she stalls in confusion: what is this stuff? I wonder whether she’ll presume it normal to Subway or cab everywhere, whether the enchantment of learning to ride her bike in Central Park will be lost on her, whether she’ll find it odd when we don’t have doormen or porters to facilitate our day to day lives. But those worries are as good a prompt as any to insist on her groundedness in all other matters, and I am steadfast in my determination to impress upon her — above all else — a down-to-earthness, a humility, above all else. But I digress…)
When we shut the door to our apartment, I wrapped my arms around Mr. Magpie for a minute before he peeled off to change. When he turned, I noticed a large black splotch on the back of his shirt — was it a trompe l’oeil, a trick of the lighting? I stepped closer, and the splotch moved.
“There’s a…there’s a…” AN ENORMOUS BLACK COCKROACH THE SIZE OF A SMALL ANIMAL ON YOUR BACK. “There’s a bug on your back–” my voice rising in panic. Mr. Magpie froze.
“Please get it off,” he said calmly, having no idea of the scale of the roach or how perilously close it was to his neck. I saw it inching towards the collar of his oxford and — I blacked out at this point — swiped it (karate chopped it?) off his back.
Now — Mr. Magpie is not the squeamish type, but he let out a weird noise somewhere between a gasp and a snort when he saw it on the ground and then smashed it with his shoe, a reaction that should give you some indication of its horrific enormity.
Noted, New York. Asterisked. Don’t get too Pollyanna on the city, or it’ll bite you in the ass — a sort of tough love realness to keep us fawning New York novitiates in check.
Post-Script.
+Speaking of New York: the best gear for small apartments. I’m especially fond of these, which enable me to make the absolute most of our cabinets and are exceptionally sturdy for the price.
+Also speaking of New York: I’ve had a lot of moms ask whether the Yoyo (we have the taupe color) is worth the price as a second stroller. I feel that in New York — or any situation in which you lead a predominantly pedestrian lifestyle — it is a completely justified purchase because I use both my Bugaboo and my Yoyo constantly. I could simply not get around with the Bugaboo stroller on the subway or in tiny New York restaurants — and I did a TON of research on umbrella strollers before deciding to spring for the Yoyo, and I’m glad I did. It’s extremely lightweight, folds up super tiny, reclines (!!!) for when mini falls asleep, has a convenient shoulder strap, and can be folded* and unfolded with one hand. (*Learning to fold it with one hand takes a little practice, but you’ll get it. Just make sure to collapse the handlebar/sunshade with your child in it, then remove the baby and you can do the rest single-handedly.) If I were in even more cramped living conditions, I’d probably sell the Bugaboo and just get by with the Yoyo (there is even a bassinet attachment for newborns!) That said, I much prefer the bells and whistles of the Bugaboo for everyday use — walks through the park, errands, etc. It’s a smooth ride and has every amenity you can imagine to make your life as a mom easy, including with my tricked-out accessories: bag hooks, cup holders (I love that these clip onto the side — I always worry when I see hot beverages up by the pushbar; what if you go over a bump and some spills on your child?! — and can be easily removed and stowed beneath), a snack tray. But I digress there. I guess my point is that I have been impressed with the Yoyo and, given how frequently I use it, I feel it was a justified purchase and would recommend it — but only if you’ll use it quite a bit! Otherwise, people rave about this under-$100 Summer Infant model.
+I moderated a panel at Eataly earlier this week as a part of the launch of a new pizza concept in their Flatiron store, Alla Pala Pizza, and was fortunate to interview my friend Erin (head baker at Eataly!) and Alessia Antinori of Antinori Wines in Tuscany (!!!) Alessia runs the over-600-year-old vineyard with her two sisters, which is just about the most badass and amazing thing I’ve ever heard. Also, the wines were outrageously delicious — keep your eyes peeled for them next time you’re in a wine store! I got a lot of compliments on the floral dress I was wearing, which I paired with my pearl mules (I own them in a colorway from last season, and they are on sale in a taupe color here!) and floral studs (the spitting image of these, on sale!).
+Have I told you how much I use this card case? Pretty much daily. I love not having to carry around my whole wallet. After having a baby, any excuse to travel light…
+These (pssst, they are super flattering!) have been in heavy rotation given our unseasonably cool June weather. I like to layer blouses with blouson/dramatic sleeves underneath — like this!
Most nights, Mr. Magpie takes Tilly for her evening walk while I handle minimagpie’s bedtime routine — unless I’m out for the evening, in which case we swap, and in which case I take Tilly out in Central Park whenever I get home. You might think that walking a dog in the dark through a largely abandoned public park would be an unpleasant, borderline nerve-wracking experience, and while I’ve encountered my fair share of odd sightings — some real and some phantom — by and large, the late night walk is peaceful and uneventful. The park is drained of tourists. Sure, you’ll stumble upon the occasional lovebirds or clusters of Europeans smoking cloves, but what’s primarily left is a retiring bunch of local dog-owners, many of whom tend to themselves, the majority of whom live in my building or the one just next to mine, and a handful of whom strike up the usual dog-parent banalities (“what breed?” “how old?” “what a beauty!” “lots of energy”) with the tempered interest that more commonly accompanies comments on the weather.
Mainly, though, the walk is cinematic, and I’m always hyper-aware of the fact that I will one day look back on the way Manhattan looks at night, from the north-side of the Heckscher Ballfields, with a kind of wistful nostalgia. Something about the intervals of street lamps and shadows casts a film noir glow over Central Park, though the mood is far from the pessimism and menace those movies typically conjure. Instead, the skyscrapers along Columbus Circle and Central Park West stretch from the park treetops in a way that telegraphs avuncular calm rather than looming intimidation, their presence correct, decorous, demure in some way, their faces a purple-gray dotted irregularly with squares of gleaming yellow — the windows of fellow New Yorkers brushing their teeth, or searing their steaks in their small galley kitchens, or huddling by a laptop to send off a final email.
New York feels personal and startlingly knowable on these nights, so different from the days, during which I tend to feel anonymous, and during which corners of Broadway and Columbus and Amsterdam can feel shockingly different than they did just an hour or two prior, owing to the alchemy of lighting, of the presence or absence of street vendors, of the unanticipated erection or removal of scaffolding, of the flow of crowds.
I first recognized I could belong to New York during a late-night walk with Tilly at my side, first saw myself as a New Yorker strolling through the intermittent shadows lining one of its pleasantly broad and well-kept pathways at 10:33 or 11:01 or 9:27 p.m. — in short, I first fell in love with New York at night.
I am grateful for many things in my life right now, and I thought I might share some of the smaller moments for which I am grateful here from time to time. Today, I am grateful for New York by night.
+This would be such an elegant way to serve appetizers. I was about to write “to serve canapes,” but when have I ever made a canape? I don’t even know what a canape is — I just know that, according to my limited perception, everyone ate them in the late 90s and early 00s. On second thought, they tray would be perfect for heaps of oven fries or maybe a mound of grilled asparagus.
+I don’t know why I thought this was so funny, and, improbably enough, pondered buying it for my mom, who is the least likely of any human walking this planet to end up in hell, but I thought of her because she has a needlepoint pillow that reads: “If you can’t say something nice…come sit next to me.” It’s a ridiculous slogan for her to have in her house because she might be the least petty-minded, gossip-inclined woman I know, but it makes her laugh and it makes me laugh, too. Maybe I’ll buy it for my bestie instead, because we used to have a joke about going to hell in a handbasket together. (She also recently used this phrase, which I promptly filched: “are you reading the book, or did you drop it like a bad habit?”)
+PSA for all parents: this was a sleeper hit of a toy, and more than worth the five dollars spent on it. At first, I wasn’t sure mini “got” it, but she certainly does now, and sometimes I’ll just take one page with a few stickers on it and it keeps her preoccupied for ten or fifteen minutes at a restaurant. A good idea for travel, too. Highly recommend.
+I’m head over heels for this dress in the lavender color and this one in the white.
+These little mats are a clever idea for cordoning off a little play area for a not-yet-mobile babe. I used a quilt for mini, but I like that these hold their shape!
Have you listened to Kanye’s newest album, Ye? One of the songs, “Violent Crimes,” is a ballad of sorts to his daughter, lamenting the inevitability of her growing up, coming of age, and consorting with men. The song startled me because it reflects a level of introspection and vulnerability I don’t typically associate with rap music, especially when Kanye says:
“Father forgive me, I’m scared of the karma
‘Cause now I see women as somethin’ to nurture
Not somethin’ to conquer”
I also related — deeply — to his parental protectiveness, his anxiety over the future of his daughter, and was touched in particular at the specificity of his concerns:
“Don’t do no yoga, don’t do pilates
Just play piano and stick to karate
I pray your body’s shaped more like mine and not like your mommy’s…
I pray that you don’t get it all at once
Curves under your dress, I know it’s pervs all on the ‘net
All in the comments, you wanna vomit
That’s your baby, you love her to death”
There is something about the details in these lyrics that rings true to me, reads as authentic and original, and I can’t stop listening to it or thinking about it. After, I look over at minimagpie with an aching heart and pull her into me, aware that the minutaie and quirks of her fifteen-month-old self might disappear as quickly as this afternoon. When did she stop gumming on toys and preferring to actually play with them? When did she start understanding how those reusable sticker books work? When did she stop sleeping with her butt in the air? Where did she learn that fake laugh she tries on us now and again, waiting a tic afterward to see whether she’s elicited laughter from us?
Something in Kanye’s song has mediated my experience of motherhood, reminded me to truly stop, put down the phone or the broom or the laundry basket or the armful of toys or the Kindle, nestle myself on the floor, and drink this little soul up in all of its fifteen-month glory. Because as much as I need my mother to occasionally remind me that it’s OK — it’s necessary, survivalist even — to deposit mini in her crib for quiet playtime once or twice each day, I also cotton to the reminder that it’s also OK — necessary, survivalist even — to set aside the chores or the selfish pull of a bit of time to myself to get down on my hands and knees alongside her, lest she grows up in a hurry.
Post-Script.
+The darling two-piece set shown in the snap above is by Spanish line No Sin Valentina. Why are all the cutest baby clothes from Europe?
+Speaking of, La Coqueta Kids is currently running a summer sale, which *almost* makes up for the exorbitant price of shipping their pieces from abroad. I have my heart set on this.
+I keep all of mini’s outgrown clothes — the ones we want to keep, at least; the rest we donate — in these soft-sided storage bins.
+I have been stopped by three mothers inquiring about mini’s snack tray, which attaches to the Bugaboo stroller. It’s genius because mini otherwise hurls her empty snack catcher onto the dirty Manhattan sidewalk.
+Mini went to heaven when we surprised her with this stroller. She’s now completely abandoned the walker and will spend hours of each day pushing her dollbabies around, adjusting the sunshade, etc. It was actually a helpful tool in encouraging her to walk more steadily on her own, because she quickly learned she could not lean on it with the same pressure she’d used on her V-tech walker. This frustrated her and led to more than a few tumbles, but she got the hang of it within a day and has been toddling around happily ever since.
+Just ordered these darling and affordable rugby striped jammies for mini. She is in the 90th percentile of height — yes, the ninetieth!!! and I was always in the fifth! — and is currently wearing a 2T.
+I think I might order her this Camelbak waterbottle for when her nanny takes her out into the Park for the day.
+In case you’re wondering, these are a clutch lifesaver for a car trip. They thoroughly engaged her for a nice stretch of quiet time.
P.P.S. I totally lost track of my monthly updates — the last one is here! I’m long overdue…should I restart these? They kind of feel like a vapid brain dump of miscellany, but…
I’ve had a hankering to re-watch Sex and the City recently — I feel like I’ll understand more of the emotional travails of the principle characters now that I, too, am in my 30s, and I, too, live in New York City. But I’m also curious about the fashion, whether it holds up or not. I’m fairly confident I’d still wear most of Charlotte York’s wardrobe (minus those itty-bitty handbags, which aren’t much in vogue anymore and remind me of clunky mules I wore in the early 2000s), but how about Carrie B.?
One fashion detail heavily featured in Carrie’s wardrobe was the spaghetti strap, and I’m confident that this sartorial decision was in part owing to SJP’s frail stature (everything so slight and tiny, even the straps!) and in part owing to its innate, negligee-like sexiness. I mean — how saucy is the bronzed babe above in her barely-there cami? (I also love her small Miraculous Mary medal — you can buy a similar style here or here.) I’m in. My top picks for getting the look:
P.S. Entirely unrelated, but I spent an ungodly amount of time in pursuit of a laundry hamper a year or two ago, and I wish I’d waited until this came out. Love everything about it. Color, handle, shape. Perfect!
P.P.S. I think I’m going to last-minute-order this flag sweater for the FOJ. So adorable! Also, there’s a coordinating mini style — on sale here! (If the flag is too much for you, how about this adorable summer sweater?!) Speaking of last minute FOJ ordering, though I have mini’s outfit squared away, how adorable are these for her jammies?! I think I’m going to order her both the striped pair and the star pair!
P.P.P.S. A Magpie wrote asking me what to wear in the rain! My answer: For shoes:
+Hunter short rainboots (for some reason this shorter length feels more chic right now, and I love them in the blue)
The only other pair of shoes I wear in the rain, really, are my Supergas. They have a thick rubber sole so if it’s just drizzling, they do the trick, but if it’s pouring down or there’s pooling water, I wouldn’t recommend them.
Then you’ll need a raincoat. If you want to dress up, a trench will do the trick. If you’ll be wearing more casual clothes, a classic Petit Bateau would be perfect. And if you’ll be doing anything outdoorsy, I can’t obsess enough over my Marmot Precip!
Finally, you MUST OWN A DAVEK UMBRELLA. THE BEST THE BEST THE BEST: highly well-made and super compact.
By: Jen Shoop
When I was around six, I decided I wanted to be a nun — no, a teacher — no, an actress. And then, for many years, I daydreamed intensively about becoming a star of the silver screen, until I reached eighth grade and came to two conclusions: first, that I did not enjoy performing at all, and second, that I was far better at academics. I had earned exactly two roles across my elementary and middle school career, but I’d gleaned from both experiences that acting was uncomfortable for me and did not play to my strengths. The first was Witch No. 3 in Shakespeare’s “MacBeth,” which my fifth grade class performed at the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill as a part of an annual program in which local elementary schools perform(ed?) renditions of The Bard’s plays. I had desperately wanted to be cast as Lady MacBeth, but a precocious, mature-looking classmate of mine with a thick mane of blond hair and an outsized, melodramatic personality clambered all over the role once the play had been selected, and I was too shy to throw my hat into the ring. Even at the age of ten, I knew that she could pull off the hystrionics of “out, out damned spot” far better than this shrinking violet ever could. Instead, I was randomly cast as one of the three witches, with the starring line: “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” I rehearsed the line four thousand and twenty nine times, varying the way I said “wicked” each time — sometimes in a shriek and sometimes in a snarl. Of course, no one remembers my performance because showtime nerves led me to rush through the phrase in a monotone recitative, and I don’t know that anyone could even hear what the hell I was mumbling. I did, however, gain some smallscale notoriety among my classmates because I had managed to memorize not only my lines, but the lines of every single character in the play. I knew — even then — that my skill in rote memorization was probably better served in the academic sphere than it was in rushing through lines and scurrying, my heart in my throat, to exit stage left.
But still, I persisted in my dream. I wrote stories about a fictional me, a big time actress me, being interviewed by Entertainment Weekly. I daydreamed about attending awards shows. Implausibly, I imagined myself dating Val Kilmer (?). I swooned over the pageantry of it all.
And then my career as an actress — and any ambitions for celebrity — officially came to a close in an actual pageant in eighth grade. Every year, the school put on an old-school Catholic Christmas pageant, and the eighth graders were responsible for acting out the key roles of Mary, Joseph, Cesar Augustus, the innkeeper, the three kings. In the spirit of democracy, the class voted on who should be play each role, and I won — much to my surprise and private delight — the role of Mary. The casting was especially meaningful to an eighth grade me because the class hunk, Enrique, was voted to play the role of Joseph. Enrique was a handsome, good-natured boy who looked an awful lot like Benny “the Jet” Rodriguez from The Sandlot, had accordingly been a crush of mine since fourth grade, and had recently started dating the hottest girl in our class, Aline (pronounced ah-leen-ay), who had moved to the U.S. from Brazil a year prior, wore enormous silver hoops and flared bell-bottoms that hugged her perfect curves in all the right ways, had been rumored to smoke cigarettes now and then (the eighth grade me was shocked and impressed), and was overall one of the biggest babes I’ve ever met in my life. I was flattered that my classmates had voted me in, but I was mainly keen on playing a starring role — even in a religious performance — across from the most eligible bachelor in my parochial Catholic school. But the principle thing I remember from the pageant? A deep flush — not from my counterpart, but from the feeling of being watched. I was painfully self-aware, suddenly wondering whether I usually kept my lips open or closed over my teeth, whether I was blinking more often than usual, whether anyone had noticed the peaceful, faraway look I thought I’d arranged on my face. I couldn’t wait to shed my blue cassock, retreat into my bedroom, and lay on my stomach on the blue carpet of my childhood bedroom, listening to the Brandy and Monica single “The Boy Is Mine” (I guess I was a repeater then?!) on my Sony Discman.
On the car ride home, I asked my father what he’d thought: “How was I?”
He was switching lanes, and I remember the tick-tick-tick-tick of the blinker as he said: “Well, I don’t know that your future is on the stage.”
I knew he was right — to the degree that I wasn’t even burned by his blunt response in a predictably angsty -teenager way. I willingly took his feedback on board. That chapter had closed, and I funneled my energy into a pastime better-suited to my abilities: academics.
It’s funny, though, how things turn out. Tonight, I will be speaking at a public event, and, in preparing for it, I realized that throughout my career I have consistently found myself on stages of various forms: as a teaching assistant in graduate school, at academic conferences presenting my papers (one such took place in Rome, Italy, and my parents extravagantly flew out to hear me read my paper — I was a nervous wreck the evening before, barely sleeping an hour or two), then at dozens of non-profit convenings as the executive of two different start-ups in the education technology sector, then at design-centric gatherings presenting some of the learnings from some products I worked on with the design firm IDEO (a whole other story, and one worth telling — perhaps one of the best experiences of my professional career), then pitching the business I built with my husband at a range of pitch events, and, now, occasionally, as TheFashionMagpie. How can that be, I wonder?
Sometimes I marvel over the symmetry of this particular thread in my narrative, my early aspirations and failures somehow a foreshadowing of what was to come. You aren’t meant to act, my dear, but you will need to learn to be comfortable on a stage. How tidy — how kind, really — that life permitted me the space for these false starts, acknowledging in some way that I’ve never been one who thrives on a “jump in feet first” mentality. The stage had its pull then, as a middle schooler, and it has its purpose now, as an entrepreneur. I wouldn’t say I’m at home on a dais, but I’ve overcome stage fright by force of will and repeated exposure, and — against all odds — I will admit that I indulgently enjoy being in the limelight now. I had to first see myself as a somebody, and then acclimate myself with the discomforts and thrills of being a perennial fish out of water, but now, when I stand at the front of a room and tap my glass for attention, it makes me feel as though I have something to say, and that something is worth listening to.
+In need of a last-minute Fourth of July dress that’s not too overly patriotic-looking (and not into any of these)? How adorable is this (under $50)?! OR THIS (LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE X 10000).
+Do you ever read “lowbrow” books and feel guilty? Don’t.
+I’ve gotten a bunch of emails asking about the bookshelves you can see behind me in some of my Instastories at home — they are these, and I am obsessed with them.
+This would be a good solution for a small space with a window and nothing to put beneath it — turn it into a little reading nook, with storage below!
+For some reason, Amazon keeps saying this is a book I might like…
By: Jen Shoop
I’d crossed paths with the designer label Goat a couple of times over the past years, but it wasn’t until Megan Markle showed up at a recent event in an elegant Goat dress (shown above and below) that I did a triple/quadruple take and took a more earnest interest in their wares.
I am in love. If I were a working woman with a boundless budget, I’d wear Goat nearly every day of the week — their dresses are demure, ladylike, and sophisticated, but they somehow eschew the stodginess you might expect. But since I’m me — a stay-at-home writer and chaser-of-a-one-year-old, I think I’ll need to save up for just one of them for a special occasion, and I’m torn between the following:
Second PSA: You can get the Goat look for less with this or this. And speaking of getting the look for less, you know that Lisa Marie Fernandez tiered dress I’ve been making eyes at for a few weeks? This nails the look for under a third of the price.
Also, I know y’all have been sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear about how we got the pet smell out of our carpet, and this is the only thing that worked (and we’d tried a bunch of remedies, including borrowing a steam cleaner from a friend!)! It smelled super strong and chemical-ly after application, but it’s completely removed the pee smell. Win!
And another also — I love this little striped shirtdress!!! The color! The width of the stripes! Best of all — the price!
I turn 34 on June 26th, and have been casually on the lookout for a dress to wear to my birthday dinner. I don’t need a new dress because I have plenty, and my fallback is a white tiered Self-Portrait that I have only worn once before but that is SO DARN PRETTY (similar in ethos to this) I have been looking for any excuse to pull it out of its garment bag. But still…it’s MA BIRFDAY. I love this (shown above), this, this, and this.
You’re Sooooo Popular: The Sale Summer Blouse.
The most popular items on Le Blog this week:
+Two darling statement blouses for summer — this one and this one — both on serious sale!
My siblings and siblings-in-law and I got into a funny debate at our family reunion when it emerged that one of my sisters will occasionally like a song so much that she will replay it five or ten or even fifteen times in a row. This gave way to a protracted, passionate conversation about whether it was weird or not to be a “repeater” in the way only siblings or very close friends can dive into petty topics with fervor and hyperbole without royally offending anyone (to my knowledge…) — and we discovered that there was a fairly even split among us. About half repeated songs regularly and the other half determinedly didnot. What was interesting about the conversation was that the non-repeaters were overbearing in their conviction that repeating songs was “weird” and “not how music was meant to be listened to,” and the repeaters were all sheepish about their habits: “I feel guilty, but I can’t help it!”
For the record, I’m an alternative, third kind of music-listener: the very occasional repeater. (This seems consistent with much in my life: I’m a little of this, a little of that, but wear only a handful of labels comfortably: wife, Catholic, and — more recently, after extensive soul-searching — mother and writer.) Only rarely, when I’m really into a song, will I listen to it two times in a row or a handful of times over the course of an evening — but the thought of listening to the same song backtobacktoback feels claustrophobic to me.
What about you? Repeater? Non-repeater?
#Shopaholic: A One-Piece.
+I am DYING over this white one-piece. I very much do not need another swimsuit — I barely use the drawer-full of them I currently own! — but I think I might need it.
+This crib or this crib would make SUCH a huge statement in a chic nursery!
+In love with this acrylic x-bench — though I should say I’ve had really good luck finding amazing x-benches at Target, and this in the gray-and-cream cabana stripe has my full attention right now! I might put it under the window in our bedroom…
My high school French teacher, Madame B., was a jolly, heavy-set middle-aged woman with a quick laugh and a lovely sense of perspective — even in high school, I could tell that she was amused by the petty dramas and mishaps of her teen charges, but in a way that suggested that she appreciated our youth rather than condescended to it. I remember one of my classmates sighing loudly about the D she had just received one languid afternoon in our classroom on the fourth floor of the main hall on our campus; her seatmate prodded: “What are your parents going to say?!” and the girl’s shrugging response was, terrifyingly: “I’ll just tell them I’m pregnant. And then the D won’t matter.” (Can you imagine?! Teenage girls are the worst!) Madame B. gasped and then clucked her tongue — “Tsk tsk tsk, no no no — we will figure out a better way,” and then she looked out the window and murmured “Mon dieu. These girls” to no one in particular.
I think of Madame B. occasionally because she had us memorize the Renaissance poem “Allons voir si la rose” and recite it aloud, alone, in turn, in front of the entire class. I was horrified by this assignment, as I was painfully shy in my early high school years, and nothing could have been more torturous than standing and reciting a poem in awkward high school French in front of my cooler-than-I classmates, D-grade girl included. (Do you know what I mean by awkward high school French? That mode of speaking a foreign language where you don’t want to appear like you’re trying too hard, so you don’t really aim to nail the accent? So you half-assedly attempt the word voir and hang onto the “r” at the end a little too long instead of straining for the correct pronunciation, which sort of melts into nothing at the back of your throat — vwaaahrrrhhhhhhhhhh—? Again — ugh, teenage years are the worst.)
At any rate, I occasionally think of the words to Ronsard’s poem; they’ll float into my mind at random moments: “et sa robe de pourpre” will cut into my thoughts when I hear the word “purple” or “qui ce matin avait declose” will roll off my tongue when I for whatever reason think of the word matin (“morning” in French). And instantly I’ll skip back to Madame B. and the recitation and, specifically, the unceremonious way in which she’d tap the next classmate to jump up and deliver the poem — she’d say: “vite, vite, vite!” in rapid-fire succession. (Go, go go!)
This is how I feel the last two weeks have been: VITE VITE VITE! GO GO GO!
And I honestly like it. I like being busy. I like the urgency of having plans to run between (although I am never as graceful as the chiffon-and-silk-clad chic pea in the photo above while doing it! Ha!) But it means that this post is going live very late on a Friday morning. SO VITE VITE VITE — for today, a very quick and haphazard list of things on my radar…
+I have been a longtime devotee of Glossier’s Boy Brow, but I just picked up a stick of this and people go insane over it. If you’ve never used a brow gel/pencil, you must give them a try — I was reluctant but it completely finishes a look and I can’t leave the house without applying it!
+Speaking of dresses — I wore this dress to our inaugural Magpie book club earlier this week, even though the weather was determined to foil my plans: it was in the 60s and downright cool that night, so I wore a jean jacket and Chanel flats with it instead of bare shoulders and sandals. I got a couple of questions about the dress via Instastory, and the short answers to all of those are: it is so beautiful and well-made in person and it runs a little large.
+Speaking of book club — ZOMG! The Magpie book club was absolutely the highlight of my summer thus far; I loved meeting so many Magpies I’ve only known through comments / email / direct message, and the observations and insights this ring of smart ladies brought to the table were nothing short of brilliant. We talked about the book (Anjali Sachdeva’s All the Names They Used for God) thoroughly, intensively, for a good hour AND THEN — the author dialed in! I had emailed her to applaud her on her incredible short story collection and she responded with a generous offer to answer questions live at our book club. One comment she made that has stuck with me: I asked her about the fabular nature of many of her short stories, about how the supernatural forces across many of her short stories — the mermaids, the mindreaders — require that you suspend belief or flip into some sort of allegorical mode. Her response was that sometimes the world is too hard to look at head-on — it’s too horrible, too distressing — and that fables give us the space to more comfortably broach these topics, understand them, emote around them. She also explained that she prefers short fiction to longer form because she’s able to achieve more layered, intense writing in them. A lot of food for thought. (And please read along with us for next month’s book pick, which I announced here, and which is getting a lot of buzz. I also have a couple of spots open for next month’s book club — date TBD — and will announce details soon if you’re interested in joining in person.)
+A couple of the books that my fellow book clubbers recommended, and these have since shot to the top of my reading list: Exit West, The Empathy Exams, and The Power.
+I’ve been on the hunt for a pair of tortoise shell glasses, and I love these — and they’re $50 off today!
+Am I showing too much of my inner dork by admitting I am contemplating buying this? Needlepointing seems so therapeutic and far more attainable than learning how to knit, which requires more skill and more tools.
+I just reread this post on moving fast and slow through motherhood…and it still rings true, five months later.
+I have not forgotten about the Women of Substance series! I will be bringing a new lady into the limelight soon, but in the meantime — a) email me if you have a nominee, and b) I love her.
