Things I Love Right Now.

Busy holiday season, holymoly.  Between an epic three weeks of work travel and the holidays, I was in Chicago for a total of, like, 3 days in December.  DCA–>LGA–>ORD–>SFO–>DCA–>ORD–>RSW–>DCA–>ORD.  Somewhere in there, I managed to seriously enjoy the holidays; get a leeeeetle bit of color while down in Naples, FL (I’m talking I went from being ghost white to sheet white); read three books in five days; and just miss earning gold status on United by about 3000 miles.  This is my life now: fretting about whether or not I will make the next status tier on my preferred airlines.  How sad is that?

Let’s shake that off.

Which brings me to the purpose of this post: things I love right now.

And number one is Taylor Swift’s entire 1989 album (or click here if you are, like, in the 21st century and use digital media).  Feel free to judge me, but this album is phenomenal.  My youngest sister told me about it probably two years ago (or whenever it first came out), but, pulling a signature Jen move that consistently annoys my loved ones, I waited until a stranger recommended it and then came back to my sister saying: “OMG.  Have you heard T. Swizzle’s new album?”  (Cue rage.)

This is my new airplane album.  Because I travel a lot and have an annoying habit of going all-in on new obsessions (i.e., eating the same thing for lunch for like two weeks and then getting tired of it; ordering the same cocktail for a month straight and then hating it; wearing a pair of shoes into the ground and then deciding I’m over them after a few months), I tend to pick one album that I will listen to during take off and landing.  For a long time, it was “The Evolution of Robin Thicke,” which is, frankly, a phenomenal album, end-to-end.  “Would That Make U Love Me” and “Can You Believe” are gems, but mainly they now remind me of the fact that I have spent a lot of time on airplanes over the last few years.  At any rate, 1989 is now my best friend in transit.  I suggest listening to it end to end and occasionally hiding the title from nosy businessmen who will judge you.

I stayed at the beautiful Fairmont San Francisco during my last trip to the Bay Area.  The hotel lost power in what the city was calling “the biggest storm of the decade” (duhn duhn DUHHHHHN), aka a little bit of rain, but that’s another story.  My biggest takeaway (physical and otherwise) was Le Labo soap, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion.  The hotel uses this brand for its toiletries in the Rose 31 scent, and OMG.  I was ridiculously obsessed with the rose scent and the quality and instantly purchased the shampoo and conditioner for home ($50 each, eeeesh!)

Once I use up my staple body lotion (Fresh’s Hesperides scent, $22), I’m eyeing the body lotion ($65) which is a dream — the perfect thickness, and the most elegant scenting.  I am furious at myself for not stealing more lotions while I was staying there; I didn’t realize how expensive it would be!  I have one little one that I am pretty much parceling out with care.

Mr. Magpie spoiled me with some awesome Christmas gifts this year, including a Canada Goose Kensington parka ($745 — additional colors/sizes here) to help me weather the Chiberia winter that is about to hit.  (Winter doesn’t really get into full swing until around January or February here, and then it lingers until May.)

I love that he picked out a cherry red color.  He has good color intuition.

Related to #3, I have somehow lost every pair of mittens and gloves I own.  Convenient, as winter is fast upon us.  I think I lost my last gloves in a cab in NYC.  I bought a cheapie pair from Old Navy ($8) to tide me over for a few days until I found a legit pair that would suffice for the winter.

Kinda cute, right?  These are the perfect kind of thing to stockpile in your house for going on runs, playing around in the snow, etc. — things that might ruin gloves.  Too bad that the smallest size they have would actually fit a quarterback’s enormous hands.  Seriously, they are so embarrassingly big — the tip of my finger barely makes it past the knuckle mark on these, so it looks like I’m a three year old wearing my mom’s gloves.  At any rate, one of the girls in my book club was raving about these fleece-lined mittens from North Face ($40), so I’m all in.  I like that they don’t look super North Face-y, which is a brand that is kind of losing steam.  No offense to college kids at preppy schools across the US.  (Or is that no longer fashionable?  Is it Mountain Hardware now?)  The only brand in this category that has staying power is Patagonia.  If I see someone wearing Patagonia, I actually believe that they may enjoy a casual hike now and then, and/or take a few camping trips a year.

My book club picked Amy Poehler’s “Yes Please” as our next read, and I tore through this in a few hours and then immediately went on to Mindy Kaling’s “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns),” the latter of which had me laughing out loud like a crazy person on the flight from Naples to DC.  These are fluffy, yes, but they are important for two reasons: first, they made me realize the amount of craft and talent that go into comedy (even bad comedy!), and I have a newfound respect for this art; second, both of them are keen observers of human behaviors, motivations, and quirks and have a remarkable ability to distill these observations into a casual turn of phrase.  That is serious talent, and it motivated me to get a little sharper in my own writing.  I then read Lena Dunham’s “Not That Kind of Girl” which was just as awkward, self-involved, and chaotic as I had anticipated.  There’s some meat to it — a few of her essays (especially one about going to camp) were well-turned and thought-provoking — but much of it is about Lena going to great lengths to show how confused she is, how misled she’s been, how disorganized and artless her life has been, while obscuring the tremendous amount of effort and energy that necessarily go into the creation of a work of art.  And, in the words of Barbara Ann Corcoran from Shark Tank, “for that reason, I’m out.”  I feel like the entire work is trying so hard to be “brutally honest,” “straightforward,” “no artifice here,” and yet she’s clearly putting something over us.  There’s a lot of posturing here for a book that so many have revered as “an alternative, truthful look at a young woman’s life in her 20s.”

How awesome are these card prints ($50+ depending on size) from new artshop Buddy Editions?!

The prints above remind me of this amazing shower curtain (on sale for $48) I just snagged at Jonathan Adler for the man cave (aka our basement), which has a full bath.  I’d been looking for something masculine but sort of funky, and this fit the bill.

I’ll offset with some sharp black-and-white framed prints, like the ones below (top, $189; middle, $249; bottom, $199):

While in Jonathan Adler picking out the above shower curtain, I also found and fell in love with this adorable tote (on sale for $98!!!)  I mean, look at that tassel!  Look at that print!  Had to have it in the red-and-navy, but debated the more practical black-and-gray, too.

So, there you have it.  Some of the items I’m loving and living for these days.  Happy happy happy holidays to you all!