Here is my heart

maybe it will fit in your chest.

Welcome to The Simple Things, a newsletter inspired by one of my favorite Oscar Wilde quotes. This is a reminder to appreciate simple pleasures, like watching your sink drain properly after cleaning out the p-trap, touching your toes during a nice deep stretch, and discovering a piece of furniture on sale for over 80% off.

Today’s titular quote is from debut novelist and poet Kaveh Akbar, whose new book Martyr! has been toasted and raved about by nearly everyone I follow in the publishing world. This darling, earnest little line is from his appearance on The Stacks podcast. He used it to describe how he perceived putting his book out in the world, but it can honestly be used to describe any moment we shed our ego and allow ourselves to be radically vulnerable with others.

I tend to ramble, so you might have to expand this email to avoid missing anything. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please let me know by hitting the heart button or subscribing!

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Happy Valentines Day to all who celebrate and a happy Wednesday to those who don’t!

Every year, I wake up on VDay expecting feelings of melancholy or loneliness because I’m single and have been for most of my life. But they never arrive. That’s not to say I don’t feel them, because I do and often at the most random and inconvenient times 🫠Growing up without siblings and spending most of my days as a latchkey kid taught me early on to enjoy my own company. Now that I think about it, the relationship I have with myself is the longest and quite possibly the most fulfilling one I’ve ever had. If anything, my biggest struggle has been trying to reconcile social expectations about marriage and partnerships into how it fits into my life. I’m still working through whether or not the partnered future I saw for myself is what I really want or if it’s what I’ve accepted because other people have told me that’s what I should want. Redefining the rules for yourself is not easy and leads to a lot of consternation, but I am grateful for the support from my family (both born to and chosen) and the privileges that my socioeconomic status affords me.

Trying to get back into reading, but it’s been so hard with so much content on TV! I just finished Mr. and Mrs. Smith which I thought was incredibly well done. Because Martyr! was so highly praised and the holds list was so long, I went ahead and bought it. Will report back when I get to it. I just started Argylle, which had the publishing world breathless because no one seemed to know who the writer was. There were even rumors that Taylor Swift wrote it under a pen name! What we do know is that Matthew Vaughn (director of Kingsman and some other fun action films) purchased the film rights before the book was released and (checks notes) the movie featuring Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa, Sam Rockwell, and Bryce Dallas Howard is apparently in cinemas now?!

I did finish a book recently that I’m not sure if I enjoyed or not. At the outset, A Force of Such Beauty by Barbara Bourland is about a former record-setting Olympian runner who has a terrible accident that ends her career. She’s not the champion she was before, but she’s beautiful and she meets a Prince Albert type at the recovery center for the rich and famous. I initially had a hard time connecting to the main character because she seemed so clueless to the way the world operated, but I suppose she had to be because all she did was focus on running and nothing else. I didn’t love that the intrigue didn’t begin until about 70% into the book and the ending felt rushed, but I did appreciate the author’s attempt to hold a mirror to the way public female figures are treated in society and the lack of freedom and autonomy they have, no matter how privileged their lives may seem.

Is it possible to love a doggy waste bag holder? This one by Fable actually has me looking forward to picking up Scotty poop because it’s so well designed! There’s 2 silicone parts that attach to the leash (which I also got from Fable years ago) and prevents it from flopping around like traditional holders. Also I never have to dig around for the end of the roll because it’s always there and there’s a little notch that pokes through the perforation for easy dispensing.

Never lets you down.

Alert the authorities. I finally found a headboard for my master bedroom! The story behind it is the stuff of romcoms:

Let’s sleep together.

I wandered into the Crate and Barrel outlet near my house on a dreary, rainy day. Saffron-colored flyers screamed, BED FRAMES 70-80% OFF TICKETED PRICE paperd the walls inside. Oversized sectionals and lightly dented mirrors beckoned, but a felt a magnetic pull drawing me to the back corner near the EMPLOYEES ONLY sign. There he was — strong, handsome, and only a little rough around the edges. I’LL TAKE HIM HOME WITH ME, I exclaimed. To which the salesperson replied, “Ma’am, there’s no need to shout. Just tear off the tag and I’ll ring you up over here.” I tore the tag off with reckless abandon, brimming with that NRE (new relationship energy) while two guys loaded him in the back of my SUV.

Thoughts swirled as I drove us from the loading dock to my garage:

“I can’t wait to introduce you to my family. I can’t believe you once retailed for $1,300+ and I got you for less than $200. Here we are at my house, I hope you like Scotty. He' might be standoffish at first, but he’ll warm up to you I promise. Oh wow, you’re a pretty big guy. Oh my god, you’re really heavy too. No wonder they had two guys moving you. Um, how am I going to move you up two floors of my townhouse by myself. Oh shit, there’s no hardware.”

As it happens with most love affairs, reality rears its ugly head and the romance bubble pops and dissipates away. Many never recover from this, but a rare few survive against all odds: I managed to move it out of my car and into my house (I will admit, it would’ve been easier if I had another pair of hands because at one point the headboard slid down to the floor and took a small chunk out of my baseboard. If you ever notice it in my house, NO YOU DIDN’T). I channeled all the rage I had towards the patriarchy and carried it up 2 flights of stairs. I moved my bed away from the wall and installed the headboard in its rightful place. I cursed when I realized the headboard came with no hardware to anchor the mattress frame and clapped like a seal when I found universal headboard brackets on Amazon. According to tracking, they will be arriving today and I will be spending a very romantic evening installing them tonight.

I’m not an influencer, but if I was I’d definitely get this sweet rig which apparently is exactly the one that the head of social content at Scandinavian Vogue uses. [Small Rig]

Content is money is power.

King Arthur makes powdered sugar that is specifically engineered NOT to melt on your baked goods. Amazing.

Ethaney Lee

is one of my favorite writers on Substack. She writes with such blood and flesh that I can practically hear the heartbeat behind her words. I think she summed up dating perfectly:

dating is strange. you spend time with someone, convincing yourself that something different is good, that the things you found important before are different now and maybe, just maybe, because the standards you have long held didn’t lead to the ending you expected, you justify ditching them and all of this - this being everything- is easy to fool yourself into thinking it’s refreshing because it’s new.

I’m always down to try a high smoke point oil (grapeseed and avocado oils are my go-tos at the moment), but have never heard of algae cooking oil. Has anyone tried it and if so, how is it? [Algae Cooking Club via

Un/well

]

Benu uses white lychee wood charcoal in their kitchen and now they’re selling them in 22lb boxes. It burns so cleanly and imbues food with such fl— I’m just kidding, I have no fucking idea what makes it better than regular charcoal, but I’m sure the grill snob in your life will love it.

By Frank O’Hara via Chloe in Letters

There’s a credit score dating app now. Make it stop! [Financial Times]

Went to Ford Fry’s latest, Little Sparrow, and it was well worth the hype. The frites were one of the best I’ve ever had and I should know because my dating profile says “Will eat all her fries and yours, too”. Frites with raclette service to start, then we shared the dry aged burger (which also came with frites but with aioli), a refreshing citrus salad to cut through all the richness, cacio e pepe ricotta gnudi, and finished dinner with some coffees and the chocolate soufflé. Coffees were served in Villeroy & Boch Petite Fleur set, which I absolutely love (yes, I am that diner that looks at who made the dining and flatware. I am obsessed). Planning to go back on a solo date to preorder the soufflé while having the frites in every way possible.

V&B Petite Fleur. There’s a 4 set available on eBay if you’re interested.

Never dined alone before? Oh mon cheri, it is the most exquisite feeling. Yes, you might feel a bit self-conscious at the beginning, but that goes away very quickly. I cannot think of a better way to treat yourself and enjoy the dining scene in your neighborhood.

sara delgado

wrote a fantastic beginners guide to dining alone and I co-sign it wholeheartedly.

“The Ant and the Grasshopper: A Millennial Fable” by Simon Rich was both uncomfortably accurate and depressing to read. [The New Yorker]

Thoroughly enjoying this guide by

Good Hang

on setting your friends up. I love the energy!

I used to tease my maternal grandmother about sleeping in her rollers at night but I’m not laughing anymore. It is a genius process. Why spend time doing your hair while you’re conscious when it can be done while you’re unconscious? I use the Kitsch* Heatless Curler bundle right when I’m about to get into bed. I wake up looking like a madwoman because everything is askew, but once I take the scrunchies, clip, and soft curling rod out, I brush through my hair and I look human enough to take on the day. Now seriously considering sleeping with a bonnet to keep everything together. [*Full disclosure: Kitsch is a client of mine, but I purchase all their products on my own. I like to support great products when I can!]

Is there such a thing as too many cookbooks or sticky notes? If your answer is “The limit does not exist” then you are either correct or my enabler. Both things can be true. [Penguin Random House, JetPens]

Une table pour un s’il vous plaît,
G