Skirt | Shoes | Blouse | Sunglasses
Yesterday afternoon, I sat in my lawyer's office with a huge stack of papers in front of me. I signed, flipped. Signed again. Flipped again. I did this until I'd reached the bottom of the stack, then handed them over, and all of a sudden it hit me:
Wait. I asked her. Was that the thing that people in movies are always refusing to sign and crying about? And usually the person crying and not wanting to sign but signing anyway is played by Diane Keaton?
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, according to my children: Sugar Month. Yes yes, Halloween is technically one day, but that little detail appears to have escaped my two sugar monsters, who are under the impression that the second those first leaves fall, it’s all-chocolate, all-the-time. (I blame grocery stores; can we PLEASE put those ten-pound snack-size assortment bags on shelves beyond the reach of a four-year-old? …Please?)
Herein lies the problem: When children know that candy is (allegedly) on the menu, they’re not super interested in anything else, and especially not in coming inside because dinner is ready. No, they’re very, very busy hiding on the front porch with the trick-or-treat buckets that they pulled out of storage sometime in August and filled with pilfered munchies, thinking that Mom doesn’t know what they’re up to. (Spoiler: Mom knows everything.)
Relevant to yesterday's post, here is yet another example of why women (and moms, specifically) are set to just go ahead and run the world: Because we come up with genius inventions not just "because" (or just because our egos need a little stroking; ahem, Elon Musk, love you but dude, the "kid-sized" submarine?)...but because they are needed.
You've heard me whine and whine and whine here for yearrrrrs about my simultaneous love of throw rugs and total rug-related phobias and/or catastrophes. I love the way rugs look; I love the way rugs feel. I do not love that they specialize in attracting dogs that want to pee on them and babies that want to throw up on them, because any rug that lives in my house must be pristine, or the aforementioned phobias come out and I have to sidestep around its borders like a weirdo.
I've bought cowhide rugs. Tossed them. Fluffy rugs. Sacrificed them on the altar of Virgil. Gorgeous woven rugs. Moved them to a "cleaner" spot, then to another, and then gave them away. And now I've landed on a semipermanent solution, using outdoor rugs indoors...except a) that seems wasteful, given that I have to replace them once a season, and b) that still does not solve my sidestepping-around-the-borders-after-a-pee-speck-touches-them problem.
Zara Two-Piece Jumpsuit; Iro Boots; Cloverpost Earrings
If you've been reading here awhile, you are aware that it takes a LOT to get me dressed, and even more to get me dressed up. If pressed to the extreme by my job requirements or by Francesca, I will, but I won't like it. If, however, I am permitted to wear what amounts to a pair of sparkly pajamas and call it "dressing up," well, then...fine.
Where I wore this particular outfit:
A few days ago I asked you guys for reader questions over on IG and...ahhh...let's just say there was a theme. Some of the questions (where are you going to live? Where's K going to live? How are you all handling the separation?) I simply can't answer now, either because I don't know what the answers are, or because they're just too sensitive to touch.
Something that's been fascinating to me ever since this process started is the sheer volume of women who've written to me, saying that they're in various stages of the separation process, or saying that they feel like they need to separate from their partners, but don't know why, exactly, and definitely don't know how.
How did you know? they ask.
Me + baby-to-be + Upper East Side rooftop + tote bag, sixteen lifetimes ago.
I do not, myself, have much use for tote bags these days (save for the Louis Vuitton NeverFull, which I despise myself for wanting with the heat of a thousand suns, but so be it). I need all of my arms free and clear for child-wrangling, and totes have a tendency to fall off of shoulders at the exact moment that you wish they wouldn't, like when you're mid-airport and carrying your stuff, your children's stuff, your children, and a full grocery store's worth of Einstein Bagels (BUT NOT THE ONES WITH SESAME SEEDS. God forbid a sesame seed cross my daughter's lips; there will be hell to pay, and it will be Mom who pays it).
But in service to those of you out there who feel differently about this topic and are search of a good tote for fall, I thought I'd answer the below reader question, and do a little online shopping of the tote bag sort.
California sunrise via
I woke up this morning cold. Not just "annoyed that I had to get out of bed and abandon once and for all the chance that I might be able to sleep until the point where I actually feel rested" - that hasn't happened in a few months, and I don't see it in my near future. Like, freezing. Teeth-chattering.
(Yes yes, the former Boston/NYC-dweller in me is rolling her judgy little eyes. Whatever, my body is set to California now. I'm cold.)
Fact: When life gets tough, kittens help.
Weirdly enough, I haven't been crying much about moving - the actual fact of leaving this house and going to another one. Don't get me wrong: I've been crying about other things - oh god, so much, to the point where I wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning and have to mainline six glasses of water because my body is fresh out of fluid - but about the house itself, I've tried to be relatively all-business, all-the-time.
I mean, we're in escrow. I have solar panel lease transfers to sign. Boxes to pack. Schools to notify. Children to keep safeguarded from everything that's swirling around them. We have to be out of this house in three weeks.
Many things about me have changed over the years that I've been writing this blog. My interest in wearing high heels, for example. My waist size. My willingness to stay awake past the hour of 9PM.
One thing that has never, ever, ever changed - the tenet to which I have held steadfast, in vocal and furious opposition to any and all attempts to sway me:
Our house went into escrow last night. We have thirty days (give or take a few, depending on various logistical complexities) to vacate the house that started out as just the place where we lived, and that has since become our home.
I have thirty days to find a mover, pack up three human beings and three animals, coordinate a 350-mile move to an as-of-yet-unknown location, negotiate leases and school enrollments and doctor referrals and internet hookups, figure out how to handle the fact that I have a business trip scheduled to begin on the day that we are scheduled to move (woooops), and theoretically maintain...you know, like, normal life. Or an approximation of it.
So you know what the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was?
