This Dress Makes Me Feel Like I’m in a Cult (Complimentary)
June repeats!
My boyfriend and I are reading Eve Babitz in bed. Him, Slow Days, Fast Company, me, a collection of her letters chock-full of charm and audacity — like that time she wrote Joseph Heller to say ‘Gee whiz I drafted this amazing novel but I’m so sexy and have such big tits no one will publish it!’
We rarely have the same taste in books, but he loves Eve, and when he giggles next to me I demand he read me the line so I can giggle too.
June, like L.A., has slow days. Some months are short, some months are long. June is long but still never long enough. I’d take a whole year of Junes if I could. Crisp mornings, sun-baked evenings, balmy storms that slide a technicolor filter over the world. June is wet sand between your toes. June is lime green Comic Sans. June is having your cake and eating it too.
On repeat this slow month: foot jelly, cultish cotton dresses, a photo from May 2000 that sent me on a weeks-long t-shirt hunt, and more.
juicier jellier cultier things on the horizon
The jellies were out in full force this month. This is my second full spring and summer with these bad boys and they’re in great shape. I went to grab a link (they’re usually cheapest at the Boston General Store website), but to my dismay they are sold out everywhere! For one lucky 36, I found this pair on Depop selling for $18.
I had a bikini emergency this month when I noticed a spot on my Riot Swim suit had given out thanks to years of sun and chlorine (and likely my improper care tbh). This is my favorite bikini I own, so I immediately had to hunt down a secondhand replacement. Within five minutes of my search, I’d bought one NWOT for only $17. Crisis averted!
This Jax top is by far the most comfortable underwire situation I’ve ever put on my body (bras included), and the bottoms hug in a really gentle way unlike most others whose seams have a vendetta against comfort. This one’s NWT for only $19.
I fell into a dress cult this month, rather serendipitously. The Loeffler Randall team kindly sent over this flouncy cotton maxi dress and I couldn’t believe the kismet when I spotted its name: the Eira dress!
I have a human Eira too, an excitable Swedish darling who hosts a Midsummer bash every June with a strict white dress code. She’s the friend who screams with joy at even the tiniest of thrills, and her maniacal laughter is infectious. And scream she did when I showed up in my Eira dress perfectly tailored to the theme and ready to twirl around the Maypole.
It’s a crisp lightweight cotton and feels like slipping into fresh bedsheets. I love that it’s just slightly see-through, giving the option to arrive fully chaste in nude garments underneath or choose the saucier route of wearing funky lingerie or a bright swimsuit.
And because June really is the month of the cultish white dress, I also wore this old Abercrombie number a few times. I think I paid ~$29(?) on sale a few years ago and I love that it’s no-bra-necessary. It was my Midsummer dress before the Eira came into my life!
As a kid I was averse to salad dressing, opting instead to shove handfuls of dry spinach in my mouth and save a pile of croutons on the side for my last bites. On my birthday I’d request to go to a salad bar for dinner and load half the plate with croutons because no one could stop me. For a solid four years of adolescence I would’ve told you croutons were my favorite food.
As a bank account-having and knife-wielding adult, I love them almost as much but just can’t stand to purchase them — $4.69 for a half-full bag of something that’s already stale when I open it? You cannot fool me into spending money on that. This is the point in the year when I start craving much colder meals, so in June I made a lot of salads and a certifiable fuck ton of croutons to go with.
It’s nothing revolutionary: I cut up a slice or two of grocery store sourdough into cubes, toss it in olive oil + garlic powder + salt + sometimes nutritional yeast, and throw it in the oven at 425 for like 7-15 min. The three minutes of effort for the most delicious cubic inch of crunch is so beyond worth it.
My granny tosses hers in a blend of Italian spices — also delicious, obviously — and you can really use whatever you want. I need to experiment more myself, now I’m seeing visions of sesame oil and chili and ginger…
For The Strategist, I went on a hunt for the perfect black V-neck tee — not at all subtly inspired by this photo of Christy Turlington doing yoga in May of 2000:
It was the V that launched a thousand try-ons. You can read the rest here (spoiler alert, the winners were from Leset and Kotn).
In that hunt, I also came upon this non-traditional V, a wrap tank by Kotn, and have been wearing it constantly during this hot hot hot weather. It’s my current go-to for when I’m outfit panicking and have to leave the house in 10 minutes. Very humidity friendly, and just look at that asymmetrical smidge of torso!
On a recent coffee date with Eleanor of Rabbit Fur Coat, it came up that she had published a novel a few years ago. How did I not know about this sooner! So I bought the first copy I could find and took it down in two sittings, only stopping in the middle because I had to sleep.
The Blurry Years made me cry, it made me laugh, it made me both sad and grateful that I’ll never be a child again. It’s a sticky Florida summer translated onto paper and I felt the weight of every word pressing into my chest. Read near a big body of water if you can.
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte shocked and delighted me. I’d heard it often described as “the first true incel novel” and wasn’t so sure how I’d enjoy that lol, but I finally picked it up after several readers suggested it in the Yeehawt chat. I was blown away to say the least. It’s a short story collection in which every chapter weaves together to create one big disturbing quilt of loneliness and shame. A freaky deaky little book written for those of us who spent their formative years scrolling through dumpster fires on Twitter. Six stars!
Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding was a random pick-up, and I knew nothing going in, somehow. I’ve never seen the movie, and I only had a vague understanding that Bridget and her diary formed the essential archetype of the frazzled English woman in ‘90s and 2000s popular culture. The book was so much fun though — albeit with quite a few bits that are very outdated (like insane talk about calories and weighing oneself every day, zoinks), but it was a perfect palate cleanser between two denser nonfiction books. Time to watch the movie now: only 25 years late is pretty good for me!
Last month I wanted to “be in the woods,” “take a couple day trips upstate,” and “remove my brain and eyeballs so I can wash them in a cold stream.” I didn’t do any of those things. Here’s to July, I guess!
This month I hope to submerge myself in a lake, turn my phone off for a whole weekend, and reach a state so zen that I’m no longer bothered by 90% humidity. Miracles can happen.
I’d love to hear about your recent repeats and your hopes for the month. Happy July!
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several things: those soft serves are *perilously* tall and appealing, love the dress, thank you for the book mention !!, and for after you've watched Bridget Jones (I envy you getting to see it for the first time), a companion piece... https://rabbitfurcoat.substack.com/p/resisting-the-lure-of-the-office