"sense, haven't you asked for it"

Poem
Self-Portrait as an Angel - Akwaeke Emezi

i will most certainly have wings of roaring flame
eleven of them, seven unstable faces, your worst
shame as my eyes, your darkest desire as
my sword, bloody and oh so beautiful
and i will finally look
like the terrible thing
i have always been

haven't you always
wanted power beyond
sense, haven't you asked for it
in your most sinful nights, sworn to pay
whatever the cost? i am not here to answer
or lend grace, perhaps you do not understand
how this actually works. i think
you should be very afraid.

Beverage
Trader Joe's Something Spritzy
A Sparkling Beverage with Pineapple & Orange Juices from Concentrate, Ginger Juice & Aromatic Bitter Flavors

It says all of that right on the can. Like right on the front! Tells you exactly what you're getting. Otherwise unremarkable. I have nothing to add. I'd rather have a chinotto or something actually bitter.

Scent
I had to take a little break from scents this week??

I didn't wear any fragrance this week, either. I think the air feels too sticky??

Now playing via Spotify "daylist"

Carts online

I've been going to yoga ~5? times a week (I have like four friends, and I need things to do. This is an easy one.), and I am not very into leggings or anything compressive at the moment. So, I bought some cheapo pairs of cotton shorts, including from Hanes ("urban lilac" and black) and Cabela's (pink), and I recommend! They just don't feel as hot and clingy.

The longer length from Hanes is on sale for $8, by the way. These have almost a Le Bon Shoppe City Shorts vibe to them.

I also got a nuuly clothes rental box with a little coupon code, and I bought one of the skirts that came in my order. Turns out that some of the items are HEAVILY discounted, and when I went to go see how much the skirt would be to buy, it was $20. I wore it today to look at an apartment and take myself to lunch, and it was perfect. It's this skirt.

Below is a very low-quality and unsmiling photo that was taken as skirt documentation for a friend. The outfit looked better when I was wearing the denim shirt like a normal person. Just looking like a cloak here.

Let's also do a little rundown of what I am wearing here because some of it is previously featured in this newsletter! This part is more of an accountability journey for me because I definitely have had a retail therapy tendency at times in my life, and this little section provides a weekly gut-check about if I have done any irresponsible shopping in the previous week, even if I don't necessarily get into the details here. (See: trips to Muji last spring and a few weeks ago.) But almost everything has been documented over the last six months, and I like my little confessional moment.

• The denim shirt was previously featured here.
  • I saw a character in a Netflix show wearing a heavy-weight denim shirt in a single scene. (It was in The Gentlemen. I watched maybe two episodes. The shirt is worn by the sister of the protagonist in a scene around their father's deathbed in the first episode.) I became obsessed with having a structured, oversized denim shirt. There is evidence in my text messages. That meant I was super easy pickings for this purchase, and I do not regret it even though I had gone into Aritzia to buy work pants. I wear it all the time — shirt, jacket, swim coverup. Highly recommend.
• The Teva Voyas pictured were featured here, and I forgot to share that I later bought them.
• Hairclip is Machete — I got it as a gift at an event yesterday.
  • Folks, when I tell you I am a BRAND LOYALIST to Machete. I got my first Machete clip as a birthday gift from my sister-in-law, and truly, nothing else matches up. They have a double line of claws, they fit so much of my hair and don't budge, and they look good and never break. I wait for their sales to purchase, usually, and so I have some pretty out-there colorways for my clips and barrettes.
  • I also had a sweet little chain for my Airpods, which I dropped somewhere in Bushwick last spring with my Airpods still in the little holder. RIP. They don't make it anymore. I took a break from this newsletter just now to write and ask if they had any more of them even though they aren't listed on the site because wow, I loved that thing. The Airpod holders had little magnets so you could take them out, and they'd snap into a little necklace. Great for not losing Airpods unless you drop the entire chain. No one can help me there.
• Bag is from an Etsy store. Also a gift. This time from my sister and brother-in-law as a thank you for helping them with their baby/life this spring and summer.
• Shirt and sunglasses are Madewell. Neither are readily visible on the site, and I don't know the product name to find elsewhere.
• Iced tea is from some random place in Bed-Stuy where I stopped to charge my phone.
• Wired headphones are because of the lost Airpods, not because of ~aesthetics~, though I have been made aware that this is like... cool? Or like a Brat Summer _{(link for my dad)} vibe? But no, I come by the Brat aesthetic naturally — Brat Life?? I don't know, I just like to have a good time and can't even pretend to be anything but extremely myself at any time, for better or for worse. I have been in making-friends-small-talk mode a lot lately, and it works really well as a sift-and-winnow thing for people who have low tolerance for everything I bring to the table.
  • My mom did pass along an old pair of Airpods from when she thought she had lost hers and bought a replacement but then found the original, but they don't hold a charge very well so I mostly use them at home or if I am only going out a short time.

Also, I was in my storage unit about a month ago, and there are a lot of clothes in there. I think I will probably do another whole purge when I am reunited with my things. I miss some of it — my one million giant sweatshirts and most of my workout clothes — but I know there is another layer to shed. I have already purged a third or so of my clothes in the last year, but a lot of it just feels like baggage, which it is, I guess. But I think it will be like a refining-fire sort of vibe that will free me to buy what I actually want, instead of what fits into my existing closet, which I don't like that much!

I recently asked someone if they had set up their life in a way that contributes to the life they want to live, and now, I am thinking about how I can apply that concept to my clothes. Like, do the clothes contribute to the life I want to live? Or support that life?