Michelle's Melange: Edition 15
Avoiding being seen, a machine that removes moisture from air, snark and wedding gossip threads.
I’ve been receiving lots of signals over the past week/s to publish publish publish despite my hesitations. Including from the writer Tierney Finster, who in her newsletter Tierney Talks, writes that “‘perfect’ is a way of hiding” and “a form of resistance to being seen.” It’s weird how these messages find you when you’re trying to avoid doing something! It felt good to push things till “after the wedding,” until I actually WAS in this post-wedding space— it’s officially time to move into execution/new school year mode.
Notes related to nothing
Now that I’m married, I wanted to let you know that I am obsessed with visual representation of my closet’s moisture levels.
In 2020, I got a one-time COVID stipend from work to use on office supplies, and somehow decided that a combo dehumidifier/air filter was essential for our 80% moisture level SF apartment, a gadget that became unexpectedly crucial when the sky turned orange from wildfires.
We lived on the edge of Golden Gate Park, a place of peak fog and dampness. I would be willing to guess that 8/10 people live with black mold in San Francisco. I could run that machine all day and fill its tank with gallons of water, empty it, and yet still there was more to suck out of the air. There was seemingly no end point, no dryness nirvana to achieve in our place of many single paned and imperfectly sealed windows. There would always be more moisture!! I would tell people about this development, our pseudo scientific studies of our apartment’s average moisture level and the endless damp the building contained in its 1900s-era walls. Aware of the absolute tragically boring nature of this topic, I continued to share with whoever would listen from work in those depressing early stage COVID video calls.
We awoke in San Diego oddly refreshed each morning in the first few months after moving here, belatedly aware of what a decade of damp had been doing to our bodies and energy levels. I felt like a revelation to blame my sleepiness on fog (ultimately not true but felt good to say).
Ever seeking the most comfortable home environment and always fixating on flaws, I began to realize that our now-home’s main bedroom closet had a damp affliction of its own.
This closet is a narrow but long cedar-sided slot, an addition by a past owner that you can only access by walking through a bathroom. I visualize it as a wood box without insulation surrounded by dirt, a doubtlessly inaccurate visual, because that’s what some might call a coffin.
I pulled out a sentimental suede coat of Jake’s (don’t we all have one) buried in our closet to find mold specks dotting its sleeves. I hooked up our special dehumidifier, super clunky and loud as it is, and was struck by its readings of 80%+ moisture levels. Here I was again, living in a desert (and by that I mean a Mediterranean climate 👍) and still watching the tank fill up with musty closet moisture. It’s mystifying and magical, like an endless fount of non-potable water.
I understand the fantasies of a hermetically sealed, temp controlled closet. I also hope I don’t own anything valuable enough to justify something so extra, though here I’ve found myself manually controlling moisture levels day-in and day-out. If you’ve ever gotten renter’s/home insurance, there’s the part where you try to tally the value of all your clothing and realize it’s only a few thousand if you’re trying to flatter yourself— meanwhile there’s possibly solid months you’ve spent curating a closet over the years; collecting, giving away to people smaller than you, attempting to resell your worn out pieces you’ve clung onto for some unknown reason— but your pillballed Target linen pants and 5-yr-old Free People shirt can’t be resold on The RealReal…
New forms of social media
I wrote a while ago (but never shared) about trying to be on Instagram less, a boring topic because it’s too close to all of our realities. We’re all constantly in a state of feeling bad about looking at posts of people doing seemingly cooler things than us or going too deep on some celebrity ambient music cult. So what! It’s undoubtedly a distraction from what’s happening the world, and when terrible events unfolding in real time cut into the feed, the instinct is to avoid it and anything that isn’t pleasurable. This is a vapid post. Can you tell I’d rather think about dehumidifying rather than acknowledge the passage of time and that bad things are happening? Avoidance at its finest.
Prior to giving up, I wish I could say the free time I temporarily gained was put towards something cool, but, really, since I was wedding planning, the time was redirected to wedding and “snark” threads on Reddit, yes, another social media app. It’s debatably worse content when you’re looking at posts of a zillion dresses that wedding guests are asking “is this too white?”
Or when you’re 30 comments deep in a thread about someone’s makeup artist showing up drunk and 3 hours late on their wedding day and causing timeline chaos. I’ve realized wedding content is oddly compelling because of the clash of family and friends blended with peoples’ values & expectations. It’s better than reality TV. It’s probably embarrassing to recommend Reddit threads (this reminds me of when I admitted to a hip local jewelry shop that I found them through Reddit & they said it was a first for them)— but if you’re not above it, enjoy the Wedding Drama, Weddings Under 10k, & Wedding Planning thread.
The snark threads are a whole genre of their own, a toxic one at that. There’s a Revolve designer (not somebody most people would be following) whose shifting internet presence has alarmed her followers; the snark thread of her account oddly possessed me at one point. She started as “body positive.” A key signifier of this was getting her “normal” naked body featured on a Glossier billboard (normal in quotations because her normal is another person’s aspirational body). Over time, she’s gradually gotten lost somewhere in the depths of LA’s Ozempic hell, spouting orthorexic guidance via ads for supplements, powders, & broths. Her rapidly changing facial features and thinning body she explains away as being possible through daily hot yoga classes.
Essentially, these snark threads are entire side convos analyzing the lives of influencers via their posts, the most twisted parasocial thing ever, and yet I’m entranced by the fake psychological analysis aspect that’s brought me even deeper down the voyeur rabbit hole. You can keep up with someone without needing to actually be on Instagram; it’s like the curated version of their account, if curated means organized by the most unhinged or odd posts. Sometimes the Reddit takes are outright harsh (and those often get downvoted or deleted), and other times the different POVs might make you see through the influencer façades that have duped you over the years, to be less trusting of the images telling an overly manipulated story.
But, mostly, it’s wild to see this third rail I didn’t know existed; there’s the (1) stream of content you’re consuming, the (2) community of people who consume it, then (3) the chatter amongst the niche group of people viewing the same content and forming their own wild insights and projections. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely a net-negative in terms of how it’s contributing to my life and intelligence!! It’s like Star magazine for micro influencers.
Natural deodorant: where do my people stand?
Important question— anyone else feel like we’ve gone full circle on the natural deodorant issue? I feel a bit duped by the natural girl community I’ve superficially aligned with (meaning I would love to be accepted but I might be too high maintenance to meet the bar). Is this an inevitable return to Certain Dri, the other extreme— 72 hr protection, the “most effective antiperspirant you can buy without a prescription”?? I wore this for my wedding in anticipation of nervous sweat which, according to the International Hyperhydrosis Society (super sweaty-identified people like me) is “actually smellier than the sweat produced when you're working outside or exercising.” Oh, good, please permeate my silk dress. While under the spell of Certain Dri, I remembered wow, we really can live this way, a life no longer spent soaking through cotton t-shirts or sweaters with one’s sweat, without threat of leaving a vague B.O.-mixed-with-aromatherapy scent.
I was searching recently whether antiperspirants are definitively linked to breast cancer, and learned from this NYT article that it was originally “a rumor that began with [an email chain letter] from the 1990s.” It’s funny what we internalize in terms of beauty products; I’m definitely guilty of hearing one stray fact from a trusted beauty guru and running with it. Anyway, deodorant wearers, please let me know where you stand on this subject. If I know myself at all, I’ll 100% continue to wear the fake deodorant for the peace of mind it gives me. If you happen to not need deodorant due to a genetic stroke of luck, I hope to not hear from you!
Fashion obsessions of the moment
I feel like this is a cry for help more than anything— where do people shop these days? Nothing seems worth it to me! My brain and body are turning pieces of hardware (machinery) that have been smothered in synthetic non breathable fabrics for way too long. Meaning— where do you get your 100% linen, cotton, tencel types of outfits? On the cusp of 33, I’ve never been more committed to only wearing breathable fabrics! It can be devastating to see how many outfits are made of polyester…
A few things to read
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
Admittedly, this book’s title is a naur (meaning no in Aussie) since it makes me think of productivity and time hacks for Silicon Valley bros, and it masks that this is more of a philosophy book. Still, I was drawn in because I always have fantasies of not seeing myself as lazy, either through a shift in perception or through getting some abstract and fantastical amount of goals and tasks done. And this book addresses the latter— the author encourages you to accept that you’ll never reach the pinnacle of doneness, the fulfilling sense of completion. You’ll never get caught up, fully “clear the decks,” or achieve what you think you will, and so it’s best to be realistic about what life is and what it is to be present or feel worthy of enjoying your life as it unfolds, whether or not it measures up to your to-do list. I would describe it as encouraging pragmatic content that’s contrary to a lot of (at least the U.S.’) embedded societal messaging. Messages like your life needs to be big and impactful & accomplish a lot to be worthwhile etc. If you read this please let me know!
Carey O’Donnell is a hilarious writer. He’s married to Simon Haas, part of the Haas Brothers who make fantastical sculptures that seem to be popular in the LA art world. Side note, I was super inspired by his brother Nicolai’s house and really thought at one point that the “pele de tigre” marble in the below bathroom was something attainable and affordable for someone like me. I dug a bit deeper and learned that the aforementioned artistic duo made a 350k bathtub of this marble. The whole house is inspo though… his wife Djuna is also a cool stylist— see, my levels of Instagram sleuthing are showing.
Anyway, you must subscribe to Carey’s Substack. His writing is so clever and just makes me laugh. I feel like his humor spotlights just how desperately tragic we’re all acting, contrasting completely vapid pop culture against world events. The particular post I linked to details the high stakes of Taylor Swift’s relationship with that football player:
It became October. Taylor Swift was contacted by the government to start dating Travis Kelce and going to NFL games, for the good of our crumbling Republic.
In the comments, tell me: what should I write about? Does anyone want to form a zine club with me?! I picture having a general theme and getting some submissions together in a small booklet paired with images. I realize that I keep missing the communal element of creativity and writing in a vacuum is literally the least motivating thing I can imagine! Or a book club based on this sort of “don’t feel bad about what ur not doing/stop the achievement obsession but at the same time maybe start being intentional about how you spend ur time” content like Four Thousand Weeks (above) and The Creative Act (Rick Rubin’s book I just started)?
Feel free to share with others who would enjoy my writing and throw this post a lil heart if it so moves you.
<3 Michelle