unsolicited suggestions
a quick list of things I've recently enjoyed using, watching, reading & obsessing over....
Happy weekend! Due to the exhausting way in which I choose to live (under the assumption that everyone in my orbit is on the verge of realizing I am undeserving of good things), it feels very risky to write a list of suggestions and reccommendations. It is vulnerable to recommend because recommending implies people value my opinions and since self-loathing is my comfort zone, I’d prefer to hide under the assumption that one or more people might see this list and think “why would anyone take a reccommendation from her? Who does she think she is, Gwyneth Paltrow?” Well, I don’t think I am Gwyneth, okay? All we have in common is nepotism and an affinity for cigarettes.
Nevertheless, I shall share the following suggestions, despite all the naysayers I’ve conjured up in my brain, because I hear this type of list is a good way to gain subscribers.
WHAT I’M WATCHING
BELOW DECK
The newest season of Below Deck (regular, though I also dabble in Med, Sailing Yacht, and Down Under) has been a pretty dramatic and fairly horny one, with lots of rich, awful yacht guests getting exposed for being rich and awful.
The rich people always think they will come across as chic and cool and fun! Then their literal shit stains and sloppy, drunken demands for MORE CHAMPAGNE are memorialized, forever on Peacock. It’s…magnificent.
This year’s star of the yacht crew is Solene, a beautiful, former French Love Island contestant with seemingly zero work experience.
Solene quickly hooks up with a male deckhand, then shortly therafter with a female deckhand, then with the male deckhand again, which causes the female deckhand to feel scorned enough to vengefully kiss Barbara, Solene’s roommate/co-stewardess, in turn making Solene jealous enough to kiss a DIFFERENT male deckhand in front of everyone.
Of the group, I unfortunately don’t identify with any of the hot, cool hooking up people. I see myself in “Rainbeau”, the American girl no one likes, whom experienced a full blown panic attack over having to vacuum.
THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ORANGE COUNTY
Before you watch Below Deck Regular, I suggest setting aside as much time as possible to catch up on The Real Housewives of OC. I’ve been a late bloomer in nearly every aspect of my life, but I can proudly say that I was an avid (more like rabid) Bravo viewer from the very first episode of the very first season of Real Housewives. At age 14, a lifelong passion was born in me as I watched Lauri picking up her son from Juvenile Hall, and Jo attempting to rekindle her failing marriage with Slade.
Over the years, the Orange County franchise has lost its luster, but this season, a pathological liar is involved…. and liars are my favorite genre of entertainment. Which brings me to…
LOVE. CON. REVENGE.
This is a new Netflix series following Cecilie Fjellhoy, the romance fraud victim at the center of the hit docuseries TINDER SWINDLER. Not unlike Nev Schulman, Cecilie takes to the streets in this new show, teaming up with a female Private Investigator to expose the perpetrators of romance fraud scams across the U.S.
The series brings moments of humor…
…and heart.
If you’ve read my substack before, you know I foster a deep, enduring desire to expose the wrongdoings of men, and Love Con Revenge makes me feel less alone in that desire. As Cecilie, our graceful Norwegian guide explains, it’s nearly impossible to achieve legal recourse for love fraud cases, but exposing these men (on Netflix, no less) can “stop them in their tracks”, so that they are unable to claim further victims. That’s what this show is about and it will take you all the way from a fake wellness center called “Sanjara” to a world renowned “geek convention” and everywhere in between. DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW.
Honorable mention to the high school catfish documentary, of course.
WHAT I’M READING
Check out my Goodreads :), where I recently gave five stars to All Fours by Miranda July and Good Material by Dolly Alderton. I also just finished re-reading the book Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld - a huge hit from my adolescence. Her writing describes the social anxiety that plagued my youth in such remarkably accurate detail, I can feel it in my bones. From the book:
“As the weather got nicer, seniors were outside on the circle constantly…Why didn’t I ever join them? I wanted to, but there would be that one unbearable moment after I approached when I stood on the fringes of the group, and they would shade their eyes and wonder why I was there. There was something I would have to say, there was a place in the grass I would have to sit, a posture I would have to sit in. For other people, these decisions seemed effortless, not decisions at all; for me, they had never stopped being decisions.”
I also recently picked up Rehab: An American Scandal by Shoshana Walter and am excited to read it because I have a lot of life experience in and opinions on the inner workings of the “recovery” industry. Will report back.
WHAT I’M USING
Product recs!!! Yay!!
One singular person in a dimly lit room recently asked me what my skincare routine is, and since I regularly scroll on my phone late into the night, until I’m too tired to wash my face, I can only attribute the appearance of my skin to the “makeup-free” makeup routine I’ve been doing. Here’s my step by step “getting ready” process with PHOTOS INCLUDED! Content warning: I am not good at this, but I do my best to listen to people who are good at it, especially Berlant & Novak podcast.
In my core, I will forever be a crusty college girl, slouching cross-legged on the floor in front of a door-hanging mirror, applying my makeup at super-speed while pregaming with shots of cotton candy vodka. I’m now over a year sober (again), but her essence refuses to leave me.
So, here’s me at step one before anything:
Step one, I mix a few drops of ILIA super serum skin tint in “Rendezvous” with a generous squeeze of Ciele prime & protect and I rub it all over my face, neck and chest and ears and back of my neck and hands (because all of these areas need sun protection for me!)
Next, I powder it up with Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder.
And I add a little LYS Beauty Higher Standard Cream Glow Blush Stick in “bubbly” which was hawked to me via Bethenny Frankel’s tik tok. Sometimes, not all the time, I’ll throw on some Charlotte Tilbury Legendary Brow Gel and Lancome Lash Idole Lash Lifting Volumizing Mascara. And folks, behold the “Before & After” (I messed this up and forgot to take a final profile shot, so the “after” profile is after the skin tint, primer, powder and blush but before brows and lashes):
Top it off with this:
That’s all I can suggest this Saturday! Tune in next week for my hair care routine I guess?
keep the recs comin!!!