I hope everyone had a good weekend celebrating Easter or Passover or simply another day alive. If you like this newsletter, maybe you’ll consider supporting monetarily for $5/month or $30/year. Likes and shares go a long way, too.
Eating: My semi-weekly vodka sauce, tonight over shells. It’s been a lovely, slow Easter Sunday, only punctuated by a favorite meal. Your girl was craving carbs after 7ish miles of running to close out the week. I’ve shared it a couple times on IG, but for anyone in need of a go-to easy pasta dish, allow me:
Chop three large shallots and four garlic cloves (I just throw them in the food processor because the meditative flow of chopping is lost on me. Sorry purists!). Saute in a few tablespoons of butter until translucent.
Add two tablespoons of vodka and ½ a teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
Add a whole tube of tomato paste
Finish her off with ½ cup heavy cream, ½ cup parmesan cheese, and likeeee ⅓ cup of pasta water (don’t forget to salt it and reserve some… I shouldn’t have to tell you that, but erring on the side of caution)
Bask in the glow of impressing your lover, even when you’ve made this meal 100 times
I’ve made variations of vodka sauce over the years, but this one rules in its velvety goodness. Let me know if you try it!
Listening to: “YKWIM?” by Yot Club on loop. Add this to the list of “songs I need to have sex to but never will because I’ll never remember in the moment and also abhor the contrived.” Also, thank you to a follower for putting me on to its many cool remixes.
Weekend Recap: If I ever forgot for one second that my life is a fever dream, only made headier by the gorgeous freaks I meet along the way, this weekend surely reminded me. You see, I had plans to take it easy. I was going to thrift some decor and binge TV. Work out uninterrupted. Grocery shop at some obscure hour when everyone else is getting up to no good. But then my friend Alyssa, the events brain behind the reading I’m planning, sends me a flier for a poetry reading hosted by a bartender she met out. Said flier calls for “party attire.” Say no more.
I tried on a variety of sparkles and shines and structured blazers and towering platforms. You can see what I settled on in this TikTok I made (I never make TikToks) because I had enough video footage of each phase of the night to compile and socialize. So Andrew drives us to the address and we’re knocking on the door and buzzing various units for a solid ten minutes. The doorbell says “coffin factory” which really tells you all you need to know. Eventually we get in and we’re led to a giant backyard with all these cute art girls hanging around a fire pit, smoking and petting an outdoor cat. Inside it’s the most beautiful studio apartment I’ve ever seen, each rug and piece of furniture seemingly cherry picked from New York in the 60s. There is a head—a bust of sorts—by the artist Phebe Macrae Corcoran hanging from the ceiling.
When the reading starts, we enter a dark basement with ambient music and moody red lighting and these huge, Victorian candles. Alyssa and I had been planning to hit NYC for field research for our reading, but I actually can’t imagine anything more thoughtfully executed than this. The reading was hosted by Poet’s Row, a small writing collective formed by James Milanesi, in celebration of their first issue. Lucky for me, a writer I love here in Philly, Rodney Murray who writes Pig on Substack, is part of Poet’s Row, and unsurprisingly knocked the wind out of us. Each reader was raw and exposed in their own unrehearsed way. There was an intimacy in the air that lingered long after. After the reading, local artist Cheeky played until we all went up to another unit in the building, which was, somehow, another most beautiful apartment I’ve ever seen??? I have so many questions, ya’ll, most of them pertaining to money and connections to an underground Persian rug trade.
When you end up somewhere spontaneously, you want its opulence to scorch your memory, indelible with the heat of a thousand suns. It was impossible not to get entirely too drunk taking it all in. How else does one describe it but… vibes?
Thinking: 1.) A particular feminine aesthetic has gone mostly out of fashion and frankly, I’m in mourning. I call her Bottle Service Girl. Save for Miami and the Arizona State University campus, we’re experiencing a national shortage of hair extensions, enormous fake tits, Bebe baby tees and Juicy velour track pants, long acrylic nails, etc. We used to call this Bimbo aesthetic before “bimbo” was commodified by Russophile Tumblr girls reading The Bell Jar and eating sardines. Bottle Service Girl is a caricature of femininity, Playboyified and self-aware beyond reach. I love her because she commits. Plenty of women get highlights and boob jobs, but Bottle Service Girl goes platinum, tells her surgeon no less than double Ds. I’ve known women like this in my lifetime and they are always incredibly cool, effortlessly circumventing the box society tries trapping them in, a box that is usually bedazzled and full of hot air. Sometimes they have sugar daddies. Sometimes they make rent in a night literally working bottle service. However their bag is secured, you see it all over them in a display so garish and skintight, you can’t look away. Bottle Service Girl is an all-American subversive. Bud Light in a Grey Goose bottle. Chicken tenders and fries in the back of a Lamborghini. May she rise again.
2.) In that same vein, I’ve been considering gender expression through wardrobe a lot. I feel drawn to hyper-feminine pieces lately, hot pinks and ruffles—a slight diversion from my oversized tshirts and sweats, however transient any phase of personal style tends to be. Dressing girly grounds me in moments of distress. I used to feel empowered by my womanhood; this is not as salient an emotion anymore, and that started to worry me. But then I realized that’s really quite normal, to just exist in your body, detached from ideology. My identity as a woman doesn’t need to be top of mind to exist (though, wearing sequins helps). It’s a quiet thrum beneath the surface that informs my world in gestures gentle and abstract, like good deeds performed by faceless strangers. And isn’t that just like women, to be the nucleus behind the scenes, only revealing their power in the occasional knowing smile? Wondrous beings.
Wanting: Full skirts. In fact, I’m starting to think this is the year of the full skirt. Hits above the ankles, silhouettes are capacious and flowy. Here are some at various price points:
English Factory, $90 via Shopbop. For the girlies who, like me, enjoy the idea of resembling a birthday cake. This one has a cute matching top, too.
Anthropologie, $148. I have a tulle skirt already so I feel like I’m legally restricted from buying another, but fuck it, we ball.
Mara Hoffman, $375 via Shopbop. Listen, I wouldn’t spend $375 on a skirt, but I know some of you BROKE But Moisturized readers have coin. And doesn’t the model just ooze globetrotting art dealer? I’ll take the entire look, thanks.
Etsy, $31. This list wouldn’t be complete without the OG bohemian patchwork. This one made from recycled silk is stunning. These skirts make for a good high-low look, i.e. pairing luxury pieces with something more accessible. I’d wear this with metallic heels and a corset top.