Daily Drip
my first beer in a year + all I rly want for my bday is dollar store scrunchies
Clear eyes, full tits, can’t lose. I started pumping at 3 o’clock Friday morning and didn’t stop all day. Andrew needed a full milk supply to feed the baby while I hit the shore with some girlfriends for the night. I’d been looking forward to this trip for weeks.
The sky was dust grey. Light rain tempered the Mid-Atlantic heat wave. This was good news. This meant I could wear jeans! A baggy pair of vintage men’s Lees; a sheer black lace tank over a denim-blue push-up bra with the straps sticking out; bedazzled black ballet flats; hair gathered in a fuchsia velvet scrunchie. Feminine accents complement my postpartum curves a little better. Idk. I didn’t necessarily feel good about myself, but I did feel like myself, which is good enough.
On the road to Avalon, I picked at a bag of dark chocolate sea salt almonds, gearing up for my first time drinking in a year. PinkPantheress kept me company through beach traffic while I tried to recall what it felt like to be drunk. Maybe not the best memory to channel while driving but I was bored and anxious. Rachel called and asked if she could pick me up some Modelos for the BYO dinner we had scheduled to which I replied “hell yeah.”
The ritual unfolded in my imagination so beautifully. Pushing the lime wedge down, leaving a trail of tart flesh in the bottleneck, splashing into golden effervescence. My body getting warmer and looser and gigglier by the swig. Shit. Party girls never die we just have kids and learn to make a good Caesar dressing. And things are rarely as good as they sound in a mind deprived.
The second I arrived and got settled on the couch amid the kitschy nautical decor—a beach house staple, if you ask me—it was beer:30. After my longest stretch of sobriety since I was like, 15, this was one anticlimactic Modelo. I sat there munching on my almonds, petting a giant golden retriever, feeling silly for thinking this beer would change my life. It didn’t even change the course of my night. But it was, nonetheless, better than no beer at all. And I was with my favorite people, so no matter.
Getting ready for dinner, basking in the carefree glow of my bronze goddess friends, I hid behind a borrowed contour stick. They all took shrooms. I squeezed milk out of my boobs into the kitchen sink because I forgot my breast pump; everyone crowded around slack-jawed. “I gotta put this on my close friends’ story.” —the modern Worldstarrrrr!
Our server at dinner was what I call a Bygone Bitch. A total anachronism with a DEEP Jersey Shore tan, thick coats of mascara and black eyeliner, Malaga Wine nails, and one of those 90/early aughts comb headbands. You know which one I’m talking about. Rachel and I split chicken marsala and shellfish over fresh fettuccine. I was the only one who ordered dessert because I understand pleasure: an ice cold slice of chocolate cake that we passed around, a frothy cappuccino. Always.
As we discussed our next move, it became clear that we were all happy just being together, which is normally what transpires on these trips. Why force yourself into a hangover when you can go home and watch Love Island and keep petting the fluffy dog and go to bed at 11, full of love and Italian food? Think about it.
Maybe I secretly wished we’d caught a second wind. It’s hard to say. I missed my baby and slept in my bra stuffed with a t-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts so as to not awaken in a puddle of breastmilk. Life is different now. But I’m happy to report the girls are still girling. Probably will be forever.
My birthday is next week, July 8th. I’m a Cancer sun, Gemini moon, Capricorn rising, for anyone who cares. I’ll be 34. You may be wondering what a Broke But Moisturized birthday wish list looks like. Allow me!
Here’s what I’m up to and into lately…
This Vogue tour of Rick Owens’s home in Italy is everything. First of all, to describe yourself as “not very acquisitive” as in you don’t own much is just really chic. But God, the TRAVERTINE. The GYM. The STACK OF THE SAME BLACK T-SHIRTS AND SHORTS. Ascetic paradise. I’m in love.
I just finished a journal for the first time in my life. It covers July 2024 - June 2025. For a long time, I thought my inability to keep a journal was a creative defect, i.e., what kind of writer doesn’t obsessively document their every moment? Turns out the whole “writer” thing was a blockage. Too calculated. Once I approached journaling as a 3D person reacting to endless stimuli, everything flowed. My journal is where, for the most part, good writing goes to die. My journal is where I’ll spend an entire page debating whether I want yogurt and granola for breakfast, or eggs and toast—and not in like, a smart or interesting way. No one will publish my journal when I die. And it is this sheer artlessness that makes it sacred. Here are some entries I shared around New Years.
Enjoy 37g of protein with my special yogurt bowl that tastes, to me, kind of like cheesecake. One Oikos triple zero vanilla yogurt, 1/2 c cottage cheese (I like the Good Culture brand), 2 tbsp natural peanut butter, ~1 tsp maple syrup. Immersion blend. Top with granola and frozen blueberries. MMMMMM. It’s worth noting that my husband makes a giant batch of homemade granola for us weekly. Has not missed a week in months. I’m spoiled.
DO NOT DISTURB: I’m busy coding my Neocities website. I am one of those terribly annoying millennials who misses how going online used to feel. So I started coding a website on Neocities. As the scrolling text explains, I’m intentionally ignoring what this looks like on mobile to encourage digital fun away from the phone. And what fun I’m having, truly. I feel like a kid on mySpace again. (Side note: Google its predecessor site GeoCities and your search should turn to Comic Sans. What a fun Easter egg.)
You are sleeping on dollar store hair accessories. Or maybe you aren’t. I was. This is where I got the aforementioned fuchsia velvet scrunchie and have been accumulating cheap accoutrements since. It all started when I went to grab some headbands from Target, saw they were $7, and figured I could find the same thing for cheaper. Indeed, same brands and everything are $1.25 at Dollar Tree. It’s nostalgic for me, really. Growing up, my mom dressed me in ratty hand-me-down sweatsuits and I wanted desperately to be girly. I’d scrounge up change and walk to the dollar store to buy little hair bows and stuff. Kinda sad but cute, right?
this really scratches my brain Speaking of hair, tomorrow is my blonde appointment. I’m getting cold feet. Less about the big change and more about the maintenance, if I end up liking it. We’ll see if I actually have the guts to follow through in full. I’m getting some kind of highlights either way.
The album I have on loop is Erika de Casier’s Lifetime. Silky smooth trip-hop Janet Jackson vibes. No skips.
I started a list of snack foods that I consider modern masterpieces. Not like, adult snacks like olives and dark chocolate or whatever. I’m talking store-bought, mass-produced stuff. It currently consists of Simple Mills Sea Salt Almond Flour crackers (thee perfect level of saltiness IMO); Breyer’s Natural Vanilla ice cream; and Welch’s Juicefuls which are basically less shitty Gushers.
The Florida Project may be my new favorite movie. How did it take me so long to watch this? It’s perfect. I wished it would never end. The characters felt so much like people I knew growing up in Appalachia. It’s gritty and depressing and uncomfortable and heart-warming.
I think this yogurt bowl recipe is going to change the trajectory of my life
I went to a friend's bday in Maine last October with the best of the girlies. Shared a bed with my college roomie, the one who still wears blue eyeshadow. I was a year + into breastfeeding Bruce. Put the pump in a special place so I wouldn't forget it, but I left the flanges. No place for flanges in rural Maine. I knew it spelled the end. I took the shrooms.