Dress Code

Hard Pants

Susan sits on my newspaper every. single. morning.

Hi everyone, Happy December, who am I, where am I, what is time, and where does it go? 

The last few weeks have been a blur of family sickness, holiday crush, and a big work trip, with the drumbeat of the college application process pounding beneath. Wowowowow. Underneath these honey toned highlights, my natural hair is pure Bride of Frankenstein, I just know it.  

First up, here is my (nearly) weekly reminder of two fabulous podcast episodes for you to dig into.

This week’s brand new episode of Choice Words, features the charming and wonderful Penn Badgley. I had such a good time speaking with him, but CRUELLY the other day, my podcast producers reminded me that at our recording session, it seemed that I had *dressed up* to impress him. 

How. Dare.

I did NOT, in fact, dress up for Penn Badgley, this was a mere coincidence. 

Oh for sure I was dressed up–and was definitely out to impress someone, but in this case, the someone was…a bunch of nice people who sell pretty wallpaper in Tribeca.

Here’s the way it works: you dress up for the fancy wallpaper people, you just have to. And critically, you then have to be cool about it, like “I always dress like this. I just popped in very casually, in a very normal look, for me. A person who effortlessly decorates.” You don’t have to dress up for anyone else, ever. 

It’s true that I no longer know how to gussy, and my podcast producers can see this with every fresh recording, and each new sack-like sweatshirt I sport. 

If I keep wearing Suzi Kondi’s (incredibly comfortable) velour leisure suits (with just a slight nod to The Golden Girls) pretty soon it’s not going to be for funsies, it’s just going to be real life, and IRL I only wear track suits. Maybe this is ok.

Those who know me, know that my grandmother bought me a full, one piece, puffy sleeved leisure suit with a leather belt for my middle school gym class, and I cherished it. 

I have been chasing that high ever since.

So yes, I put on Hard Pants™ (any pant with a proper waistband) and went to look at wallpaper, then accidentally looked nice for a fun/cool Zoom. 

Just a lady casually considering some wallpaper.

(Not to go on and on about outfits, but I did also recently receive an invitation to an exciting art event and the dress code was reported to me as “sexy, chic, downtown”. I haven’t slept since.) 

The second podcast I would like to draw your attention to is our latest episode of The Defenders, entitled “Grief But Not Regret”. This episode makes me extra grateful that I signed up for this project, and once again, I encourage you to check it out.

This chapter of our saga explores what it is like to try and access abortion care in a state with a six week ban. The answer is: not great! 

It reminds me that roughly six months or so ago, both of my daughters volunteered, unprompted by me, that they would never even consider applying to college in a state with a poor track record on bodily autonomy. The heart swells.

And friends, we are IN IT, with our eldest child headed for college in the fall. All we can do right now is helplessly stand by as her support staff, while she preps all of her applications and vast quantities of supplemental work. 

My husband and I attended college in Canada, where the process is…reasonable…and the costs are…humane? Manageable? Compatible with ‘building a future’?

I have no solutions for how to upend the college crisis, and it clearly is, a crisis. From start to finish the college application process privileges well resourced families in a way that is so brutally unfair. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I have no answers for this, only frustration. 

I mean… “Why Parents Can’t Quit the Elite College Arms Race” by Jessica Grose

This process has catapulted our child into adulthood in a way that seems so unnecessary to me? The stakes are so wildly inflated, the culture surrounding this process so frantic.

Ultimately, the college journey is hers and hers alone. We want her to go to a school that is right for HER, so that she can figure out who she is– but I can see how fraught it is to take a risk anymore. How can anyone credibly explore their most diverse passions when the costs are so high? Personally, I feel that this process stifles imagination, and suffocates vision. How many genius creatives did we force into Business Management because the cost and risk associated with a less clear cut career path simply wasn’t worth it. 

Anyway, this is simply one parent’s lament. Thanks for coming to my low quality Ted Talk.

As I mentioned, I spent a few days last week abroad for a small, sort of…shall we say…out of the box type of job. I am not going to say what it was, but it WAS an outlier. An unexpected “yes” from me, which required a substantial amount of travel, for a kind of foggy outcome? I do not regret it– it was weirdly fun, and not stressful.

Of course I made hay whilst abroad. In my off time I did all the good travel stuff. I read, I walked, reflected, explored neighborhoods, people yelled at me for walking headfirst into opposing traffic. I did a lot of research as well, mainly in the field of “shortbread.”

I am something of an expert in shortbread. I love it. It is wonderful. I make and eat it in various forms year-round. I like all the different styles and flavors, I appreciate all the different approaches. So, when faced with shortbread of dubious quality, or texture, like in say, a biscuit tin that feels like the cookies were baked six years ago but they STILL cost a lot due to the delightful faux-Edwardian packaging, momma gets sad. Let’s just say that momma was sad a LOT while I was away.

So as soon as I got home, and also because the holidays are upon us, I needed a corrective. 

In this spirit may I present the greatest shortbread recipe ever born. It’s not mine, I take no credit for this. This recipe comes from a classic Canadian cookbook series called Best Of Bridge, and there are only three ingredients and ONE technique that you cannot waver from.

This is a style of shortbread that is EXCEEDINGLY delicate. It is a buttery whisper in your mouth. I only make these ones for the holidays, I do not know why, but this is the rule, and I am sorry.

When I was a teenager and had a part time job manning the phones over the weekend at a community college, the lady at whose desk I sat, regularly brought in large plastic containers of these cookies over the season. Imagine her surprise every Monday when she would come in to work and find that the cookies tucked into the back of her desk were in fact, almost all gone. Only a teenager would steal all of a middle aged woman’s homemade cookies and imagine that somehow she would not notice or care. Did my teen brain think that she would believe the college had rats who could carefully open and then re-seal Tupperware? Probably.

Anyway I made them yesterday, it was an emergency. They came out ugly because we needed them as a family, and I wanted them to be in my mouth, so I didn’t use my cookie press or do anything cute. They are hideous, and they taste like heaven on earth.

I’ll make some cute redemption batches later, when I am steady on my feet.

WHIPPED SHORTBREAD

• 1 cup salted butter 

• ½ cup icing sugar

• 1 ½ cups flour

Cream butter and sugar (with the beater attachment) in a standing mixer.

Add the flour.

BEAT VIGOROUSLY FOR TEN MINUTES. Walk away and let the beater do its job. Go read a newspaper article. Scrape the sides down, definitely, but generally leave it alone.

Have ten minutes passed?

There, you are done.

Drop from a spoon onto a cookie tray.

Add embellishments, but you don’t need to. A sprinkle of colorful sugar? A cute lil maraschino cherry piece? Add some orange zest? Sure! 

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes, just until the edges are lightly browned.

Let them cool a bit on the tray before you start devouring them. They actually taste better after they have cooled a bit. TRY NOT TO EAT THEM ALL.

Lastly, one big shout out to Noise For Now– a wonderful organization that provides resources and cash to abortion funds nationwide. We put up a QR code at all performances of Your Favorite Woman, and have raised a cool (almost 3k) so thank you for that!