five things no. 13
with elle from postcards by elle!
Friends, hello! We’re back with another five things today, because we were due and because I needed the exercise of writing some positives down. it’s been a bleak few weeks. And luckily, I asked one of my favorite newsletterers (if Shakespeare can make up words, then so can I) to join us.
I’ve been reading Postcards by Elle for probably as long as I’ve been on Substack, and it remains one of my favorite newsletters to read about literature, music, and film, along with the kind of miscellanea that I often find myself writing about, too.
has become a friend offline, too, and I look forward to our spontaneous hour-long conversations about Emily Henry, Russian lit, and [REDACTED]. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: there are few things more important than friends who share your bookish takes and tastes.Elle’s Five Things:
Dama Bianca perfume from Casamorati
I am absolutely obsessed with this perfume and have been wearing it literally everywhere. Anyone who likes gourmand scents should totally check this out—I feel like so many gourmand scents are too heavy to wear in the summer and react horribly with the heat / humidity, but this one feels like it was tailor made for sunny hot weather. Here's me trying to describe the scent the best I can:
A soft, ethereal presence in the springtime that whispers about the precipice of summer. Dama Bianca is an angelic powdery kumquat-vanilla scent with a purple floral note that chases you through the day on the dry down. Lira (Casamorati’s lemon vanilla pound cake scent)’s spring counterpart. A delicate breeze through a flower garden in mid April, citrus covered in icing sugar and baby powder that falls into a pillowy vanilla white musk base.
New York Review Classics books
One of my favorite things about NYRB classics is that they find and publish underrated classic gems that have fallen through the cracks as decades pass (and obviously their rainbow spines). Most of my reads have been modern classics published sometime between 1930-1980, and this is the majority of the books that are published in this series. Some I think are good books to start with are: Stoner by John Williams, Slow Days Fast Company by Eve Babitz, On Being Blue by William H. Gass, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, and Chess Story by Stefan Zweig.
my “depression cure? perhaps” playlist
I’ve been going through a pretty rough month and my mood is extremely dependent on the songs I listen to, so this playlist I’ve been adding songs to since three years ago has really helped. This is a playlist of every song that has made me incandescently happy throughout the years. My recent favorite depression cure song is “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out” by Role Model (the bridge!!!) and “Just a Notion” by ABBA (not a new song but I’ve been listening to it on repeat a lot).
solo dates to the movie theater
I’ve been going to the movie theater alone every time I have a couple of hours free, and it’s honestly life-changing. I always feel like my life falls to pieces whenever I don’t have enough time to recharge my social battery, and going to the movies alone is a perfect way to spend time with myself without feeling bored. I also love the fact that I’m not completely alone, I’m in the company of strangers and we’re all watching the same thing (but thinking different thoughts). Doing so has also gotten me in the good habit of being up to date with new releases. This way, I don’t have to cram seven movies in a week during award season and I can have the time and space to formulate good thoughts about the movie. [Clara: This is my go-to mood booster, too, although I will say that earlier this week I was the only person at my indie cinema’s French film showing. Everything is fine.]pesto pasta salad
As a girlie who eats pasta more frequently than any vegetable … this is calling my name.
I kid you not, I’ve been making this pasta salad in big batches twice a week. I think I’ve developed a real addiction to this, and the prospect of not being able to make it while I travel this month is making me a bit sad. Here is a rough recipe (without measurements because I never measure) of how I make this:
for the pesto, put into blender:
basil / kale / arugula / spinach (but put at least a bit of basil)
toast nuts until slightly golden brown (any nut will do - for this specific batch, i used whatever i had in the pantry - almonds, pecans, cashews, pistachios)
extra virgin olive oil, salt
5-7 garlic cloves
fresh parmesan or grana padano
salad toppings:
any small pasta
grilled chicken / shrimp
fresh mozzarella cheese
fresh cherry tomatoes
cut up some salami & prosciutto
sun dried cherry tomatoes
corn
some sort of bean (edamame for this batch)
Clara’s Five Things:
I’ve been anxious over the last couple of months for a variety of Very Valid Reasons and making myself elaborate meals has simply not been a priority, so I have to give a shoutout to De Cecco rotini and Barilla basilico sauce for getting me through the days. I’ll make a large bowl, drench it in olive oil and nutritional yeast, and feel like I’m doing something nice for myself. It’s not nothing!
Writing has not come easily to me recently; sitting down and getting words out in a way that makes sense and makes a Point has been eluding me. Every word feels heavy and forced and somehow, simultaneously, unimportant. Even now, writing this, I’ve had to take breaks between sentences, heady breaths separating uninspiring sprints. (See the aforementioned anxiety and also The State of the World.) To try to fix—or at least minimize—this, given that writing is my literal job, I’ve been going on more walks than are probably good for me. Like, if I have time to kill, odds are I’m texting someone “going on a walk btw.” My step count looks diabolical. Walking is writing, though. Walking is walking and writing and thinking and listening to music and calling my friends and helping old ladies with their groceries and snapping a photo of a restaurant sign that reminds me of New York and running into seagulls glibly chewing recently deceased pigeons.1 Occasionally, I end these walks more stressed than I started them, because my brain comes up with scenarios and thought experiments that, without the walk, would have remained inaccessible in the far recesses of my mind, but I’m never not grateful that I can go on these walks. That I have the time and the capacity and that I live somewhere that makes it possible for me to leave my apartment and return three hours later, sweaty and tired. It’s not nothing.
Sorry … sorry … but is there anything chicer than leaving the house with wet hair and a giant bag on your arm? The answer is no btw!
It was the Olsen twins’ birthday a few days ago. Sorry, I guess, if this is weird, but I find that something worth celebrating. They’re somewhat problematic, sure, but these two did raise me. It’s because of them that I can think of nothing chicer than carrying a large, nearly overflowing bag while simultaneously holding a variety of objects—phone, coffee, book, keys—in my hand. Prepared for whatever the day may bring. My fellow 5’0/1” girlies … I don’t even know what to say … I was there for Passport to Paris and for the criminally underrated one-season wonder So Little Time and I was there for the collections they designed for Walmart when I was in middle school. (They were inspired, by the way.) Honestly, I feel as proud of them as if they were my second cousins with whom I lost touch years ago but still keep up with over social media. The concept of The Row stresses me out/makes me laugh but I would never say that to their faces. Happy belated, girls.
My fellow newsletter writers have been a real source of comfort to me recently. In her Father’s Day essay,
wrote “it’s finally dark, which takes so long in June,” a line that almost made me cry; wrote about Bethenny Frankel, who’s one of the few Housewives I know anything about, and said, “Is there anything more American than chasing hearts, minds, and eyeballs?”; wrote about postpartum in suburbia, which is something I should have nothing to do with, except that she’s in South Jersey where I lived for two years, so this line made me travel ten years back in time: “At the Cherry Hill Mall, I circle a thousand parking lots searching for a spot, exchanging glares with other wives buying AirPods for their husbands. White SUVs, slicked-back buns;” , who I’m always quoting, wrote about solidarity and said, “It is your responsibility to see what’s happening, and to care about it, and to do something. You don’t have to march in the streets to call yourself fighting, but you cannot knowingly “sit this one out” and call yourself anything but a coward;” and , whose writing always makes me laugh (complimentary), wrote about what Haim means in 2025 and I had to agree when she noted that, “Haim makes the same album every five years—that’s fine... I like the songs! But Haim is not ‘cool.’”
Ranked. Choice. Voting. Truly, nothing made me happier to be a New York City voter than when RCV was implemented a few years ago. It’s so elegant! So logical! It leaves room for coalition building! Treats elections not as zero-sum games but as movements! And it shows that when you give voters a set of choices they are likely to make informed, smart decisions about the people they want representing them. One of the things I most regret about leaving New York is no longer being a New York voter, but if I were, this would be my gorgeous little ballot for mayor: Zohran Mamdani #1, Brad Lander #2, Michael Blake #3, Adrienne Adams #4, and Zellnor Myrie #5. If you need or would like guidance regarding your ballot, I generally appreciate the NY Working Families Party voting guide.
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I say deceased because I don’t want to make the seagull feel too bad given the laws of nature, etcetera, but one does have to assume this was not an accidental sort of death. Alas.
i love your five things and i love you
i cannot believe this height reveal! i pictured you 5’11