Arnold Palmer luvr

I had the fanciest one of my life this weekend.

My friends and I wanted to go upstate this weekend, but failed to get it together. Hotels and Airbnb’s were booked solid, car rentals were high, and our motivation wasn’t high enough to get crafty. Instead of going upstate, we went uptown, on our version of a bar crawl—Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, and Nordstrom.

The mission was to find jeans, the nightmare of many, but the perfect task for some. For us, the latter. To kick things off, we decided to enjoy lunch at BG, Bergdorf Goodman’s top floor restaurant.

My mom had raved about the famous Gotham Salad, and it sounded like just what the doctor ordered for a rainy Saturday afternoon. We ordered two Gotham Salads, two crisp Arnold Palmer’s (more tea than lemonade, please), and sat at the bar, cosplaying as ladies who lunch on the Upper East Side.

I don’t observe Dry January—later that night I enjoyed a few Clandestino martinis (the best south of Houston Street)—but I didn’t feel like indulging in an afternoon beverage ahead of such a serious task, shopping for jeans. An Arnold Palmer is a truly awesome beverage. It reminds me of summers spent at our country club, or getting a bacon, egg, and cheese from the deli. It’s perfectly refreshing, and more sophisticated than other mocktails, because it looks like you’re just drinking iced tea, and don’t get an embarrassing garnish out of it. I don’t plan on taking any more of your time raving about Arnold Palmer’s, but this felt like an important note on my weekend to add. I didn’t clock how much it was on the bill, but I’m sure the price was higher than the average.

After leaving the big three empty handed, I felt very proud of myself. My friends had found the jeans of their dreams, so I felt like our mission was accomplished. I had just dropped about $100 at Abercrombie, and then bought these Halson Heritage pants from The Real Real, so I was in no position to spend even more without getting rid of some stuff in my closet. Instead, the gals and I continued on our day, grabbing dinner before talking to strangers at Clandestino, all in all, a great Saturday.

The main theme of Saturday, however, was the looming TikTok ban. I deleted TikTok in December after many nights spent being terrified about suspiciously-niche news stories from the Daily Mail’s account that seemed one degree too close to my real life. Because of this, I was unaffected by this ban. I saw many people felt extremely affected, particularly the influencers I follow on Instagram.

I understand that the TikTok ban would be a huge hit to someone who’s main stream of revenue is in fact, TikTok. It’s probably bad for the young economy (what do I know about anything that has to do with the economy), and China already has all of our data anyway, so I didn’t really get it. All in all, people were really dramatic about it, and it seems like it was just one big stunt. That’s my two cents, I know you were looking for it.

I just tried on my new pants from Abercrombie in the middle of writing this, and they’re excellent. New pants are a huge win for both a person and their closet, so I’m feeling much more optimistic than I was earlier. I’ll link the style that I got here. Abercrombie does a great job, and they often have really good sales, too. These pants happen to be on sale for $63, so run, don’t walk!

Other highlights of my weekend include spending time in Connecticut, my mom recreating the Nobu Blackened Cod for dinner during Sunday’s snow storm, and getting my first gel manicure in a year. I have a nasty habit of picking my nails, and it’s only worsened. I needed a real interference, which came in the form of sparkly silver polish. Someone told me about some gel that apparently doesn’t use the UV light anymore, if anyone knows what that is and where to get it in Manhattan, can you reach out to me?

My soup of the week is a turmeric, ginger, and coconut milk chicken concoction, and my bouquet of the week features hydrangeas that have already wilted.

I have about fifty pages left of Didion & Babitz, which I anticipate on finishing tonight, so next week will include my official review. In the spirit, I ordered The White Album as my next read. I started Severance, and have watched the first five episodes as of now. It reminds me of The Substance, probably because of the dual-self themes they both share. This seems like the perfect task for me this week, to get caught up so I can be in on the internet fodder. My last personal update is that I hope to see Nosferatu this week. I think I’m brave enough.