Have I Never Looked Better?
How to slay, how to slime, and boogying at the post office
I’ve been in a bit of a rut with my wardrobe lately. In fact, one of the things I was debating doing instead of writing this post was going through my closet and freeing myself of the countless garments that hang limp and cold on their hangers. Toy Story (especially this sequence) really messed with my generation, because why do I somehow believe these clothes long for the touch of my human skin and that we should never be parted?
I know I want some new things, but I can’t muster the energy to find them. And when I do encounter myself in the disturbing light of a dressing room, I hold any prospective purchase to an impossibly high bar. Is it the best thing I’ve ever put on my body? Does it broadcast to the world the true essence of the person I hope to be? Sure, it’s nice, but have I NEVER LOOKED BETTER?
I’m embarrassed to say, this way of thinking has left me in a state of closet paralysis. I still haven’t purchased a pair of jeans since my last dramatic post about the perils of denim shopping.
I was comforted the other day by Cheryl, who dropped off a kid for a play-date at the home of the brother and sister I babysit. I complimented Cheryl on the green DKNY skirt with beaded trimming she’d paired with a semi-cropped white polo. She told me that she got the skirt more than 20 years ago, then showed me a photo of a black dress she wore earlier this month for the first time in 30 years. Evidently, she wore the dress to a funeral, because when she was swiping through photos of her posing in swirly-hemmed chiffon, she came upon a picture of a dead young man in an open casket. She takes good care of her clothes, treating them with Pine-Sol and never putting them in the drier; she just hangs them on a line in her boiler room.
During my charges’ swim practice, I watched an adult woman in a nearby lane learn how to swim. Her instructor, a cheery young person in a red swim-shirt labeled “Instructor,” cradled her head as she learned to float on her back. At first, her legs drooped below her as they made slow progress down the lane, but as they repeated this route a few more times, her limbs grew increasingly buoyant. I thought about how terrifying it must be to place yourself in water as a grown person who can’t summon automatic lightness in your body. The scene reminded me of Born-Again baptisms I’ve seen on YouTube shorts (don’t ask why I’m targeted by this content). Anyway, I found it deeply moving.
Because of my work schedule, I went to a different gym location a few times this week. Two nights in a row, I watched a young man perform a Broadway-style dance routine in one of the empty fitness studios. The thing was, he wasn’t very good, so there was no mistaking him for a professional or even an accomplished amateur. But the focus behind his movements and the fact he was honing them on consecutive evenings made me think perhaps he was learning a dance for his wedding, or to surprise his partner, or just for the joy of learning something in its entirety, as I once sought to memorize the lyrics of Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” in 6th grade, and this moved me, too.
Also, there were two women in the boxing studio carefully trading punches in a boxing class full of men, and this too moved me.
The family I babysit for is moving to Spain for a year, so there were a lot of errands related to their move this week. One of my charges and I waited in a long line in the sweltering post office to send off a thank you note and return a computer charger to their school. The other adults in line were outwardly exasperated, but because I was exactly where I was supposed to be, accomplishing an errand for my employer, and because I had a child with me, I could dance a little in line, wiggle my legs and make a silly expression, which I wouldn’t have done if I’d been alone. I experience this special freedom to dance between sets at the gym, and sometimes I think it looks awesome.
Also, in an eerily similar afternoon to last summer’s excursion to the Museum of Ice Cream, my charges and I visited SlooMoo, a so-called “institute” in SoHo devoted to slime. A timeline by the entrance detailed a recent history of this stretchy, sensorily satisfying substance.
I did my best not to touch anything as we made our way through the “galleries,” which contained differently textured, colored, and scented slime into which innumerable children dug their hands. There was even one room where kids ran barefoot through a slime obstacle course, a sight that brought on the fatigue I’d last felt surveying the Museum of Ice Cream’s sprinkle ball pit.
If you’re curious what your slime name is, just replace all the vowels in your name with OOs. In cultish overlap with the Museum of Ice Cream, all the SlooMoo employees address visitors as “friend” and have foregone their real-word names for their slime identities. I enjoyed figuring out people’s real names based on the consonants, kind of like reading Hebrew.
One visiting family, who opted into the slime firing squad experience where they were doused in Cookie-Monster blue buckets, all had names ending in -an/-on sounds: Jordan, Tegan, and Fallon; or, Joordoon, Toogoon, and Foolloon. The mom wasn’t wearing a name tag, but the dad sported Travis and Jason Kelce’s podcast merch. (I don’t know why I know this, but I’m remembering now that Jason Kelce’s daughters all have similarly end-rhymed names: Wyatt, Elliotte, and Bennett –– and there’s a Finley, but that breaks the pattern.)
On Wednesday evening, I trekked across the Brooklyn Bridge in the sauna-like heat. There were lots of stylish teens posing near the pylons or smizing on the support beams, and it made me wonder: what is it about infrastructure that makes people want to slay so hard?
Finally, I saw some interesting curbside art last night. I’m particularly intrigued by “Thinderella” and by this Nietzsche quote set against depressed-looking zoo animals staring at painted backdrops of their biomes.
Oh, and can someone tell me if this is Jeff Goldblum in the City National Bank ad on 30th Street?
Thanks for reading, and keep an eye out for a few short pieces I’ll be contributing to Vogue.com in the coming weeks. Happy summer, friends!