#104: retrying stuff, partiful & showing some skin
sent from gem's iphone with love
gem:
Guys!! Hi!!
My first memory of Joss is us on the train home from school in year 7 discussing our mutual love for Yen Magazine (may she rest in peace) - so it feels incredibly warm and wonderfully full-circle to be writing something for her after so many years of friendship, even now that we are both as physically far away from suburban Sydney as possible…
My email signature describes me as a stylist + fashion creative + yellow connoisseur which really sums up how I fill my days, but the TLDR of me is basically this:
I recently moved to New York after three years living in Melbourne (and have been forcing my US geography trivia knowledge onto everyone I meet here)
I am an avid fit-check taker (and yet somehow that didn’t make my list - oops!!)
I’ve got strong withdrawals from living without Oporto / Original Doritos / Chicken Crimpy Shapes / Yo-Chi + Cold Rock for 3 months - although thank god the US has Cinnabon…
I cannot whistle, wink, click, flare my nostrils or even roll my tongue, but I am weirdly good on an arcade claw machine
I’ve never met a passionfruit cocktail I didn’t like
I tend to talk a lot, and this email will be no exception, so please enjoy the authentic Gem experience xx
look at that sunflower!
this is the online bit:
★ Partiful ★
Organising any get-together is hard !! Trying to stay on top of a chaotic NYC schedule is harder !! Trying to do both when you are no longer becoming Facebook friends with people and therefore can’t rely on the ‘events’ function is the HARDEST!!
That’s why I am so grateful to my American friends for introducing me to Partiful. They send me a link, I click RSVP, and then I have all of the info PLUS I get email reminders before the event so I can’t be a forgetful bitch. It’s a simple theory and process but I am a simple girl at heart.
★ Sentimental Garbage Podcast Episode about the Maroon 5 album ‘Songs About Jane’ ★
If there are two things in this world that I love, its female spaces and good albums, and this podcast episode combines the two. I am quite happy to admit that I am not a playlist person, and while I do sometimes capitalise on the radio / daily mix / discover weekly functions of Spotify, I simply do not care to curate my own, and would always rather enjoy an album as a body of work. I wanna be absorbed into the artists world !! And I don’t care if I’m the only one !!!
Simultaneously, the Sentimental Garbage podcast hosted by Caroline O’Donoghue has created a platform for women to indulge in the guilty pleasures of life that we are often made to feel cringe or dumb for loving, and instead reminds us why they’re Really ! Fucking ! Good !
There is something I adore about listening to other peoples’ educated and thorough analysis of an incredibly specific / niche (and probably typically overlooked) work and its contribution to the cultural zeitgeist, even if I disagree on their take that ‘Must Get Out’ is the weakest song on the album. Also, considering my other fave episode is a review of Alanis Morissette’s ‘Jagged Little Pill’, you can definitely how these iconic / angry / horny / incredible albums have left a forever impact on me (and why a part of me will always be an Adam Levine apologist).
PS: I also strongly recommend the “Sentimental in the City” episodes with Dolly Alderton (although you can skip the twilight episode guys… it let me down)
★ Classpass ★
At some point over the last year and a bit (that was my attempt at mystery and vagueness, but specifically it was in mid-April 2023) I became someone who enjoyed working out. Propelled by a terrible breakup and my ever-slowing metabolism, I decided to fully capitalise on my works’ incredible free gym and class programme and accidentally traded my “I try to move my body every day” approach to a “I must work out 2-3 times a day or ill go insane” mentality. Now, a year + on, I have a much more balanced routine, but I didn’t lose my love for workout variety. That’s why Classpass is perfect. New York has nearly every workout class available somewhere, I can go straight from Barre to Boxing and then back it up with a Barry’s session the next day. Last week I did a ‘Ballet + Ass Class” that kind of changed my life. Its the perfect option for someone noncommittal like me who’s trying to avoid being locked into a gym membership or paying ridiculous amounts for drop-in classes amidst the chaos of a NYC summer. I love it.
this is the irl bit:
☆ Showing some skin ☆
NYC in summer is fucking hot, and without the relief of a cooling ocean breeze that most Australians are accustomed to, the best way to get by is to simply wear less clothing. This was something that scared me, as someone who for years had nearly exclusively stuck to high-waisted bikinis and longer/looser shorts to hide my “trouble-area tummy + thighs”, but something in me has really come to embrace it. Maybe its the Brat summer of it all, maybe its me maturing and accepting my body, maybe its the fact that I’ve realised in a city of millions of people, no one cares about what I’m wearing. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is I’ve acquired the shortest skirts, sheerest tops + teeniest bikinis of my life and I feel hotter than ever (and haven’t reached for my old-faithful baggy overalls once).
☆ Drinking everything out of a novelty / cute glass ☆
You only have to know me for about 5 minutes to know that I love stuff. In particular, dumb + cute stuff. I simply believe that having some silly little things makes life more enjoyable, and so I avoid drinking out of plain, boring glasses or mugs wherever possible. I’m not sure if its placebo, but I’m genuinely convinced that every drink tastes better when consumed from a cuter vessel, or at least the experience is more fun, thus making the drink more satisfying. I’m not sure when society became so obsessed with the overly-simple, but today I drank water from a rippled amber glass, peppermint tea from a mug with a little clay frog sitting on the rim, juice from a floral-printed tumbler and wine from a speckled coupe situation and they all tasted better than ever.
Also this rule applies to all things!!! I recently had to buy bath towels for my new apartment and chose a fabulous mustard-brown stripe situation which was immediately questioned by a friend as a wild choice, to which I replied, “who said bath towels have to be plain?”. This is your sign to use the cute/dumb/silly/fun things that make the mundane more amusing. Eat off novelty plates!! Buy hair clips from kids stores!!! Collect lighters with stupid pictures on them!!! Let yourself enjoy things!!!
☆ Re-trying stuff ☆
We all know that one of the realities of getting older and reaching your mid-20s is realising that people weren’t lying when they say your tastes will change and your frontal lobe will develop and that you may have to put your stubborn pride aside and accept the fact that you now enjoy oysters. While I would describe myself as someone who knows what they like but will try everything once, I’m basically just a fussy eater. I’ve hated most cheeses and Nutella and tuna for as long as I can remember. Anything bitter or briny was a definite no-go (aka no Aperol Spritz or anything pickled) and I avoided caffeine at all costs (easier when you believe coffee tastes like sadness), but recently I ate an olive after my friend Kate ordered them for us at a bar, and somehow in the blink of an eye I had finished the entire plate. This stirred something in me to retry everything I’ve ever hated and while the results have been mixed, it’s been exciting to expand my palette. I may still dislike chocolate ice cream and bubble tea, but now I get to enjoy cherries and a glass of chilled red. Also, perhaps the greatest shock of all - and one that my family will never let me live down if they read this, is that after two decades of insisting that the smell + taste + texture of eggs made me want to vomit, I am slowly coming around to them. Only when scrambled with enough feta / chorizo / avocado / sriracha so I can’t really taste or feel the egg… but still - its a start!! (Just don’t ask me to even think about trying poached eggs yet… that’s years away).
ciao bellas! XXX