On My Eye in November
Plus some processing out loud
Hey everybody. I was planning to send this your way last week, but then… last week happened. It’s no secret that I wanted Kamala Harris to win this election. Well, except maybe to the guy on Hinge who sent me this a day later:
Like so many of you, I’ve been desperate to turn the page from the rot of Trump and Trumpism. And by the end, I really thought that we might be able to! But clearly, that didn’t happen.
There’s a lot to be said about why, so much that I’ve felt over the past few days, and so much to be done going forward. But for now, I just wanted to say that this sucks. To everyone else who feels demoralized and a bit lost on that supposed arc of the moral universe… I’m with you and I’m sorry.
Who’s to say if it’s a healthy coping strategy or not, but if you’re in need of a break from the rest of the world, I’m happy to provide a productive-ish (heavy on the ish) activity.
To me, November is spreadsheet season. Anything I want, like, need to restock, or am even considering buying goes onto a Google Sheet (very creatively titled “Shopping”), and once the seasonal sales start up, I go from there. IMO this is an easy way to prioritize what I want, keep track of my budget, make sure I’m not getting side-tracked by every little sale, and to not miss out on restocking the things I already use. It also gets you off Twitter, which is a good thing!
I do my best to stick to shopping from the sheet/during the sales this time of year, but if there’s one thing potentially worth buying ahead of time, it’s this divine chunky cashmere sweater from COS. COS makes such good knits (men’s and women’s—I love that burgundy option too). They don’t come cheap, but they’re on par with brands that are much more expensive in terms of look/feel/quality, and this one is particularly cozy. It originally sold out very quickly (probably because it’s very similar to a much more expensive version from The Row), but it’s back now in all sizes. I took the larger of the two I go between, but it’s a bit oversized in the first place, so choose according to your own fit preferences.
You can still wait for COS’s Black Friday sale to start up, but from what I remember, their most popular cashmere sweaters don’t get discounted, so I would beat the rush (I learned this lesson the hard way last year when the sweater I wanted didn’t go on sale AND sold out in my size).
That’s enough temptation for now! What follows are the things that are waiting patiently in my cart until the minute the sales are live…