material girl loves her material world, year 2022

My favorite guilty pleasure is the cult of TikToks that boast exclusive Amazon finds. For a few minutes of my time and under $30, I can have clearer skin, a nicer bathroom, a spotless kitchen. I am optimized. These short videos, slice of life, sing siren songs of attainment. At the bottom of the shopping cart is a better life, home, and self. I want to be better; if I spend the money, this genre says I can have something that looks like it all. Life gives lemons, and then I can be made.

Marie Kondo has never inspected a credit card statement. Nothing has been so compelling to the modern sphere of commerce as a material girl with a credit card bearing her name. And nothing has so wholly transformed the solid edges of my existence as a few of my favorite things—the things my fingers reach for, in the day and in the dark, grasping toward something greater. Everything within reach of my senses has a contour, an outline of my life rendered in shapes.

Sometimes I make a list of things I want to buy, and check it twice. Sometimes I surprise myself with how far I make it down the list; other times I recognize it is wise to compromise. This is the art of accumulation made sensible by ascribing appreciation to each material item. is it so bad to want? All we are, atomically, is wanting. I love all of these things, and being surrounded by them continues to spark joy. That feels like a rarity; and the rarities I’ve acquired this calendar year add to the sacred balance of environmental splendor:

  • lemon squeezer: crush citrus halves to make a whole. dressings, custards, marinade.
  • patchwork blue armchair: in the corner of my room rests my most acclaimed marketplace purchase. home to afternoons, curled into myself, writing collections.
  • trader joe’s summer candle trio: when summer fades into the haze of receding fog, san francisco still smells like watermelon mint.
  • air purifier with quiet sleep mode: privilege should not have given me a fancy, app-controlled air purifier. clean air, as it ought to be, as it was for so much of organismal existence, as a common good.
  • miffy around the world (colorized print): we’re all from somewhere, belong nowhere. even these displaced cartoon animals encircling the globe.
  • soft duvet: bury me under down feathers, nestled beneath woven european flax. my own warmth, a low-power human radiator, reflected back at me, keeping warm through the temperamental chill of bay area nights.
  • shredded memory foam pillow: never going back to any iteration of the pillow that doesn’t encase little cubes of torn up foam. adjustable; firm yet supportive.
  • cloudfoam comforts: my aching city soles are cushioned on a platform bed of clouds. i have nowhere to go but on my two feet; they take me everywhere. with them, i’ll be lost.
  • straus organic plain whole milk yogurt: sweet creamy tang. tastes like the closest thing to humid summers in guangzhou on this side of the pacific. break fast with a spoon of bay area honey; break open plastic spoons buried into tiny containers.
  • backpack, nylon with gold hardware: bears the brunt of my daily errands. sleek for work, roomy for travel. side pockets and a laptop sleeve as the bedrock of any commute.
  • handheld steamer: banish fabric wrinkles with the brandish of a hot plume of steam.
  • dusty pink ottoman: extra storage, but cushioned. since the fall, has really tied this place together. here to witness an unraveling, a sprawl, across the bench.
  • jackets x5: purchased so many jackets in the span of a few days, fleece and fluff, all to keep me warm. sheltered and insulated against the elements.
  • wallet, redux: recovering from the heartbreak of my previous loss (misplacement) with a new leather companion. the leather on this one is coarser, exposed; the lining is less floral. recovering after hard lessons that sometimes you love things and you can only love them until you lose them.
  • stone diffuser: jasmine is in the air again. fragranced ambiance as an interior setpiece.

(i’ll stop here for now, before capital christmas sinks its claws (claus) in further)