Last-minute Valentine's Day gift ideas for the discerning but procrastinating drugstore shopper

To my girlfriend: stop reading right now.

Everyone else: hello.

So, it’s Valentine’s Day Eve (Valentine’s Day Jr. as we say around here) and perhaps you are feeling a bit worried that your Valentine’s Day gift/plans for your partner are not very exciting. Maybe they are even nonexistent! Not to worry — you can still pull this off. Even if you’re reading this on Valentine’s Day, I think you can still pull it off.

If you’re looking for last-minute gift ideas, surprises, or ways to make the day special, and are working with an “uhhh what’s available at Walgreens or the grocery store??” sort of timeline, here are some tips to keep in mind.

Embrace the classics.
Chocolate/candy, flowers, underwear, love letters, romantic movies, love songs, lasagna, wine… these are all nice things! It’s perfectly OK to lean into the things that Valentine’s Day is known for; there’s no need to reinvent the wheel! As long as you’re shopping/planning a date with real intention, choosing things that you think your partner will actually appreciate, and not taking things too seriously, clichés are fine and good.
Lean into the kitsch—like, really lean into it.
Here’s a tip for a great drugstore Valentine’s Day gift: if you must buy something kind of kitschy, buy the absolute largest version of it you can find. A regular heart-shaped balloon? Fine. Nothing wrong with that! A HUGE heart-shaped balloon? Fucking amazing, Several huge heart-shaped balloons? An apartment full of them??? Now we’re talking!!! Going for oversized kitschy items or multiples of kitschy items is silly and memorable and even impressive (buy out Trader Joe’s entire stock of bouquets, I dare you!!!) and I’m extremely here for it.
Consider that fairly small/simple items in Valentine’s Day colors can feel special, especially as part of a bigger gift.
As you comb the aisles at CVS or do a power-lap through the mall, keep this fact in mind. There’s something about, say, really red socks or a really pink phone charger that makes them feel like a Valentine’s Day Gift in a way that yellow socks or turquoise charger would not. When you’re doing your last-minute shop, look for small, on-theme items (like a sharp red Moleskine or a beautiful rosy hoodie) that you can combine with a consumable (flowers, a nice bottle of wine, etc.) to create a really nice gift.
Related: look for solid-colored pink, red, lavender, or white wrapping, trimmings, etc.
Sometimes, the offering of, say, Valentine’s Day gift bags won’t be kitschy enough to feel fun/intentionally corny, and instead will feel kind of sad. In that case, check out the regular gift wrap section, where you’ll likely be able to find plain bags, tissue paper, and ribbons in traditional Valentine’s Day colors that will ultimately look nicer and more considered.
Toss/swap any packaging that looks cheap.
If you don’t want it to look like you just went to the drugstore to buy a gift, get rid of the evidence that proves you just went to the drugstore to buy a gift! That might mean cutting the clear plastic wrap off of store bought flowers and re-wrapping them in a solid color tissue paper, kraft paper, or even newsprint, or removing other packaging that’s not particularly cute/pretty.
Don’t sleep on bookstores.
A lot of bookstores have a game/puzzle section, where you might find something fun/cute/fairly unexpected that your partner will like. They also tend to just be well-curated for gift giving in general (bonus: you can buy a card while you’re there) and are worth checking out if there’s one that’s not too out of your way.
Consider the homemade coupon.
I’m always surprised by how much people love receiving homemade coupons for things like, say, a foot rub or taking the dog out. If you think your partner would be into something like this, here are some Valentine's Day coupons that Terri came up with a few years ago that are very cute! (FYI, the printable versions took a while to load for me, but they popped up eventually.) The more personal/specific the coupons are to your partner and your relationship, the more meaningful and fun they gift will be.
Always give a card or letter.
Love letters are sweet and good and basically free. If you’re not sure what to say or are worried that you’re not a good enough writer, these tips from an expert I talked to a few years ago might be helpful. And if you’re at a loss for words or intimidated by the blank page, embrace the humble list. (“Things I like about you” really never goes out of style.)

Finally, this all might seem like a lot of fuss for “a Hallmark holiday” and I suppose it is. But demonstrable, undeniable effort is meaningful to a lot of people, even if the reasons behind the gift or card are fairly arbitrary or driven by capitalism. If Valentine’s Day is your partner’s love language—and it is a lot of people’s, whether you like it or understand it or not—you should try to show up for them. Yes, you might already show your love for them all the other days of the year… but if that’s the case, why not also show your love for them on the day when they’d really like you to do so? Love and connection is rare, life is short, and making sure your people know exactly how much they mean to you is pretty much always a good idea. 💘

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Just Good Shit: 02.09.20

Hi! Here’s what I had going on this week…

On the blog

The girlfriend hoodie

Reading

Yesterday I read Such a Fun Age. It’s very breezy, but still sharp—it felt a bit like reading Elin Hildebrand, if Elin Hildebrand was a black millennial. I’m not sure if I liked it/if it was “good”/how I feel about Reese Witherspoon loving it, but I also don’t regret reading it, if that makes sense!

Also:

The Very Real Mental Ramifications of Extremely Long Elections, VICE.

How to Make the Oscars Relevant Again, The New Yorker.

When ‘Representation Matters’ Becomes a Meaningless Rallying Cry, Vulture.

Who wants a teddy bear for Valentine’s Day?, Vox.

When Buying in Bulk Is a Mistake, NY Mag.

Watching

Baited / White Bosses with Ziwe, Heben Nigatu, and Josh Gondelman had me rolling. And I watched Sorry to Bother You and the first episode of McMillions, both of which I loved.

Have a great Sunday! 💘

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The girlfriend hoodie

It’s cozy season, so it seems like a good time to plug the Gap Vintage Soft Carbonized Pullover Hoodie, which I’m a big fan of. It’s super soft and just the right weight; the creamy color is perfect; the fit is great (not too baggy/bulky, but not too slim either); it’s held up well in the wash; and it looks fairly polished. I am not really a hoodie person, but I love this sweatshirt.

It’s technically a men’s hoodie—my friend Devin owns two in black (“and that’s not even enough” he told me), and it looks great on him too. But my girlfriend was actually the one who first discovered it; she bought it for herself right before Valentine’s Day last year…in part, she said, because she knew I’d like it on her. She was right; I liked it so much that I bought one for myself! We now have four of them between us. (There was a sale, and having a backup of a beloved item is just practical!!!) My favorite way to wear it is with white Lou & Grey soft pants and cozy socks, or with white or blue Levi’s.

Vintage Soft Carbonized Pullover Hoodie.png

Thinking about this hoodie, the other clothes I’ve discovered via my girlfriend, and the items from the men’s department that I own and love, I was reminded of the 2016 Racked article “The Presumptions of ‘Boyfriend’ Clothes”:

“The idea that men and women are supposed to be certain sizes in relation and proportion to one another is reinforced by boyfriend clothing. Images of heterosexual relationships almost invariably show a woman so small she is swallowed up by her boyfriend’s clothes. All my life I’ve worked to shake the idea that my relationships don’t count because they have not looked like this. But what the boyfriend shirt is selling is that very idea, love defined by comparative body size.

Women wear, and always have worn, masculine clothing for myriad reasons, reasons to do with identity and reasons that have nothing to do with identity, reasons to do with gender and reasons that have nothing to do with gender, and reasons to do with the fact the men’s clothes have pockets far more often than women’s clothes do. I might buy a men’s shirt for a million reasons that have nothing to do with a man.”

Buy it for yourself, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, or your partner from Gap for $35. (Available in sizes XS-XXXL and eight different colors; for reference, I own the size small.)

Related: Hanes tees and girlfriend shorts. ✨

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Just Good Shit: 02.02.20

Happy Sunday! No, I’m not watching the Super Bowl!! Here’s what I got up to this week…

Writing

What to Do When a Friend Owes You Money and Hasn't Paid Up

Reading

This week, I read an advance copy of The Regrets, which comes out on Tuesday. I liked it! The first few pages are very intense, but it doesn’t stay that way. It’s dark but breezy, and it reminded of other writing/authors I like (Carmen Maria Machado, Christopher Moore, Kevin Wilson). I also read Slave Play, which I thought was great. (I’m very bummed I didn’t see it on Broadway.)

Also:

How I Get By: Two Weeks in the Life of a Target Employee, VICE.

Bowen Yang of ‘S.N.L.’ Is a Smash. And a Mensch., The New York Times.

Apparently, I’m Too Fat to Ski, The Cut.
I loved this.

How to Write 10,000 Words a Week, Drew Magary on Medium.

OK, But Maybe Priyanka Chopra and Post Malone Have Brainwashed Us All to Love Crocs Now, Cosmo.
I have a pair of Crocs that I wear as house shoes and they rule.

Watching

I did not expect to love Miss Americana, but wow, I did!!!

Eating & drinking

Tried two new recipes this week and both were…extremely fine! The first was Chicken-Lentil Soup With Jammy Onions from Bon App. The topping is delicious (I’d double that if I made it again) but it wasn’t my fave recipe overall. The other was Caramelized Shallot Pasta, which, again, was fine. (Probably worth making if you like anchovies, though!)

And I had drinks at Night of Joy in Williamsburg, which was very cute/good!

Have a great Sunday! ☁️

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Just Good Shit: 01.26.20

Heyoh! Here’s what I had going on this week…

On the blog

Reading list: Race, white supremacy, and anti-black racism in America

Reading

This week, I read Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener. This book is getting a lot of buzz, and I liked it! It’s mellow, fairly breezy, and has a lot of gorgeous lines. (Read an excerpt.)

Also:

The Darkness Where the Future Should Be, The New York Times.

The Silicon Valley Economy Is Here. And It’s a Nightmare., The New Republic.

Pendeja, You Ain’t Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature, Tropics of Meta.

Cheer Is Built on a Pyramid of Broken Bodies, The Atlantic.

How the ‘Bachelor’ Franchise Became an Influencer Launchpad, The Ringer.

How Tiffany Moved 114,000 Gems Without Getting Robbed, The New York Times.

The Many Lives of Roberto, a Soup, The New Yorker.

Is Everyone Buying Fake Bags But Me?, ELLE.

Watching

I watched Arrival and A Star Is Born and I also watched this video like 47 times.

NYC

I had drinks at June in Cobble Hill a couple weeks ago and it was so cozy and good! (Get the bread and dip — it’s great.) And I had dinner at Olea this week, and loved it.

Have a great Sunday! ✨

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Reading list: Race, white supremacy, and anti-Black racism in America

James Baldwin quote on light blue background that begins "White people are astounded by Birmingham. / Black people aren't.” and ends with “between Birmingham and Los Angeles.”

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I put together a list of the best writing (and podcast episodes) about white supremacy, race, and anti-Black racism in America that I’ve come across in the past several years. These are pieces that affected me, helped me better understand my own history and our current moment, and made me more equipped to discuss race and racism. They are the things that I most want white people to read.

Canonical texts

These are, to me, the foundational texts for this topic — the things I feel everyone has a duty to not look away from, to read in good faith, to fundamentally get.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (Amazon; IndieBound).

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (Amazon; IndieBound).

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (Amazon; IndieBound).

The Case for Reparations, The Atlantic.

Segregation Now, Pro Publica.

Just Good Shit: 01.19.20

Happy long weekend, friends! Here’s what I was up to this week…

Writing

What to Do When Money Causes Friend Drama. (I also did a short interview with Channel Q on this topic; I come on around the 51-minute mark.)

Reading

I finished two very mellow books this week. The first was The Memory Police, which I started back in December. It takes a while to get going, which is why it took me so long to finish it; I actually think it’s better read in one or two sittings where you just power through until it picks up. There were a lot of specific things about it I didn’t love, but I liked the whole, if that makes sense. I read it as a really lovely meditation on loss, grief, aging, and acceptance, but there is also a definite political and/or climate change–related lens. It’s an excellent winter book (reading it while it snowed on Saturday was perfect!) and even though it’s not, like, a tearjerker, it’s a great sad book. (I actually think I would have loved it if I had read it a couple years ago, when I was Extremely Sad.)

The other book I read was Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang, which is a very gentle sci-fi short story collection. My favorites were “Story of Your Life” (which is so, so great and also happens to be a good sad read); “Hell Is the Absence of God” (loved!); and “Seventy-Two Letters.” The only one I actively disliked was “Understand,” which felt like reading the Unabomber’s manifesto.

Also:

Her Sorority Sisters Suspected She Was Pregnant. What Did Emile Weaver Know?, ELLE.
Head’s up that this is a very tragic (and fairly gruesome) story about the death of a newborn.

The Black Moms Who Occupied a Vacant House and Became Icons of the Homelessness Crisis, VICE.

How to Organize Your Workplace Without Getting Caught, VICE.

'Cheer' Is An Incisive Look At Injury, Coaching And Competition, NPR.

After My Dad Died, I Started Sending Him Emails. Months Later, Someone Wrote Back, Glamour.

For Bumble, the Future Isn’t Female, It’s Female Marketing, Bloomberg.

I Remain A “Catfish” Queer: On Love, The Midwest, and What We Think We Deserve, Autostraddle.

Meghan Markle visits The Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre in Vancouver, Lainey Gossip.

Directors, Let Your Gay Characters Be Gay, NY Times.

Is This Existential Despair, or Do I Just Need to Drink Some Water?, Elemental.

Listening to

I have had the Clairo album “Immunity” on repeat for the past few days; it’s a great match for my cozy January mood (and for all of the above reading).

Have a great Sunday! ❄️

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Just Good Shit: 01.12.20

Hello! Here’s what I had going on this week…

On the blog

'The Art of Showing Up' galleys are here!

Elsewhere

I was a guest on Minnesota Public Radio this week, talking about how to say no!

Reading

Sussexit: The Timing, Sussexit and “The Cartel”, Sussexit: “Financial Independence”, and Sussexit: The Negotiations, Lainey Gossip.

Lainey is the best for all things Harry and Meghan.

Frustrated Retail Workers at Everlane Say They Were Prohibited from Discussing Wages, Working Conditions, VICE.

Netflix's "Cheer" director: Cheerleaders are "the toughest athletes I’ve ever filmed", Salon.

Would You Work for Nothing at Disney? 10,000 Superfans Applied, The New York Times.

How Sheet-Pan Cooking Took Over Instagram, Eater.

Who Gets to Pick Best Actor? Actually, I Do, The New York Times.

Lingua Franca and the rise of the resistance socialite., The Cut.

This One Marriage Story Line Plays on a Loop in My Brain, Vulture.
I can only hear this scene in the Goofy voice now.

Watching & listening to

I watched all of CHEER on Netflix this week and I loved it. I fuck hard with cheerleading stuff, but this six-episode documentary series is exceptional. It’s ultimately a show about trauma and found family and a very specific type of relentlessness, and I wept multiple times. Highly, highly recommend.

I also watched The First Wives’ Club, which I had actually never seen before! What a delight.

At Terri’s absolute insistence, I saw the new Oklahoma! It’s definitely exactly as horny as everyone said it was. I can’t really say whether I liked it or not. But Oklahoma!, as a musical, is too long and the music is not that great. Ultimately, I left feeling exactly like I did after seeing Uncut Gems: feeling like I neither liked it nor disliked it but glad I saw it; definitely recommending it to other people who are interested but not to everyone; thinking “How can something be both incredibly intense/chaotic but also boring?”; and desperate to read everything that has been written about it.

I listened to the D.C. snipers episode of You’re Wrong About, which is really worth your time. It’s completely devastating (and FYI, it deals heavily with domestic abuse) and also incredibly moving in parts. Like, I was crying in public listening to it. Be sure to listen all the way to the end.

And some lighter fare: I’m obsessed with this Family Feud moment, the best cover of “Before He Cheats”, and Puppy Dog (Bouncin' in the Box).

Have a great Sunday! ✨

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'The Art of Showing Up' galleys are here!

Yesterday I received galleys of The Art of Showing Up! (A galley is a printed, close-to-final version of a book that is sent out to press/reviewers. It’s made of cheaper materials than the final book will be, and might not be printed in full color or have a finalized layout/design.) I had seen the cover design, of course, but there was something about seeing it IRL as an actual book that was entirely different (in a good way).

I’m feeling very Ahhhhhhh, it’s happening!!! right now. I did two book-adjacent interviews this week, had new headshots taken on Thursday, and then the galleys arrived on Saturday. I definitely had some anxiety last week as the new year kicked off, knowing that 2020 is the year when this book will come out, and feeling very nervous about that fact. May is *just* far enough away to feel like The Great Unknown Future, but it’s also…not that far away at all! I’ll still be essentially the same person in May!!! And showing up is topic that is incredibly close to my heart, so I feel fairly vulnerable putting this into the world.

If you want a sense of what the book is going to be like, here are a few things I’ve written in the past year that either appear in the book or came up when I was researching it:

You can pre-order The Art of Showing Up via the following retailers:

(If you’re a bookseller, librarian, or reviewer, you can request an e-galley on NetGalley. And if you have other questions about it, you can email Jennifer Hergenroeder.)

By the way, I’ve learned in the past couple months that there will be a UK edition — Jun. 25 is the date I’ve been told — and an audiobook (which I will likely not be voicing myself). I’ve also had quite a few people ask me if I’ll be doing a book tour, and the answer is that in general, that’s not something that most authors do. But I will probably be doing some events in NYC and Brooklyn, along the East Coast, and (I think!) Chicago. Hopefully there will be many! Despite my nerves and general preference for being home, I am really excited about this topic, so I’m really down to talk about it! ✨

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Just Good Shit: 01.05.20

Hi! Here’s what I was up to this week…

Reading

I read A Girl Returned, which was…fine. It’s a very quick read (just 160 pages) and it’s well written, but I found the overall subject matter kind of a bummer. It’s a good one to get from the library, I think.

Also:

Australia Is Committing Climate Suicide, The New York Times.
If you’re looking for ways to help, Fire Relief Fund for First Nations Communities and WIRES are two organizations that I donated to.

My Heart Broke. Now What?, ¡Hola Papi!.
I loved this.

The Hunt for Mexico’s Heirloom Beans, The New Yorker.

My favorite posts of the decade, Ask a Manager.

We Learned to Write the Way We Talk, The New York Times.

Embrace the Lasagna, Grub Street.

Eating

On Friday, my gf made Alison Roman’s new NYT recipe, Spicy White Bean Stew With Broccoli Rabe, and it’s good! I’m actually going to make it again tonight. I’m also back on my chickpea pasta bullshit.

NYC

I saw Jacqueline Novak’s excellent Get on Your Knees last night, which I highly, highly recommend. (It’s running through January 26.) Afterward, we had a drink at Cubbyhole, and then went to Don Angie and had the delicious lasagna for two. It was a great cozy date night, and I’m still thinking about how smart and funny the show was.

Have a great Sunday! ✨

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