The Days of Trendlessness
These pictures were taken almost a year ago and with a charitable outlook, you could still use them to illustrate a fresh piece of writing on current trends (which I am, sort of, doing). The colour story is certainly up to date: there are massive amounts of lilac, brown and yellow around at them moment, although the latter should be slightly mellower than the colour of my Bottega mules.
On Reading Too Much
I do realise that this is probably going to be my least relatable post of all time – and my posts include one about a perfume that costs 400 euros and several about wearing evening gowns at every opportunity.
Current Skincare Routine
I have procrastinated with posting, because during the last weeks, I had a vague feeling that I should write something feminist. I follow mostly the UK and Estonian media and both have recently been filled with stuff that reminds one why fighting for women’s and girls’ rights and contributing to patriarchy-smashing is important (for those who are not Estonian: #metoo has finally landed in earnest there with some seriously disturbing cases featuring underage girls – and boys, too).
10 Fragrances I Cannot Live Without
The title is of course a lie – I am currently out of at least two perfumes mentioned here and I am still very much alive (although perhaps this explains my recent health troubles…). But a follower on Instagram asked me to provide such a list and I thought: why not? I have enough experience with wearing and paying attention to perfume by now to select scents that I’m reasonably confident I’ll not change my mind about any time soon.
On Pain and Other Disabilities
I woke this morning* a little past four with searing pain and horrible cramps. I used to have extremely unpleasant periods when I was younger, but they have gotten better with time and age, to the point that I hardly notice the discomfort these days (the fact that I consider the feeling of someone stabbing me with a knife from below at random moments to be an entirely acceptable thing to experience on a regular basis probably says something about the way women are conditioned in a patriarchal society, but never mind). In fact, I had forgotten it so thoroughly that I didn’t even have suitable painkillers at home when ’women’s trouble’ struck this night.
The Best Books of 2020 I Haven’t Yet Read (Science Fiction & Fantasy)
Compared to 2019, which was an incredible year for genre reads, my 2020 wasn’t quite as special. That said, there were several books I had really been looking forward to, but didn’t manage to read when they were published, so it’s possibly my own fault. This makes it even more important to comb through the best-of lists and get to at least some of the last year’s books this year.
The Best Books of 2020 I Haven’t Yet Read (Non-fiction)
For the introduction to this series, go back to the first instalment for details – if I try to explain it all again, it’ll take me forever to get to the point. The point being, in this case, great non-fiction published last year. It was an excellent year for this kind of literature and I read many of the books already as they came out. Still, there are about a dozen or so that I still want to check out, including but unfortunately probably not entirely limited to:
The Best Books of 2020 I Haven’t Yet Read (Fiction)
There are very few things I enjoy more than pondering which books to read. Sometimes I suspect I enjoy this process more than the actual reading itself. So every year, I go through all the ‘best books of xxxx’ lists I can find and, based on these, compile THE LIST of things I would like to read. It is not a firm TBR, as my success rate with this list is maybe 50% (which is completely fine by me) and it’s also not a full TBR, as there are of course also new books I want to read and a massive amount of old ones.
Neela Vermeire’s Trayee: A Spicy Masterpiece
I’m not easily intimidated when it comes to reviewing perfume – it is not Newtonian physics, where there’s only one correct answer. You smell what you smell, everyone’s perceptions are different and equally valid (if not necessarily equally detailed, knowledgeable or interesting). Reviewing Trayee gave me pause, however. It is such a complex and multifaceted perfume that I’m not sure I’m able to even capture the general mood, not to mention the nuances.
Best of 2020: Lockdown
Let me first assure you that I do not think that lockdown was one of the best things to happen in 2020. But the fact is that it happened – and continues to happen – to most of us and coping with the situation has become an important life skill. So I wanted to briefly mention some things that have started or continued to make sense in lockdown – either to do or to buy or to enjoy.