18 Things on November 18th

1. November 18th by Drake – Sometimes inspiration strikes you in the most unlikely places! While this may be the first time I've written a blog post inspired by Drake, it's likely it won't be the last. After hearing this for the first time in a while, it seemed criminal to not include it in the post and share how much I love playing songs that align with the day of the week/time of year. Friday I’m In Love by The Cure ( Phoebe Bridgers has a cover of this as well if it’s one of those days), August by Flipturn, Monday Morning by Fleetwood Mac. Point is, I love symmetry. Is that the right word? Whatever, moving on.

2. Finding new sources of inspiration. If you’re my age, you remember the anticipation of your fate being decided by a Tiger Beat magazine quiz result. It feels like a lifetime ago I was hiding a new issue under the groceries at the store with my mom in hopes she wouldn’t notice the cashier scanning it. Somewhere in that time, I lost sight of how fun it is to flip the pages! Outfits, advice, community. All of it! Pick up a magazine soon, get back in there!

3. Stripes!!!

4. Live recordings of albums – The 1975’s and Taylor Swift’s. Not that there aren’t others, but we all know if five minutes passes without mentioning them, I’ll explode?!!?

5. Want Locker! Every girl’s dream, bank account’s worst nightmare! It’s everything you could ever want in a platform – inspiration, convenience, and organic! Like Pinterest, but strictly for products with shoppable links. Gone are the days of screenshotting wishlists, apparently dreams do come true! View my profile here.

6. Biographies – I mean who knew books other than enemies to lovers tropes were worth reading right?! Right now, I’m enthralled by Glossy written by Marisa Meltzer. It tells the story of Emily Weiss and the building of Glossier. I would recommend it to anyone interested in marketing and the digital landscape, I can’t stop myself from underlining, highlighting, and bookmarking every other sentence!!

7. Paying attention to the things your friends are passionate about! I made a whole post about this, LINK. Shameless self promo, I’ll let that post do the due diligence for me, but all I’ll add is that thanks to Caroline I know about Sofia Coppola now. How could I ever repay her for such a thing?

8. Breakfast for dinner. Not explaining this one.

9. Asking myself “what would Carrie Bradshaw do?”, not saying it’s smart. Just saying it’s fun.

10. Mentor/Mentee: Make sure you have people around you that you are being an example or helping hand for, and same goes for you! You can’t pour from an empty cup, and having inspiring people in your corner that are rooting for you is huge. You don’t have to know them personally, there are plenty of people I do Zoom calls with that help me professionally. People are shockingly generous with their time!

11. Seasonal music: I’ve touched on this already, but I decided I have more to say.. Shocker! There is a time and place for everything. The time and place for the Backseat Lovers is late fall and Kenny Chesney just sounds better in the summer. I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them!

12. Telling myself “Only this + nothing more” I’ll let this one be. I think it means something a bit different to everyone.

13. Leopard print! It’s back (if it was ever really gone) and I said what I said and you'll just have to see it to believe me I guess! Check out my Pinterest board, leopard f/w 23! If you're into fashion and want to read more about the odd neutrality of this print, read Laura Brown's Substack piece on it, I Can't Quit Leopard Print! She is my muse, I adore her writing. She says anything I've ever wanted to say in a far funnier and more intelligent way. My parting advice on leopard print for you is to be strategic about it.

14. Jump then fall! Yes, like the Taylor Swift song, but that isn’t where this one is going (surprisingly). I’m talking about the kind of jump then fall where you don’t sit with paralyzing analysis of every way a situation could unfold. Trust yourself, take the jump. Move to that city if it feels right. Talk to your neighbor. What if this, what if that. A life without chance and faith is not a life worth living!

15. When someone says “this is so you”

16. Goodreads! Although I have to physically restrain myself from arguing with some people in the comments about Daisy Jones and The Six, I love reading everyone’s reviews of what they read and being able to easily get new book recommendations!

17. Prom by SZA

18. Offering to find outfits for your friends when they have an event to avoid spending your own money. You still get the thrill of a purchase, without the transaction. Girl math.

That’s it from me! Let me know if you look into any of these things, talk soon! Xx, MM