It’s his sixth year at the fashion brand — he previously spent 16 years rising through the ranks at Madewell and J.Crew — but he balances the workload with hobbies (like a ceramics practice he picked up during the pandemic and his aptly named Somstack newsletter), dinners with friends, and long, relaxed lunches at the office that are always, always followed by dessert like Greenmarket pies, cake spreads, and Fudgie the Whale deliveries from Carvel. “There’s a big dessert culture at Alex Mill, thanks to me,” Sikhounmuong says. “Dessert brings people together.”
a 10-year-patron asked if a photo of Tom and Lucy on my wall was a photo of my grandkids. LOL. i was like, ahh no they’re my niece and nephew, but I guess I could have grandkids had I…done things differently. I didn’t hate the question but i DEFINITELY did not love it.
Posted: August 25th, 2024 | Tags:Uncategorized | No Comments »the kindest, not-quite-right birthday card
whoa big birthday. kind of cool? kind of dumb? does it matter? the number, that is. the birthday will always be awesome. the highlights:
i took THREE DAYS off, which was a total luxury, and stayed at a totally luxurious hotel (too luxurious? possibly)
my cousin making the world’s most delicious pavlova and me basically guarding it with my life
watched half of my annual-birthday-movie on tuesday night (this year was the conversation) (past years: chungking express, paris, texas, and mad max)and then woke up at 5am on wednesday from birthday anticipation and finished watching the movie, with my two lil dogs at either end of the sofa, then fell asleep and slept till 8:30am. true heaven.
ross ordering the most beautiful champagne
all my friends and fam doing cool things
on wednesday, at the end of our meal, our waitress presented me with this nice card (see above) — think she mistook where i was from with my name? — signed by all of the restaurant staff. 🤣
took two baths!!!!
sleepily watched the dark knight rises and dune 2 (but full disclosure, I kind of don’t care about dune!!!! “more dust”)
got the most delicious room service breakfast ever, coffee and a cappuccino and eggs and these pancakes…we ate every bite. only regret is that i didn’t order the strawberry danish (new late-in-life thing: liking danishes) (i guess we CAN grow as we get older)
the world’s most amazing pavlova that i barely could share
ps. speaking of estate sales, i keep thinking about yvonne’s estate sale and all her beautiful things and that they tore down her house and just how life just keeps going and changing and evolving. we will always look back in amazement, i think? like — there is no change that wouldn’t shock us after we are gone. anyway, i wear her ring every day and i hope she knows that i treasure all of her things and think about her regularly.
Posted: August 24th, 2024 | Tags:Uncategorized | No Comments »Mr. Amos in 1977 outside his original cookie store in Los Angeles. He had established it two years earlier. Photo by David Strick, courtesy of NY Times.
just read the obituary for wally amos, the founder of famous amos chocolate chip cookies, which loomed large in my childhood. felt sad about this bit:
Mr. Amos was always forthcoming about his struggles in growing his brand and about the decisions that led him to lose control of it.
“I’d lost the company really because I didn’t use to listen to people a lot because I was Famous Amos,” he told The Times in 1999. “The first couple of years after I left Famous Amos, I didn’t even make cookies anymore, and I used to always make cookies at home. I didn’t even want to talk about chocolate chip cookies, really. I shaved my beard and stopped wearing hats.”
Posted: August 11th, 2024 | Tags:Uncategorized | No Comments »Elisa Jensen, Lace Curtain, Limits of the Diaphane, 2023, 20 x 16, Oil on wood panel. From New Realism: Looking Forward and Back, the inaugural show at Isabel Sullivan Gallery, 39 Lispenard Street in Tribeca.
i don’t know why i’m so 😵💫 these days — just 100% kaput. having a hard time finding the joy (besides in whipped cream) and it’s like, what is my g-d problem. fighting with ross, body hurting, headache always hovering, more impatient with everyone at work, general dread about everything (except days off), even though superficially it’s all great. i feel like it’s this weird PTSD with my mom from this past year and always being ready for an emergency. but like…that sounds sorta bogus and dumb and like get over it. but anyway, signed up for this level one course on somatics. please let me keep at it. please let me get better! and please still love me while i’m in this pit!
too many headaches, not enough Olympics. AND SPEAKING OF, I am officially OVER headaches, over headaches caused by stress, over headaches caused by too much sunlight (lol), over headaches caused by too little sleep, over headache meds that you can only take 10 times in a month, and i’m definitely over being so g-d sensitive to everything!
Posted: August 4th, 2024 | Tags:Uncategorized | No Comments » Cy Twombly, Untitled (Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor), 1994, oil, acrylic, oil stick, crayon, and graphite on canvas, 3 panels, 157 ½ × 624 inches (400.1 × 1,585 cm), The Menil Collection, Houston, courtesy of Gagosian Quarterly