Islands & eyeliner [Like You Know Whatever]

Hi friends!

How are you?? I’m doing amazing. I just got back from Catalina, an island an hour’s boat ride off the coast of L.A., where my dear, dear friend of over 20 years got married to her wonderful long-time partner. It was a beautiful weekend full of incredible views and love and music and laughter and sandy feet and blue, blue water.

I think you all probably know by now that I LOVE weddings. I plan my travel for the year around them. I’m a romantic, and I know what an important life moment a wedding is, so I try my absolute hardest to be there whenever I’m invited to one. But I must admit that some weddings just feel a little more personal, a little more intimate, a little more community-driven than others. It’s a matter of personal taste, but I like those kinds of weddings the best. The ones that take place somewhere meaningful to the couple, where they write their own vows, and friends do the flowers and play them down the aisle, and everyone ends up barefoot and sweaty at the end of the night. It feels like what I imagine an old-fashioned barn-raising would be: a true coming together of community.

Is that totally cheesy? Maybe a little. But you have to remember, I’m a former cheesemonger.

Maybe it just comes down to the fact that I’m not a religious person. I guess this is where people usually qualify that with, “I am spiritual, though,” but I don’t even think I’m that spiritual. I pray occasionally when shit really hits the fan but I don’t even know who or what I’m praying to anymore. I know that a lot of people want their faith to be a part of their wedding ceremonies and I think that’s great, but I’m just saying, it is hard for me to tear up during an hour-long Catholic mass or a long ceremony in a language I don’t understand.

When my husband and I got married, apparently my father spent the entire rehearsal dinner interrogating our dear friend Jason, who was our state-and-Internet-ordained officiant. He is such a good friend that I didn’t even know about this until YEARS later. “There are three things that need to happen in the ceremony tomorrow,” my father told him. “They need to be married in the eyes of the state, their family and friends, and God. Are those three things part of the ceremony?” You could probably guess this, but there wasn’t a lick of God in our ceremony. There were a lot of jokes about our obsession with our cat and many embarrassing stories from our 20s, and part of the Night’s Watch oath in our vows. I’m not sure what Jason told him that night–as I know from my childhood, my father is a tall and sometimes very intimidating individual–but my dad did apologize to him at the reception the next day and told him he did a great job, so all’s well that ends well, I suppose?

My sweet friend who got married this weekend is a very special person in my life. I met her when she moved to my town freshman year in high school, and at that age, your friends are more than just buddies, they’re a lifeline. We were both punk-and-feminist-minded and, looking back, so much cooler and smarter and more talented than the shitty gatekeeping dudes we hung around. She introduced me to so much music that has become a part of my blood and I’m pretty sure she introduced me to BUST Magazine, which I would go on to work for as the Music Editor for three years (and where her dreamy first full-length album would appear in its pages). The amazing thing is that she only lived in my hometown for two years before she moved to the opposite coast, but somehow, even pre-Facebook, we stayed in touch. She is that diamond of a friend who I could go years without seeing, but whenever we’re together, we just pick up right where we left off. She moved to Los Angeles in 2020, and it’s been such a joy having her in the same city as me again. It is also plain WILD to me that I used to daydream with her about marrying Conor Oberst from Bright Eyes (lol) and now we’re both all grown up and legitimately married to great people, although, sadly, none signed to Saddle Creek Records.

Anyhoo. Friendship is great, marriage is great, and Catalina is great, too! The side we were on, Two Harbors, is pretty rustic compared to the more resort-y Avalon, and popular with campers and hikers. Our ferry to the island was filled with an enormous Christian camping group. I must admit that I personally stayed in a fabulous villa with the other bridesmaids, and did not do any hiking last weekend. It’s not really my or my husband’s thing, although I do think it would’ve been cool to see the bison that apparently live on the island. Instead, I did a lot of making new friends, sipping an afternoon beer in a palapa overlooking the harbor, reapplying sunscreen, overthinking my outfits, and dancing in the sand, which is surprisingly exhausting. I was sore in the weirdest places Sunday morning.

But enough about all that. Let’s get into Some Other Things, eh?

- Korean spas. My friend’s bachelorette party was the Wednesday before the wedding, and we started out the day with several hours at Hugh Spa, a Korean day spa for women in K-town. It was the first time I’d ever been to one, which should be a crime, considering I’ve lived in L.A. for seven years! The bride and most of the other bridesmaids got scrubs or facials or treatments, but the maid of honor and I opted not to, so we just spent the whole time bouncing around between the spa’s seven different special rooms. There were steam saunas, dry saunas, infrared saunas, a Himalayan salt room, a salt water hot tub, and a disappointingly mild “ice room” that I thought was going to be like a cryo chamber but ended up only being about 40 degrees. I think the biggest let down, though, was the “oxygen room,” which was literally just a dark room with a fan in it. But hey, the whole thing was only $30 for a day pass, and since we went in the middle of a weekday, it was basically empty, so you can’t beat that.

The one thing that intimidated me about this experience was that they don’t allow bathing suits in the spa, so yeah, we were naked a lot of the time. I don’t know what it is about me, but some of my best friends are women who love to run around naked. I am not one of these women, but as a writer, I am always open to new experiences, so I went with it. It was actually pretty liberating. Sometimes I am faced with a situation that challenges me, and in my head I see two options, one, freaking out, and two, acting as if I’m totally cool with everything that’s happening, and more often than not, I’ll stuff my fears into a little box marked “later” and go with option two. The secret, of course, is that by the time it’s over, I never get around to opening up the box of fears. Anyway, yeah: Korean spas = good for your body image???

- Cooking. I’ve been pretty busy the past two weeks, so I haven’t had much time to cook, but I did attempt something I’ve been wanting to make since the beginning of the year when I made a resolution to cook new things, which was homemade Italian meatballs. Growing up, my mother would make big batches of homemade meatballs on Saturday mornings to freeze, so I would often wake up on the weekends to the incongruous smell of onions and garlic. I felt emboldened after making Smitten Kitchen’s turkey pesto meatballs a few weeks back and realizing how easy they were, so I decided to try making classic, Italian-style meatballs. I searched for the best meatball recipe and found this Kitchn article where they taste-tested four top recipes and found that Anne Burrell’s recipe was the clear winner, so I went for it on a weekday when I was working from home. (Some recipes just are not feasible for me after a commute.)

There are different preferences when it comes to meatballs, of course, but I like ones that are light and fluffy and melt in your mouth, which might sound weird to say about wads of ground meat, but Anne Burrell’s definitely qualify. Holy shit, y’all, these are SO good!! Let me tell you my tweaks to that recipe: I don’t eat veal so I used a pound of beef and a half pound of pork instead, didn’t brown the meatballs before baking them (I thought that would dry them out too much), so I baked them for 20 minutes instead, didn’t make Anne Burrell’s sauce but splurged on some Rao’s sauce and simmered them in that instead, then topped them with fresh mozz and threw them in the oven to melt it. We ate them with this garlic bread, which was divine. No pasta. The recipe made enough leftovers for the fridge AND the freezer, which I look forward to putting in my mouth very soon.

I also made the famous Ovenly peanut butter cookies one weekend when my husband was away on a business trip (he loathes peanut butter). They were incredibly easy to make, but I don’t know that they were worth the hype. I’m not sure what I did wrong, but mine browned a bit too quickly on the bottom. Also, I don’t know why, but something weirds me out about the only ingredients being peanut butter, sugar, and eggs. I guess cookies aren’t meant to be nutritious at any rate, but eating nothing but sugar, fat, and protein is a little off to me. Not sure if I’d make them again.

- e.l.f. Intense H20 Proof Eyeliner Pen. OMG, y’all, after using it for just a few days, this $7 liquid liner has replaced my holy grail $23 Stila eyeliner after ten years of near daily use–it’s THAT good!! Big thanks to Kristen Damiani on Twitter who recommended the e.l.f. liners. I was getting frustrated with how patchy and flaky my Stila could be, especially when using it over eyeshadow. The e.l.f. formula is smooth, smooth, smooth, stays put, and lasts all day. I’m a total convert!

- about-face Cheek Freak Blush Balm. This blush is a relatively new product from about-face, Halsey’s make-up line. I don’t really care about Halsey or their music, although I guess I do have some pride about the fact that they grew up just a few towns over from my tiny hometown in Jersey. But this blush balm is the tits. It blends just lovely, layers beautifully over foundation, and it doesn’t make my skin shiny. There’s almost like a balm-to-powder effect. I have it in three colors: Champagne Room, a warm rosy pink, Quickie, a coral, and Score, a show-stopping lilac. I have yet to break out Score, but I’m excited to try it. Champagne Room was the only blush I brought to Catalina last weekend, and it was really pretty and versatile. Check it out if you need a new blush fix.

- Don’t Worry Darling (rent/buy on Prime). I finally watched this source of so much gossip and drama, and you know what? It was just okay. I honestly found it to be a little corny. I am glad I didn’t bother seeing it in the theaters. If you decide to check it out, I would suggest pairing it with an edible, as it’s pretty trippy, and being stoney baloney would definitely make it more fun.

- Reboot (Hulu). I have been enjoying this sitcom about a sitcom so much! Reboot is about a young, hip showrunner who decides to reboot a formulaic sitcom from the early ‘00s with all the original cast, but a new angle. Her artistic goals are challenged when the show’s old school, original showrunner comes on board. And of course there is a lot of unfinished business between the cast members. Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer, Rachel Bloom, and Paul Reiser star in it, and I will watch just about anything that any of them does, so it’s actually very convenient for me that they’re all in one show. It is NOT family-friendly! Check it out if you like behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories!

Alright dears, I think that’s about it! You’ll have to forgive me that this one is a bit shorter than usual–blame it on me being on an island all weekend.

Don’t forget to like, comment, and share this newsletter if you’d care to–you can use the buttons at the bottom or the top.

Until next time—don’t forget to reapply that sunscreen.

Love,

Liz

XOXO