holiday wishlist

i hate gifts. i really do. the only person that should be gifting me gifts is me.

christmas cheer. all throughout the malls. cheap tinsel. santa’s lap. i love the confectionery ambiance of malls this time of the year. the massive trees and all the lights. seeing consumerism at its finest with large shopping bags and families bounded together.

for me, christmas has looked different since living in korea for several years. though there is a large christian population here, christmas is actually a holiday reserved for couples. hand in hand they go, overcrowding cafes and restaurants. it’s incredibly humiliating being alone on christmas if you take yourself out on a solo coffee date.

i remember a few years back, i tried to check off a cafe that had been on my list for years. of all days, i chose christmas. i sat alone with a book, headphones in, homesick for another world, and a rush of couples decided to come in. waitlisted. and when they saw me all alone, they rolled their eyes, scoffed, and one couple even pointed and laughed at me. immediately pulled from the world i was lost in, i downed my coffee and tossed everything in my bag, book half opened, pages bent, and rushed out red.

but that’s all right. christmas, now, is a holiday reserved for me.

here are a list of items that have been on my holiday mind.

🎄 the teddy sofa bed — omhu ($2200)

look at this couch! it’s also a bed! imagine me splayed here, reading books back to back, ella fitzgerald in the air, a fireplace cackling, vin chaud in hand.

based out of copenhagen, this simple convertible contains very little. two plush mattresses with arm-rests that double as pillows with a steel backing to give it structure.

as someone who enjoys small spaces, this is perfect for daytime lounging, doubling for nighttime fun ;) i feel most two-in-ones are uncomfortable, but this one seems to be favorable.

🎄 on women — susan sontag ($11)

i’ll admit it. i’m just like the rest of y’all who are intimidated by sontag, scared to start. but the want for this is high because i think the 70’s design with pastel purple and pink adds a delicacy to the boldness in the text of the cover, but also the boldness in who she was.

here we have seven essays on the aging of women, the humiliations, the challenges. perhaps not the best place to start with her work, but i want to know how to be a woman!

on two separate accounts, i have asked friends to hand-deliver this to me. they have failed me. again, this is why i only ever give gifts to myself. you cannot rely on others for your own happiness! and i’m sure sontag would agree with me.

🎄 castanet necklace — lemaire (sold out)

i’ve been looking for a statement necklace. something bold. here’s one with functionality. leather strap. plastic clam. it opens into a quick compact, two visuals. there’s a beauty in the way a clam opens, offering open hands. inviting, giving. playful in construction, lemaire presents illusion of tchotchke with utility.

🎄 dante clutch xl — the row (~$1k)

i think i’m theme-ing. scheming. i’m onto something. but look at this big bag. it’s a sack. it’s huge. it can hold whatever you want. but you can also sleep on it.

it reminds me when i used to bum at airports during odd hours in the am (thank you ryanair flights), using a thrift store duffle as a pillow. it’s this idea that i carry the world with me. all my belongings on my body. it’s an idea that has stayed with me since my reading of the philosophy of andy warhol. perhaps i’m misremembering the book, but he talks about living out of a suitcase. he thinks of the first night at the apartment having all your belongings in a single suitcase, what do you have? what do you cherish?

i remember when my old house almost burnt down. smoke and ash through the halls. alarms ringing. red in my mother’s eyes. black in my father’s throat. the question hit me. not in hypothetical parking lot talk, not over burgers and fries with friends, but in actualized panic and fear, actualized in-the-moment: what do you take with you when running out of a burning building?

though i didn’t run. though i saw my bed powdered in dreamless smoke and the formation of the past in the present-panic, i ran to my brother, pacifier in mouth, waking up in my arms, so quiet. and his quiet stilled me, pushed me past the bottle of milk burning on a stove fire too loud even for the fire alarm. he kept me at peace. like sleep.

a silent friction exists between the head and the pillow. dreams birth. consciousness flows like honey. it’s a space where i create from. because there are horrors, because there are plot devices, mechanical shifts for the characters i’m working on, for the stories i want to develop. it all happens in a place where everything is free and everything happens. it’s terrifying.

bags shaped like dreams or sleep are the physical manifestations of the very ethos of where i create from. here, the row has done it in calf leather. no frills, no extravagance, it gives way to a timelessness perfect for any season, any part of your ootd.

🎄 for your consideration saltburn screenplay book (~$200)

i haven’t seen it. but it’s been all over my tiktok and the fomo is getting real. i need to know what the bathtub scene is!!!

this screenplay book is apparently for people in the industry, given out to persuade votes for award season. but really, give it to the people who actually WANT IT. incredible to see it on ebay at resale bids starting at $200+

it’s the perfect coffee table book for jacob elordi fans.

if any of these are outside of your budget, this is my ko-fi.

lol jk!!! participate in capitalism in any way that makes YOU happy this holiday season!

be well

do good work

keep in touch,

<3

n