Vacartion.

We're taking a road trip! I haven't been in a car for longer than it takes to get to Cedar Point since we moved to Chicago in 2008. At first this sounded like a really romantic idea—drive the Bourbon Trail, spend a few nights in the French Quarter, lay face down in the white sugar sand of the Redneck Riviera—but now I have severe anxiety-related acid reflux, which isn't romantic at all.

However, nothing relieves stress like a few hours list making, so my I present: OUR ITINERARY!

Day 1: Monday, July 23
Chicago ➞ Bourbon Trail
☛Visit Heaven Hill Distillery and help Paul pick out a barrel by saying things like, I don't really like whiskey straight; dusty bottle hunting; a round of Seelbach Cocktails at the Seelbach Hotel; dinner at St Charles Exchange; more drinks at The Silver Dollar.


Day 2: Tuesday, July 24
Bourbon Trail ➞ Nashville
☛ Visit Four Roses Distillery and warehouse for barrel-picking; hightail it over to Buffalo Trace Distillery for more barrel-picking; hit the road for Nashville; check into Hutton Hotel, where we'll meet Timmy (!) for dinner at Catbird Seat (hopefully) and drinks at Patterson House. Somewhere in there we'll also fit in a round at Holland House Bar & Refuge.


Day 3: Wednesday, July 25
Nashville ➞ New Orleans
☛ Breakfast at the Jack Daniels Distillery; road dog it down to New Orleans and check into The Roosevelt Hotel before diving head first into a frozen Irish Coffee at the Erin Rose. 


Day 4: Thursday, July 26
New Orleans
☛ Watch out: Cure, August, Dominica, Bellocq, Bar Tonique, Soda Shop, Arnaud's French 75, Cochon, The Swizzle Stick Bar at Cafe Adelaide. We're gonna eat/drink everything in your bar/restaurant. 


Day 5: Friday, July 27
New Orleans
☛ John flies down and meets us for a night of fun (but not too much fun) in the French Quarter. I've never met a person who loves to eat boiled underwater creatures as much as my brother, so I'm sure dinner at restaurant that requires eating off of a red and white laminated picnic tablecloth will be in order.

Day 6: Saturday, July 28 - Day 7: Sunday, July 29
New Orleans ➞ Navarre, Florida

☛ Drive my two favorite boys to the beach, as they will surely be hanging their still-drunk (John) and terminally hung-over (Paul, age 41) heads out the window. The main purpose of this visit is to wish my grandma a happy 80th birthday (!!!), but I am also intent on recreating this photo:




Day 8: Monday, July 30
Navarre, Florida ➞ Chicago
☛ It's a long one (916 miles!) but between the three of us, we'll force those 16 hours to fly by with a We're making memories! mantra.

Teen Idol

I'm hella positive for real that I love this song so so much. And if I had to move back into my eighth grade-bedroom, that would be totally fine because the walls would be covered in magazine cutouts of Gwen and it's pretty much all I can do not to decorate my room like that RIGHT NOW.

 Why do I suddenly want to buy L'Oreal Infallible Lipgloss 8 Hour in Red Fatale?

Tiki Pins

I started a Pinterest board to visually define a new wave of tiki, which is basically a collection of palm tree prints and flamingos and electric coral lipstick.

So, if you're into mid-century meets Miami meets mermaids, I'll happily to add you as a pinner and we can swap tropical inspiration photos while I make us banana daiquiris. 

Life is a series of difficult choices.

Which Baskin Robbins should I choose?

Two Songs:

Style Spirit Guide

WHEN MY FRIEND SWINGS BY WITHOUT TELLING ME, 

AND MY APARTMENT IS A MESS. 

Via #whatshouldwecallme.

This is not my life anymore, because I kept my house clean for an entire month for the first time in my entire life and I'm never looking back. Come on over, all you previously-ignored unannounced visitors! I'll never pretend my doorbell is broken again.

Spring cleaning: my closet.

I've been holding on to a lot of clothes for a lot of years. Most of the items in this bag have been moved from Las Vegas to Ukrainian Village to Logan Square. I couldn't bring myself to get rid of everything—some things I'm afraid I'll always wish hadn't gone to charity (sorry, charity!), so I put them in bins and they go to live in our basement storage unit.  

I used to take up three of the four closets in our apartment, and I'm now down to one. Using the question 'Would I rather have something cuter?', I successfully purged: two bins of nostalgic save-ables, two garbage bags of shoes (I'm down to just 21 pairs!), and three shopping bags of sell-ables.

I took the shoes to the nearest clothing donation dumpster-thing and then endured horrible feelings of judgement and rejection at Buffalo Exchange and turned those bags of impulse-buys and one-time-wears into this:

...which I hope to turn into something nice I will wear all summer. Like maybe a haircut?

Spring cleaning: my body.

I convinced Paul to do a twenty-eight day cleanse with me by promising not to smoke for the entire month. Strangely, three days in I am missing coffee one million times more than cigarettes.

Last night we made Grilled Napa Cabbage with Chinese Mustard Glaze and Scallions for dinner. So good, but sooo spicy! I am notoriously stringent with my recipe-following, so it was not confident improvisation that lead to my usage of ramps instead of scallions—it was my inability to correctly identify most produce.

The surprisingly hearty cabbage was accompanied by Crispy Roasted Cauliflower. I've always been in awe of the deliciousness that was the roasted cauliflower dish on Longman & Eagle's dinner menu, but after roasting my own I realized that it's not very hard to make this vegetable taste amazing.

In the process of researching recipes for the detox, I accidentally started using an app called ZipList. Seriously, everyone should download this thing immediately. You can create a virtual recipe box, create a meal plan, and organize a grocery shopping list. I stuck to the list and spent so much less money at Whole Foods than I ever have before—plus now when I open the fridge I don't just stand there and stare blankly at its contents wondering why the fuck I bought beets. Now I know! I bought them for this salad! And we're eating it on Friday for lunch.


Also, I should probably ask MCC if he minds that I'm borrowing this mantra: