Me + Reading, a Love Story.
Plus: how to style this season's new denim, life changing books, outdoor essentials, some favorite swimwear picks, & more.
Hi! How was your week?
Greetings from LA - I’m here for about a week visiting my boyfriend. We have a bunch of fun things planned with the kids and it’s set to be a fun trip. Things were absolutely bonkers before I left. Work deadlines, hosting a fundraiser for a friend who is running for local office, moderating
’s book event… all FUN but also a lot! I was happy to just sit in silence with my headphones on for my flight. We had a quiet night last night (sushi and an early bedtime) and I’m feeling recharged.Today, I thought it could be fun to have a nostalgic chat about reading and where my love for books came from. The obvious answer of course is my parents - they really fostered a love of creativity (we were always crafting as kids) and books in my two sisters and I. But it goes deeper than that.
Do you remember the (godawful) Presidential Fitness Test of the eighties and nineties? Is this something we all had to do? Was anyone else traumatized by it? Throughout elementary and middle school, this was (for me) the absolute worst part of the whole school year. Peek shame and embarrassment. Growing up, I was very small (both short and scrawny). I was (and still am) deeply uncoordinated, I was a terrible runner, I had zero to little upper body and core strength. I think that the test was to run a mile, a shuttle run, sit ups, pushups, and a sit & reach test. The sit & reach was always the only thing I ever passed at. It was more and more terrible each year. I’d want to hide.
(Edited to add: I FORGOT ABOUT THE ROPE CLIMB! The absolute worst!)
The very word “challenge” terrified me until… somewhere in elementary school, a different challenge was released: a reading challenge! I think I was quite young for the first one. Maybe first or second grade. This was 30 years ago so bear with me but I think the goal was to log 100 x 30 minute reading sessions over the course of the school year. Well, I logged 300. Which means that I was awarded not one but THREE reading medals. Only two other kids got 3 medals! For a kid who had never received any sort of medal or award, this was BFD. I wish I could find these medals, I wish they were saved somewhere. The cord was a thin gold rope and I remember that the edges of the medallion were pointy.
There was an awards ceremony and I have such a vivid memory of walking across the stage and receiving my THREE reading medals. The applause. The (new at the time) sensation of accomplishment. And proudly wearing my stack of medals for the rest of the day. When I got home, I placed them in my jewelry box. This was a special day for me. When the only other sort of competitions I’d ever done were around sports and physical strength, I finally felt like I was good at something.
It’s funny looking back now: I have so few clear memories of elementary and middle school (and even fewer positive ones!) but this one really stuck with me.
As I got older and older (and slightly more athletic), reading remained my safe place. I would happily spend weekends locked away with R.L. Stine (in hindsight: wayyy too scary for a ten year old to be reading), The Babysitters Club (Claudia and her crafts + penchant for junk food was my favorite), and of course, Sweet Valley High (I later read one of those books for a podcast episode and realized they DO not hold up!).
My relationship with reading ebbed and flowed through my twenties and thirties but it’s always been my sanctuary. An escape, a happy place, a distraction, but really just something I love doing.
I’ve talked about books so much here, I’ve written posts like How to Read More Books and How to Get Back into Reading but at the end of the day, if I go more than a few days without picking up a book, I don’t feel like me!
On The Stripe (my blog!) this week.
We started out the week with my outdoor essentials. Everything from keeping the bugs away to fancy acrylic glassware.
Then, a reader request: Carly and I teamed up to break down how you style this season’s four key denim styles (wide leg denim, cuffed shorts, straight leg jeans, cropped cream wide legs).
15 books that were (for me!) nothing short of life-changing.
A BIG swimwear edit. Carly and I both share our favorite styles.
This Week in Reading:
I finished reading Sociopath, by Patric Gagne! Honestly, I felt sad when this was over. This wasn’t the book I thought it would be. I expected a dark confessional and while it was at times, it was more the memoir of a person who seems pretty incredible (and made me view the word/diagnosis “sociopath” much differently. I loved it. Highly recommend listening.
Over the weekend I finished (finally!) The Work by Bri Lee. I loved this book and took my time reading it as I wanted to really savor it. Definitely one of my favorite fiction books of the year so far; up there with Real Americans. It is a romance (I guess!) but more literary. Art world, long distance relationship, beautiful writing, slightly steamy. Highly recommend!
I read Kill for Me, Kill for You, by Steve Cavanagh in a single 24 hours because I just had to know what happened! This was a fun and twisty one. The writing was sort of bad at times (sorry had to warn you) but the plot made up for it. When you love a book despite shoddy writing, you know the plot is worth reading!
After that I started A Year on Earth with Mr. Hell after seeing it featured on
’s substack. My oh my - it is SPICY!And on audio I have started The Art of Small Talk by Casey Wilson + Jessica St. Clair which was a reader recommendation. It is very entertaining and also something I am trying to work on (a little bit, at least. I really don’t like small talk but I’d like to be better at it!!).
The rope climb! Probably am still emotionally scarred from that test. My love of reading came from three sources - the magic of the Scholastic book fair, the fact I was an only child growing up on a farm so what else was I going to do, and the Pizza Hut Book It program. Free pizza just for reading?! Sign me up!
Everyone else who was traumatized by the presidential fitness test, there is a great podcast episode by Maintenance phase about it. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/maintenance-phase/id1535408667?i=1000495386842