an easy, low-pressure post about sweaters

i found the best one for $48

Over the weekend, I was going to write this deep, ambitious post about perfectionism and what it is to be great at things you hate and workaholism and also somehow Jennifer Lopez and 2025 and how much I miss spacing out without a phone and how my brilliant friend Elisa says a truly thought-out, solid essay takes months to write but most of us can only afford to give ourselves days and how this year I want to slow down and let my ideas bake for longer and then, ironically, I ran out of time on my self-imposed deadline and so…I hope you like sweaters.

I love sweaters. Unfortunately, I live in a dumb place where winter means it’s 52º at night and 74º during the day, which you’d think would be paradise except 80% of the time the air is too Beijing-thick with fire/smog/Hollywood executives’ breath to inhale comfortably outside which makes for pretty sunsets but is hell on your lungs and is also — with the exception of about nine days per year — never good weather for sweaters. Nevertheless, she persisted.

this sweater is under $50 and telegraphs a certain relaxed, over-40, chic-enough but might still have a stain or two on my pants vibe — ie, everything i currently am

I bought two sweaters for my holiday trip back east. Actually I bought four, but two were from my nemesis brand Babaa, which, if you follow Everything Is Fine, you know that, despite appearing to be extremely my shit (plus every menopausal Brooklyn tastemaker exalting them!), turned out to be little more than itchy wool prisons. To make matters worse, one of the Babaa sweaters I ordered was sized for a child. When I tried to send it back, the sketchy eBay seller informed me it was the brand’s “mini” style which is apparently designed for either extremely tiny adults or aging hipster ladies hoping to recreate their own version of this Chris Farley bit.

But I did have two sweater successes. The first was an impulse buy on Etsy that cost $47.93. It is an extra-soft, loose-fitting, lightweight-but-still-warm-but-not-so-warm-it-gives-me-hot-flashes wool blend that is completely non-itchy and looks good/classy thrown on with jeans and ankle boots and is now the easiest, most sneakily-stylish piece I own. I feel like Julianne Moore would wear it in a movie where she plays a cool stepmom really trying to make the kids like her despite her chilly disposition. It’s the less expensive version of a sweater Kerry Washington would don whilst lounging on a white settee drowning her sorrows in red wine because some boring man won’t commit because he’s married and also the president. I bought it in camel/black but would honestly take at least five more of the possible color combinations, including this almost-but-not-quite Fraggle Rock orange/cream.

Then, in a pre-holiday frenzy of “I deserve nice new things just because I’m alive and being alive is hard” straight out of the Debtor’s Anonymous playbook, I plunked down $274 for this ultra-lush, oversized, brushed-cashmere cardigan from J.Crew, which was on super sale, marked down from $428, a number so high I just gagged typing it.

This was my Christmas treat to myself and I regret to inform you did indeed deliver the desired dopamine/sartorial joy. I received this cardigan on December 12th and have somehow already worn it 47 times. It’s casual cashmere — so cozy and soft and buttery and luxurious without feeling Eileen Fisher-coded or like I’m someone’s uptight mom. I threw it on over my pajamas for breakfast with my sister and her kids; wore it with a button-up, jeans and black riding boots to stomp around Manhattan; over a striped turtleneck and with a long pleated skirt to drinks with friends; with my favorite t-shirt and Vans to walk the dog.

Life is hard and sometimes you do need a soft, nurturing treat to help battle your way through. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself when the past-me, treat-needing credit-card charges come due.

Last, we have my all-time favorite person Samantha Irby on the podcast this week! I love this woman more than I love just about anything and I chortled several times as I was uploading this episode and I think you might too. In other news, if you need more Sam Irby in your life (who doesn’t?) you should subscribe to her substack which consistently makes me laugh until I cry.