Coats + jackets with book-sized pockets
I like to check and see if pockets will meet my purposes, which almost always involve carrying a book or magazine. Alex Mill's chore coat is great for paperbacks, but the v. best book coat is any Barbour or field jacket with a game pouch--basically, a roomy hidden pocket along the back meant to be stuffed with dead birds, but perfect for books + periodicals.
"Skelet van een hand" by Jan l'Admiral, 1709-1773
Me, someday.
One painting to rule all the colors (for me, Jacob van Hulsdonck's "Still Life with Meat, Fish, Vegetables, and Fruit")
About the thirtieth time I caught myself standing in front of this painting at the Cleveland Museum of Art, admiring the knife-groove marks in the butter and the bug-chewed radish leaves, I had an low-key epiphany: I realized that I have been trying to pull all of its specific colors into my life—into the rugs and walls and objects in my house, into the clothes in my closet. Having that particular penny drop makes choosing things to buy or bring into the domestic orbit a little easier now, because an incredible painter figured out a color plan for me four hundred years ago.
Liberty Puzzles
This butterfly is just 290 pieces, but it is deceptively tricky, because they are so craftily cut and include many whimsies (pieces shaped as specific things, including caterpillars and dancing ladies). One of the rare puzzles I've enjoyed solving more than once.
