Unpleasant Thoughts You Had, and the Items You Purchased in Order to Stop Having Them

Unpleasant Thought: Even if war with North Korea is as imminent as the media would like you to imagine, and even if the sea levels are rising at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year, it’s probably still not okay that you don’t have any real retirement savings.

Object Purchased: Triple Cinnamon Cupcake, from the Sprinkles ATM.

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Unpleasant Thought: Maybe you are just bound to repeat the patterns from your parents’ marriages regardless of when and whom you marry.

Object Purchased: Capri Blue Surf Spray Candle, from Anthropologie.

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Unpleasant Thought: The Wedding Industrial Complex has been clouding your sense of what’s real and healthy and what’s imaginary and commercialized since birth.

Object Purchased: Sequined Pineapple Dish Towel, also from Anthropologie.

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Unpleasant Thought: You are now almost positive you pronounced it “car-CEREAL state” when you were drunk at that dinner party and trying to sound smart, and everyone heard it. Everyone.

Object Purchased: Tarte Rainforest of the Sea Color Splash Lipstick, in Daiquiri, from Sephora.

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Unpleasant Thought: There is no way of knowing if your new female acquaintance is being cold and competitive toward you or if your internalized misogyny is making you feel cold and competitive toward her, and being socialized all your life to expect indirect aggression from other women is causing you to project that feeling onto her actually lovely and well-intentioned words and behaviors, and there is ALSO no way of knowing how many potentially life-altering female friendships have been and will be lost to you forever in this way.

Object Purchased: Shroomami Warm Grain Bowl, from Sweetgreen.

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Unpleasant Thought: You have not called your grandfather in 96 days, and you tell yourself it is because he’s always taking a nap but you know that really it is because you are so selfishly and childishly afraid of his death and your death and of death in general.

Object Purchased: Graceful Gardens Planner & Datebook, from The Paper Source.

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Unpleasant Thought: There is no afterlife.

Object Purchased: 2-for-1 flip flops, in Coral Pink and Fuschia Islands, from Old Navy.

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Unpleasant Thought: You have wasted and squandered your many privileges.

Object Purchased: AIRism Stretch Cropped Pants, from Uniqlo.

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Unpleasant Thought: There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

Object Purchased: Sustainable Vegan Bracelet, Woven in Cambodia, from Bloomingdales