25 Things I Absolutely Must Do This Summer

Kate Sloan

It is, at long last, warming up here in Toronto. I have been Googling “When will it get warm?!” for months, so I’m thrilled, obviously.

While Canadian weather leaves a lot to be desired, it does make me especially grateful for new seasons when they appear. I am always making dreamy lists in my journal of the adventures I hope to go on when the weather changes. Here are 25 activities I endeavor to embark on in the coming months…

Drink a mint julep on a patio. Mint juleps are my summertime boozy go-to. They are so refreshing and decadent when it’s balmy outside. Last I checked, you could get a good julep at Clinton’s during the warm months. I also keep hearing good things about Bar Isabel, and I love the classic cocktails and cozy vibe at Northwood. Here’s to lots of cold drinks on sunny patios this season!

Read lots of books. Speaking of patios: there are few leisures more pleasurable to me than sitting on a café patio with a big iced coffee (or mango smoothie) and a fascinating book. I’ve got plenty of good ones to work through this season: Love, Sex, and Awakening, The Remedy, and I Love Dick, to name just a few!

Make out on a sunny hillside. Look, no summer in Toronto is complete without kissing a cutie in Riverdale Park at sunset. It’s one of the prettiest views in the whole city, and being there with someone I adore always fills me with a sense of renewed hope and optimism. (The Chester Hill lookout, pictured, is also a great spot for makeouts if a picturesque view is your idea of romance.)

Swim naked. I spent several evenings this past winter making out naked with cuties in the heated pool at a sex club. Being naked underwater just feels primally right somehow, when you’re in the right environment and headspace for it. Hopefully I’ll be invited to some lascivious pool parties or beach days this summer. Or maybe I’ll just invite a handsome suitor into my bathtub with me. Whatever works.

Buy a great new lipstick. Summer is traditionally when I rock my brightest pinks and weirdest purples. Having a new lipstick to wear can give you a whole new lease on life. I love going shopping with fellow femmes, trying out a zillion shades on the back of my hand, and buying the one that makes me happiest.

Go dancing. You can really do this year-round but there is something particularly hedonistic about summertime dancey nights: you can wear a short dress or tiny shorts, adorn your face with a healthy sprinkling of glitter, and boogie til you break a sweat. Clinton’s has frequent themed dance nights, and there’s also the Queer Slowdance and so many other spots. I want the unmatched exhilaration of moving my body to beats well into the wee hours!

Get a tattoo. I’ve gotten new tattoos two summers in a row, and maybe I’ll continue that streak this year… I have some ideas percolating but I’m not totally sure yet. Hmm!

Host a party. My get-togethers are usually simple affairs involving pizza, cider, sex gossip, and maybe a few rounds of Use Your Words or “Which Would You Rather Bang?” But low-key though they might be, they’re still nourishing to my soul. Laughing with good friends on the reg is so important that you should pre-schedule it if that’s what it takes to make it happen.

Go on vacation. My main trip of the summer will be for Woodhull, but I’m going to try to get away at least one other time as well. Maybe I’ll go visit friends in Hamilton, Kingston, or Montreal. Maybe I’ll trek down to New York to see Bex. Wherever I end up going, I think it’s critical to escape one’s home for at least a few days in the summer, just to shake things up.

Stay up all night. This is a habit I picked up during high school, when my loosey-goosey summertime schedule enabled me to fuck up my sleep patterns all summer with no repercussions. Now that I’m an adult with responsibilities (not to mention an aging body), this is less possible – but it’s still doable if I time it right. Here’s to watching sunrises from rooftops with babes I adore, and fuelling my jangling brain with coffee that makes my teeth chatter when I smile.

Go on first dates. You can spark new romances any time of year, of course, but they feel particularly salacious and fresh when it’s warm out, I find. I plan to hop on Tinder, OkCupid, or SwingTowns and find some new cuties to romance. Even if none of your rendezvous lead to anything beyond one date, you can still make the most of those dates and have a fun time. Getting to know someone new is an exercise in empathy and communication skills, at the very least.

Celebrate Pride. There are certainly valid criticisms of Pride – its corporatization, its predominant focus on cis gay white men, its tumultuous relationship with police. I still love it, or at least the idea of it. It’s tradition. I love putting on a ridiculous outfit, slathering myself in sunscreen, and shimmying down the street with other rambunctious queers, shouting proud slogans and singing silly songs. I love taking up space as a queerdo and insisting on our importance in this world.

Get breakfast at a diner with someone cute. Grabbing an all-day breakfast after a night of bangin’ (or just platonic hangtimes) is one of my favorite simple joys. Eggs, toast, homefries, coffee, sausage, bacon, and good conversation. What’s not to love?! (My favorite spots for this are 7 West and the Detroit Eatery, but you knew that already.)

Go to an outdoor movie screening. Toronto always has plenty of these in the summer, at Yonge-Dundas Square and in Christie Pits Park and various other places. One of my fondest summer memories is laughing my ass off with a bunch of strangers at a public Anchorman screening years ago; I dressed up like it was the 1970s and we chorused our favorite lines at the screen. Communal movie-watching is so fun!

Try something new sexually. I first received oral sex one balmy July night in 2008, and I lost my PIV virginity on a sweaty evening in May of 2011, so I guess summers are entangled with sexual “firsts” in my mind. Maybe this’ll be the summer I finally get fisted, or go down on someone who has a vulva, or fuck on top of a grand piano, somehow…

Go on a long walk. I love exploring my city when it’s warm enough that I can do so without a coat. Podcasts or songs keep me company in my earbuds, and I go wherever my feet want to take me. Walks always calm my mind and sate my body – and I often have flashes of creative brilliance mid-walk that lead to fantastic blog posts, articles, or songs!

Visit a nude beach. I’ve never been to Toronto’s clothing-optional Hanlan’s Point Beach, and I can already hear my local friends groaning their dismay as I type that. Surely this is the summer when I finally make the trip! Being casually naked around other people is so good for your body image and self-acceptance.

Devour a TV show. In summers past, I’ve gorged on How I Met Your Mother, The Office, The L Word, and various others. It may sound trivial, but immersing myself in a fictional world always leaves me fulfilled and inspired. Each new lens through which you view your life gives you new tools and new ideas. I am always trying to broaden my horizons in any way I can, even if I do so by becoming temporarily obsessed with fictional romantic storylines!

Journal at sunrise. I don’t know why all my thoughts feel so much more poignant and important if I have them while the sun is coming up, but they do! I like sitting on a rooftop, café patio, or hillside as the day begins and meditating in my journal about whatever’s bothering me or whatever I’m grateful for. I always feel so cleansed and productive afterward.

Pose for gorgeous photos. Sometimes I think I hear the voice of Future Me whispering in my ear from decades ahead; she always tells me to appreciate what I have now. Part of that, I think, is appreciating what I look like now, because – shallow though this may sound – I’ll never look this young again! I’m lucky enough to have lots of photographer friends; maybe they’d like to indulge me in snapping some sunny glamor shots sometime this summer.

Go out for ice cream. This doesn’t have to be a date, but gosh, it’s cute when it is. You get to debate the best ice cream flavors and make fun of your date’s questionable tastes. You get to giggle at them when they get melted ice cream all over their lips, and then maybe kiss it off ’em. You get to banter wittily, or sit in comfortable silence, while crunching your cones. Like many food-related dates, it’s more about the ritualistic glee of it than the food itself – although, let’s be real, Baskin-Robbins’ peanut butter chocolate ice cream is a damn fine treat.

Wear high heels. I normally hate doing this, but hey, summer is the time for it. Even if I just end up gallivanting to the corner store or local café in my Sofft T-straps or Zara wedges, wearing heels in summer still feels crucial somehow.

Seek out new music. Spotify’s various music-discovery tools make this super easy, so I have no excuse! I love having specific soundtracks for particular times in my life, both because new music makes life feel more exciting and because it can act as a sensory time capsule when I listen to it again months or years later.

Get together with old friends. I have several pals who go to school in other cities but come back into town each summer, and I love catching up with them when I can. We go see improv shows or outdoor theatre productions, get dinner or drinks, and reminisce about old times. It always feels so necessary and uplifting!

Experiment with different identities. Summer is always the time when I try new perfumes or clothing silhouettes, push the limits of my personality, and consider launching bold new projects. The more relaxed climate lends itself better to identity shifts, somehow. I’m looking forward to seeing who I become this year.

What do you hope to do this summer, my loves?

 

Heads up: this post was sponsored, and as always, all writing and opinions are my own!

Monthly Faves: Teddy Bears, Tongues, & Tarina Tarantino

Kate Sloan

This month I turned 25, spent a lot of time partyin’ and socializin’ with friends, and had plenty of fulfilling sexual experiences! Here’s hoping April was a prescient preview of the sexy spring and summer to come.

Sex toys

• SheVibe sent me the Adrien Lastic Caress (full review to come!) and I’m surprised by how much I like it so far. It uses rotation and silicone attachments to stimulate the clit in a cunnilingus-esque manner, sort of like the Sqweel and Sqweel Go – but it also vibrates, which amplifies the sensation. I’m contemplating writing a post comparing various oral sex simulators, because damn, I love them when they’re executed well.

• Speaking of oral sex simulators… I’ve gotten back into the Satisfyer a bit this month. The suction creates a slow build of arousal compared to a vibrator, but sometimes that is exactly what I want.

• Teddy Love sent me their product, an undeniably horrifying teddy bear whose face vibrates. I haven’t been able to bring myself to apply it to my genitals yet, but I have delighted in showing it to partners and watching terror bloom on their faces.

Fantasy fodder

• Receiving oral sex tends to fall by the wayside in my fantasy life until I meet someone who’s really good at it – and then it reenters my sexual awareness at full force. I got good head from a couple o’ cuties this month, so I’ve had tongues on the brain. Unf.

• I went on some dates this month with someone who is a very good kisser… Like, very, very good… Like, “there is usually wetness dripping down my thighs afterward” levels of good. He’s got the actual lip-lock on lock and also does a lot of the peripheral things I love during makeouts, like grabbing my ass and holding me down by my wrists. So I’ve been fantasizing a lot about good kisses since then. Ugh, please tell him to come kiss me some more.

• I think I’m developing a bit of a premature ejaculation kink?! (In porn, anyway. Not so much in real life.) When I’m high and therefore disinhibited, a lot of my porn searches lately are phrases like “she makes him cum quickly,” “he can’t help but cum,” “he tries not to cum,” and so on. I confessed this growing interest to Bex, who knows my kinks super well, and they replied: “Honestly, that makes perfect sense. A dude being surprised by how good something (probs a BJ) feels so he loses control and comes instantly? That’s totes you.” Ah. Yes. That does make perfect sense, now that I think about it.

Sexcetera

• This month I had sex with a straight cis guy who a) didn’t assume I’d be into intercourse, b) was highly skilled at mid-sex verbal check-ins that were both reassuring and hot, and c) said to me at one point, “I want to see you come. How can I make that happen?” Gosh, I love it when partners are attitudinally a good sexual match for me: non-pressure-y, adventurous, unpresumptuous, and more about pleasure and fun than meeting certain culturally prescribed goals. Swoon!

• Some of my work elsewhere this month: I enthused about my favorite erogenous zone, the A-spot, for Glamour, and detailed my experiences with a vaguely biphobic doctor for Daily Xtra. I blogged about wooden dildos and the silly realities of sex for Ignite. I made some sex-nerdy confessions on SwingTowns. On our podcast, Bex and I talked about porn and ruining the mood, interviewed Kenton of Funkit Toys, and on 4/20 we got high and laughed a lot.

• In April I had 25 orgasms – fewer than average for me, because some depressive spells tanked my libido for a bit. Two of those orgasms (8%) were from partners; the rest were solo.

Femme stuff

• For my birthday, I bought myself an Alice in Wonderland necklace from Tarina Tarantino. It’s big and over-the-top and I love it.

• H&M makes a flattering $15 fit-and-flare dress in multiple different colors and patterns. I own eight of them now. It’s a problem. Except it’s not a problem at all. I think my current faves are the blue gingham and red floral ones. Soooo foxy!

• I got my makeup done for a friend’s wedding, and it was such a fun novelty. I’d never worn false lashes before, and couldn’t stop staring at my cartoonish babeliness in every mirror. My turquoise bridesmaid dress rounded out the look.

Little things

Hippo Campus’ new album (it is all I want to listen to right now!). Coaching/consulting sessions where I feel helpful and useful. Fun cam shows! Having a full plate of writing projects. Spicy salmon sushi and big helpings of edamame. Editing podcasts in a café window seat. Conversations with smart friends about strange psychosexual phenomena. Drinks-dates where our conversation crackles and flows. Twitter crushes. Interviewing hilarious smart people for exciting projects. All-day breakfast. Dancing to Taylor Swift with a bunch of new friends in Hamilton. Listening to the Flop House while soaking in a hotel bathtub at the end of a long day. Beautifully-wrapped presents. Polite and respectful suitors. Bex’s dapperness. Seeing my friends win awards. Good listeners. Learning new things. Sexting as negotiation. Really good coffee.

Review: Standard Glass S-Curve

Kate Sloan

Never buy someone a sex toy they haven’t specifically requested. You can’t know what someone’s tastes in toys are. You can’t know what will work for someone else’s body. It’s always better to buy them a gift card, or take them shopping, and let them pick out a toy for themselves.

Unless you’re my best friend Bex, in which case you can disregard everything I just said, apparently.

During my last visit to New York, Bex presented me with a handmade S-Curve dildo by Standard Glass. “It’s your favorite shade of turquoise,” they said, “and it’ll hit your A-spot!” I was stunned. It was a gorgeous, thoughtful gift – the kind of toy I would have picked out for myself. How did I get so lucky to have a friend as good as Bex?

We were hanging out with my FWB, with whom I had a sex-date planned for the following day. “You should fuck me with this,” I chirped at him. But he’s a Responsible Adult so he just nervously eyed the hard tile floor we were standing on and said, “Please don’t drop that.” I slipped the toy back into its gift bag to appease him: “Okay, dad.”

The next night, at the hotel we’d booked, I broke out the S-Curve. “So how does this work?” my fuckpal asked, and I shrugged and said, “I don’t know! Let’s find out!” He lubed the long, smooth end of it and slid it into me, curve facing up to access my A-spot. Moans spouted from my mouth immediately. Oh, yes.

As its name suggests, the S-Curve has a gentle sloping “S” shape. Many of my favorite toys do, in fact; I definitely have a “type” when it comes to dildos. The formidable metal Njoy Eleven, the heroically G-spotty NobEssence Seduction, and my beloved Fucking Sculptures Double Trouble all have this basic shape in common. What can I say? I know what I like.

The S-Curve’s similarities to the Double Trouble are all the qualities I love about it. It’s long enough, and has a subtle enough curve, that it can get all up in my A-spot without bothering my cervix. (It can also hit my G-spot if I thrust it more shallowly, though I usually don’t.) Like another S-shaped glass toy I love, the Fucking Sculptures G-Spoon, the S-Curve’s meager 1.25″ diameter is roughly equivalent to the size of two fingers – i.e. the exact number of fingers I request and enjoy most when partners are fingerbanging me – so it hits my spot brilliantly and I can fantasize about partners fingering me to my heart’s content when I use it.

My FWB calls the S-Curve “the Double Trouble on easy mode,” and for my intents and purposes, it is. It goes for my A-spot with the same precision and deftness, but because it’s slimmer, lighter, and has that bloopy end, it’s much easier to hold onto and thrust with. If I’m craving a side order of girth with my A-spot stim, I’ll still reach for the Dub Trubz – but if all I want is targeted stimulation of one particular internal spot, it gets the job done perfectly.

All S-Curves, while handmade, are basically the same dimensions – 8″ long and 1.25″ wide. It is a glass masterpiece, a beauteous work of art. I don’t need my sex toys to be beautiful, because I don’t spend a lot of time actually looking at them while I’m using them, but it’s nonetheless nice to have something so elegant-looking on my nightstand.

Bex is still the only person on earth I would trust to choose a sex toy for me. They knocked this one out of the fuckin’ park.

 

You can buy the S-Curve at the Smitten Kitten for $120 USD!

How to Deal With Pre-Date Nervousness

Kate Sloan

Oh, I can just picture it now. It’s almost every first date I’ve ever been on. My anxiety swells. My heart pounds. I obsess about my outfit, hair, and makeup – like I’m trying to dress as a “cool girl” for Halloween. I debate whether to text my date upon leaving the house; maybe a “See you soon!” text isn’t chill enough, but maybe radio silence is too cold. So many choices!

As I walk up to the bar, my mind races. What if we start talking and he mentions that he thinks feminism is a waste of time? What if he only wants to “find some easy pussy” or “grab local slags here” and doesn’t actually find me interesting at all? What if – horror of horrors – he thinks Adam Sandler is funny?!

The thing is, while my anxiety disorder runs me through the wringer before every date, it doesn’t have to. The dates themselves are never as bad as I worry they will be – and this whole nervous rigamarole could be avoided, or at least mitigated, if I had a great pre-date ritual solidly in place. Here are 10 of my best tips for shaking your jitters before you walk out the door to meet a new potential beau!

Have some go-to date outfits on hand. This just makes everything so much easier. Prepare a “uniform” of sorts (or a few different ones) that you can grab in a hurry when getting ready for a date, so you won’t have to waste precious mental energy on outfit composition. Oh, the geeky sartorial bliss of it!

This ensemble should have a silhouette that flatters your shape and makes you feel babely as hell, and maybe one or two “conversation pieces” – unusual garments or accessories that a date is sure to ask about. (“Oh, this old thing? I bought this from a loud, flirty man on a beach in Gozo just before we leapt into the Mediterranean sea…!”)

If you want to get extra nerdy about it, you can have different date uniforms for different types of dates. For example, I’ll often wear a low-cut dress and a cardigan if I’m going on a fancy dinner date, or a tank top tucked into a skirt if we’re just ducking into a dive bar. If you show up at your date feeling hot and neither overdressed nor underdressed, you’ll have won half the battle already!

Listen to great music. So basic, yet so effective. I have a Spotify playlist of all my favorite pump-up tunes – mostly a lot of up-tempo pop and hiphop – and it helps ease me into a foxy, energetic brainspace. I love to shimmy into my panties and stockings to a sexy Drake jam, bop around doing my eyeshadow while One Direction croon at me, and fluff up my hair while Frank Sinatra sings compliments in my ear. Ah, what a dream.

Prep your bod. Whatever body-prep makes you feel attractive, desirable, and ready for sex (if that’s a potential item on your to-do list for the evening), do that. For me, this would involve showering, shaving, and moisturizing. When I’m all clean, smooth, and soft, I feel practically unconquerable.

Breathe. “Fear is just excitement without the breath,” according to psychotherapist Fritz Perls. I don’t know how much of this is hippie-dippie psychosomatic silliness versus an actual effective treatment (and, let’s be real, sometimes they are one and the same), but I find breathing deeply helps circulate my anxious energy all around my body and thereby diffuse it. Shallow, fast breaths are a classic sign of anxiety; you can trick yourself into calming down by elongating and deepening your breath. Oxygenate your body and brain!

Load up on conversation-starters. My conversational skills drastically improved when I went to journalism school, and I’m convinced it was partly because I had to read the news so often at that time, so I had plenty to talk about! Still to this day, before a date, I’ll take a look at trending stories before heading out the door (if I haven’t already encountered them that day on Twitter or in podcasts I listen to), so that if my date’s discussion skills leave something to be desired, I can pull out a fascinating new topic at a moment’s notice.

You can also glance at their online-dating profile again (if that’s where you met them) and mentally note a few points to ask them about. (“I see you went to school for English lit; how does that help you in your current job?” “You said you like The Office, but what did you think of the finale?” “Is that dog in your profile picture yours?!”)

Tell a friend what you’re up to. Before leaving on a date, I like to text the following info to a friend: my suitor’s full name (if I know it), phone number, any other relevant info I know about them (what they do, where they live, and so on), where and when I am meeting them, and what time I anticipate I’ll be home. I’ve been lucky enough that a date has never made me feel unsafe, but it certainly helps my anxiety if I know I have safety measures in place. And if the date’s not dangerous but just boring or awful, you can have your friend call you and fake an emergency you need to go attend to immediately.

Channelling my inner pinup girl.

Choose an alter-ego. This is not to say you should be inauthentic on your date, of course – but pretending you’re someone else can help you play up the best parts of your personality while banishing the parts that hold you back.

Sometimes I like to pretend I’m Amanda Palmer, Zooey Deschanel, or Rosa Diaz. How would they get ready for a date? How would they walk into a room? How would they greet a person they found attractive? Usually I hold my “character” in mind for the first little while, just until I get settled, and then I cast ’em off and let the real me shine through, unencumbered by anxiety.

Remind yourself what a catch you are. Glance at your most smokin’ selfies. Look through compliments people have given you in the past (I keep a file of mine!). Think about the best dates/makeouts/sex you’ve had, and remember that you are, at least partially, what made those experiences so fantastic!

This kind of mental reflection – whether you do it in a journal, out loud to a friend, or just in your head – can also help you get some perspective. This probably isn’t the last or most important date you’ll ever go on. If it doesn’t go well, it isn’t the end of the world. There are so many more people out there, and so many more experiences you’re gonna have. Go into every date with the attitude that it’ll be a fun adventure, and anything else that comes of it will just be a bonus.

Admit to your nervousness! This can be super charming and disarming in some contexts. If you and your date exchange some texts before meeting up, maybe tell them you’re a bit nervous because you find them so cute. Or, after you’ve showed up and talked for a few minutes, you could mention, “I get so nervous about first dates!” Good people will often try to reassure you when you make admissions like this – and at the very least, you’ve just backhandedly confessed that you find them attractive. Everyone wants to feel attractive. See – nervousness can be a plus!

What are your favorite tricks for mitigating pre-date jitters?

 

This post was sponsored, and as always, all writing and opinions are my own!

Femme Resolutions For Age 25

Kate Sloan

I turn 25 tomorrow! Aaahh!

Birthdays, much like New Year’s Eve or the start of a new school year, always feel to me like a time of renewal and overhaul. I often make lists of goals and intentions for the coming year when one of these milestones rolls around, and this time is no different.

However, a lot of the intentions that came to mind for me around this birthday have been fashion- or beauty-related. It makes sense: I’m noticing lately, even more than usual, how massively my presentation can affect my mood and demeanor. So I’m setting myself the following style objectives for the year to come – all in the service of feeling good moreso even than looking good.

Fuck pants forever. Look. You wear pants if you want to. I’m sure they look great on you. But I just don’t think I can do it anymore.

Oh, I own a couple pairs of jeans, for those once-in-a-blue-moon spells where I want to dress like Shane from The L Word or a male British underwear model on his day off. And I certainly own plenty of leggings, which I layer over and lounge in. But by and large, I am a skirts-and-dresses girl, and pants can fuck right off.

I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve sacrificed questing for the pair of pants that would change my mind on this matter. The closest I’ve ever come were some vintage skinny black slacks that made me feel like a chic German schoolboy, or some near-perfect skinny jeans from my local thrift shop. But pants never quite feel like me. They always feel like I’m playing a character. I find them uncomfortable both physically and mentally.

So this year, I will not shop for pants. I will not try to figure out how to shoehorn pants into my style. I will not wear pants, except on days when the notion of doing so actually excites me (a rare thing). I will rock my skirts and my dresses and I will not try to be somefemme I am not.

Big hair, don’t care. Now, admittedly, my hair is not “big” by everyone’s standards. Bigness of hair is a spectrum! But in recent years, I have mastered the art of making my hair as wide and wild as it can get. My routine involves curl-enhancing conditioners, DevaCurl gel, vigorous scrunching, and a Turbie Twist microfibre towel. When I do it right, it results in a fucking lioness mane.

I’ve noticed that big hair gives me confidence like almost nothing else. It doesn’t eliminate my social anxiety, but it overshadows it a little. Tossing my curls around feels flirty and babely in a movie-star kind of way, and I want more of it. So I resolve to wear my hair big and curly as much as possible this year!

Shiny boots, shiny heart. Black leather boots are a signature part of my look; I wear them almost every day. The ones in heaviest rotation over the past couple years are my Frye harness boots, Frye engineer boots, and L.L. Bean winter boots. They make my heart sing, the way their severe stompiness balances out my airy-fairy femme ensembles.

But keeping leather boots looking good requires care and upkeep. They need to be regularly cleaned, conditioned, waterproofed, and shined. With proper maintenance, a good pair of leather boots can last for decades – and I intend for that to be the fate of mine!

Every couple months, I give my precious boots a thorough cleaning with saddle soap, and then shine ’em up with mink oil. I also just got my harness boots resoled because four years of wear had ground the soles flat. They are looking so lovely, and I will keep ’em that way!

Lipstick love. Gahhhd, I feel so foxy in lipstick. Hot pink. Bright red. Deep cranberry. Intense violet. Whatever. I want it on my face.

But despite my love for lipstick, I often skip it, because I worry it’ll draw too much attention to me, or it just seems like too much work. So for the coming year, I want to make an effort to wear it more often. Like so many other things on this list, lipstick makes me feel better about myself – but only when I make it a priority in my getting-ready routine.

It helps a lot to wear formulas I know are gonna stick around with minimal reapplication necessary. Some current faves in that category: Giorgio Armani Rouge d’Armani, Maybelline mattes, and anything by Bite.

One new tattoo. I’ve had a couple tattoo ideas floating around in my brain for months now, and I wanna get ’em done. It’s just a matter of deciding to go ahead with it, sending some reference materials to an artist, and booking a consultation appointment. Aaahh, the very thought is giving me joyful heart palpitations!

I think I want to go back to Laura Blaney, who did my “good girl” bows. She made me feel super comfortable, and her work is stunning. I have a feeling she’ll be able to give me exactly what I want.

Do you have any fashion-and-beauty goals or intentions currently?