It still ebbs and flows, my head, like everybody’s, it seems. Summer has officially arrived, and after a couple of successful attempts at al fresco dining and getting drunk on rosé with 3D -people I’ve almost been fooled into thinking that the past 3 months were just one weirdly long, quiet Sunday.

Yet, of course they weren’t. I’m still wary at taking public transportation. I still rather not bother with shops unless I absolutely know in advance what it is that I need (generally speaking this is never the case). People who flock to Spain’s sunny beaches in the middle of this all, just because travel restrictions are slowly being lifted, seem selfish and irresponsible – and at the same time I fully understand people’s yearning to physically move anywhere.

I’m happily staying put for the time being, all the while both seeking and finding inspiration wherever it can be found. (You will ask yourself the justified question what is it that I need inspiration for, but I do generally find days to be lighter when I’m being fed with uplifting thoughts, pictures, music and such. It’s been mentally paralysing long enough as it is.)

Herewith a small collection:

Sarah Cooper.
I hope you have been a fan for a long time already, I only started following her in April and she just gets funnier by the week. Follow her on twitter @sarahcpr with the rest of the millions of people who find her Trump-lip sync videos to be the shit, which they are, and she’s amazing.

Love Story on Netflix.
The real oldie with Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neil. First, movies don’t need to last three hours, something that people clearly understood in the 70s. Second, MacGraw’s wardrobe in the film is absolute perfection.

Nobody stepping out and flaunting.
Self-explanatory.

Monica Bellucci wearing a black jumpsuit at an event in Paris this week.
Well, there’s a little bit of stepping out, which is fine.

Kate Kirkpatrick: Becoming Beauvoir
I’ve yet to read the book, but am massively looking forward to. Ditto Rodham, which should be arriving in the next couple of weeks.

Maria Konnikova’s book “The Biggest Bluff“
I read about it this week and it seems an interesting one: she’s PhD in psychology and decides to attempt a response to whether us people could be more dispassionate in regarding our own destiny. And she does this by immersing in high-stakes poker — specifically, No Limit Texas Hold‘em. The following excerpts are from the book review in the New York Times that got me kind of hooked on this:

“As a writer with a Ph.D. in psychology, she’s not really a gambler at all. She couldn’t care less for casinos, with their soiled rugs and free drinks. She’s not great at math. And yet she already possesses her workaround. “If you are starting from scratch,” she asks, “can a deep understanding of the human mind win out over the mathematics and statistical wunderkinds of the poker table? In a way, it’s as much a test of life philosophy as anything else. The qualitative side of things versus the measurable. The human versus the algorithmic.”

“The Biggest Bluff” is a feminist story without being a feminist tract. It’s an underdog tale in which the rise of the underdog has an air of inevitability and sweet revenge. It’s a nonfiction Bildungsroman minus the navel-gazing. Konnikova keeps the lines so clean and even, so steady and unshowy that she might be the Charlie Watts of prose: While the backbeat never ceases and the narrative propels along, it’s her curiosity that proliferates.
In fact, one of the biggest bluffs of “The Biggest Bluff” may be that Konnikova hasn’t written a book about her success with cards and chips exactly, but bet the house on the power of her mind to synthesize big philosophical ideas and psychological insights at a time when we, too, find ourselves questioning our fortunes, hoping to master our fates and playing much bigger odds than ever before.”
(Adds to basket)

Tracee Ellis Ross
A long-time favourite for inspiration on clothes and attitude. She does great Instagram and her recent podcast with Oprah is gold. Somehow during the pandemic my tolerance for many sorts of woodoo has increased so that I can comfortably listen to Oprah these days, but there’s no crazy juju- warning with Ellis Ross. She is absolutely stunning, and also very funny.

Dealing with maskne
This is hardly inspiring an sich, but it does involve trying out new skincare in the name of research. I wrote about my U-area breaking out earlier, and it’s a thing. I’m still pretty sure mine was hormonal, but maskne is a real thing. With beauty advise in magazines about how to deal with it.

Basically you will want to keep things clean: both your skin and your mask. A daily liquid exfoliant (mine is Kate Somerville ExfoliKate) will not be exaggeration, as long as there’s also proper moisturising involved. Things get more complicated with makeup, but whenever I wear foundation/powder, it means promptly washing up the mask as well. Lipstick is an obvious mess, which is a pity, because ’tis the season for my Hermès Rouge Orange and, well.

Here. Nothing grand, or even very new. In addition I’ve started to wear white shirts again – they feel dressed up without a song and dance, and go with everything (right now wearing mine with a silver-green brocade Dries Van Noten pleated skirt).
I hover between letting my hair grow and cutting it very short again, make guacamole almost daily, and discovered that H&M’s Creative Advisor Ann-Sofie Johansson has a fabulous style (below).