The summer issue of RL Magazine is now live.
In it you will find my interview with Brooklyn-based writer Nell Freudenberger.

—Nell Freudenberger as told to RL Magazine

“What’s great about contemporary American novels, to my mind, is how disparate their themes can be. In this country we have novelists from every part of the world writing in English about a vast array of human experiences and concerns, and that’s what makes it so much fun to be a reader of fiction these days. I think that the reoccurring themes in a writer’s work are just a reflection of that individual’s particular preoccupations; mine have always been connected to the time I spent in Asia in my twenties.”

—C.R.F.

…I was busy. I had a facial and a date and a late dinner, and in between it all managed to call Mom twice (both times while walking, always while walking, getting to and from somewhere, and then when I get where I’m going, I say, “Mom, I’m at the place! I’ve got to go!” and she graciously puts the conversation on hold till later or the next day, and we say, “I love you!” and hang up, and that’s that).

I am so afraid of being a mother.

For private little reasons—the results of private losses—I have long felt this urgency to get everything accomplished—the children, the home, the career—as soon as possible before it’s too late because I am afraid that I will go the same way, too early, and leave behind a family ill-prepared for the life ahead, and it will be my fault that they are alone. Another birth is just another death. And that is terrifying.

But my mother, who has seen so many days and will see so many more, she has done everything right. How her three daughters will match that example is beyond me. When my daughters call me, when they’re walking down the street, getting to where they’re going, will I drop everything to talk to them? Will I end every conversation with I love you, and will they miss me so much at times that it feels like I am in the room with them, putting a hand on the tops of their heads and tilting their chins up, scrutinizing their faces, looking for my own mother in their eyes and noses, and then asking, “What do you want for dinner, sugarplums?”

Today in the land of RL we kicked off Fall 2012.
That means I get to romance each collection with editorial storyboards.
FASHION!!!

These have been on my must-read list far too long.

Sneak peek of tomorrow’s post for St. Louis Magazine’s style blog The Good, the Bad & the Lovely. Every month I’ll pick four events on the magazine’s social calendar and style looks for them on Polyvore. For May, I built each look around this Dorothy Perkins striped dress.

Behind one door we have the inert hopelessness of depression and behind the other, anxiety—the panic, the squeeze, the whole physical power of it greeting you with the sunrise and following you into the shower and to your desk at work and on the train ride home. And then, sometimes, a third door behind which both appear. Now I give this duo a physical form: I imagine it climbing up the fire escape and in through a window, slithering under my bed, and I wish like hell that I could make it leave as easily as it arrives. But two things are certain: this will stay with me for the rest of my life—lurking, nipping at my heels, worming its way into my brain only to slip out, then in again, a sneak attack, over and over—and life, for all its brevity, is very, very long.

—Ernest Hemingway in a letter to Sara Murphy
Writing from Key West, April 1934 

—Guiseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard

“Spring heralds the return of many things: high temps, baseball season, patio happy hours, and—perhaps most importantly—a vibrant social scene.”

The second in my three-part series for Saint Louis Magazine’s style blog The Good, the Bad & the Lovely is up and running, and in it I created four head-to-toe looks to complement four upcoming events in STL. Above is the first, Cardinals-themed cocktail attire for a downtown rooftop rally. See all looks here…and don’t forget to RSVP! 

(See the first post in my Spring Party Style series here.)

My third post for Saint Louis Magazine’s style blog The Good, the Bad & the Lovely is live as of yesterday morning, and I think it’s the best one yet. These have been so much fun to write—as much as I love living in Ralph’s world, it’s good to step outside and discover other trends and designers that inspire me—and how I can apply those trends and designers to my completely hypothetical Saint Louis social life.

When I was a freshman at the Dear Old Varsity, I loved John (Cougar) Mellencamp’s song “Key West Intermezzo”. Still do actually. Anyway, there’s a line somewhere in the middle where I always thought J.C. said, “She stirs the ice in her glass with her L.A. gun finger.” Now. I don’t actually know what an “L.A. gun finger” is, but I assume it’s a trigger finger with a long red nail, and it belongs to a badass bold bitch somewhere in West Hollywood. And back then—cut me some slack; I was eighteen—I’d stir the ice in my vodka-Sprite-and-grenadine with my finger (not sanitary), and ask myself, “Do I look as cool as that girl in the song?” (The answer was always, “Of course not.”) 

Fast forward a few years (like a few weeks ago). “Key West Intermezzo” came on the iTunes shuffle, and for the first time I heard John Cougar describe this chick’s finger as “elegant”. So her nails were probably painted a classic pale pink or maybe not even painted at all. And discovering that—realizing I was wrong for so long and there’s no such thing as an L.A. gun finger—that was so disappointing.

It’s almost that time of year. Last spring was the first that I truly experienced, like if you fast-forward the videotape of a flower opening up, that’s the way I remember last spring. It was such a terrible, terrible winter, and in spring everything turned around, and I ran through Forest Park every day and drank good beer and life did not end in February, as expected. There may never be another season like that, when I had all the time in the world to watch daffodils pop out of the mulch. 
Image via Instagram.