NEW IN: Fashion Week clothes I actually want, relationship calendar management, accidentally becoming a walking person, workplace wisdom nobody requested, and other consequences of being alive with Wi-Fi.

I think I’ve been online too long.

Not in a “digital detox, touch grass, delete Instagram” kind of way. I’m not doing that.

I mean I genuinely cannot tell anymore if something looks weird or if I’ve just watched seventeen people on TikTok tell me it does.

Is my outfit ugly?

Or did a 22-year-old with perfect lighting tell me the silhouette is “dated”?

Do I actually hate my hair?

Or have I been looking at myself through a front-facing camera since 2012?

At some point, having personal taste became fucking exhausting.

Everything is an aesthetic. Everything is an era. Everything apparently says something about you.

You can’t just wear a pair of jeans anymore. The jeans have to reveal where you stand in the current denim discourse.

I don’t remember agreeing to participate in denim discourse.

Sometimes I put something on, look in the mirror for too long and genuinely think:

Do I look weird or have I just been online too long?

Anyway, welcome to NOT THAT SERIOUS.

UNFORTUNATELY, FASHION WEEK MADE ME WANT CLOTHES AGAIN

I spend enough time looking at clothes that occasionally clothes stop looking like clothes.

You know what I mean.

Eventually you’re staring at runway image number 46 like, Beautiful. Incredible. Anyway.

But there were a few moments at New York Fashion Week that actually woke me back up.

Altuzarra was one of them.

The clothes just screamed confidence to me. Not confidence in the motivational-quote sense. Confidence like a woman who knows exactly what she likes, has somewhere to be, and somehow owns the correct coat for it.

And the styling really sold that fantasy.

It felt like an actual wardrobe being built in front of you rather than a collection of individual runway moments. Pieces you could imagine a woman genuinely wanting in her closet and then actually reaching for — but styled with enough personality that you suddenly start reconsidering everything you already own.

Which is dangerous.

Because I don’t need Fashion Week convincing me that the problem with my life is apparently not enough Altuzarra.

Image: Vogue/Runway

Then Proenza Schouler just felt good.

Sometimes that’s my entire review.

Did I want to keep looking? Yes.

Did the clothes make me want to get dressed? Yes.

Did I briefly begin mentally reorganizing my closet despite having absolutely no intention of actually reorganizing it?

Yes.

Fashion!

AND THEN 7 FOR ALL MANKIND SAID, “WHAT IF HR JUST DEALT WITH IT?”

Image: Vogue/Runway

Fashion remains deeply committed to imagining an office that none of us actually work in.

You know the office.

Tiny vest. Maybe no shirt underneath. Giant bag. Questionable heel height. Silk scarf. Hair that says you were out until 2 A.M. but somehow the Outlook status says Available at 8:03.

Apparently we’re still flirting with indie sleaze, except now she has a corporate badge.

At 7 For All Mankind, the styling put denim right in the middle of that messy, early-2000s, rock-and-roll energy: ultra-low rises, tiny shorts, menswear-ish silk scarves, cropped trenches and slip dresses.

It’s that early-2000s, thrown-together cool where the individual pieces almost matter less than the attitude.

And unfortunately?

I get it.

Because we’ve spent years dressing like we’re trying to convince strangers that we own twelve identical beige sweaters.

Maybe I want the scarf.

Maybe I want the ridiculous bag.

Maybe I want denim that looks like I made several questionable decisions before arriving at work.

Would I personally recommend wearing the entire look to your 9 A.M. performance review?

No.

But that’s the beautiful thing about fashion.

Fashion doesn’t have to sit in the meeting with HR. You do.

WHY DOES HAVING A BOYFRIEND REQUIRE CALENDAR MANAGEMENT?

Nobody tells you that having a boyfriend as an adult is essentially agreeing to another recurring calendar event.

I love my boyfriend.

I love my friends.

Unfortunately, they all seem to want to see me.

And somewhere in adulthood, “What are you doing Saturday?” became one of the most threatening questions in the English language.

Because Saturday was supposed to be boyfriend time.

Except my friend wants brunch.

My family is doing something at four.

I haven’t seen another friend in three weeks.

I need groceries.

There’s laundry sitting somewhere in my apartment judging me.

And I also had this radical idea that perhaps I would like to sit in my own house.

There is no correct ratio, either.

Spend too much time with your boyfriend and suddenly you’re the friend who disappeared into a relationship.

Make plans every weekend and eventually you’re scheduling intimacy like:

Tuesday?

After 7?

I can move something.

Adult relationships are basically two people repeatedly opening their calendars and going, “Wait, what about Thursday?”

And friendships aren’t any easier.

Sometimes you realize you haven’t seen somebody you genuinely love in a month, despite the fact that you’ve sent each other approximately 400 TikToks during that same period.

Which technically means we’ve been communicating.

Right?

Maybe adulthood is just loving everyone in your life very much and constantly telling them:

“Wait, let me check my calendar.”

UNFORTUNATELY, THE WALKING PEOPLE WERE RIGHT

I regret to inform everyone that walking works.

I know.

Devastating.

I would have preferred something more glamorous.

Over the past few months, I’ve been intentionally working on my weight.

But one of the least dramatic things I’ve done has somehow become one of the most important.

I started walking.

Not Hot Girl Walking™.

Not weighted-vest walking.

Not 5 A.M. incline-treadmill content.

Walking.

Outside.

Like somebody’s lesbian aunt.

And somewhere along the way, my boyfriend started coming with me.

Which unexpectedly solved two problems.

Remember that boyfriend scheduling crisis I was just having?

Apparently you can combine categories.

We walk. We talk. We discuss things that absolutely could’ve waited until we got home (he hate’s when I interupt him with nonsense).

And meanwhile, without really thinking about it, I’m moving my body for an hour+

I’ve made real progress with my weight, and obviously I’m not going to pretend one habit deserves all the credit. There isn’t some magical wellness hack buried in this paragraph.

But walking taught me something I didn’t expect:

Sometimes the best habit is the one you can disguise as hanging out.

I don’t dread it.

It doesn’t require my entire evening.

It doesn’t feel like punishment for something I ate.

It’s just become part of my life.

And maybe that’s why it stuck.

There’s no before-and-after montage.

Nobody is screaming at me in a gym.

I don’t have to announce that I’m entering my wellness era.

I’m literally just going outside with my boyfriend.

Which is extremely annoying because apparently the solution was touching grass this entire time.

WHY DOES SEPTEMBER MAKE ME THINK I LIVE IN THE MOUNTAINS?

I have been listening to folk music for approximately 24 consecutive hours and I cannot change the playlist to save my life.

Someone help me.

Actually, can someone do a drive-by and blast Drake or something?

I need intervention.

Because why does every fall — and apparently the first thirteen days of September — magically convince me that I’m a mountain person?

I live in Virginia.

We have trails and baby moutains (not like the sights of Washington State).

And yet suddenly my ears only want Fleet Foxes.

Vampire Weekend comes on and I’m like, yes. This is who we are now.

Who is we?

Yesterday I had a job.

Now apparently I chop wood.

Something about the temperature dropping four degrees makes me want to wear a giant sweater, stare thoughtfully out of a window and listen to a man harmonize about a river.

I don’t even particularly need the river.

But apparently my ears do.

And it happens every year.

September arrives and suddenly I’m spiritually somewhere in Vermont despite having absolutely no business there.

By October I’ll probably be fine.

But right now?

It’s not that serious.