I had to fly back to France for a bit of French bureaucratic bullshit. I’ve been on a long stay visitor visa for ages (it’s more or less for a retired person), but they haven’t issued me physical proof. I kid you not, I landed in New York and got an email about an appointment to pick up my card, and had to turn around. That you can’t reason with the French government is something people explained to me early on, but I had to see it for myself. And now I know this to be true many times over! There’s truly nothing to be done except what they want you to do.
I’m so disinterested in the last days of summer, I’m just hiding in my office refusing to swim in the ocean in the mornings, instead focusing on work and various US bureaucratic issues. ChatGPT has been marvelous in answering the question: I’m moving to the countryside. Can you give me a to-do list? The Connecticut DMV won’t give me an appointment when I move, so I have about a week with an unregistered (but insured!) car. Reddit advises me not to risk it, so I must rent a car, but it’ll be Labor Day weekend when I arrive, so the rental offices are closed. One day landlocked at the new house seems fine, I guess. The internet has to be turned on, the phone lines; I have to figure out the oil delivery (??). Known unknowns. (I also have to go to a wedding next weekend, and have to figure out my dress. The older I get, the more important my wedding guest look has become. Haunts me!!)
I also have to figure out this blog! I’ve been working on Gift Guide, too, which has slowed in order to adjust to its true and intended potential: a Christmas Gift Guide. Thanks for letting me do whatever else in the meantime, but I assume you are all here for one reason. Did you know that publicists start pitching gift guides now?! The most ambitious sent through surveys mid-August, everyone else begins right after Labor Day. And so must I. Please e-mail questions about gifts and holiday traditions that you’d like answered to kaitlinephillips@gmail.com. The more specific the question, the better.
We’ll still have a lot of book stuff in the next few months, of course. I’d like to thank The RealReal (substack!) and Filson for sponsoring upcoming Gift Guide book clubs, and The Six Bells for hosting a small upstate “close reading” retreat. If you’re a brand and would like to discuss sponsorship, please get in touch. I think the experiential side of the blog appeals to me, and I’d like to grow it!
