The real upside of inspiration, the feeling that comes with what you’re wearing and pop-up shop season in ny

Hello from cafe Leandra!

There’s got to be some kind of formula or system that explains why sometimes when you search The Real Real, you are endowed the gift of great, reasonable finds that do not come with the labor of voracious surfing while other times it can feel like a desert.

I didn’t know the site does an upload every morning at 7 and evening at 7 until Dr. Blumberg told me about it —

How to get dressed with the legendary Dr. Isabel Blumberg

— and maybe on Wednesday night, the reason I saw god within the Prada tab is precisely because I was scanning the site just an hour post-upload — but I do also think there’s something to approaching one’s window shopping from a place of inspiration vs. one of looking for inspiration.

From left: Prada dress, then next to it is the Miu Miu dress with crochet boobs that I wore in last week’s send. Keep an eye on it but I don’t think you have to buy immediately: I got mine for under $1k. Prada dress again (I’d remove slit and let legs run free), one more Prada dress

Giorgio Armani green clutch, camo Prada tessuto, red Prada tessuto and re shoes: Louboutin, Rene Caovilla, Louboutin again

Skirt 1, skirt 2, silk sleeveless blouse and men’s long sleeve vintage Prada shirt that could be current Miu Miu if you quint your eyes.

Many more things are liable to please your eye when you’re already in that I-love-everything mindset. Inspiration can affix to your face a pair of rose-colored glasses. One potential downfall could be that if you pull the trigger when you’re love-drunk, you might end up with something you regret later but the way I see it and have experienced it, your aperture broadens when you’re under the spell of your own brand of creative genius. Your confidence is greater, your risk threshold higher. The definition of what defines “you” according to you feels more amorphous, like there’s less ego attached to it, than in times when you’re searching and searching. The lulls between the strikes come with a bit of rigidity.

What’s interesting to me about this relative phenomenon is that when you push yourself to pursue the inspiration, to act on it (whatever that means — make your art as it were), the quality of the product you’re left with is often not that different from what you make when you’re in the neutral zone, or even feeling kind of uninspired.

It’s you who is different when you can feel the rush of rosy expansion streaming down and around your bones. And that change is all about mindset, which is entirely in your control. One day’s stupid mistake in a plate is another’s delicious accident.

Some honeydew dressed in olive oil, salt and sumac, which tomato chips (yes! tomato chips!) and whatever Greek feta was left in my fridge on the side

Consider this a reminder of the almighty power that always flickers right there, in you.

It’s pop-up shop season in New York