Guest Strategist Haul: What Sloane Crosley Bought in July

These are the best for travel, and I keep them in my refrigerator when I’m home. One thing that’s annoying is that you have to buy the variety pack. All I really want are the forehead ones, not the “smile lines” ones, but I suppose this is nothing to complain about.

A saga and a half, this one! I’m working with the Criterion Collection (I wrote an essay for their reissue of The Princess Bride) and they let me raid their famous closet. So now I have this big pile of Blu-rays. I figured I’d just buy a cheap, portable Blu-ray player, but my desktop and my laptop are so old, it took me forever to find a compatible one. The first one I ordered required holes that my laptop doesn’t have. It was like trying to mate a frog and a hamster. I also refuse to go into an actual store and discuss what is surely an easily solved issue. I’d rather just keep ordering and returning different iterations of these things.

I invested in this fancy lip balm while I was on book tour in Miami and then immediately lost it. So I bought it twice. As punishment. [Editor’s note: Our beauty writer Rio Viera-Newton loves this, too.]

These are immunity-boosting cat treats. According to my vet, a lot of cats hate them and they need to be encased in additional treats. But not my cat, Mabel. I am bragging about this because she excels at nothing else. She goes on hunger strikes. She is unamused by all toys. She once chipped a tooth trying to jump onto a counter. It’s real “you had one job” territory.

I lost my headphones (are we sensing a theme?). I think the wireless Apple ones look ridiculous. Even if I did not think that, I know myself. I am way too much of a gesticulator and a hair-flipper. I don’t care if they are designed not to pop out — mine would.

I was raised to equate hair spray with old ladies and holes in the ozone layer. But this stuff has saved me all summer, and it doesn’t even smell like a gas leak.

My mother just retired after 40 years of teaching special education, and she’s gotten into making her own pottery. So now there’s a kiln in my parents’ garage. That should end well. I bought this book for her, so she has something to peruse while we wait for the house to explode.

I did this anthology for the 92nd Street Y that was sponsored by Xerox, and they gave everyone involved nice printers, but mine won’t fit in my apartment. So even though I have access to this cool printer, I am still using my old HP LaserJet Nightmare™. It eats these cartridges like candy. Meanwhile, the new printer is sitting in my parents’ garage. Until the kiln blows up, that is.

For years, I got the NYRB for free, but then I changed addresses and stopped. The fact that I’ve been reading half-locked articles and friends’ old issues was getting shameful. So I paid for a subscription like the supportive books person I claim to be.

I have a single upper piercing on my left ear. I usually wear nothing or a cuff. I wanted something a little less Handmaid’s Tale and also made of real gold, so it wouldn’t start to hurt after a while.

I was supposed to move apartments but didn’t, which is a long story not meant for the Strategist. In a kind of cleansing snit, I decided to put some money into my rental. I’m starting small, with the bathroom. I painted the walls with this color, which looks antiseptic in swatches, but is really warm when you’re surrounded by it.