Busy at Work Lately

via Serious Eats

Oh dear, pardon me for disappearing from this blog for a few weeks longer than originally expected! Quite a few things came up at the office after my deposition, and I'm only just now coming up for air for a brief moment. Things will be extremely hectic at work for the next three months at a minimum - and maybe for longer than that - so I can't make any promises about how often I'll be able to post in that time window. 

Many apologies, I wish I still had the energy to write blog posts in the late evenings after work, the way I used to earlier in my career. Alas, these days I'm only able to work on the blog over the weekend, and some weekends I'm just too tired. 

The photo above is from the recipe for Lacy Brown Butter and Ricotta Cookies at Serious Eats. Mine didn't turn out quite so lacy-looking. It's apparently a recipe where the finished product can look very different depending on the brand of ricotta used. The 35 cookies estimate when portioning the dough into roughly one tablespoon sized scoops is far off, by the way, I only got something like 19 cookies. For those with small households, I'd suggest baking only a small batch at a time and freezing the rest of the portioned out dough, as I found the texture was best the day they were baked.

I liked, but didn't enthusiastically love, this cookie recipe. It's a good addition to my limited baking repertoire and not very difficult to make. But if one doesn't do the toasted sugar or used vanilla pod upgrades, the flavor is not that nuanced. (Then I used the rest of that 16 ounce tub of ricotta to make a one-third portion of Maialino's ricotta pancakes, which was a good amount for breakfast for two.)

My recent - and first ever - deposition as the first-chair attorney took place in Miami. I was quite nervous about travel and COVID risk before my departure. It turned out fine, though I got a bit of a scratchy throat and sniffles afterwards. I took three at-home COVID tests in the following week - two of them in the days immediately after my very mild symptoms started - and all were negative. 

Things I Like Lately

Today's post is about a few things, both fashion-related and not, that I've been enjoying lately as things get busier for me at the office. 

First, I've recently tried two new-to-me fast-casual Chinese restaurants that are both excellent and which I highly recommend. In the years since I first moved to NYC to attend law school in 2012, there's been a noticeable trend of really good Chinese restaurants opening all over Manhattan, including one of K and I's favorites, a Shanghainese spot called Little Alley, a few years ago. 

One of these new-to-me restaurants is Milu, which serves a few slightly nontraditional dishes, their duck confit-like dish is somewhat unusual, as is their interpretation of a pineapple bun stuffed with pastry cream and pineapple curd. My favorite dishes on their menu are the Yunnan-style brisket - so flavorful! - and the smashed cucumber salad that comes as a side with most of the rice bowls or entrees. 

The other new-to-me restaurant is Awesum Dim Sum, which is a fast-casual spot serving really great dum sum that's at least as good as any of the popular places in Manhattan's Chinatown. (I haven't gone out for dim sum in Flushing or Sunset Park before, so I can't compare to the restaurants there.) The menu here is more traditional, and all the dishes I like from bigger, sit-down dim sum restaurants are available here. Some of the dishes I tried are pictured above. The standout dish for me was the Phoenix Rolls served in broth towards the left, it's not normally one of my favorites, but Awesum Dim Sum's version was really good. And the har gao, shrimp cheung fun, baked bbq pork buns, and egg tarts were also great, as was everything else we tried. 

Second, I've been really enjoying the F1: Drive to Survive documentary series on Netflix. Outside of gymnastics and figure skating, I don't really follow any sports at all and definitely don't have any interest in motorsports or Formula 1. But this series does a good job of playing up the inherent drama of the sport and making things reasonably accessible to viewers like me who don't know anything about the sport. The personalities involved in the sport are, let's just say, incredibly dramatic, so the series is fun to watch.

Money Diary: Typical-ish Week Back in the Office, Part Two

via Unsplash

And here's part two of my 2021 money diary from a fairly typical week since I was required to return to the office full-time!

On this Monday morning, I decide to grab an iced skim latte for $5.80 including tip from a coffee shop that's part of another small local chain, a different one from Friday. There are a ton of independent coffee shops in the vicinity of my office, and many of my colleagues and I each have our own personal favorites, with little overlap. I myself have three different shops I frequent in the neighborhood.  

For lunch, I get the same custom vegetarian - but not vegan - salad from Sweetgreen as I did last Friday, with kale, baby spinach, chopped tomatoes, chopped red onion, spicy cooked broccoli, boiled chickpeas, cooked portobello mushrooms, and burrata. The total is, once again, $14.64. 

Spoiler alert, I end up getting this exact same lunch two more times this week, which may make me sound very boring. While I'm definitely not a picky eater and I enjoy a wide variety of foods and cuisines when dining out or ordering delivery, my natural tendency when picking up weekday lunches or cooking meals is to repeat the same small number of dishes in rotation. So I'll cook things like the Dutch baby pancake or mapo tofu from part one of this money diary - and other favorite dishes - around once every two weeks.

Money Diary: Typical-ish Week Back in the Office, Part One

Hoka One One Bondi 7 running shoes (affiliate link)

Approximately once a year, I get inspired to write a money diary post in the format used by the now-defunct Man Repeller, with some added resemblance to Luxe's weekend money diaries. Unlike in the Refinery29 money diaries, I do not provide extra commentary about my overall finances to these posts, which focus instead on daily spending for a week. To date, I've done a 2018 "atypical week" money diary (part one, part two); a 2019 "slightly more typical week" money diary (part one, part two); and a 2020 "COVID-era staycation" money diary (part one, part two). And now, here's the 2021 edition, depicting a fairly typical week from after I was required to return to the office full-time starting in mid-July this year. 

During this week, I wasn't very busy at work, so there won't be a lot of commentary about my time in the office. I'd arrive at my workplace around 9:15 A.M each morning; would step out briefly for a quick walk around the neighborhood to try and get my daily step count up before picking up a takeout lunch - mostly Sweetgreen, just like in my 2018 and 2019 money diaries - sometime around noon or 1:00 P.M.; and then head home around 5:30 P.M. or so. 

I wear my mask while I'm at work, except when I'm alone in my office with the door closed. Like I mentioned in my 2020 money diary, I typically wear a Happy Mask - I ordered mine before demand dramatically increased recently due to the start of the school year - though sometimes I wear a disposable KN95 instead. I find both types of masks equally comfortable because they're both cone or beak-shaped, preventing the fabric from resting directly against my nose and mouth.

This year's money diary starts on a Friday. I set my alarm for an unusually early wakeup call - 7:00 A.M. - because I plan to go running before work, as part of my recent new health and fitness goals. Since I set those goals for myself, I've been reliably running/jogging outside once a week, slowly increasing the distance I'm able to run each time. This particular outing was only my third jog since I started pursuing my new health and fitness goals. 

Within a minute of starting to jog, however, I stop abruptly because my feet and ankles just don't feel right. I'm pretty familiar with this type of feeling, the old pair of running shoes I'm currently wearing have had it, they're completely worn out. I'm surprised by how suddenly this issue came on, however, as these shoes felt just fine during my previous run last week. Whenever past pairs of running shoes became too worn out and started causing pain or discomfort, it usually happened very quickly, but I don't think I've ever previously started feeling it in the very first minutes of a workout before! I usually only start feeling it that evening, or the next day. But it's also been years since I've run outside. (Since graduating law school, I only ever ran on a treadmill until this year.)

I decide I can still walk for a while before heading home to shower and change for work. While on my way to the office, I pick up a small iced latte with skim milk at a coffee shop that's part of a small local chain. It costs $5.75 including tip. 

Life Lately: Fully Back in the Office

Enjoying a meal at Hometown Hotpot & BBQ in Chinatown. It's K and I's favorite hotpot place.

My workplace finally announced a formal office return date, so I'm officially back in the office full-time now. It would have been lovely if the powers that be had decided we could keep some limited amount of work from home flexibility, but alas, that was not in the cards. 

While I'm a tiny bit disappointed, I'm not too surprised by this development because our workplace culture had always been really old-fashioned about strongly disfavoring remote work. So I didn't really expect to be able to keep any discretion to continue working from home sometimes. Oh well, it was good while it lasted! At least we're still allowed to dress casually at the office until further notice, our typical business casual office dress code has yet to be reinstated...

I've now had the opportunity to have at least one in-person hangout with each of my close friends living in NYC, and that's been wonderful. We've all been fully vaccinated for quite some time - and none of us have very young children or other household members who cannot receive the COVID vaccine - so we're all fairly comfortable now with going to restaurants, shopping in stores, and the like. 

K and I continue to make the personal choice to wear masks indoors while out in public, except when seated at restaurants or bars, or while actively eating and drinking in other settings. By now, most public settings in NYC don't really require masks for vaccinated people anymore. Though, in my experience, a good 30-40% or more of people in stores and other non-restaurant settings mostly still wear masks inside. (I admittedly don't go out to that many places. I still don't have all my pre-pandemic energy back for running errands all over the city!) 

Now that I'm feeling more comfortable with going out into the world, I'm starting to make all my long-overdue appointments for routine checkups and the like. For the most part, I was already overdue for these appointments long before March 2020, which was a little irresponsible of me... Hopefully my dentist and general practitioner will find that everything is in order! Once I drop by the optometrist, I'm already pretty sure they'll tell me I need a stronger prescription now, unfortunately. 

One thing that happened during the pandemic was that I started watching a lot more YouTube. Very recently, I've gotten into Eileen at Colourful Noir's channel, I think she has a really soothing voice and a lovely accent (I think she lives in the UK). She mostly talks about certain ultra high-end designer items, which are obviously not something I'm personally in the market for. But she approaches it from a refreshing angle focused on prioritizing responsible personal finance management first and foremost. Only after that's taken care of would she advocate shopping for a limited number of designer items that will get a lot of use in one's wardrobe. 

How are things going on the COVID-management front where you are? Are people mostly back in the office or the classroom in your part of the world? Do you have any favorite YouTube channels to recommend? I hope that everything is well for you and your friends and family. 

Life Lately

Our first trip to Shake Shack since getting fully vaccinated!

First up, a quick announcement: I'm not sure if any of you rely on the "Follow by Email" widget in the sidebar to get notifications about my new posts. That widget is powered by Feedburner, and they are disabling the email notifications feature starting next month. If you would still like to receive email notifications about my new posts, I'm thinking of using Tinyletter to send out emails when I've updated my blog, and you can subscribe at this link. (I first opened this Tinyletter account years ago when I thought I might have it in me to do an email newsletter, but I never managed to find any inspiration to actually write anything in that format.) If there's any interest, I'll commit to sending out a quick note every time I post here starting in July! 

Today's post is a grab bag of small, not shopping-related things that have been on my mind recently. 

Shockingly, my workplace has yet to announce a formal return date for attorneys to go back to working full-time - or even part-time - at the office. But due to a busy period in one of my cases, I've still been back in the office at least two or three days a week since May 24. Because my workplace hasn't announced new COVID-19 policies since last July when NYC-based offices were first allowed to reopen, everyone is continuing to wear masks in the communal spaces at the office. In other words, we have not yet implemented the new CDC guidance that vaccinated people don't need to wear masks in most indoor settings. 

I totally love Olivia Rodrigo's recently released album, Sour. "Good 4 U" is my favorite track, such an addictive song I can listen to on repeat even if I totally don't have the life experience to actually relate to the lyrics. (I don't think I have the right life experience to relate to any of the tracks except maybe "Jealousy, Jealousy" and "Brutal" for more general types of teenaged or social media-driven insecurity. I didn't really have any experiences of youthful romantic heartbreak or anything like that!) "Drivers License," "Hope Ur Okay," and "Brutal" are also pretty great tracks.  

Now that I'm back in the office at least part of each week for the foreseeable future, our grocery shopping routine will need to change to account for how I typically buy lunch when I go to the office. (I eat Sweetgreen for lunch on most of my office days.) K's still at home all week for the foreseeable future. But between the two of us, I'm by far the more experienced cook, so he relies more on sandwiches or frozen foods when I'm not home to help with lunch. 

First Outings

Things sure are opening back up quickly here in NYC! Last Wednesday, on May 19, the New York state government officially allowed many indoor settings - including restaurants and offices - to reopen at full capacity with no mask requirement for fully vaccinated people, in keeping with the new CDC guidance. (Restaurants, offices, stores, etc. may all continue to impose their own mask requirements, of course.) Surprisingly, I still haven't received instructions regarding the date by which I need to return to the office full time, or even part time, though I will have a mandatory in-office meeting for one of my cases today. 

I've been out and about a few times since May 19 to do things I wouldn't have done before I was fully vaccinated. K and I continue to make the personal choice to wear masks in public - both while indoors and outdoors, since we're always in transit to some indoor destination - except while we're actively eating or drinking. The photograph above is from this past weekend at one of our longtime favorite restaurants, BCD Tofu House in Koreatown. Which is another way of saying that, yes, we've now had our first indoor restaurant outing since the COVID shutdowns began last March. 

Now that K and I and all our close friends and family - in other words, everyone we could possibly expect to socialize with in the near term - are all fully vaccinated, it's feeling a little easier than I expected to quickly adjust to how we'll likely be able to resume many pre-COVID era activities soon. (The vast majority of our close friends in NYC do not have young children at home who are too young to get the COVID vaccination, which I think makes it much easier for us to just jump back in to things.) Much of our return to regular activities won't be entirely by our choice, including with my return date to the office and my possible late June international business trip that's still being discussed by my supervisors. At some point soon, K and I may also have job interviews that will take place in person. Certain court proceedings are also already back to happening in person. 

It's interesting to observe how quickly - or slowly - people's behaviors have been changing in NYC in response to the recent and extremely rapid changes in the CDC's mask guidelines (which our state government quickly decided to fully adopt). In general since May 19, I've seen that anywhere from 25% to 50% or so of the people I pass by on the sidewalk are still wearing masks outdoors while en route to wherever they're going, much like K and I have also been doing. 

Trader Joe's is among the many large national retail chains that have announced they'll follow the new CDC guidelines, so if the state government no longer requires vaccinated people to wear masks indoors, Trader Joe's store locations there will no longer require masks either. Thus, going strictly by the letter of the law, New Yorkers shopping at Trader Joe's no longer need to wear masks inside if they're fully vaccinated (but to my knowledge, the stores do not actually have the ability to verify anyone's vaccination status). At my neighborhood Trader Joe's, basically 100% of customers are continuing to wear masks inside. 

How's the COVID situation where you are? I hope that you and your friends and family are all doing alright! 

Things I Like Lately

via Goulet Pens

Somehow, I managed to strain my right elbow recently while whisking sugar and fully melted butter together to make chocolate chip cookies (specifically, with the Cook's Illustrated recipe, which is pretty good!). It's been a little over a week of resting that arm as best I can and I still feel a faint twinge in my elbow at times. Of all the silly and unlikely ways to get a mild injury... 

Today's post is a bit of a grab bag of some of the small things I've been enjoying recently while continuing to mostly work from home. With how quickly COVID vaccine access has expanded in the US, I suspect I'll be back in the office full-time very soon. 

Within a few hours of when my previous post went live, the CDC and the Biden administration even announced that - as far as they were concerned - face masks were now unnecessary for fully vaccinated individuals except when on airplanes, trains, and buses, and in transportation hubs! (Though people should continue to follow state and local government policies that may still dictate otherwise. But I guess the clear signal from federal authorities is that they probably expect state and local governments to fall in line with the new mask guidelines shortly.) My personal choice is to continue masking whenever I'm indoors around people from other households, except when having small gatherings with friends and family whom I know to be fully vaccinated. 

Curology Update, Seven Months: I'm now roughly seven months in to using my custom prescription topical treatment from Curology, and it's continued to be good so far. By around four months in, I would describe my skin as pretty much clear, I went nearly two months without any of those nastier, larger blemishes that generally take at least a week or more to flatten out and start to really heal. During that time, I also wasn't really getting any of those smaller blemishes that only take a day or two to go away. 

But last month, I unfortunately got a pretty bad breakout with two of those larger, nastier blemishes that take forever to flatten out - maybe due to a combination of maskne from needing to go to the office a bit more often that month and also stress from preparing for my job interview - so then my skin wasn't "clear" anymore. Oh well. My skin's gotten much better again, so I think that breakout was an aberration. 

On whole, my Curology formula (tretinoin 0.04%, azelaic acid 7%, and clindamycin 1%) is definitely much better for my skin than the 0.1% Retin-A Micro I was using before. I no longer get irritation-induced breakouts and my skin is generally a lot more clear as a result. 

Fountain Pens and Ink: So far in 2021, I've chilled out considerably when it comes to shopping for the fountain pen hobby I acquired last July. I've spent a little bit each month on things like washi tape, a new fountain pen-friendly journal, and yet more colors of ink, but I haven't bought any more pens. 

Most recently, I've purchased two sets of newly released ink from the Korean brand Colorverse. (Both sets are currently sold out. In the fountain pen world, new products from popular brands often sell out extremely quickly from the various small specialty retailers that stock them when they're first released. But the items often become easier to get later on, in subsequent months.) When it comes to fountain pen inks, I like to read reviews from the blogger Mountain of Ink. She reviewed both sets I just purchased, and I can confirm the inks are indeed that cool-looking in real life. 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

I've also been thinking a bit about my next fountain pen purchase, and I'm leaning towards maybe a Pilot Decimo in pastel pink or purple (also available at Amazon from Japanese sellers, though without any real savings compared to US retailers, which is a bit unusual). I'm also somewhat tempted by a new teal-colored limited edition pen from Sailor, the Pro Gear Slim in Blue Green Nebula, but I think that one is a bit too pricey for me now that I'm trying not to spend so much on the hobby going forward. I already have well over a dozen pens - mostly more affordable ones than the Pilot Decimo or Sailor Pro Gear Slim - so I don't really need any more!

Things I Bought Recently

via Yoseka Stationery

Like I mentioned last month, I'm still feeling the pandemic and social distancing blues. But I'm also guardedly optimistic that - because COVID vaccine distribution has been quite robust in NYC and with the new availability of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine - there's a chance vaccine eligibility might open up to the general public here in New York somewhat sooner than the original projected date of late May or early June. 

Because Connecticut is opening vaccine eligibility up to different age groups step-by-step, K's parents were recently able to make their first-dose appointments as part of the age 55-plus group. That's a huge relief to us! California's vaccine rollout isn't quite there yet, so we are still waiting for my mom to be eligible to make her appointment. 

I'm still mostly compliant with my low-spending goals for these few months, as I continue to work on finishing my student loan repayment. But I still allow myself occasional indulgences. In particular, I buy myself stationery or food treats semi-regularly, because those tend to be more moderately priced than clothing or accessories. Today's post is about some of the things I've bought recently, two of them fun and one of them much less so. 

Midori Five Year Diary with Embroidered Cover: I was originally not going to buy this Midori journal because I already have another five-year "a few lines a day"-type Hobonichi, but when Jetpens got these back in stock, I ended up not being able to resist. The embroidered cover is just so pretty, and I know from using another, less fancy Midori notebook that their paper is high-quality and fountain pen-friendly. (I do slightly prefer Tomoe River paper over Midori paper, however. Some extra-fine nib and ink combinations end up too dry for the Midori paper, and Midori paper doesn't show quite as much sheen or shading with some fountain pen inks compared to Tomoe River.) This journal also comes with a clear plastic cover to protect the embroidered details and keep the fabric cover clean. 

Because I'm currently using my five-year Hobonichi Techo journal for daily memory-keeping, I'm going to set aside this Midori Five Year Diary and save it for some other use later.  

Hot Chocolate Balls: These aren't quite the highly Instagrammable hot chocolate bombs with pretty, decorated chocolate shells that have been trendy recently, but they make a tasty, rich, and not overly sweet cup of hot chocolate. I heard about this company from one of my undergraduate school's alum facebook groups because they're a small business that's local to where we went to school, so I decided to try them out. I really like these hot chocolate balls, though at ~$3/serving before factoring in tax and shipping, it's definitely a splurge compared to figuring out how to make a similar hot chocolate mix at home with cocoa powder and chocolate. 

We've almost finished using up the original set I bought, two sleeves with six servings each. All the flavors were pretty good, so I'd consider ordering another set again as a special treat once in a while. 

Turbotax: (affiliate link) Ah, and now for something substantially less fun. Longtime readers may recall that I complain about Turbotax almost every year around tax time. I've even said I wanted to "break up" with Turbotax, but I ultimately failed to do so because I just couldn't get used to using any of their competitors I've tried (mainly CreditKarma and H&R Block's website version). 

I've used Turbotax's desktop software to file my taxes basically every year of my adult life - it typically costs me ~$50/year to buy - because I've become completely dependent on them. Everything else's user interface - even Turbotax's website version - just confuses me too much. I'm definitely not a Turbotax shill or anything, in fact I really hate that I'm completely dependent on their "personal income tax for dummies"-type user interface and approach. You'd think a lawyer would be less intimidated by her taxes!

Pretty much every single year, I end up running into at least one weird Turbotax software glitch. Most years, I have trouble saving my filed tax forms as a PDF, the software often crashes while trying to save or print as a PDF. A few times, the reporting of my backdoor Roth IRA conversion has been glitchy or confusing. I always figure it out in the end, but it can cause quite a headache. 

This year's problem ended up being the most annoying of the lot. Many people who needed to report a IRA distribution - which I do as part of reporting my backdoor Roth IRA conversion - found their e-filed federal tax return was rejected by the IRS due to a purported error with a "FED_Taxable_Inherited_IRA," even though none of them actually reported an inherited IRA. It was quite nerve-wracking to get this error message, because it was clear I couldn't do anything myself to fix it, I was dependent on Intuit to fix the problem on their end. Thankfully, it seems the company fixed the issue causing the error by March 5, and I was able to file my taxes afterwards with no trouble. 

I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well. If you live in a country where COVID vaccine distribution is a high priority, I hope that at least some of your higher-risk friends and family members have been able to get their shot(s) by now, or at least to schedule their appointment(s)! I'm really hoping that vaccine supply will continue to increase faster than originally expected, so that K and I - and the rest of the general public - can hopefully become eligible by sometime in May. 

Link List: Lunchbox Stories

via Unsplash

Although it's currently too early for me to start writing my end-of-month reading reflections post for February, I needed to mention the novel I just finished because it was just too good! Susanna Clarke's Piranesi is really special, an incredibly beautiful, immersive story that I was completely swept up in and stayed up late to finish reading in one day. (It's not a particularly long book, but I started reading after dinner.) These days, not many books are able to capture my attention so fully. 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

And one definitely doesn't need to have been a fan of Clarke's first novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell to enjoy Piranesi. I tried to pick up Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell years ago, but never quite managed to get into it. The experience of reading Piranesi may inspire me to try reading Clarke's first novel again. 

1. // I enjoyed this insightful Eater article about "The Limits of the Lunchbox Moment." You've probably heard the story at least once, about the first or second-generation immigrant child whose ethnic food is declared gross or smelly by other children in the school cafeteria. No doubt that's happened to and been hurtful to many. But it's also not a universal Asian American or Chinese-American (or Taiwanese-American) experience, and that may be obscured by how ubiquitous the lunchbox story is in American media (a space that might not have room for all the complex, nuanced Asian American stories out there). 

In my case, I've never had a lunchbox story. Throughout elementary school, I ate cafeteria hot lunch almost every day. On field trip days when school lunch wasn't available, I generally got Lunchables. I only rarely brought anything else to school for lunch, if I did it'd typically be a sandwich with a somewhat Taiwanese bakery spin like this. 

And because I grew up in the Silicon Valley Bay Area, where the large-ish public schools I attended always had majority-Asian American student bodies - we may have been as much as 75% of the population at every school I attended, to the point where a notorious-in-our-community Wall Street Journal article from 2005 claimed we caused a "New White Flight" by scaring off white families - it was unlikely anyone would have had a "lunchbox moment," where they were shamed for bringing ethnic food. Our Asian American student population skewed heavily East Asian and South Asian. On any given day, one saw a wide range of both western and Asian-style lunches brought from home. No one really had reason to comment on anyone else's food, we'd seen it all before. When I shared this article with a close friend who attended public school in a midwestern state with a much smaller Asian population, she also had no lunchbox story. She observed that different schools have their own culture, and not all children learn to behave cruelly in this specific way. 

One theme in this article is that, for many of the people interviewed, published articles, essays, or books written by other Asian Americans often aren't accurate to their personal experiences. There's some frustration that a more diverse range of Asian American stories isn't being told, and that's likely at least in part because certain stories are seen as more marketable or "sellable to an editor" than others. 

It's difficult to find other stories about the Chinese-American or Taiwanese-American experience that truly resonate with me. Throughout my childhood, and even in college, I was sheltered from being made to feel "less than" because of my racial or ethnic identity, I was always at schools where at least a significant critical mass of students looked like me. With regards to race and identity, my personal story is therefore dominated by experiences of workplace discrimination and implicit bias that are specific to the legal industry. To the extent I look back further in time, issues of economic class and my parents' marital status - divorce being rare amongst the Asian American communities I grew up attending school with - weigh far heavier than questions related to my race. 

COVID-Era Spending Changes Revisited

Kate Spade Cardholder

That Vince boiled cashmere funnel neck sweater I like so much is finally on sale in pretty much all of this year's colors, including the medium blue color I'm somewhat tempted by. Many of their other sweaters from this fall/winter season are also on sale, including this cashmere donegal turtleneck. (Though alas, I don't think current sale prices are better than what was available during the most recent Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale period.) 

Back in August, I wrote about how COVID-19 social distancing and lockdowns changed my spending. Now that K and I have spent quite a few more months living a socially distanced lifestyle - it's been almost a full year now - I figured I should update my analysis to see if my main prediction - that "it's likely most of my spending changes from the [first] five months of COVID-19 lockdown could persist through the end of the [calendar] year" - turned out to be true. This post also serves as a sort of "spending year in review" for 2020. 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

Now that I have all my 2020 You Need a Budget ("YNAB") data to work with, I've adjusted the methodology for this analysis. Last time, I compared my average monthly spend for the entirety of 2019 with my average monthly spend in the full months for which I had data available from after COVID shutdowns started, namely April through July 2020. This time, I feel like comparing my spending for each full year - 2019 versus 2020 - makes more sense, even if January through mid-March 2020 weren't affected by COVID shutdowns. When averaged out over the entire year, the extra non-COVID era-compatible spending - e.g., at restaurants - from January and February 2020 is fairly negligible. 

This time around, I've also modified the list of spending categories omitted from the analysis. Like last time, I'm still leaving out my student loan payments and charitable contributions. Unlike last time, I'm now including my taxes (which increased slightly in 2020, but by a relatively negligible amount when averaged out over the entire year) and gift-related spending for my friends and family, the building staff at my apartment, and the non-attorneys at my workplace (which stayed about the same between 2019 and 2020). 

With regards to my student loan payments, I've ratcheted up the amount I pay each month significantly over time - for instance, I was at $4,800/month last August and am now at $5,100/month - so it'd throw off the analysis to include them. It's also a spending category I could pull back on significantly, if needed, because my minimum monthly payment after refinancing is only ~$1,600/month. And if all goes well, by August or September of this year, I'll be completely done repaying my student loans for good and will never need to worry about them again! 

As for charitable giving, I omit it from this analysis because it's so discretionary. Before 2020, I was admittedly not great about making charitable giving a regular part of my monthly budgets. In earlier years, particularly when I still had a negative net worth of five or six figures - recall I only hit "net worth zero" for the first time in April 2019 - it was something I struggled with because the hours I spent on pro bono work were clearly so much more valuable than any amount of money I could hope to give at the time. Now that I'm in a much stronger financial position than before, however, I can give more regularly (~$2,630 total last year, all from after the COVID shutdowns began in March). 

When I calculated my COVID-driven spending changes last August, I found I was spending an average of ~$1,300/month less than usual. This time around, when comparing my full-year spending for 2019 and 2020, I saw I spent an average of ~$980/month less than in 2019. So that's approximately $320/month less in COVID-driven reduced spending than I originally calculated back in August. (Keep in mind, though, that charitable contributions were omitted each time, so both measures of my "savings" from COVID social distancing should arguably be reduced by the ~$200/month I donated last year.) 

So what changed? Where did that other $320/month in reduced COVID-era spending or "lost" COVID-driven savings go? 

Quiet Days at Home

via Unsplash

After a relatively productive January in terms of writing for this blog, I seem to be feeling a bit of blog-related writer's block again. It seems clear that when I'm trying to avoid shopping for my wardrobe, it becomes more difficult to get ideas for things to write here. Today's post is a light one, about some of the non-fashion things I've been enjoying recently. 

1. // While the weather's been quite cold out - including with a big snowstorm yesterday here in NYC - I've been making a lot of soup. Recently, I've made Balthazar's cream of mushroom soup (via Smitten Kitchen; I halve the recipe and get four light lunch-sized servings), Smitten Kitchen's white bean soup (I omit the crispy kale topping), and a baked potato soup from Delish (the resulting texture's quite thick, I add some chicken broth to thin it out), all of which were quite tasty and not too difficult to cook. 

2. // Netflix just released the second season of the glassblowing reality competition show, Blown Away, which I highly recommend! I've watched a few of the less well-known Netflix-distributed reality competition shows, including The Big Flower Fight (rather boring) and The American Barbecue Showdown (pretty good). Out of the ones I've tried, I think Blown Away is the best. 

For all that glassblowing as an art form has tons of inherent drama - lots of fire and heat, and things that accidentally break or crack - which, of course, helps keep each episode  interesting, I find I really enjoy Blown Away specifically because it still ultimately turns out to be a surprisingly low-drama competition. It's a comforting show to watch, somewhat like The Great British Bake Off ("GBBO"), particularly the older BBC seasons. All the contestants are extremely professional and also unfailingly gracious to each other, even the ones that might have more intense, potentially polarizing personalities. Because of the inherent fragility of glass as a medium and the ever-present risk of breaking or cracking, even in the hands of experienced artists, one gets the sense the contestants are all pretty good at rolling with the punches and staying calm to do their work. 

3. // After first buying Sims 4 (plus the Seasons expansion pack) years ago during a particularly good sale and then promptly forgetting all about owning it, I finally started actually playing the game over the Christmas holidays! Back when my current MacBook Pro was brand new - nearly seven years ago now -  it struggled mightily to run Sims 3 with just a single expansion pack installed, to the point where the game was nearly unplayable. I was initially worried my computer wouldn't be able to run Sims 4 either. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, even though my laptop is much older now, it actually runs Sims 4 plus Seasons quite well. 

I don't find Sims 4 as interesting as Sims 3, they cut or changed a lot of things to make the newer game run better on most computers, and the experience of playing feels a bit less interesting and more empty. But it's still fun to try to build and decorate houses, so I can definitely at least get my money's worth from the heavily discounted sale price I paid for this game. 

Things I Like Lately: Stationery, Kitchen Goods, and Slippers

As I mentioned in my 2020 year-end shopping reflections, I'm currently trying to have a low-spending, low-shopping few months when it comes to clothes, shoes, and accessories. At the moment, I'm very focused on the impending end of my student loan repayment journey, which will hopefully be in mid-August if all goes according to plan. In the absence of being able to safely travel or go out to dine at restaurants, fashion-related shopping is my biggest discretionary expense, so that's why I'm so focused on trying to keep that spending category down for now! 

This doesn't mean I'll completely stop shopping for things that are fun or a bit indulgent, however. I also don't think I'll completely eliminate shopping for my closet until August. I'm satisfied as long as I'm just shopping noticeably less than usual in that area. Here are a few, mostly non-fashion things I've been looking at so far in the new year. 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

Stationery: I recently decided to order my first ever set of washi tapes and stickers from Yoseka Stationery (a small stationery shop local to me, though I've unfortunately never had a chance to visit in person due to COVID-19). I mainly want to use them to decorate my five-year Hobonichi Techo - ordered last September - which I've been using as a sort of hybrid memory book and "a line a day"-type journal. I'll probably also use the stickers and washi tape to add more color to my bullet journal-slash-planner, which I currently keep in a dot-grid Leuchtturm1917 notebook, handwriting in all the dates and weekly planner layouts myself. 

I've only just started playing around with my new washi tapes and stickers. One observation so far is that an A6-sized notebook - like my five-year Hobonichi - is maybe a little small to allow much room for showing off washi tapes wider than ~15 mm or so, at least for long-winded writers like me! I'm still able to use the ~15 mm tapes as small, colorful accents on the pages, but can't use full lines of them to separate off each one-year section on each page. 

Ooh, and the "print-on stickers" I bought are particularly fun! Here's a quick video clip from one of Yoseka Stationery's Instagram posts that shows you how to use them. I've tried a few of these stickers now, and they're really easy to use. 

Recent Small Joys

Part of me still feels the occasional flutter of stress about the recent US presidential election. Obviously, the outcome it abundantly clear, it's not a remotely close call. President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris will be inaugurated next January. But with all the undignified posturing and truly bonkers lies about election-related litigation coming from our outgoing President and his team, it's hard for me not to feel some momentary distress at times. 

All that "amateur hour" litigation work done on behalf of the Trump campaign by the time major news networks called the election results last Saturday has been followed only by maneuvers plumbing shocking new depths of incompetence. I cringe frequently from secondhand embarrassment when reading about their lawyers' statements during hearings and in some written filings, knowing these are the sort of things that'd likely earn a well-deserved scolding and withering retorts from basically all judges I've ever practiced before. And that's usually exactly what happens. 

Admittedly - at least in the SDNY, where I practice most frequently - judges regularly administer remonstrations and sharp words even when it actually isn't particularly warranted, something I've personally experienced more than a few times. So any tale of judicial exasperation or anger, no matter who it's directed to and how richly they deserve it, brings back bad memories. But I digress. Long story short, anyone as pleased as I was with the outcome of the US presidential election has nothing to fear at present from the courts. 

Ah, but let's move on, because this is meant to be a light-hearted post about things that have brought me some small bits of joy and levity in recent days! 

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in a commission, typically a few cents, for me if you click. Thank you for your support!

Election Celebration: Following the widespread acknowledgement of the presidential election results last Saturday, K and I couldn't help but want to celebrate, just the two of us at home. I made the Cook's Illustrated "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies" and K made us Instant Pot ribs. (His parents gave us their extra Instant Pot - not sure how they ended up with two - during a socially distanced and fully masked curbside exchange a few months ago, when we gave them some Asian groceries they requested from Southeast Asia Food Group's delivery service.) Both recipes are pretty good.

The Swan Rescue: I thought this was a sweet and very NYC story, about how an experienced wildlife rehabber rescued a sick swan from Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens. Getting the bird to the Wild Bird Fund in the Upper West Side of Manhattan was apparently an arduous journey that involved taking the swan on the subway, where apparently none of the other passengers had any real reaction. (It's definitely typical NYC behavior to ignore strange sights on the subway.) There's a video update in this Daily Show clip, among other places, and the swan seems to be on her way to recovery. 

Time's 100 Best Fantasy Books: I've read and enjoyed 27 books on Time's list of the "100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time". I thought it was a great list, with an expansive view of the genre, including works geared towards all age groups and books that aren't all shelved in the sci-fi/fantasy section of your average bookstore or library. My one small quibble is that maybe it's a little arbitrary to include two books from certain series but not others. (Though in each instance where I've read both books on the list from the same series - C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; the Harry Potter books; and Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings and The Wall of Storms - I agree that both books are strong.) 

Standout favorites of mine include: The Ken Liu books, particularly The Wall of Storms, though you'll need to read The Grace of Kings first; N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but the only reason I can't yet vouch for her other novels on the list is that I haven't been able to read them yet; Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana, though I'd personally recommend The Lions of Al-Rassan or Sailing to Sarantium instead to a first-time Kay reader; and David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks. But it's really hard to choose, because so many of the books I've read on this list are wonderful!

Recent Small Joys

Featuring the Slip Silk Pillowcase (affiliate link) in navy and the L.L. Bean Wicked Cozy blanket (affiliate link) in shade blue. 

Things have picked up a bit at the office, so I haven't been able to blog quite as much recently. Here are a few things that are bringing me some bits of joy and levity these days, as my household continues to observe fairly strict social distancing. 

1. // With the help of Hadilly's comment, I decided to go ahead and get the L.L. Bean Wicked Cozy blanket (affiliate link) I mentioned a few weeks ago. The twin size is suitable for use as a throw blanket.)The plush fleece texture (thicker on one side of the blanket than the other; the thicker fleece side is visible in the photo above) is delightfully cozy and the blanket is quite warm. I ended up choosing the medium blue "shade blue" color instead of the darker navy blue-gray "raven blue," which I think was the right choice to go with the rest of our bedding. 

I'm really enjoying this L.L. Bean blanket, I've basically taken every available opportunity to snuggle up under it since it arrived (after washing and drying it once before use, following the instructions on the label). I'm almost tempted to get these as a Christmas present for everyone on my gifting list! 

2. // Following up on my commitment to make a conscious effort to support Black-owned businesses, I recently bought some additional loose leaf teas from Blk & Bold Specialty Beverages. This time around, I got more of the passionfruit black tea and also tried out the chai green tea. Both are quite good.

Whenever I've wanted to buy a new book since June, I've purchased through The Lit Bar's (a Black woman-owned independent bookstore in the Bronx) Bookshop.org link. Most recently, I got a copy of Allie Brosh's new book, Solutions and Other Problems. Brosh's writing and art style are as great and charming as ever. She's also been posting plenty of supplemental content on the Hyperbole and a Half Facebook page. (There's also a preview chapter of Solutions and Other Problems on Brosh's Blogspot website, with some additional supplemental content for said chapter.) 

I also have some pieces from Black-owned businesses on my fashion-related shopping wish list: The Lingua Nigra "Shower of Faith" baby fringe earrings are beautiful, as are the longer and more dangly "Fringe Theory" earrings. I can't decide which one I would prefer, but because I'm not used to wearing long, dangly earrings, I should probably just stick with the shorter "Shower of Faith" design. I also really like the Olivia top or dress from Two Days Off, both of which are made of mid-weight linen. But because the season for wearing linen has now passed in NYC - it'll be too cold soon - the potential clothing purchase will probably need to wait until next spring or summer. 

3. // Here's a fun discussion topic that started on Twitter: "[W]hat's your cultural background, and what is the pinnacle of comfort food for you?" I'm a Taiwanese-American of Chinese descent, and I have... several comfort food items I'm quite attached to, it's very hard to pick just one. 

My top choice of comfort food is Chinese-style steamed eggs, which in my household were made more plainly and simply than in most recipes people write for this dish. This is the general idea, but I often don't use any toppings - just the eggs, water, and a bit of salt are enough - and I don't use any techniques for trying to get a smooth, silken texture on the eggs. But I also really like scrambled eggs with Kraft singles - basically this Pioneer Woman recipe, except that our household often used a microwave to make this dish when I was small - and find them almost as comforting as the Chinese-style steamed eggs. Both these egg dishes were common breakfasts for me throughout my childhood. 

And there are a number of other favorite comfort foods from my childhood as well, including char siu pork, pho, and - somewhat bizarrely - KFC mashed potatoes and gravy. You can probably guess that I was a child who really liked to eat! (And speaking of people who liked to eat when they were small, I enjoyed the anecdote about Taco Bell in New Yorker writer Jiayang Fan's Grubstreet profile, that when she was 11, she could eat eight or ten tacos at a time. I was able to eat almost as many at that age. And I would definitely still eat Taco Bell now. I didn't typically use the hot sauce packets though, I only gained my tolerance for spicy food as an adult!) 

This last food-related section of this post is turning out to be a bit of a grab bag, so I might as well throw in a link to this recent profile of Sohla El-Waylly in Vulture. She was very outspoken in calling out some of the pay disparity and other racial discrimination issues at Bon Appetit in relation to their YouTube channel (which is now completely dead to me due to Conde Nast's atrocious handling of the situation). In the interview. Sohla discloses that she was ultimately offered a fair contract with back pay for continued video work at Bon Appetit, but that she chose not to accept because other team members weren't offered the same. (I think that's a very brave, admirable decision.) Instead, Sohla is now working on videos with the Babish Culinary Universe and Food52's Youtube channels. 

Money Diary: COVID-era Staycation, Part 2

And here's part two of the COVID-era staycation money diary I started last week! When I left off, a contractor was in the process of replacing a large swath of floorboards in our living room, and we'd relocated our coffee table and office chairs to our bedroom for the duration of the work. The repairs were going to take three days total, factoring in that certain things needed time to dry or set. 

Only day one of the work had been completed so far, and the contractor needed to come in at 9:00 AM the following two days. This meant we needed to set our alarms for 8:00 AM to have enough time to get dressed and eat before the contractor came by. That's a very early wake-up call by our standards, alas, but we'll be glad to have the repairs done before we're technically back to work next week. 

We wake up at 8:00 AM so we can cook and eat before the contractor arrives at 9:00. The easiest and fastest dishes we can make are either grilled cheese, like we had on Monday, or eggs and bacon, like on Tuesday. So it's grilled cheese with mozzarella (Trader Joe's pre-sliced fresh mozzarella log, to be exact) and prosciutto again! I cook and K cleans up after. 

We mask up when the contractor arrives, before letting him in, and then we stay masked if we're in the living room while the contractor is working. We have an ample supply of disposable surgery masks, because my mom and her friends in California participated in charity drives to order dramatically large quantities of surgical masks and other PPE to donate to local hospitals, senior centers, and the like. While doing those orders, they also bought enough surgical masks for their families, so my mom has kept my sister and I well-supplied. 

That being said, now that K and I know we need to settle in for the long haul when it comes to COVID precautions, we're trying out some reusable, washable fabric masks. A friend of a friend recommended "Happy Masks" a small company that sells masks with an extra filter layer sewn in, and that's what K and I use today. I find these Happy Masks very comfortable because the elastic ear loops are quite secure, yet also quite soft, causing no discomfort even after several hours of staying masked up. The front of the mask is shaped so there's some space under the mask (like with a N95 or a cone-shaped mask that's molded or sort of 3D in shape, so only the edges of the mask sit on the face) and the fabric isn't directly in contact with the nostrils and mouth (like with a standard disposable surgical mask that's fully touching the face). I like the Happy Masks a lot, but I don't have enough knowledge about the science to vouch for the relative merits of the extra filter layer they sew in. 

Money Diary: COVID-era Staycation, Part 1

Approximately once a year, I get inspired to write a money diary post in the Man Repeller format (focused on that week's spending only, without additional details about overall finances like at Refinery 29). I've done a 2018 "atypical week" money diary (part one, part two) and a 2019 "slightly more typical week" money diary (part one, part two). And now, with COVID-19 and everything else that's been going on, here's part one of a 2020 money diary! (I was definitely also inspired by Luxe's recent COVID-era weekend money diary.)

This year's money diary covers a six-day period. There's no point extending the diary to a full week, because the days immediately before and after this six-day period were both extremely boring, with no spending or outings further away than our apartment building's lobby. Heck, there are already two no-spending days in this diary, which was unthinkable for me in pre-COVID times! 

During the six days covered by this diary, both K and I were technically not working, and were instead enjoying a staycation. Though you'll see I still needed to do some work, some of it billable and some of it not. Until late August, I hadn't taken any vacation time in 2020. My supervisors at work encouraged me to take some time off, even if one can't go many places without potentially needing to do a two-week quarantine afterwards, pursuant to New York state law. 

For my part, I've always enjoyed staycations. I'm even known to take an extra vacation day after a trip is over, so I can relax at home a bit before returning to the office. (K prefers not to do this, as he doesn't think it's a great use of a vacation day. He'd rather head straight back to work!) 

But, well, I obviously also miss normal, pre-COVID times, when we'd have been able to freely use our vacation time to, say, go to Taiwan and Japan, as we were about to do in April. Maybe in late 2021? I can only hope...

Wow, a no-spending day! I didn't have a single one of those across my 2018 and 2019 money diaries... 

We sleep in a bit, as is typical for us on the weekends. I wake up around 10:00 AM, a bit ahead of K. Once K is up around 10:30, I start making brunch. I use the oven to cook Trader Joe's frozen hash browns and make an egg scramble on the stovetop with cheddar and chopped-up Trader Joe's "garlic herb" chicken sausage. (That's not my favorite flavor, the "spicy jalapeno" - which isn't actually spicy - is better, but they didn't have any in stock on our last Trader Joe's trip two weeks ago.) I cook and K cleans after the meal.  

Kitchen Gadgets That Bring Disproportionate Joy

Our kitchen storage situation is unusually cramped. Typical units in our building have an overhead cabinet on the wall in this space, but somehow ours ended up without.  The overhead cabinets on the opposite wall are also extremely small. Photo is from when we first moved in, and this corner now holds even more pantry items, now that we're cooking every day!

I recently posted about some things I haven't been spending on or buying due to COVID-19 shutdowns. But there are also certain things I've been buying because of staying home to socially distance. Today, I thought I'd write about some of the smaller items in that category, namely a few fairly basic kitchen tools or gadgets that have brought me a disproportionate amount of joy through their utility. Now that I finally have them, I wonder why I waited so long to acquire them!

For the most part, these are items for which I first recognized the need or potential use at least a few months - if not years - ago. But, in each case, I dragged my feet regarding the purchase for an unnecessarily long time. It's only now that we're cooking every single meal at home that I was finally inspired to actually buy these kitchen tools.

I've mentioned a few times over the years that I can be really weird about putting off certain basic and fairly inexpensive purchases for the home and kitchen, even when the need for them is abundantly clear. K and I put off buying a full-size vacuum cleaner for years, sticking with a small hand vacuum I bought when I started law school, even as we started getting to an age where our bodies make complaints known about our repeatedly crouching down to the floor to use a hand vacuum to clean our entire - admittedly not that large - apartment. And I've previously used significantly warped cutting boards and also oven mitts on which the protective silicone layer was actively peeling off... for an almost stupidly long time, before finally replacing them. That's despite the obvious potential kitchen safety issues caused by both things. 

Social Distancing Life Lately: 10 Weeks

Beef shank tomato noodle soup from a local company, Eat Nomz. They sell frozen soups, with noodles on the side,  for ~$10 to $12/serving, roughly the price of my Sweetgreen lunches. They ship by courier within Manhattan and also ship soups (but no noodles) to a few nearby states. We tried pork and lotus root, beef shank tomato, and brisket radish, and enjoyed all three. I first heard about them years ago from Eva Chen.

How are you doing? Has your state or local government started lifting COVID-19 restrictions? I hope that you and your families are well. K and I are doing just fine, and our families continue to be in good health. Starting next month, I might start feeling nervous about potential salary cuts or furloughs at my workplace, because it's becoming clear that we probably can't return to "business as usual" anytime this summer. Still, I've been extremely fortunate that I've yet to see any disruptions to my job security or income.

This month, I made $350 in total donations to the Food Bank for New York City and World Central Kitchen. I plan to continue making some donations until NYC is fully reopened, or until I see large disruptions to my income (whichever comes first). Though as I start getting nervous about possible salary cuts or furloughs and whether I need to further adjust my money management to account for that, I might no longer commit to donating the same amount every month.

I also expect to start shopping less. After a handful of impulsive "last hurrah" purchases between when I drafted my previous monthly shopping post (a few days ahead of posting) and the first week of May - including an additional Elizabeth Suzann item when they announced the closing of this iteration of the company - I've been much better about not shopping. It's hard for me to absolutely guarantee I'll stay away, given the sheer number of unpredictable mood swings I've had about all kinds of things during this time of fairly strict social distancing. But I seem to be getting to a point where online window-shopping is no longer able to make me feel better - even temporarily - about the pandemic, the way it used to. 

Reopening in New York

New York has laid out a fairly detailed phased reopening plan. A few regions of the state have hit the metrics required to begin Phase One of reopening, but NYC is - unsurprisingly - not among them. Phase One only allows limited industries to reopen: construction, manufacturing, wholesale, and select retail for curbside pickup. (Though I should note that "essential" construction - including several residential construction projects in my neighborhood - had previously remained open under the On PAUSE shutdown orders.) 

Professional services, including legal services, are not slated for partial reopening until Phase Two, so the absolute earliest I could start returning to the office - likely on a limited basis - is probably late June. (Though honestly, I'd be surprised if NYC was allowed to proceed to Phase Two by then.) Any initial reopening would not be a full one, it would involve many precautions and new policies to facilitate social distancing, likely including having a large percentage of the workforce working from home at any given time. Anecdotally, many biglaw firms in NYC have given employees indications that the firms don't expect a significant number of attorneys and staff to return to the office anytime this summer.