What Susan Orlean Can’t Live Without

It’s a five-year diary that you just keep a very short journal for each day. I’m on my second one now, so I’ve been doing it more than five years. In fact, I’m almost done with this one, which will mean that I’ve been doing this for ten years. It’s not a journal; you don’t go into depth. It really is almost like recording what you did that day in a very simple way, but there’s a lot of pleasure in looking back and seeing the same day five years ago and the same day four years ago. It’s a kind of simple way of reflecting on the path of your life that I really enjoy. It also is a great way to remember events that you otherwise forget about. There’s not enough space to go on in detail. It really is meant to be these brief snapshots. Years ago, there was a guy who did a photo project where he took a picture of himself every day for years and years and years. And it sort of recorded the path of his aging, and some days he looked annoyed, some days he looked happy. This has that same quality. It’s like a snapshot a day of your life, and I love it.

These are just for sleeping. I like to listen to true-crime podcasts to fall asleep, which I know suggests I’m a psychopath, but I’m not. I find them weirdly kind of soothing, and it really is just a voice talking in a rhythmic way. But sleeping, that’s a whole challenge. How do you fall asleep? If you’re sleeping with someone, you can’t just leave your phone on. Also, I’d rather have the sensation of someone whispering in my ear rather than turning my phone up. I tried a bunch of different versions of this, and these are the only ones I’ve ever found that are very comfortable. They’re not to use like normal earbuds. And they’re not really noise-canceling, but you can set it to white noise. They really work; they’re comfortable. You can sleep with them. They last all night and they actually have very good sound.

I have two dogs, and I live with either one or two people, depending on if my son is home from school. There is a constant issue because the dogs always act as if they’ve never been fed and they’re dying, and it’s very easy then to accidentally either feed them twice or three times or not feed them at all. Each day, you slide the magnet over if you fed the dog. It’s saved us from either starving our dogs or adding to their obesity, which is more likely what will happen — we keep feeding them three times instead of once. Buck is really a bad dog. He’s a smooth fox terrier. And then I have a Welsh Springer spaniel, Ivy, who’s 15 and a half. A very elderly lady, but she is fantastic.

I am not a perfume person. I long ago used to wear a Chanel perfume, but I’d gotten so that I hate floral smells and sweet, typical smells, and I walked into the Byredo store once with a friend and smelled this. It smells so good, I want to eat it. It’s kind of smoky. It smells a little bit like leather. It doesn’t smell like men’s aftershave, it’s not that masculine, but it’s more tobacco and leather. Believe it or not, I’ve had people out of the blue say to me, “You smell so good,” which I never had happen to me before, so I highly recommend it.

This is my tried-and-true. I think the key to happiness is finding a black T-shirt that you love. There’s something about the cut and the fabric that is just sort of perfect. I’ve been wearing them for years. I wear them for, say, two years, and they start graying out, which is just typical for black, so I designate the grayer one to being my gardening T-shirt, and I get a new one to refresh it. They only make them in black and white, and I’ve been buying them in black and white really for decades. I don’t know what I would do if they stopped making them. I think I’d become a nudist.

This is a sunscreen, and it’s an SPF 30. It’s the only one I’ve ever found that I don’t mind how it feels on my face. I’m very careful to wear sunscreen every day. I’m a person who burns. I’m a target for every sort of skin cancer imaginable, so I’m really careful. I’ve tried very expensive ones. I’ve tried the whole range, and all of them felt heavy and sort of sticky because then you put your makeup on over it and it’s like, “Ugh, how many layers on my face?” This Maybelline is great — it’s cheap, and it’s SPF 30. It just vanishes on your face.

I wear my Apple Watch all the time, and they’re not beautiful objects. I hated swapping, when I was trying to dress in a nice way, to a different watch, because I really just wear my Apple Watch all the time. But these straps are beautiful. They’re expensive, but I’ve had it for probably five years. It looks absolutely brand-new. It’s sterling and has a beautiful design. It looks nice enough that if you’re dressed up, it looks great.

I have to confess I first bought this because I love the name. It was so cheeky, but also, I’ve been looking for the best styling cream. I have very curly, wavy hair, and it’s a challenge to find something that both kind of makes it behave, but isn’t sticky and gross. I bought this Days of Dirt partly thinking it just sounded funny, and it’s actually really good. You run it through your hair when it’s wet, and you can also use it when it’s dry, but it’s primarily meant to be put on your hair when it’s wet, and then you just air-dry your hair. I have always noticed that my hair looks better when it’s a little dirty, and I’m sure that’s where they came up with the name. It’s like a few days after you’ve washed your hair, you’re thinking,Wow, my hair looks kind of good, even though it’s dirty or because it’s dirty.

There are millions and millions of alphabet charms, and 99 percent of the ones I’ve seen are sans serif. I wear an “A” for my son’s name, and I saw that this has a serif typeface. I thought,Well, that’s kind of cool and kind of different and sort of a nice, refreshing twist on the alphabet charm. I really like the typeface. It has a little diamond. It’s tiny, to be honest; you barely can see it. I had another one that was sans serif and it was all diamond, and I lost it recently. The chain must have broken, and so when I went to replace it, I thought,Well, now that’s nice as a little bit of a different look.

I’ve been wearing these for probably at least 20 years. I got them in Australia, and they are the most comfortable, perfect boots. I never found a boot that was so perfect. Perfect heel, perfect toe. They’re just the boot. And to my great delight, the world of e-commerce has brought R.M. Williams to the world. I wear through them because I wear them so much. They’re incredibly sturdy, but I literally wear them constantly. It’s got a stacked boot heel and the toe is pointed without being so extremely pointed, but it’s definitely a pointed toe.

This is a foldable yoga mat, and it’s just a really good mat, thicker than most mats. I don’t actually do yoga. I do Bar Method. It’s very clever: It folds into this rectangle that’s very easy to store, so it’s not constantly unrolling and falling all over the place. It’s not necessarily something you’d walk around with, but for home, it’s great.