Pack It In
What I bring when I actually leave home
This week I’m back doing something I love: being on the road with Ilana Glazer. We’ve done a handful of shows around town together but haven’t toured together since she wrapped her last one in Toronto two years ago. In fact, I haven’t been on the road much at all in a long time, since the last few years were filled with book writing (and feeling sorry for myself!!!!!!!!!!!!) and haven’t been as focused on stand up and touring.
As I emerge from writing and am back out there, I’m excited to be more focused on performing again, but that means traveling a lot more. While traveling can be rough on me--my metal spine doesn’t tolerate anything below Comfort+ and I’m way too particular about what I eat when to leave that up to an airport, even in a nice lounge--it does give me a chance to do one of the things I think I’m the best at: pack.
I’m good at a lot of things: buying jeans, making salad, knowing where to stand on a subway platform to exit at my ideal corner even if it’s not a normal stop for me, comedy. But I really shine when I have to pack for a trip of any length. Overnight, three months, doesn’t matter, I know exactly how to bring the right stuff with me so I’m not like “Ughhhh I have to pay extra because I brought so much!” but I’m also not like “Guess I’ll wear this shirt with a stain every day because I have to.”
I’m not an overpacker. I wouldn’t say I’m an under-packer either, but I definitely am not someone who brings a lot with them. I’m not like a Bravolebrity, bringing four of the largest suitcases on the market to a weekend trip where you mostly wear bikinis and stupid hats. I’m sure it’s mostly what I see on screens, but it feels like there’s an intense pressure (for WOMEN) to pack a department store’s worth of clothing and accessories so you have an entirely different head to toe look for every meal and activity that might be on the agenda.
Regular people don’t live like that, and I know it’s influencers and fashion writers and reality stars who perpetuate needing seven different sarongs and a “night cape” a weekend. But I’m slightly on the other side of the spectrum, maybe even more than the average person. When I moved to LA for three months to work on my first television show (it lasted four episodes on E!) I brought a carry-on rolling suitcase and a tote bag and had everything I needed. Also once Divya and I went to Chicago for a weekend of visiting friends and drinking and dinners out and we each brought with us a small purse and a tote bag you’d use to bring a book back to the library. So yeah, maybe I lean a little...lean on stuff I bring with me places, but honestly, for the most part that’s easier.
We can start with what I bring on a plane. I’m kind of agnostic about, like, if you carry on your actual luggage or not. I tend to only because I only ever use a suitcase that fits in an overhead no matter the length of the trip, so if I can skip baggage, I will. But sometimes, when it’s fancy business travel and I want to be unencumbered for my airport time and I’m not paying and someone is handling it, sure, take my bag. What do I care?
I’m a tried and true LL Bean boat and tote devotee. We had boat totes growing up (for the boat and also non boat stuff) and it was my bag to carry around on campus at Cornell when I was a student, eschewing the preferred Longchamp bags of my peers, and sticking to my Annapolis boating roots. I have a green and cream medium sized one with the longer handles, so I can easily throw it over my shoulder. I have the XL one in bright blue trim, but that is almost exclusively for beach days with Natasha so we can fill it with towels and snacks. I use the boat tote as my work bag, often, because it’s kind of the perfect size for running around the city, as well as for bringing on a plane. I know, it doesn’t zip closed so that’s its own problem, but I’ve never really cared about that. If you pack it right, it doesn’t really matter.
I rarely travel without my laptop these days (GIRLBOSSES NEVER SLEEP hahahhah omg we live in a capitalistic hellscape where everything is work!!!!!!!!!!!). The tote is just wide enough that I can slide in my laptop in a slim case. I then slip in a few magazines and whatever book I’m currently reading and my big dumb joke notebook (see above girlboss note). I have my treasured NY1 metal water bottle. And then it’s all about bags within bags to keep things organized.
I never have a “purse” at the airport, I usually pack whatever nice purse and then a cotton tote in my suitcase for when I’m actually wherever the hell I’m going. So anything normally for purse, I put in a zippered case. I’m a BIG fan of the Baggu flat pouch set. I use the tiny one to move between bags in my day to day life, in it a few tampons, some bandaids, a chapstick, and a mini deodorant. I can toss it into literally any sized purse or tote and not need to keep those things loose anywhere. The medium size one is great for my usual toiletries. A major event where I’m doing MAKEUP makeup (a once a year endeavor) I need to be more strategic, but a beach vacation or a little run of shows I can easily pop everything in that sized container.
Then there’s the largest size. It’s kind of like a flat shoebox in dimensions, but holds everything. In that pouch I toss everything I might need on the plane: phone charger, computer charger, headphones, wallet, pens, hair clip, mini toiletry bag (bag in bag in bag), sunglasses, truly whatever I might need. And then that neatly zips up and fits into the bag so I can have easy access to what’s in the tote, but not risk a million tampons and hair ties spilling out over Terminal C. And then I obviously slip in my deli containers of my preferred airport and airplane snacks so I don’t have to pay $12 for rye chips (even if I want to).
Personal items are easy though, it’s real packing where I shine. I think a huge part of this is that I have pared down my clothing and accessories in life to a pretty streamlined situation and I tend to know what I want to wear at all times and it all kind of works. It helps that most of my clothes are what I call “Simpsons outfits,” by which I mean very plain, solid colored clothing. Simple jeans, plain t-shirts and sweaters, basic sweatshirts and white sneakers. Someone with more interesting style will probably have a very different approach to packing, but mine is simple because my clothes are simple because I want everything in my life to be simple. The boldest color I’m wearing 90% of the time is “denim.”
I don’t use any luxurious or super organized products or systems. I don’t have packing cubes or anything like that. I put my shoes in dust bags out of cleanliness, but otherwise I’m just folding or rolling up my clothes and throwing them in my very old and shitty hard suitcase.
The key is just assuming you won’t wear most of what you bring. You just won’t. I’m sorry, it’s true. You’re going to bring a bunch of options and you’re going to keep going back to the same stuff you wear all the time because that’s what makes sense. I bring an outfit a day plus one extra shirt. My one thing is I throw a bathing suit in my bag on nearly every trip. You never know if there will be a pool or honestly a decent hot tub and you’ll be angry you can’t dip in. But I’m a pool person and also clinically insane, so.
I find with packing, as with cleaning out your closet, you have to get incredibly honest with yourself. It’s not pleasant. It took years of therapy for me to be this person. You have to look in the mirror and be like “Am I really going to wear white jeans on this trip? Do I ever even really want to wear white jeans in my life? Why on earth do I own white jeans I’ve worn these like, once in five years and when I did I wore them to a baby shower with a cream tshirt and leopard print Givenchy Birkenstocks and Michelle Butteau said, ‘What in the Brooklyn Goop is this?’ so yeah maybe I should just burn them.”
It’s important to realize you aren’t going to become a different person when you’re away from home. At least I’m not. When I go to Aruba with my parents, I’m not an influencer on a brand trip, I don’t need looks, I need a bathing suit and a few loose button downs and jean shorts, which is what I’d be wearing in Brooklyn if it weren’t February when we went. When I’m on the road doing stand up I’m wearing jeans and a slim tshirt and loafers because that’s what I wear at Union Hall. I know that when I’m lounging around the hotel between cities I’m probably just going to wear the same Jungmaven pull on pants and henley I wear when I lounge around my apartment between calls. It’s me, just in another time zone.
Look, I wish I could bring my whole closet with me anytime I leave my apartment, let alone Gowanus. I would love to last minute decide at a bar that I actually DO want to wear a silk top tonight, and be able to reach in my purse (or honestly, tap my earring like Jerrica turning into Jem and the Holograms) and magically be in whatever suits my mood. But I can’t because we don’t have that technology (yet).
Rarely does some huge surprising event happen. When I’m on the road, no one has last minute invited me to a fabulous cocktail party and I was stuck with only loose jeans. I have yet to receive a luxury yacht invite when I’m in Aruba reading parallel to my parents in an old men’s button down over my bathing suit.
Part of being a good packer is just accepting that things might not be perfect. You might not have the ideal outfit for an expertly curated photo dump of your vacation. Things might go wrong. You might spill red wine on the one white shirt you brought. Your jeans may be stretched out by day 3 and not looking as snatched. It’s fine. Things don’t work out the way we want. You can’t over-prepare for everything, stuff happens outside of your control and you just have to roll with it. Plus, the worst case scenario, you have to go shopping. Don’t threaten me with an expensive good time.
MORE STUFF! MORE STUFF!
This week on Ruined I bravely took on Snakes on a Plane.
We’re doing another Ruined Live show this month and covering Hokum!
Sunday I’m running my new hour, For This? At Union Hall. Monday I’m 10 Minute Quarters at Littlefield, Tuesday I’m on Wild Card, and Wednesday I’ll be at West Side Comedy Club.
Tuesday 7/7 I’m having my big book launch show at The Bell House. Details and line up to come, but if you’ll be in Brooklyn, get your tickets now!
And every week until July 7, a reminder to pre-order my debut book of essays, I’m A Lot wherever you get your books!