Who are you? What do you do for a living?
I'm Molly, a creative at the optical startup Warby Parker.
It’s Sunday morning. What’s the first thing you do?
Open the shades, stretch, make uninhibited stretching-noises.
Are you recovering from anything?
The previous work week, and maybe alcohol intake.
90 Second Threshold
I have a 90-second routine that I do every day. It involves lifting small weights. If I am in a disciplined mood, I’ll do a plank while reading the Sunday New York Times on my phone. Unfortunately, 90 seconds is the threshold; if the routine is any longer, I won’t do it.
Breakfast
Pancakes. I can make them from scratch, without a recipe. It’s the only thing I know how to cook. I eat them with lots of butter, sprinkle of Maldon salt, no syrup.
Kicking Back At the Office
My job involves long hours in an office, and Saturdays are social, so I reserve Sundays for being a floppy gorilla around the house. If one of my friends is in a similar mood, we’ll arrange to be floppy together. Otherwise, it’s “me time”!I’ll work on creating crossword puzzles—my goal is to get one published in the New York Times by the end of this year. Big goal. Very exciting.
Scratching That Natural Human Itch
Crosswords scratch a natural human itch to solve puzzles. I like how the time between being mystified (reading a clue) and non-mystified (solving it) is around 30 or 60 seconds. That’s a manageable amount of time to be mystified. I started making them pretty recently. I won a little tournament at the 92Y that was hosted by a New York Times crossword puzzle author, and he taught me a few tricks about how to construct them.
Epic Walk
If it’s sunny out, an epic walk may happen—up to Central Park or over the Brooklyn Bridge and through Cobble Hill. More likely, I’ll walk the .8 miles to my office and settle in for four or five hours of work. When I finish work, I’ll make a peanut butter sandwich, put my feet on the desk and read while the office is still soaked in weekend-quiet.
Sunday Reading
Stories from the Roald Dahl omnibus and book reviews by Dwight Garner. Articles on Longform that I didn’t get a chance to read during the week. Friday’s issue of The Economist. Reading one issue of The Economist is the equivalent of reading a week’s worth of newspapers. It’s like a news vitamin pill.
Day Ender
I’ll take a hot shower where I apply different products to myself while listening to a shower radio. The radio program that usually coincides with my shower is “Selected Shorts,” so it will be Cynthia Nixon reading a Raymond Carver story or something. Then I get out and put on my white Swildens nightgown. It is made of soft white cotton and makes me feel like a freshly Christened baby. (Which makes sense, because the label is designed by someone from the family that makes Bonpoint.)
Bed Time Whiskey
I’ll pour some Jameson into a nice glass and take it to bed with the Sunday crossword. I don’t brush my teeth before going to sleep because I assume the alcohol disinfects my mouth.