One of the biggest books of 2020 wasn’t published this year. In the wake of George Floyd’s death at the knee of a police officer and the subsequent racial reckoning in the United States, Ijeoma Oluo’s book So You Want to Talk About Race surged on The New York Times best-seller list two years after its release, and has stayed there for months. Meanwhile, the author spent 2020 finishing up another book, called Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America, which is out this week and would make an illuminating (or passive-aggressive, depending on your family or friend scene) holiday gift.
In the midst of a virtual promotional tour, Oluo chatted from her home in Seattle about Scandinavian breakfast spreads, her packing routine, and road trips with her two children.
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What she misses about traveling:
I miss being excited to come home. I think that's one of the most special things about travel—you go to a new place and it's exciting, and then you're like, "Oh, my bed's at home. My family's at home." Now it's the same thing every day. Most of all, I loved just exploring new cities so much. I really miss walking around and seeing what's new around the corner, and checking out different museums.
Her genius tip when on the road:
I had a separate set of toiletries, a separate set of makeup, a separate umbrella, a separate bag of chargers. Those were always ready to go, and then usually the night before, I would lay out my clothes, and add them, and my laptop and my phone, and I'd be ready. I learned it was the things that you have to pull out of your daily routine that you end up forgetting. Also, I've lost entire bags of makeup. Having a [makeup] bag that's more inexpensive items, that you won't be upset if you lose it in the airport or lose it at the hotel, helps as well.
How she packs and plans her famous makeup looks:
I had a bag [with] palettes I knew worked, face palettes, and a lot of combination things. What I would do normally is I would look at the outfits I had laid out the night before, and I would say, "What lipsticks would go with this?" The only things that wouldn't be in that bag would be lipsticks and a couple of shimmery eyeshadows for fun. I would toss in whatever mascara I was using, a couple colorful little eyeshadows, and I would pick three lipsticks. It was never super experimental, because the one thing I learned is that lighting in hotels is horrific. You really don't want to do yourself the disservice of packing brightly colored things that you can't blend, and you think you look fine in this dim yellow light, and then you get out to an event and you look like a clown.