Supreme Pillows and Abashed Apologies

Scroll down for a swell tip for pillows.


So few people read here that posting feels like peeing into the wind. So I sometimes post stuff on Facebook that I don't bother cross-posting here. Which is awful of me, because the diehards reading along here are the most important people in my world, and it's unconscionable that I'd sell you short.

I once wrote a weekly diary for Slate (here's Monday, here's Tuesday, here's Wednesday, here's Thursday, here's Friday), and in the "Monday" installment I noted how unusual it was for a distressed restaurateur to maintain quality once hope's lost. Well, I'm ashamed to admit that I'm the disappointing sort of restaurateur.

I'm feeling particularly low because I reread yesterday's entry with fresh eyes, and can see that my signature shtick - explaining complicated, counterintuitive, esoteric stuff with the easy informality I apply to chocolate pudding - didn't work. The posting, to my shame, is nearly unreadable. Too much to swallow, force-fed with eerily relentless casualness. Yeesh.

The points are good and apt, but my breezy tone just doesn't work with the subject matter. I'm not sure what to do. It's far too late to affect gravitas, signalling how frickin' deep it all is (and I am), talking down to people and making them feel like what I'm proposing is entirely out of reach without HARD WORK and CAREFUL STUDY and A FIBER-RICH DIET.

None of that is true. Everything I write here is low-hanging fruit, immediately ripe for picking. But it's so different from conventional framing that I need to work hard to explain why a fresh view is even warranted! Perhaps I ought to go old school, writing with weighty pomposity, and blizzards of words, to make you feel like you need to learn stuff rather than merely reconsider entrenched assumptions. Idunno. I'm sort of at a loss.


Anyway, I just posted the following tip about pillows to Facebook. Feel free to befriend me there, but I'll try to remember to cross-post here, too, in future. I don't know what's wrong with me, taking you for granted. It's irrational to spurn 25 attention-payers just because they're not 25,000. Thanks for reading, seriously.

You can't imagine the degree of research I've invested in pillows. It started with an early realization that no purchase is more important, given that we spend 8 hours every single day nuzzling one of these. Economizing on pillows is insane. Most people, for reasons I don't understand, sleep on compacted hard cheap ones that are 97% dust mite feces. It's no wonder most everyone proclaims their life to be shit.

I'm well-schooled in goose down. I've carefully researched luxe $$$ options. My attitude has been "here; take my wallet, just give me a pillow that will make 1/3 of my life pleasurable!" But I've found that that's not the answer. You can't spend your way to pillow satisfaction.

If you are a side sleeper, buy this (in "firm") for just $49.

All-down pillows are wonderful (and exorbitant), but they will never work for side sleepers, because their nature is to compact. This one has enough down for comfort and enough feathers for loft. You'll still need to swap out a new one after a year or two (this is critical: only full-down pillows last longer than that, and, again, full-down doesn't have enough loft for side-sleepers). But at $49, a new pillow every year or two is viable. You can also wait till they go on sale.

Oh, and also buy a normy pillow to stick between your knees if you sleep on your side. Whatever's on sale at Target.

Don't expect comfort that calls attention to itself. It's not a luxe experience. It's just exactly what you need. It's The Missing Piece. Life is now viable. Thank you.