Amanda Zwilling

To be honest, lindsay's birthday was always a little stressful for me. As anyone who has ever received a gift from her can attest to, linds was the absolute best gift giver. Ever. She always bought me gifts that were so "me" and so perfect and so personal. So, every birthday, christmas, graduation, etc, was a source of a lot of pressure to buy her a gift that would rival the ones she'd give. Linds would, further, constantly send me links to shopbop items that I "needed" to have. Once, she sent me a link to an absurdly expensive sweater with a skull on the back, and immediately thereafter emailed my mom to apologize for showing me this sweater which she knew I'd be obsessed with, in fear that I'd buy myself a skull sweater present on my mom's credit card. Always looking out.

Lindsay would get stressed over gifts to give, too. Senior year in college she figured out the perfect gift for brandon and brooke- a roomba! If you're not familiar, you must must start watching flipping out on bravo. A roomba is a robot vacuum cleaner that zooms around your room and cleans! Genius! Of course, since it was christmas it became extremely difficult to find a roomba. Who wouldn't have it on their christmas list?! So linds and I googled endlessly trying to find a roomba that would ship in time. We epicly failed. The roomba arrived months and months later. But, I'm suuure brooke and brandon will attest to the fact that their own mini robot was well worth the wait.

A short list of some of the gifts I received from linds:
1. Marc jacobs silly bands- every girl clearly needs some designer rubber bands. Obv I wear them every day
1b. Duke silly bands- duke did not make very durable silly bands, and I'm not sure why they were football themed, but fun
2. A black sweater with a skull on it - not the absurdly expensive one (don't worry billie). If you know me, you can probably surmise that I live in this sweater.
3. A mini silver marc jacobs studded clutch/pouch - shiny and studded. Duh and duh.
4. A subscription to nylon and paper magazines- we both aspired to be their target audience
5. A subscription to nymag- literally the new yorker's bible. I'm sure the countless nymag articles that I sent her were a good hint as to my feelings towards this publication.
6. Baby blue scarf- linds crocheted this scarf for me for my birthday last year. Risky not making it black for me, but she said the color would bring out my eyes. Obviously she was right and I am absolutely obsessed with it.

Linds, what I would do to have been stressed over a birthday present for you this year. Missing you so much

- zwill