3 Keepers and a Regret is a recurring series on Retail Therapy on Substack where I ask people I admire to name 3 things they’d fight to keep — bought, inherited, stolen — and 1 thing they regret.
My dad teases me for laughing at my own jokes. So of course I’m drawn to Lucy Sweet, who says: “I think I’m funny and that’s what counts.” Which makes me laugh.
She’s a columnist. She’s written novels and gets paid, perhaps peanuts, to share her opinions about television shows. She can probably do it in her pajamas.
Her site, The Lucyverse, feels like an inside look at Lucy’s mind. The things she finds to poke fun at are so ridiculous I’m jealous I didn’t think of them.
As her tagline states: “I review everything that comes out of the sewage pipe of capitalism!”
Three Keepers
3 things you’d fight to keep — bought, inherited, stolen
No. 1 — Painting of Patrick Star from Spongebob
This painting makes me very happy and you will have to prise it from my cold, dead fingers. I was walking through Glasgow a few years ago and this homeless guy was selling paintings of cartoon characters — Mickey Mouse, Mutant Ninja Turtles, Super Mario etc. and it literally called to me across the street. I have never felt such a strong magnetic pull towards anything (or anyone) before or since. It was a case of absolutely NEEDING to have it. I think he charged me £15, which was a bargain — it’s a work of art! I hope the painter managed to get himself off the street. It really was a heroic endeavour to set himself up in this way, buy materials, paint portraits, give people a service because he didn’t want to beg. I don’t know how he managed to pull it off. And although it’s amateurish, he perfectly captured Patrick’s brain-dead, optimistic stupidity in just a few strokes. It’s in the bathroom, so every day, Patrick is behind me in the mirror when I get ready, reminding me that we are all just big idiots who put our pants on the wrong way round.
No. 2 — My glittery catsuit
For many years I've been in a rock band called Youth of America (the word 'youth' is very open to interpretation) and I wanted some stage wear that would dazzle the crowd and possibly traumatise them for life. So in 2019, I bought this Warehouse x Ashish catsuit for £50 in the sale, reduced from £120. I wore it once for a gig and once for a video, and I felt like such an amazing human disco ball that I realised that I would keep it forever, regardless of the fact that it takes two people to zip it up and you can never wash it, or even dry clean it. It hasn't had an outing for a long time, but it glints from my wardrobe and whispers 'PSST, YOU ARE A ROCKSTAR' on a rainy Tuesday, which is good enough for me. If I make it to my eighties, I might wear it to the supermarket.
No. 3 — Colonel Lychee
I don't know how to describe Colonel Lychee, other than he's a lychee kernel, given to me many years ago by Marianne Greated, who is now Head of Art at Edinburgh College of Art. He acts as my creative talisman when I can remember where he is, and he's very good to handle when you have a mental block or you're just bored to fucking death. Shiny but also a bit rough, and because there's a dead lychee in there, the stone rattles around in a satisfying way. Colonel Lychee is a reassuring presence on the desk, and he asks for nothing, makes no demands, gives me no deadlines and has a lovely repeating pattern that's nice to look at.
One Regret
now the regret
I regret nothing, but I do miss several items of clothing that are lost to time. One of them was a blue plaid lumberjack jacket that I bought in Seattle in 1993 and took home to my student accommodation - a disgusting house in Newcastle with bars on the windows. Despite the bars, we were burgled the next night and the jacket was stolen before I even had a chance to wear it and bore everyone to tears about how I bought it in Seattle. I also really miss a pair of pointed acid yellow Topshop stilettos that I couldn't walk in, so I gave them away. Neither of these items would look good on me now, but they somehow perfectly represented who I was then. A bit like Van Gogh's chair and pipe, but in the form of a smelly old jacket and a pair of banana feet.
Why I’m Still Shopping
Like Lucy, I’d wear a catsuit to the grocery store when I’m in my 80s. I talk to my stuff, and some I could imagine responding.
But after that, I’m stuck. I want to be comfortable in my own skin. I’m not.
I aspire to become a person who can say I regret nothing. And mean it.
Thanks to Lucy Sweet. Find her at The Lucyverse.
When life stops making sense, we shop wear a catsuit. More soon.
That glittery catsuit is INCREDIBLE.