The first time was accidental—they were supposed to study The Canterbury Tales: Redone and Revisited and Chemistry 101 together.

The first photo is from three weekends ago at a jazz bar that I stumbled upon, as I do. I tend to stumble into those places, the kind of places where the mood lighting blends into a hazy, mystic pastel. In the photograph, the blue lamp touches the saxophone player’s face, as the background character’s loose ponytail complements my espresso martini … My beloved audience knows that this is not a performance. I was there because I like jazz. Because I listen to jazz on the regular. While silly, subservient AirPod users continue their conspicuous consumption, I don the real deal — wired headphones — that hum and drum underground smooth jazz.

Mrs. Baum didn’t consider herself a political woman. While she considered her neighbors’ volunteering and canvassing efforts “admirable” in public, she privately found their incessant use of their luxuriously landscaped yard as a political display to be quite irksome and, if anything, “dangerously provocative.” Mrs. Baum was particularly unnerved by her youngest political neighbor, a flirty 20-something-year-old with a peppy, arm-flailing run, who was home for the summer from a swanky northeastern college. While her parents vacationed, Lilah Spinx often hosted a group of social justice warriors for a book club. The weekly “book club”, according to Mrs. Baum, was merely a facade to conceal their patchouli-infused debauchery.

Whether Mani Boucher found design or design found her might still be up in the air, because for the Director of Shop Hop Buenos Aires, she has found beauty and meaning in everything from details on a coffee stirrer to handmade white leather boots.