Summer—and more urgently, Memorial Day—is upon us, and that means you are in the wind.

Sure, you’ve been in one place all winter. You haven’t gone anywhere besides work and home in months. You wear the same sweatshirt as you shuffle between the couch and the kitchen for snacks while you get deeper and deeper into that new show you’re obsessed with on Netflix. But when summer rolls around, you become a whole new person. You wear green pants and Wayfarers. You drink margaritas on patios. You attend crab boils. Every weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day is booked with some fun outdoor activity.

With all of the travel you’re going to be doing this summer, you need a sturdy, dependable bag to carry all of your stuff from the beach to the bar to the hotel and wherever else you’re going. Here are FIVE suggestions. 

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Whether you're using a duffel bag to travel the world or just travel back and forth to your boyfriend's apartment (the exhausting commute is the #1 reason why couples move in together before they're ready to), you need something sturdy and dependable.

This Novel Duffel Bag ($80, Herschel Supply Co.) is perfect for the grind, and not expensive enough that you'll think twice about throwing it on the subway floor.

If you travel a lot, you have a weird allegiance to your home airport, even though you've spent an inordinate amount of time waiting for delayed flights there.  Your affinity towards your home airport is like your affinity towards that shitty burger place in your hometown.  It's not that great, you've had a few bad experiences there, but it's familiar, you know exactly what you'll get, and you know where the bathroom is. 

This New York City Airports Print ($30, Pilot & Captain) shows off your hometown airport pride.

When you arrive at a new office, there is usually some remnants of the person who sat at the desk before you.  An old, crusty mousepad, a rusty stapler, and a pathetic-looking tin cup to hold all of your pens and pencils.  

More often than not, you'll just hold onto these items instead of replacing them for newer, better desk stuff.  Why would you, anyway.  This is your desk at the office, not your house.  CONSIDER THIS FOR A MINUTE.  You spend more of your waking hours sitting in your sad little cubicle than you spend in your apartment.  Don't just accept the hand-me-down junk you get when you walk in the door. 

Upgrade that shit—pick up a new mousepad with an inspirational quote on it.  Buy this Vintage Pencil Holder ($59, Izola) to store your pens and pencils.  Put up pictures of places you'll never go to because you're chained to your desk. 

Have you ever noticed that the phrase, "my door is always open" is usually said by douchebags?  "My door is always open" indicates that this person is always available to you, which is never the case.  The people who are actually always available are hiding in their offices with the door shut (if their office even HAS a door), because their constant availability has indicated that they can handle EVERYTHING while the "my door is always open" pricks are gallivanting around town without a care in the world.  

If you ARE one of those d-bags, you can prop your door open with these beautifully-designed Ski Slope Door Wedges ($15, Svpply).  The rest of us poor schmucks will be hiding under our desks.  

One of the worst things about living in the city is that you rarely have an outdoor space to call your own.  This means no letting your dog out in the backyard to roam free, no sitting outside with a cold drink, and absolutely NO barbeques.  If you're determined to have a little BBQ action in your life, you have to get to the nearest park by 6AM in order to snag one of those disgusting permanent park grills from 1925, OR you have to buy a grill, find a place to put it in your tiny apartment, and lug it to the park (you don't have a car) every time you want to grill.  It's almost enough to make you want to move to the suburbs.

Don't do anything drastic, my city dwelling comrades.  The BBQ Bruce Balcony Grill ($77, Connox) is the answer to all of your problems.  Mount it on the rails of your balcony/fire escape and you have an instant built-in grill.  Who needs a back yard?  Not you, man.  Not you.  

So, you've had a hellish week at work.  Not your typical annoying week, but a HELLISH week.  The kind that makes you lay on the floor of your apartment and question your choices in life so far.  You need an intravenous drip of vodka after a week like this.  The only friends you need after a week like this are Jack Daniels, Jose Cuervo, and Captain Morgan.  

Here's what you do: leave work at 5pm on the dot, go home, drink a beer in one gulp.  Get out of your stupid, uncomfortable work clothes.  Throw on this Fuck It Let's Drink T-Shirt ($22, Buy Me Brunch).  Head to the bar, drink until you don't feel feelings anymore.  Wake up, buy a bagel and a ginger ale and watch shitty reality shows on E!.  All you need.     

Summertime is approaching, and everyone's favorite activity abounds: that's right—drinking on patios.  Because this is a such a beloved activity, companies are falling all over themselves to create products that make the experience even better.  The newest product is the Chillsner ($30 for a set of 2, Uncommon Goods), which is essentially a freezable tube that you insert into your beer that will chill it from the inside.  The Chillsner's design allows you to drink from the bottle while it's cooling the bottle down.  That's all well and good, but some minimal planning would negate this situation.  How hard is it to pick up some cold beer?

Here are the scenarios in which you would need a Chillsner:

1. You're not a borderline alcoholic and you don't have beer constantly chilling in your fridge.

2. You live in an alternate universe where no stores sell already chilled beer.

3. You are a slow, slow, s-l-o-w drinker and by the time you get through a measly 12 oz bottle, it's already lukewarm. 

Cheers, I guess.

There are two kinds of girls who love horses: the rich kind who hire people to do the dirty work of taking care of the horses, and the not rich kind who do the dirty work of taking care of the horses for rich people.

The rich kind would come to school, raving about the medal she won in her latest jumping competition.  The non-rich kind would come to school smelling like manure because they were in the stables at 6AM.  

Either of them would love this Saddle Ring ($46, Robynn Molino), though it would probably look better on the Patrician hands of the rich girl, you know? 

We all know that if we were stranded in a desert, we could live for a surprisingly long time without food, as long as we had access to clean drinking water.  BUT did you know that BEER is even better for you (probably not, because all alcohol dehydrates you, but just go with me on this one)?  Beer is a very simple concoction, consisting of water, wheat, and hops.  If you've ever had a really heavy beer that felt like a meal to you, that's because it almost was.  So, if beer can provide sustenance, why can't it also get you clean?

The good folks at Dogfish Head Brewing have made their own Beer Soap ($5, Dogfish Head) out of their 60 Minute IPA, ground hops, and barley.  It also contains oils of palm, coconut, lavender, rosemary, and fir.  Bonus to this?  Next time someone looks at you skeptically and accuses you of "smelling like a bar," you can smile, and say, "Why, yes, I do!  I wash my entire body with soap made out of beer!"  You win.