What Gary Shteyngart Can’t Live Without

I can’t live without my Muji calendar. Look, I know calendars exist on phones, but I really don’t know how to use them. And then I erase stuff. And my life is so majorly busy that I need to look at the big picture. Muji’s month-by-month setup lets me know everything at a glance, from appointments with my team of psychiatrists to when BoJack Horseman is ready to stream to when I can expect the next shipment of Ativan to land at my doorstep.

What would summer be without my Penguin shorts? I have no idea. They come in all sorts of different shapes and colors (although I kinda like gray) and when I put them on I feel like my existence is better somehow, like a Chekhov story about life in the country, but without the human misery.

I don’t know how much it costs, $400, $500, a million? But I got it for doing a reading at some Prada event, along with pants and a jacket and a scarf, and all of those things I still wear, over and over again. It’s very slimming, too. I want Prada to give me more stuff.

I bought these sneakers at Alife on Rivington. The salespeople there are so cool. One of them said to me, “These sneakers make you look like a drug dealer.” I was like, “I’ll take 20 pairs, please.” But they just make me feel super comfortable, like I’m walking on panna cotta.

These sunglasses I got from Persol or Luxottica or something. I don’t know. People say I look okay in them. I got them for doing a reading in Italy. Yeah, you do a reading in Italy, you get expensive sunglasses. How is that country still around?

Yeah, I drink a lot. Whattaya gonna do about it? District Distilling is the best thing that has happened to drinking in a while. They’re a small distillery out of our nation’s troubled capital, but everything they do, they do right: gin, bourbon, whisky, but especially the best rye that has ever existed. I have a six-pack of it up at my upstate dacha, and I’m drinking from two bottles at once as I write this.

I hate putting on tuxedos, they make me look like a penguin imploded inside a hairy crêpe, but this super-elegant German watch is a freaking horological masterpiece, and it makes dressing up fun. No frills, not even a seconds hand, just the hour and minute hands surrounded by a neat white-gold case. Now what did I do with that cummerbund?

The Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 with white dial. Right, same drill as with the Lange, but instead of going to some chicken dinner in a tux, this one’s for jumping in the pool or hanging out in my summer Penguin shorts. Worn on a bracelet, it feels nice and slightly chunky the way a Rolex should, but it’s beautiful, too, in its own quiet (for a Rolex) way.