Things I Bought That I Love: Pink Sneakers

I love working out, but only if it’s completely on my terms. I can only work out solo. I‘m not one of those cool people who is totally fine with someone asking if they can join me on a run. For me, I’m like: “Why? Why would I want to have you run with me, and bear witness to my slowness and the intense look on my face as I’m thinking of elaborate revenge fantasies to get me through my short three mile jog?”

I do like wearing cute workout clothes. My first season on The Office, when I was 24, I used to walk to the gym and work out happily in my gym clothes from Costco and Target. I love baggy gym clothes-– sorry guys, they sop up sweat! But then on the way back to my apartment complex, two separate tenants asked if I was the cleaning lady who was supposed to show up that day. I thought it was funny. When I retold the story at work for everyone’s enjoyment, my friend BJ told me, kind of sternly: “Mindy, you shouldn’t wear baggy gross workout clothes. You’re on camera now, people might see you.” This is the one time my friend BJ and my grandmother would have given me the exact same advice.

This scared me but was a good criticism, not only for people on camera, but just, because I should always aim to look palatable, right? Ever since then I’ve tried to curate a comfy but somewhat cool gym “look”. Usually it’s a long-sleeve tshirt from a place I like, like Quebrada Bakery (near my parents home in Boston), Flight of The Conchords, or The Strand or something. Pants are usually some kind of fitted and flattering Lululemon or Lucy yoga pants (can’t do capri, because I only have mismatched socks and refuse to spend a moment of my life matching socks).

Sneakers are where I, Mindy Kaling, take the f’ing lead. Pink sneakers, to be exact. Without tooting my own horn too much, I love wearing cool kicks and get compliments on them all the time. Here are my favorites!

The K-Swiss California R. These are pretty badass. And by badass I mean, a little nutty, but in a good way. It’s a strong commitment to pink to wear these. But strong commitment is what has given us such fashion luminaries as Nicki Minaj and Gwen Stefani. I imagine the Tooth Fairy wears these on her nightly deliveries (I mean, she flies, but she’s gotta wear some kind of shoe).

The Puma H Streets are great for stairmaster and elliptical but I don’t use them for running. I once spent almost 40 minutes admiring them in the mirror of the Crunch gym on Sunset. (This is actually pretty tame behavior for this gym, which is the home of a certain creepy 80’s film star who just wanders around hitting on girls.)

A more demure celebration of pink, I love these Lunarglides by Nike. They say: “Hey, I’m may be fashion-interested and girly but I’m here to work out, guy.”