You Just Can’t Hire Anyone Anymore
December 29th, 2009
I’m beginning to think the web developer I hired must have registered the domain name incorrectly. I’ve only just now taken notice. I am certain that what I told him was that the web address should be “Year Without [as much] Shopping”. Because “Year of At Least Think About Where Things Come From When You Buy Them and End Up When You Throw Them Out ” was too clumsy.
Oh, did you think I said “Year Without Shopping”? You must’ve heard me wrong. I didn’t do that anyway, that was the web development department. That guy smokes too much pot.
Anyway, I looked back over my Confessions post, and I realized that I have really caved on the original purpose. I bought two shirts at Mal-Wart for four and seven dollars. I feel guilty now, because I know that means somebody is suffering so I can have a cheap shirt.
I’m actually suffering a little bit my own self. I find that I am deeply sorrowful most of the time. I probably shouldn’t be; what do I have to complain about? I found myself wanting to go shopping this afternoon, and I think I am beginning to realize that it doesn’t really fill a void at all. If anything, it creates one, because then I’m all dressed up with no place to go.
On that note, I am going to try to live up to that impossible standard that stupid web guy set when he named this blog. Obviously it won’t be a year, since I’ve already done it, but I’d like to try to get back on the horse. I am trying to free up some money so I can go back to school and make something of myself, I mean besides a mess and a laughingstock, so not shopping for clothes I don’t need would probably be a good thing. I have stuff in my closet with the tags still on it as it is.
The hard part, though, as I said at the very beginning, is that I dress to reflect how I feel: sexy, confident, shy, or belligerent. It’s hard when I see an outfit in a magazine that I could put my own spin on if only I had some slouchy jeans or whatever. It’s hard when I have somewhere special to go and I want to feel special and new to go there, and I can’t let myself go buy a new outfit. It’s hard when my son is away and I have nothing to do and no one to do it with, and going to the mall to pick out clothes sounds fun. I guess I have no business complaining that it’s hard, since I didn’t actually do it. But in honor of you, dear reader, I am returning a belt and a studded tunic, and I will try to sin no more.
(Ok, I was actually going to return that stuff anyway, but still. And I need a pair of yoga pants, but that’s it. After that I’m off the mall.)
Extra Tiny House, or, Watch Your Adjectives
December 27th, 2009
Babykin and I had a boss morning, baking cookings and listening to indie rock and just generally kickin’ it. Then it was time for lunch, and we went to back to the kitchen to make a natural peanut butter and low sugar fruit chunky jam on double fiber whole wheat bread sandwich, with a side of carrots and pineapple. Three pineapple chunks and two carrots, to be exact. He’s five years old, so it makes sense.
When the toaster oven went off, he commented on how loud it was, and I told him that it’s loud because they don’t want you to forget your food is in there and burn your house down.
–I went one day to visit a bachelor friend of mine on a Sunday afternoon. From the doorstep, the house smelled like burned oven. He’d passed out and left a pizza in the oven at 400 degrees overnight. I commented a little later that he really needed to learn how to cook. He replied, “I do know how to cook! I almost cooked the house down!”
I digress. The Little Man and I then went on to have some first rate fire behavior conversations, how to check the door handle for heat, crack the door and peek out down near the floor, then if that way is blocked, how to use the blinds, push the screen out, and try to land on the first roof below rather than the second one five feet further down.
When I finished his sandwich, he asked me to cut it into five pieces. I said okay, but I asked him if the sandwich was more food when it was cut into five pieces. He gave a hesitant “no.” I went through an explanation. We looked at the whole sandwich, called it one, then I guess I messed up. I let him call the two pieces resulting from the first cut two, when I should have tried to explain division and fractions at that point, but I didn’t. Anyway, we get to five pieces, just as I’m making the second cut, and I say again, “so is there any more food when you have four pieces than when you have just two?”
“No, but can you cut it into five anyway?”
I do, and I say, “Is that so it will match your five pineapples and carrots?”
“Uh…no. It’s because I’m hungry!”
It makes me laugh just to read that over again. Later he and I were talking about how we need to make sure that when we get new stuff, we get rid of some of the old stuff, because we have an “Extra tiny house.”
He looked confused. ”We have an extra house?”
“No. We have an ‘extra-tiny’ house. We have a small house.”
“But where is it?”
“Here. You’re standing in it.”
“But you said–you said we have an extra tiny house.”
I explained that our house is smaller than normal.
In my own mind, the next thing he said was, “But wait, who’s on first?”
Boxing Day
December 26th, 2009
In honor of Boxing Day, and in the spirit of maintaining a portion of the original purpose of this blog, and also in honor of the fact that I want my house to be neat again, I gathered up all the cardboard boxes still in here this evening. The photos below represent the cardboard I needed to throw away today, including stuff that had little to do with Christmas, and excluding some boxes that I threw away yesterday.
I took it to the grocery store and weighed it. That’s a lie. I wanted to, but I didn’t. I’d guess it weighed about ten pounds. My friend graciously offered to take it to his house to put it out with the recycling, and I said sure. By the time I gave it to him, it was crammed all the way full. The thought of every house in the US having at least that much cardboard to get rid of after Christmas bothers me, considering how many of them will just let it go to the dump and then never think about it again.
I’ve been criticized for participating in the annual gift frenzy, and I wonder what your take on it is. In my case, I buy my son a lot of stuff for Christmas, and then I am pretty prudent when it comes to stuff he might think he wants throughout the year. I don’t usually need to buy him clothes more than twice a year. Once at Christmas, and maybe once in the summer. I make the things I buy for Christmas purposeful: I don’t buy him stuff just so he has stuff, I buy him toys to match his new developmental stage, clothes to fit his growing little self, books and games, and movies and tv shows on dvd, since we don’t have cable. I try to be equally purposeful about what I buy other people. I don’t want to be accused of giving anyone clutter. I try to give consumables when I can. 
So what’s your take? Does participating in Christmas in the traditional American sense mean that you’re a mindless consumer? Does it spoil children? And does it increase what goes into landfills, or just make it happen all at once rather than over time?
And by the way, yes, I know Boxing Day has nothing to do with boxes. It’s about pugilism, of course.
The Hard Questions
December 25th, 2009
It’s Christmas Eve. Babykin goes to his dad’s family’s shindig and comes home whenever the party is over, then we put out cookies an’ alla that and he goes to bed.
Of course, it’s getting to be more fun as he gets a little older. Tonight he was putting out cookies and he decided to put out one of each (giant blondie, lemon bar, snowball) and three of the midnight crackles we made this morning (Dorie Greenspan’s Baking). All the while I’m saying, “Santa’s having cookies at everyone’s house, he just needs a taste…” Because Santa’s watching his empty carbs, you know?
To no avail. I told him that sometimes people like to leave a carrot out for the reindeer. He knows just where they are! Ooh! And did I mention celery? Me and my big mouth! Then I asked him how many carrots he thought we should leave.
“Well, how many reindeer, um, does he have?”
“Uh, well, there’s eight, pal.”
“Okay. One, two, three…”
With that, the contents of my crisper was transferred onto the kitchen table, where it will sit until I can figure out where to hide it or I get to tired to care, whichever comes first. I had a minor fit of hysteria a moment ago when I considered what it would be like to eat eight full size carrots and four stalks of celery, plus cookies. It makes my stomach hurt just to type that!
I do love carrots though. I drink carrot juice by the half gallon and I eat raw carrots also. I’ve never liked them cooked. They taste like dirt. I mean, plants are made out of dirt, just like we are made out of doughnuts and pizza and, to a lesser extent, dirt, and the truth is, some of them really taste like it. They’re also made out of sunshine. Why can’t they taste like sunshine? I refuse to believe that sunshine tastes like cooked Brussel’s sprouts smell.
By the way, that was quite a difficult phrase to type, “ Brussel’s sprouts smell” because my S is missing. The button is on my desk, next to a bit of lego and a used tissue, which isn’t far, but it most certainly isn’t attached to my laptop anymore. Makes typing any of the myriad words with S in them a little bit of a hindrance. Which in turn, makes me thing of Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn.
From amazon, which doesn’t credit the particular reviewer, so this may be the publisher’s blurb: “Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram,* “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” …Encroaching totalitarianism [has resulted in banning certain letters] as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel.”
My holiday writing will obey that particular rule, and we will note the level of difficulty in following it. I can already tell it will limit my ability to accurately tell what exactly I am thinking.
Happy Holiday to all my people!
Spoiler Alert–If You’re on My Christmas List, Consider Yourself Warned
December 24th, 2009
What I’m doing right now is glutting myself on indie rock. I’ve been listening all afternoon the Band of Horses, Kings of Leon, Spoon, Deathcab for Cutie, and Fleet Foxes. I just realized I can’t publish this until after Christmas, just on the off chance that the person who is receiving all those albums shows up here. It’s going to make a great gift, and I’m actually really enjoying the music.
I got my mom six cd’s and a (n admittedly second-hand) book, Devil in the White City, which is based on the true story of the serial killings at the 1929 Chicago World’s Fair. She’s going to love the music, I know it. I’m stoked.
I’m also excited to give another gift I don’t want to spoil, and this person would be reading, so now I really have to keep this under my hat for the next six days.
Anyway I got a certain someone some shirts from threadless. He’s always complaining, and rightly so, that you can’t find a guy’s shirt that doesn’t have a brand name, a crown, a cross, or an eagle. Or all four. Are there only four things in the world worth putting on a shirt? Just the eagle? Not the jellyfish, or the lion or the elephant or ant? And just crowns? Not telephones or chemical formulas and models or airplanes? And why does he have to advertise for some company that makes clothes? Why is their stupid made up name the statement he’s supposed to want to make?
“Hey everyone, I just wanted to get your attention and say, Billabong! Volcom! Ha! That is all.”
Babykin got everything he asked for from Santa. He is a good boy and I coached him into asking for what I wanted to get him–well, for the one main item that is, and then he asked for one medium thing I’d never heard of and cars. So he got a large, medium, and small from Santa, plus one surprise, and then gifts from Mommy. He also got a gift from his elf on the shelf, Krissy. Krissy took his camera that didn’t work up to the North Pole to get fixed, and get a new USB cord. He wrapped it in a box Isaiah loves and got him a matching photo album to put his pictures in.
I got myself something too, so I’m happy.
Damage Control
December 20th, 2009
My mom and I went to a certain makeup megastore to reup on beauty supplies. I needed blush, translucent duster, an eyeshadow, and a couple of nail polishes. Now let’s find out if you do what I do when you buy nail polish, because I think it’s normal but maybe it’s not.
I paint a little stripe of the color on my nail to see if I like it. There, I said it.
On this certain Sunday, I probably had 10 different colors dabbed on my digits. An embarrassing scene ensued when the manager asked me what I was doing. I stated the obvious. She made a cartoonishly disdainful face; she scooped up her lip until it was just under her eyebrow.
“Well, those aren’t testers. Now I have to damage that out.“
I felt like she’d just caught me letting my dog take a shit in her sandbox. I mean, she made it seem like I was trying out q-tips and putting them back or something. These are my fingernails. They’re dead and clean. And the brush goes back into paint. What can live in paint? I mean, salons use the same nail polish on everyone, and that doesn’t spread disease.
I don’t know, am I in the wrong? I’ve been doing that for 15 years, and no one has ever said word one about it. And if I consider that other people have maybe tried the nail polish I buy, it doesn’t bother me, in all honesty. I mean this is an upper middle class, suburban crowd in the first place, but even if it wasn’t, I’m pretty sure I’m not that fragile. I think I can fairly easily survive having the same nylon brush coated in formaldehyde and ethyl acetate touch me as touched a potentially dirty stranger. It’s not like tweaked out truckers and trailer park hookers are coming in there and trying out toothbrushes or something.
On another subject, I’m looking forward to the annual ornament exchange tomorrow. I haven’t done any holiday baking, but I think I’m going to take a short cut and make boxed cupcakes. Do you think that makes a good gift? A box of cake mix and a can of frosting?
Anyway, I’m going to make some red velvet cupcakes. It calls for white chocolate frosting, but I might be lazy and just use the canned chocolate frosting. I can still put the peppermint extract and the crushed candy canes. We’ll see.
These are My Confessions
December 12th, 2009
I’ve been away a long time, due largely to the fact that I didn’t have internet access at home. (I know, welcome to the 21st century). But now I do.
I’ve pretty much abandoned my original purpose for this blog. I’ve bought clothes (two pairs of jeans, a sweater, a dress, and some tanks and tees), a pair of shoes to replace a staple that was totally broken, which I photographed for this blog early on, and a purse. I wanted a cross body bag, and I must say, I’m not sorry I bought it. It’s perfect for hands-free purse access. When I spell it all out like that, I haven’t gone that far off the wagon, but nonetheless, I certainly didn’t go a year without shopping.
I bought boyfriend jeans and holy cow, I could live in them. They are so comfy. It’s so fantastic when something can be fashionable and comfortable. I even (loosely) tight roll them a la Katie Holmes/6th grade and wear them with both flats and heels. Worn with just sneakers or something they look sloppy, but I like them with stylish tops, usually loose ones, which seems counter intuitive. You’d think it’d be loose pants, tight shirt, but not so much.
The other jeans I bought are tight and have some rips and so forth, but they go all the way to the ankle and did not need to be altered, which made them worth what they cost.
I’m not ashamed to say I bought two Miley Cyrus/Max Azria tops at Wal-Mart on Black Friday. I was there for a different reason, but they were four and seven dollars and are cute. One of them is a tank top with a big sequined bow on it, and I’ll wear it over a lace top I’ve had forever and never worn. Nevermind that I have no dressy occasion in the foreseeable future to which I might be going and where such an ensemble would be appropriate.
Actually, I am sort of ashamed. The whole point of this blog was to be conscious of the fact that when we get clothes that cheap, it means someone is not being paid a living wage for their labor. But what do I do now? I’ve already bought them.
I also got an adorable peacock feather printed dress at Forever 21 for just $22 dollars, which is going to be awesome with the purple shoes I already have. It might even look cute with black tights under it and the high heeled purple sandals. Again, though, I don’t really have a place or occasion to wear such a thing. I like new outfits for their own sake.
I find that I like putting together outfits regardless of whether or not I have a place or reason to wear them. But maybe I should get out more.
Do the Easy Ones First
October 7th, 2009
Well, so far it’s been only about half a year without shopping.*
*The deal was that I wouldn’t shop for clothes, shoes, or handbags from about the end of April to about the end of April. Technically, I’ve obeyed the maxim. I did exercise my replacement clause recently when I purchased a couple of bathing suits. The two that I have been wearing all summer–one of them is at least six or seven years old, the other about five or so, are on their last legs. The first one’s elastic has gotten to a point where I fear it will break while I am wearing it, which would spell disaster and possible arrest, since it’s the bottom part that’s in perilous condition. The other has a bandeau top and the top edge is starting to roll down, which is unsightly and risks exposure. Not that I haven’t been there before, but it’s no good for actual swimming in the ocean, which is frustrating. So, because it’s the end of the season and the few stores that still have bathing suits have them super cheap, I went ahead on Mom’s advice and hit up the Dillard’s. I got two bathing suits for about $50; one of them, I got two different tops for. The first one was normally $96, and the other would have been about $190 for all three pieces. I couldn’t see waiting until next year and then getting one suit for twice what I got these two for. Photos:
I also have to admit that although I haven’t bought clothes of late, I have still been using shopping as my therapy when I am depressed or cranked up to eleven from my extremely stressful job. I bought a framed poster and a lamp for my living room, each $20, and orange Buddha head, also for the living room, since I had a sconce thingy with nothing on it. I must say the lamp was a near necessity, since I only had one source of light in here. Here’s the stuff:
I don’t really care about Jimi Hendrix, but it goes with my India flavored living room. It solved a design problem, allowing me to move what used to hang in that spot into the dining area, which previously had nothing at all on the walls.
That’s the thing I want to say about shopping, and why it works as therapy–it provides a concrete solution to an identifiable problem. You need skinny jeans to wear with your new plaid shirt? You want short cowboy boots to wear with your cutoff denim skirt? Those things can be relatively easily solved, and when you’re finished, you have a small sense of accomplishment and something new to wear that you feel good in. It’s nothing at all like “Am I in the right line of work?” or “How do I stop loving someone who ins’t available to me?”
If I could solve those problems with my credit card, no matter the price, I’d swipe it and sign.
Mayday!
September 22nd, 2009
I haven’t blogged in awhile, and it’s largely because I am totally overwhelmed at work. Those of you in my immediate circle know exactly why that is: 2x the number of kids in each class will do that to you. And I’d like to curse the innovator that came up with the bright idea to have the kids keep everything in a notebook. That means that instead of lugging home 150 papers every day, I could, realistically (depending on your definition of the word) bring home 150 whole spiral notebooks each day! NOT happening; which is why I’m drowning in them now.
When it rains, it pours, eh? Not that anything else is really going that badly, but I’m unhappily single with no prospects. It’s hard when you finally decide what you want and then suddenly they are all out of that, pick something else. No thanks, I’m not hungry anymore.
Also, I don’t know if I am going to make it the whole year. This morning, I put on a completely uninspired ensemble. I have come to expect more from myself, and so have other people. What I can’t figure out, though, is that if I haven’t gotten rid of much, then where’s all the stuff I wore last fall? Theoretically, isn’t it all still there? How come I couldn’t find anything to wear this morning? It’s like a locked room mystery–
Speaking of which, I just finished Steig Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and although I don’t do genre fiction, I found this book to be mostly enjoyable. I didn’t figure the mystery out much in advance of the characters, but I did figure it out, which makes me feel all smart like. There are two more in the series, and alas, there will be no more, since Larsson died between the Swedish publication and the English one. Too bad he didn’t see it reach international acclaim. I’m guessing there will be a film version too. There was one scene in the book where I couldn’t get a scene from the “Silence of the Lambs” movie out of my head.
I enjoyed the book and liked the title character a lot. There was a point where she took command of a bad situation and enacted her own version of justice that, although I am neither a sadist nor a violent person in general, I found so satisfying that I read it three times. I used that scene as a comfort when the tension was high in the climax. I always hate using the term climax when discussing literature; it makes me feel dirty. Paging Dr. Freud…Dr. Freud.
Now I’m going to read Buy*ology byMartin Lindstrom. It’s about the psychology of why we buy things. I already read one chapter; it was about product placement in television shows and movies. It boils down to this: if the product plays a meaningful role in the action, we remember it and are influenced. If it doesn’t, we don’t and aren’t. His example was about Ford and Coke and American Idol. He called Ford’s involvement a $26 million (per year) mistake. Coke’s placement was effective. Do you know of any other examples of successful or unsuccessful product placement? Interestingly, Lindstrom posits that most commercials are completely forgettable and thus are wasted money. He says that you’ll spend six years of your life watching commercials! Those are eight hour days, not 24, and I don’t remember if he’s giving you weekends off, but day-um!
I think I’m below that average, considering I don’t have cable and don’t watch tv, but I’m interested in a similiar stat for the internet.
Speaking of 30
September 10th, 2009
Were we? I know I’m starting to think about it more. I guess it isn’t the number that matters at all, but the fact that I feel more and more discouraged about the limitations on how fantastic I can look and how novel I can feel.
For one thing, I’ve succumbed to the Freshman Four. They’re the freshman, the four are popping the buttons on me trousers. Forgive me if it isn’t fifteen, since I’m not built for that, but still. It’s hard to feel good when you can see the carbs you ate this week in your gut.
And I heard if you say sunburn backwards nine hundred and ninety-nine times, your the skin around your eyes will look young again and all that nasty damage from baking in sweat and chlorine will wash off in the shower.
I don’t know what I have to do (besides live in the gym and spend my whole day eating raw superfoods) to look right in a bathing suit, but the basics just don’t cut it anymore for this working girl. I take the stairs. I ran four miles on Tuesday. Without stopping. And it only took me forty minutes, but I haven’t done shit since except work twenty hours and assemble five separate meals. It’s only forty minutes that it takes to do it, but that doesn’t count driving there, changing, driving to day care and picking up the last solitary kid ten minutes befor they close, then going home to cook dinner, wash dishes (no dishwasher), was self, do bedtime with Babykin, and so on, then get up at 5:40 in the morning.
Fourteen and fifteen hour days are tiring. I heard that in France they get free healthcare (through high taxes, I am sure), five weeks of paid vacation every year, naps at lunchtime, and wine with dinner. Oh, and the streets are made of cheese.
Holy mackerel. I just remembered a book I saw everywhere last year.
French Women Don’t Get Fat.
Au reviour!
