Biting the Cheap European Bullet

Midway through week 3 of rifling through the goodwill bags looking for something I could get away with wearing, I caved and went to H&M. I simply had to admit that I had run out of clothing and that, despite the Saturday Night Live sketched of my youth advising me that most fit problems could be solved with "cinching," I had few alternatives to actually replenishing my wardrobe.

However, since I had been burned before and now have an unfortunate number of unsalvageable skirts in sizes I won't be again, I decided to do the honorable thing and go to the cheapest store in the mall to buy two things: one black skirt, one tan skirt. I figured between those and my one pair of jeans, I could be ok until June.

Oh dear, I forgot how unpleasant it is to shop at H&M. If attention deficit has a mascot, it would be this clothing store. I have a lot to say about "kids today," but if the layout of this store is any indication of how their brains work, please excuse me because I am way behind on my Mandarin lessons. There is no rhyme or reason to the store and no salespeople to answer questions. A reluctant shopper like me has to navigate by color.

And boy is this clothing cheap. I have shopped at H&M over the years for disposable clothing (and I was extremely sad to notice last summer that my favorite piece, a simple khaki skirt that had seen me through many an island vacation, was literally threadbare), but the quality is really appalling. Nevermind, I was there to buy temporary clothing. Something to get me from my current shape to my final shape without looking like I was wearing sacks.

And luckily, there were skirts. Mostly plain skirts. Tailored in such a way that not a centimeter of fabric was wasted. I gathered up as many as I could find in as many sizes as I could possibly be, and tried them on. For much of my life, I bought the smaller size as an aspiration and ended up squeezing myself into horribly undersized garments. Of late, I have attempted to correct these years of mistake-making and buy the size that actually fits. I considered this admirable until it dawned on me that I was, actually, losing weight and the clothing of right now only remained so about a month and a half. So I bought two skirts that barely fit right now, but that will fit perfectly in 5 pounds and won't stop fitting for another 15 or so - and that's about how much I have left to lose.

I hope when next I must wardrobe augment, I'm in the financial position to skip H&M, but for the moment, I am inordinately pleased that for $50 I can avoid looking slovenly and aesthetically lazy.

Anticipation

Far be it from me to give Carly Simon any more airtime, but she seems to have cornered the meme-o-sphere on this word, and sadly, the word is apt.

Gift giving is tough in our family. Not because we don't want things, more because we don't want things that fall within the gift giving budget. My mental wish list has several sub $20 things - that new nail polish color, 12" circular knitting needles - and expensive things - furniture, electronics, trips to Thailand. In the middle there's not much.

So we've gotten in the habit of pooling financial gifts to come up with the thing we wanted - even when that means, like this year, my brother and I will be exchanging envelopes with the exact same amount of cash in them. And, in the spirit of making sure the thing I wanted wasn't sold out, I pre-ordered it and picked it up last night.

And now, like the adult I am, will stare at it in its packaging, until we open gifts on Christmas (the day we'll also be celebrating a very late Chanukah). Which will be very very difficult to do and draw on the reserve of willpower I am currently using to not eat.

Because the gift is a colornook.

That I want to open and play with and customize and mess with like the gearnerd I am.

But I will not, for I has adulthood. And I will spend the next (oh my god) month thinking about how much fun I will have with it in January. But if you have spent any time in a Barnes & Noble recently playing with the nook, you will know how much fun it is RIGHT NOW. My salesperson, Erika, helped me a great deal by refusing to open the packaging to put my anti-glare plastic thingy on the screen, saying that once the box was open, temptation would prove to great, but then she put the whole kit and kaboodle in a bag with photographs of the colornook in action on the outside.

So now I have a very compelling bagvertisement in my house that contains the very item the bag is bagvertising.

Fine. I'm going back to thinking about food and how much I'd like to eat some that isn't composed of finn crsips and chicken breast.

Why There Are No Pictures

I really was prepared to have a photographic feast for you today. A welcome back from your holiday have a good laugh at me photographic feast. For, you see, on Tuesday last, my mother and I embarked on a ripe-for-comedy expedition to the Saks Fifth Avenue bridal salon.

And boy, did I have my arrows sharpened. First off, you need an appointment. You cannot just walk in and try on dresses as we had learned the week before (instead we tried on awesome cocktail dresses on the designer floor). You must meet with your bridal consultant to discuss your vision.

Example:

Bridal consultant: So what is your vision for your wedding?
Me: I definitely think my rear end should be fully covered by the dress.

I debated long and hard whether or not to simply lie to the woman and tell her that we were a) getting married at the Plaza and inviting 500 people; b) getting married at Neuschwanstein (I swear, if I actually just spelled that correctly without checking google - scout's honor - I deserve a Vera Wang gown); c) participating in a group wedding a la the moonies; or d) having a long and very religious ceremony for which my head, shoulders, ankles, cheekbones, etc. would need covering.

In the end, because I just don't like to waste my lying, I told the truth. When she asked me what shoes I might wear, I admitted that I didn't know if I would be wearing shoes, but pointed out that the shoes I had worn to the dress-up were the lowest heels I would be considering. When she asked me what my style was, I told the truth. I tried on exactly zero head-to-toe lace numbers. I said I liked simple, clean, and elegant. That I was unmoved by beads, lace, and tulle. That I wanted something cool.

So, now I have to interject and admit why there are no pictures, even though my camera was tucked into my handbag.

Somewhere in between the jokes and the self-consiousness, I kinda got into it. I found myself trying on dresses in styles I might actually wear. I found myself imagining myself wearing such dresses. And swilling champagne. And carrying my bouquet of wildflowers picked earlier in the day by my goddaughter. For literally the first time, I imagined myself a bride, and not just someone who was signing some papers and returning, pretty much, to the same life she'd been leading for the preceding decade.

Now you just know how I love being aloof. Sarcastic. Above the fray. It's my calling card. It allows me to be vulnerable and admit that I cry at the Folger's commercial they play around Christmas time where the armed forces son surprise returns for Christmas and wakes his parents up with a fresh pot of coffee. Now I will say that I was not nearly as emotionally moved by trying on wedding dresses as I am by that commercial, but I certainly wasn't as emotionally neutral as I had anticipated.

So I didn't want to have pictures posted here of things that might resemble what I might actually wear. The tryings-on suddenly had more importance than anticipated.

In fairness, armed with my newfound bridal enthusiasm, I made the mistake of dropping 10 bucks on a bridal magazine (trying to find the one whose cover offended me least). I won't be doing that again until Amy and Abby and I get together to page through many of them while bombed because literally nothing in the 400 page tome applied to me at all. I don't need to know what juicer to register for, nor am I concerned that my bridesmaids will suddenly turn into crazed harpies (especially since there is no wedding party to speak of), nor do I really think I need a crown. So, the majority of my distaste for the wedding industry remains intact.

But I don't have pictures. Because I realized I didn't want to spoil the surprise.

How's that for breaking news?

iDone

Once upon a time I was a loyal Apple user. The school was chock full of them and when it came time for your family to buy one for home, it was the obvious choice. Ed was the only person I knew who had a PC and DOS was frankly frightening. We started with the ridiculous Apple 2GS which became immediately obsolete due to the introduction and adoption of the Mac, rendering all Apple models about as useful to home computing as a toaster. College arrived, and with it, a Mac whose name I don't remember. This computer was fine until I started noticing devoted partner's PC. There was something, well, strange about it.

It was really really fast. It didn't need to allocate virtual memory to programs to keep them running at anything approximating reasonable levels. And while it was confusing to learn at first, I soon go the hang of it - what with the confusing start menu and such.

Then after college when my Performa (I just remembered) was more useful as a heating element than a computer, it was time to buy my own computer. Using my own money. And here's where things got interesting. For $1500 I could get a bottom-of-the-line Mac. Double that amount would get me a usable one. For $800 I could get a faster-than-the-usable-3k-mac Dell. Start taking guesses what arrived at the house!

That Dell lasted a good 5 years or so before it was time for an upgrade. This time, under the expert tutelage of devoted partner, I built my new computer. And continued to upgrade it with orphan parts until the present.

In the meantime, though, the folks at Apple had found a way to re-ingratiate themselves with me via the indispensable iPod. Sure, I was a late adopter because I couldn't countenance a $300 walkman, but the price came down, I had a birthday, and devoted partner swooped in the fill the MpVoid in my life. That was around 2005.

By 2008, the iPod was behaving very strangely. As in not working all the time. And then not working at all. But I really didn't want to buy another. When the nanos came out in all those pretty colors, I debated one, until I saw them in person. The colors were icky and shiny and not at all as lovely as they looked on TV or in print ads. Eff it, I said, I don't NEED an iPod, it's just nice to have.

When the DuYos moved out west, they had a sale of their old crap, including their first generation iPhones. I swooped one up thinking I could just use it as a replacement Mp3 player. That was a mistaken assumption. You see, without the AT&T contract, the iPhone is merely an ineffectual paperweight. Devoted partner again came to the rescue and spent the better part of the weekend hacking the iPhone so that I could use it to listen to music without paying AT&T for the privilege.

It also ran apps.

Delicious, unnecessary, and yet quite addictive apps. The iPhone and I had a good 6 months or so. And then the screen stopped working. Not entirely, just enough to make typing impossible. Apparently I had dead pixels. That's ok, it still plays music. But those apps were fun. I'm totally missing out on the cultural phenomenon that is foursquare.

So now what?

I could buy the silly new Nano for $179; the midrange touch for $299; the boring, app-free classic for $249; the monopoly-friendly iPhone for 50 bucks a month for the rest of my life; or the shiny and utterly useless, memory-insufficient iPad for $499 and up - unless I want to also give AT&T $50/month, in which case my iPad suddenly costs a minimum of $629.

Now, in a vacuum, some of these are not so much money that I would have to forgo food or rent, but while discussing it with devoted partner, I realized something: since 2002, he has owned 4 separate iDevices. FOUR. IN EIGHT YEARS. He has needed to replace his iThing every two years because the bloody things are totally unreliable. Funny, though, because the extra 60 bucks Apple asks you to shell out for extended warranty protection is good for how long?

2 years.

So I'm putting my foot down. I will not be buying a new iToy. Yes, I will snoop around the internet to see if there's any kind of wild scheme that would enable me to cure my current iToy of its dead pixels but, as cool as they are, I will not ante any more money into the gaping maw that is Apple. I didn't buy an American car because of the horror stories associated with planned obsolescence and my suspicions that Apple, too, employs that savvy strategy are going to prevent me from adding to their coffers either. I had my first digital camera for about 6 years before it stopped working, and I wasn't exactly gentle with it. The nice folks at Canon offered me a new camera for the same cost as the repair. You bust your iToy after 2 years (or 1 if you don't pay the extra 60 bucks) and it's another $300 out of pocket.

Canon will continue (and has continued) to get my business; Apple...we're breaking up.

Gambles

I remember on my first trip to Atlantic City, David A. gave our group $10 to put on the roulette wheel - I think number 32. We did and, amazingly enough, he won. $350 bucks. Which, amazingly, we gave to him. Needless to say, no future roulette single number bet has ended the same for me which is why I don't consider betting on roulette a sound gamble.

But I know what the limit is for a bet as potentially foolhardy as that roulette bet is: $20. I am, generally speaking, willing to throw away $20 for the chance that it wasn't thrown away. Let me explain.

Vanilla beans are expensive. $2-$5 a bean expensive. Even if you are, say, a popular restaurant owned by a famous chef, you're still paying about $.60 per bean. Companies outdo each other in the marketing departments trying to dream up new copy to justify the price of vanilla, but in the end, you still wince as you cut into one for something as pedestrian as vanilla ice cream or pound cake. So, about five years ago, I asked the internet to help. And help the internet did. It found me a company that had at least gone to the trouble of getting SSL who was selling vanilla beans: 100 of them for $20. So, one of four things could happen: 1. The company takes my money and I never see anything in return; 2. Something arrives in the mail, but it isn't a vanilla bean, it's probably a monkey turd; 3. It's a vanilla bean all right, but it tastes like ashtray; 4. Through some blip in the universe, these people have found a way to sell me a vanilla bean for $.20.

It was 4. I STILL HAVE some of those beans (though I think now they're a little too brittle for delicate application). I was swimming in beans. I made vanilla extract with tons of beans and then because I had so much vanilla extract, I started handing it out as gifts with, you guessed it, a vanilla bean tied to the side of the glass. I don't know how these people did it and I don't much care. It was a $20 gamble that paid off huge.

Which is why this morning when I was sniffing around for some yarn for an upcoming project and I found said yarn, albeit in a discontinued color, for 1/5 the retail price, I bought it. The company wanted $20. Now, it is possible I'll never see the yarn, or the yarn will have goat's blood on it, or some other such calamity. But it was worth $20 to find out. Because if it's legit, I've saved myself $80 on this project. And if it isn't, I guess I'll make up the difference on my next order of vanilla.

It Depends On What The Definition of Is Is

Make of this what you will.

The most salient memories I have of spending time with my father as a child (and mother and brother - so I guess I should say the memories I have of time our family spent together) involve one of three places: Bloomingdale's, Sak's, Macy's.

While other families presumably picnicked in the park, learned to ski, went to the movies, volunteered at soup kitchens, our family hunted. For sales. On things we may or may not have needed. These were frequently Bataan Death March kinds of afternoons. We had to go to everyone's department and we had to try on many things and watch others try on things. While my memory might be exaggerating, it isn't exaggerating by much. We spent more time in department stores than we did almost anywhere other than school. Sometimes there would be a snack, a reward for the hours of shopping and the fact that we were probably walking home to the Upper East Side. Other times there was barely a bathroom break.

This childhood trauma has manifested itself in my adult life in two ways: I hate shopping in stores and I turn my nose up at most "sales."

A sale is only worth something if it's worth something. 20% off is not a sale. In the lifecycle of a season the clothing is only really at full price for maybe three weeks - then come the holiday sales, the three-day weekend sales, the secret mid-week sales, and finally the it's-time-to-stock-next-season's-clothing sales. Since a clothing season only lasts about 10 weeks, the chances of the item you just had to have being gone before it gets to 50% off are slim. Take my favorite, Manolo Blahnik. His New York store runs sales twice a year, in January and July. For the first two weeks of the sale the shoes are 30% off; for the second two weeks of the sale, the shoes are 50% off. Ever since I was able to snag a pair of knee-high black leather boots in my size that I promised myself I would only buy if they made it to 50% off, I haven't even considered walking into the store during the 30% off weeks. Because, in honesty, it's not as though I NEED another pair of shoes.

For many years, I've been a lazy online shopper, hanging out on gap.com and oldnavy.com and occasionally bananarepublic.com until big sale season. Then I buy pretty much everything I can find in my size, try it on at home, and send back what I don't like. This has resulted in my owning a lot of dresses made from t-shirts and little else. But a couple of months ago, Amy introduced me to an online destination that is essentially the clearinghouse for brands' old shit that is crowding the warehouses. And some of this shit is really really cheap. Cheap enough that if it gets to the house and doesn't fit or looks awful, I'm only slightly disappointed. I have been stocking up on sub-$50 dresses in an attempt to be prettier on a regular basis (see also hair washing, mascara application, and flossing). Now my closet looks more like the closet of an adult woman (though still with far less items than one would imagine - I told you, I dislike shopping). Sure, some of the stuff is still dreadfully overpriced, and expensive enough that I wouldn't want to make a mistake; and some of it is, in my opinion, ugly. But overall, between the two clearinghouse sites I have joined, I have netted 10 dresses, also known as more than enough to be able to throw everything else in my be-Gapped closet out.

And since I know one or two women read this, and perhaps have not already checked these meccas of saledom out, I invite you to take a peak:

Ruelala.com

Ideeli.com

Later on, please feel free to blame me for the fallout from these introductions.

Shopping (Could Be) Fun

So when you are chaperoning Europeans these days, all they want is to humiliate your weak currency by buying things and telling you what a steal they are. Even though the Euro has slipped slightly against the dollar, we are still the current losers in this battle, and never is this more apparent than when your friends giggle at how cheap things are in comparison to their home countries. As such, we've been doing a fair bit of shopping - though in all honesty, most of it has been window shopping. As someone who has recently been confining herself to online shopping (I know - in addition to not being able to braid my own hair or put on eyeliner I also didn't get the shopping gene) so I can't really remember the last time I actually went shopping, like as an activity.

Here's what I have learned from the past two afternoons.

1. Shoe sales are neither all that great a discount nor all that great a shopping experience. It's very Lord of the Flies right now at both Sak's and Bergdorf's, with piles of seriously expensive shoes being tossed around like flip flops while elbows are thrown. No thank you. I don't like paying full price either, but I might confine myself to the quieter end-of-season sales at the individual boutiques where it's less like a rugby scrum (however, should any of you see this shoe in a size 41 for $250 or less, please buy it immediately and I will reimburse).

2. If you are a size above 8, you should not shop below 14th street. There are some really really really cute things and they are for really really really small people. I am not going to make a bitchy fat-ass-positive rant here because, let's face it: hip, young, shops-below-14th-street people are really never going to buy clothing in greater than a size 8 so it makes no financial sense for the designers to make them.

3. HOWEVER, hip, young, shops-below-14th-street people MIGHT have a size 11 foot. I am continually amazed by the number of other women I meet who are 10s and 11s and it just does no one any good if you adorable shoe places don't conform. I tried on shoes that were so small for their size that it was as if I had asked for a size 8. After being implicitly turned away from all stores selling clothing, I was so incredibly ready to part with my hard earned cash for things like this (but in something more like this color) or this or this. But, no, only midget sizes. Sigh. At least devoted partner will be happy - he'd have hated all of these shoes!

4. I want this belt. Leaving aside, for the moment, that since I own no belts, perhaps my first belt purchase should not be a 350 dollar magenta satin belt (this picture in no way does this belt justice - picture the color much much more awesome), can't you just see my in a black dress with this belt? And by "you" I do not include devoted partner whom, while we have never discussed it, I feel certain is not on Team Magenta Satin Belt.

Which leads me to 5. Perhaps shopping isn't such a good thing. After all, the more things I saw, the more things I wanted - for example a 1300 dollar motorcycle inspired navy blue leather jacket. I do not need this thing, nor should I, at the present moment, even consider such a purchase. Much to the designer's chagrin as he patronizingly told me that he could custom make me a jacket (seeing as my ample charms would amply not fit in the sizes available).

Our guests are at Woodbury Common as we speak and I wish them the best of luck in their bargain hunting, but I'm not that sad that they're on this expedition by themselves. My marginal propensity to consume was getting out of hand!

Too Stupid To Eat

Ok, so we've been all shiny and happy around here for a while and I haven't gone totally apeshit over something in a while which I guess means I'm due. Now, while I could go totally apeshit about The Great Mexican Menace and the good people of Arizona who apparently want to mow one another's lawns for pennies on the dollar, I think that topic will be pretty well mined by others who are less prone to accusing great swaths of people (who only recently started celebrating MLK day and still don't acknowledge daylight savings time) of being retarded. See how Ciceronian that was?

No, instead I'd like to talk about a different kind of menace; one that I encounter at least once a week when I do the most benign of activities: grocery shopping. Now I've done some good long research on this (I just googled it) and it appears that my statistical needs and preferences are not being met so that a small and deeply annoying minority's can be. I think you know who you are. Yes, I point my finger accusingly at the following groups:

The gluten-free
The nut allergic
The vegan
and to a lesser extent the lactose intolerant.

Let me break it down.

1. The Gluten-Free
About .5% of people have celiac disease. This could not suck more. As an avowed bread-o-phile I cannot think of a worse infliction (including perhaps cancer as you could continue to eat bread while having cancer). I feel deeply for you people and hope you can find some way to carry on because I would not know how to. Honestly. That being said, way way way way more than .5% of my Whole Foods's shelves are filled with gluten-free items. As a person who enjoys wheat and wish it were incorporated into more foods (like spinach), I do not appreciate being told that something cool and yummy I was about to buy contains no gluten. I like gluten. I am glutinous. What offends me more is seeing the label "gluten-free" on items that obviously are: like rice. We'll come back to why this offends me later.

2. The Nut Allergic
About 1% of the people are allergic to nuts including, in certain cases, my best friend. Yet now we cannot have nuts in schools. Soy butter and jelly anyone? Listen, being allergic to things must suck. I, for one, am allergic to idiocy and it totally rules my life. I have to plan my days around avoiding idiocy for fear of the physical ramifications such encounters would produce. But, again, I'm not sure if nut allergy sufferers are, by definition, idiots. Which means you probably don't need to list on a carton of milk that it contains no nuts.

3. The Vegans
Aw man, you people. I have a whole host of moral problems with you, not least of which is the whole, it must be nice to be so bloody rich and well-fed that you can start moralizing about what foods shouldn't be eaten. I want to send you all to re-education camp in sunny Somalia and see how soon you would kill another vegan for a chance at some goat meat. But, we're talking about why I hate you when I shop. Accurate numbers are a trifle difficult to come by, so I'll give you the upper level of the estimate because I'm a nice person. About 1% of the people have chosen, despite all rational arguments to the contrary, to be vegan. Much like our friends the gluten-averse, however, your vegan crap takes up way way way more than 1% of the shelves. And most of it with crap that only tells me you don't want to be vegan in the first place: vegan "chicken" nuggets, rice milk, soy cheese, garden burgers. You know what tastes better than those things? Try chicken, milk, cheese, and cow. Similarly, I think it's underestimating the slowly disintegrating brain power of the vegans to label things like salsa as vegan.

4. The Lactose Intolerant
Ok, you guys were hardest because apparently there are a lot of you. That being said, from what I understand from the people I know who are afflicted, this pretty much means you don't drink milk, go easy on the cheese and, sob, push away a plate of ice cream after a single bite. Therefore, you have the easiest job in avoiding what you can't eat. From which I can infer that you don't need to be told that a can of tomatoes is dairy-free.

Perhaps you see the pattern here. My best friend, a lifelong allergic to yummy things like almonds and hazelnuts, ASKS before he eats. Even at super super fancy restaurants. Similarly, he uses his EYE HOLES to read ingredients if there is doubt. I know reading is hard, so perhaps our Blackberries and iPhones will one day be equipped with virtual eyes that can read for us, but if you're going to effing DIE if you eat a nut, perhaps you have some responsibility to yourself to be a little vigilant. Similarly, I don't know if I'm ready to believe that we are stupid enough as a society that we need the equivalent of labels on apples that read "vegan." Apples are vegan by definition. Any vegan stupid enough to not buy an apple because it didn't have a vegan label is too stupid to be allowed to eat in the first place.

Once upon a time I lived a life that was bereft of bacon. It was a sad life, but one that was founded on unbreakable rules about what could and could not be eaten. While many foodstuffs had a secret code that would let me know if I could eat it, others didn't. And some of those others were permitted provided I read the ingredients to determine if offending items were included. And I was all of eight. As precocious a reader as I may have been, if an eight-year-old can read through a set of ingredients and put the package down when she encounters the words 'lard,' 'animal shortening,' or 'gelatin,' I think we should demand just as much of full grown surburban moms. Most of whose kids don't have any allergies at all, it's just that the mother read an article in Idiots Weekly that said any of the following: "gluten will turn your toddler into a fat chick," "nuts can make your kid gay," "milk weakens the immune system in families with a net income of more than 500K," and "meat is murder."

And just so we're clear. Meat IS a whole food. As is milk. And are peanuts. Soy chicken nuggets? Not so much. Those have less whole ingredients. If you're wondering what they are, they're the things that make something as utterly repulsive as a soy nugget taste kind of like fried chicken. If you'd like to get an idea of how whole those ingredients are, I invite you to take a little trip down the Jersey Turnpike which is where those "flavors" are created. After visiting, please let me know if you wouldn't just rather buy some happy, free range, chicken and fry it up in breadcrumbs and egg.

That Word: I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

Rare is the moment when devoted partner is critical of my physique/style/beauty and equally rare are the moments I solicit his opinion, so when an unprompted critique comes along, I pay attention. It must really bother him if he's going to talk about it. So it is with, of all things, my choice of summer shoes. As has been related in the past, I have a healthy assortment of spiky shoes and little else. When summer comes along I need shoes that will go to the beach and occasionally to the supermarket and to work. Since I have a mental block against paying money for flats, especially of the flip and flop kind, I have, for the past several years, purchased my summer casual shoes at CVS. For $8. That seems about right. The flip flops are of the more fashionable style - where the thong part is besequined, but these are clearly cheap shoes. And devoted partner, apparently, thinks I can do better.

Not one to shy away from a challenge, and ready to embrace my new suburban surroundings and cultural touchstones, I visited a place I felt certain would provide me with inexpensive, yet stylish, casual summer footwear. It is a little enterprise known as Designer Shoe Warehouse (or DSW). Now, I know what you're thinking: "certainly a warehouse of designer shoes will satisfy both your fashion sense and your parsimony!"

But you'd be wrong.

The term 'designer' has been used here to mean 'someone who has made a shoe.' For example, I would not have been at all surprised to see a piece of tire with some rope on the shelf. And 'warehouse,' a word that calls to mind places like Costco, where things that are normally expensive are not, more aptly described the decor and less aptly described the prices, which were clearly marked as being $5-$15 cheaper than had you gone to the 'designer's' store. For the record, I won't buy a pair of $55 Steve Madden flip flops for any more than, say, the $8 I would spend at CVS for the simple reason that both enterprises have used the selfsame materials. These shoes - ALL OF THEM - contained no leather. They were all made of plastic. Which is fine. Petroleum products have long served us well, but they should be priced accordingly. If I can fill my tank with sweet sweet petroleum product for around 40 bucks, certainly I should be able to find shoes made of petroleum product (made from far fewer than 14 gallons of the stuff) for less than 40 bucks. And $39.95 doesn't count.

I sort of giggled every time I picked up a shoe. Not only were they, nearly all of them, seriously ugly, but picking them up I got the same feeling as when I throw Wonder Bread to ducks: "um, I think if those ducks don't get to the bread soon, it will simply disintegrate!" And again, disintegrating shoes are not necessarily a deal breaker (though I have been immensely impressed with the longevity and durability of my CVS flip flops), it's just that it's hard to swallow after the $15 mark.

So I will be returning to a CVS to select this summer's sequined flip flops while keeping my eyes peeled for sales of actual designer shoes that would fit the summer casual bill. And I will remember that there is a very good reason I don't like shopping at strip malls.

Making the World Flat, One Helper at a Time

I made a calculated decision this week. I decided it was worth doubling my daily exercise so that I could, on occasion, have butter. Previously I was living in a low-impact, low-butter world; now I am living in a high-impact, occasional-pat-of-butter world. This world is better. But as anyone who has ever gone from not an athlete to simulation of athleticism can tell you, things hurt. A lot. Everywhere. This presents some problems for the woman whose shoe closet contains two things: Chucks and stilettos. So, I must admit that the time has come for flats.

I used to own three pairs of excellent stacked Prada loafers (thank you ebay), two of which actually fit well. These were terrific work shoes because they went just as well with a skirt as with pants, were super comfortable even at 3.5 inches, and could be worn all day long while walking places. They were so excellent that for about five years, I wore them nearly every day. As a result, they wore out rather more quickly than I would have liked and now I no longer have them. Sadly, my subsequent hunts for replacements have not turned up much - the stacked loafer doesn't seem to be in vogue right now. But flats are. They're everywhere. Some of them are ridiculous, but some of them aren't bad.

So I send you, my internet and fashion savvy readers, on a quest for flats. Here are your parameters: flats must be under $100 - I do not like them enough to spend more and I'm hoping to buy more than one pair; flats should be plainer rather than ornate, but I could be swayed by an excellent color; I wear a size 11. I'm going to be searching too, but sometimes you people come up with better ideas than I could on my own. If you happen across a pair of suitable stacked loafers while you're at it, I shall bake you a cake!

P.S. Even those these make sense in theory, I'm just not feeling it.

Shopping Like the Wealthy Do

Greenwich Avenue. We have been acquainted for many a year. I used to greatly fear you on account of your Spence/Chapin exclusionary demographic. For years when devoted partner and I would walk down you, it wasn't so much that I was your only vaguely ethnic rambler, it was that I was your only brunette, and certainly your only size 12. But we have both changed, Greenwich Avenue.

A slightly more diverse crop of the top 2% earners have made its way to your shores, as well as a slightly less exclusive array of shops: I'm surprised you don't sport a Diesel store yet, but come on, Victoria's Secret is very downmarket...

But now I have an approved zip code. You are my Main Street. I have even purchased a $9 headband at your yoga store (funny aside: as we're getting ready for bed Saturday night, sharing a bathroom for among the first times since childhood, The Boy looks at my Lulu Lemon headband and remarks that he has the same one, albeit not in purple, for his runs - teehee, my brother and I have the same headbands). When you see me coming, you do not consult your JDL-approved handbook entitled, "Dealing With Others: A Manual." Instead, you kind of treat me like I belong. Like my ill-gotten gains are just as good as anyone else's. And I must admit...

I like shopping on you.

Your stores, they are not crowded (though perhaps on Sunday, I wouldn't know, devoted partner and I spend all our Sundays lounging in bed, eating freshly baked Viennoiserie and having super-passionate lovemaking sessions that last hours) with either people or merchandise (ok, so perhaps your definition of lounging/Viennoiserie/lovemaking doesn't include Home Depot, Nintendo, and organic baked empanadas - your loss). Your salespeople are available without inspiring claustrophobia. Over the past few months, and more relevantly, over the past two weeks, I have entered your stores on a number of occasions and found myself almost enjoying the shopping experience. And I'm a person who thinks the internet is the best thing ever because it permits me to passively shop. In my underwear. At 4:00am.

Now I'm sure as I make my way down your Walk of Conspicuous Consumption, I will not always be thusly enamoured, but of all the surprises this move has held, your accessibility, nay, your inviting-ness, has surely been among the greatest.

Down 9 - Sort Of

I decided to fold in the first two days of March since February doesn't have enough days (and also because in the first two days of March the two pounds that should have melted away throughout February decided to come off). So February wasn't a huge success.

Which confounds me I must say. Yes there were three days in February that were gluttonous, but I hardly think that three days should wipe out a month's progress. So yeah, I cheated and took two of March's days. So sue me. End result is I am nine pounds thinner than I was at the beginning of 2010.

And I wasn't going to talk about that today until my train ride. A woman sat down next to me this morning and the first thing I noticed about her were her very cool, driving-inspired, navy leather gloves. I made a note to tell her, once she got settled, how cool I thought her gloves were. Then I looked at her. Jesus, she had an awesome haircut. A very modern, sideswept pageboy in a delightful shade of real blonde. Now I was going to tell her two things I thought were fantastic. Then she took off her plain black wool coat and the interior seams were edged in bright orange. Ok, three things. Then I saw her handbag: a camel-colored bowling-style bag with red and navy accents. This woman was knocking it out of the park on so many levels. And I told her so.

But it got me thinking. My wardrobe is a) tiny, b) solidly colored, and c) comprised almost entirely of stuff off the Gap/Banana Republic/Old Navy sales racks. Excepting footwear, I cannot think of a single cool wardrobe item I own...Yep, I thought about it again and the answer remains the same. Now I'll put my unmentionables collection up against anyone save Dita von Teese and win, but my clothing: jeans, t-shirts, a couple of button-downs from Uniqlo, some H&M stuff, and a couple of BCBG dresses I bought off ebay.

Why is this?

Well, my first answer is that clothing has never been something I've been willing to spend a lot of money on. My second answer is that I'm not a big fan of shopping. I don't like searching for things (it's why I love to shop online) so you won't find me going through the racks at Marshall's or Filene's looking for a good deal.

But why?

Certainly I feel good when I look good, and I frequently covet pieces I see on others. Well the real answer is a combination of the first two as they relate to: I never wanted to buy nice clothing for the body I had. I imagine a scenario where I find a cool jacket, or dress, or something, and buy it in my current size - let's say I spend more than $500 but less than $1000. I don't want to be this size so ultimately, one hopes, I'll be smaller. And out $500-$1000. Which sucks. Buying my wardrobe for a year at H&M for $500 total seemed to make more sense. I could always dress it up with shoes.

I don't feel that as a work in progress I can spend money on clothing. Dare I say I don't think I deserve it? The prevailing wisdom is that you should reward yourself for weight loss: little things for little milestones and something big when you get to your goal. Well, I've known for a couple of years what that goal reward would be: and Herve Leger dress. Except when I remember what those dresses cost and then become gunshy. Even in my fantasy. Sure, I can buy an $8 nail polish for losing 5 pounds, but I can't even imagine shelling out a grand for a dress. Even a reward dress. Even a reward dress for shedding a whole bunch of weight that would enable me to look like a not-Orca in said dress.

This is just not a mentality I have. Clothing is, generally, functional and black. Not fun, not the latest style, not from Intermix (I don't even know if Intermix counts as a place I should shop, that's how clueless I am). But seeing this woman this morning, a woman probably five or so years younger than I, looking so put together and so, well, cool, made me stop and consider putting a greater priority on how I look (I am, by the way, in my Gap jeans, Uniqlo shirt, and H&M blazer right now, my hair is washed but unstyled and I don't have makeup on).

I'm not going to go out and buy a wardrobe for FatMe because I can't justify the expenditure nor rewarding myself for having poor impulse control around butter, but I am debating an experiment wherein I "do" myself up every morning for a week to see just how long it takes. So many other women seem to find the time, shouldn't I at least give it a shot? I'm also seriously considering giving away a lot of my paltry wardrobe because many of the items I have are merely functional and have no style whatsoever. Also, I noticed that I haven't worn a lot of them in quite some time (and not just because I can wear jeans to the office). And finally, I'm going back to online clothing window shopping. Not for right now, but to start thinking about the kinds of things I might like to wear when my body is at a different, thinner place.

In the meantime, if you see me wearing something you would rather see in the trash heap, please let me know.

Dear ebay, I Love You, Love Yelena

Once upon a time there was a special pair of shoes. These shoes were first spied in a glossy magazine, most likely the New York Times Fashions of the Times magazine. A little girl and her mother (fine the girl was not so little inasmuch as she lived on her own and had to pay her own electricity bill) squealed at the very sight of them. They were *perfect* shoes. The little girl and her mother saw the price of the shoes and sighed in consternation. $395 in 2001 was a pretty price for a pair of shoes. But these shoes were the kind of beautiful shoes that wouldn't last until sale time. So the little girl and her mother closed the Fashions of the Times magazine and tried to forget about the *perfect* shoes.

A couple months later, the little girl was in San Francisco visiting a boy previously referred to as devoted partner. She took the BART into the city bright and early and prepared to be dazzled by this, her first visit to the city. Sadly, the little girl had not been informed that San Francisco is a backwards hayseed town where stores and such do not open until 10 and yea, sometimes 11 in the morning. She walked about downtown, drawing gasps of horror as she smoked from the crunchy granola types who didn't have jobs and were therefore roaming the streets gasping at visiting smokers. When, at last, the 11 hour struck, the little girl was primed and ready to enter the Neiman Marcus, a dazzlingly fun store not present in the New York metro area, yet fondly remembered from trips to Miami with the little girl's shopping obsessed father.

And there they were. The *perfect* shoes. Gleaming in all their perfectionness. The little girl sheepishly asked the shoe salesman what the largest size available was, the little girl having freakishly large feet that really should have come with about 5 extra height inches. The salesman replied that a size 10 was available. The little girl sighed and asked to see them, knowing in her heart of hearts that a size 10 was not going to fit; that a size 11 was what she needed. When the shoe salesman brought the shoes to the little girl, she slipped them onto her outsized freak feet tentatively. But wait. They fit.

Perfectly.

What's more, they made the little girl's legs look OMGPonies hawt. The trap had been set with expert precision. The look of the lion with dripping antelope haunch was on the face of the shoe salesman. He knew he had one. He knew the little girl would gladly hand over $395 to him for these shoes, not for one second even considering if she a) had $395 or b) that this would be the first pair of designer shoes she had EVER purchased for full price (and come to think of it, they remain the only pair of designer shoes the little girl has paid full price for). It was a fait accompli. The girl left the store very poor and very happy. The *perfect* shoes were hers.

(It should be noted in a stars aligning kind of way that two additional things happened. 1. The little girl's mother and shopping obsessed father found a pair on sale months later for the mother, though they were quick to point out that no size 10 was left, and the mother settled for a pair a full size smaller than what she traditionally wore and in the time honored tradition of women and shoes merely shoved her foot in until it fit (the little girl is reminded of a similar story involving a pair of size 9 Christian Lacroix shoes that left welts on her feet, so small were they); 2. Also months later, perhaps even a year, the little girl found a pair of the shoes on ebay in the less amazing white color, but still amazing style, for nary $100.)

To justify the purchase, the little girl wore the shoes TO DEATH. She wore them anywhere she could. In a now infamous story, she wore them on an impromptu hike in Fontaine de Vaucluse that ended up being a 3km trek terminating in the crossing of a river over stones. She wore the shoes out, taking them to shoemaker after shoemaker all the way to the manufacturer's shoemaker to try to breathe new life into them. But to no avail. The shoes had run their course and were now only usable if the little girl didn't need to stand or walk. They sat in her closet, staring at her mournfully, while she did the only thing she could think of: search for another pair on ebay.

By now, though, the shoes were seven or so years out of date. The listings on ebay covered mostly the past two seasons' collections. Still, the little girl would periodically check to see if, by some miracle, there was an extant pair in good condition ready for a new home. She was never lucky.

Until last week. Lazily browsing through search results with nary a hope of finding what she sought, the little girl saw them: GUCCI SANDAL HEELS SZ 10B RARE HEEL. It wasn't possible. The shoes showed little to no sign of wear. The seller claimed they had been worn only a couple of times. The price? An unbelievable $85 (and the little girl had a $20 coupon). Not believing her good fortune, the little girl snapped at them thinking that in the worst case scenario, they would be good for another summer season and she'd only be out $65.

The shoes arrived yesterday. Smelling of new leather and OMGPonies leg hawtness. Slipping them on her feet, the little girl felt herself returned to that May morning in 2001, in the provincial and anti-smoking town of San Francisco, offering her succulent hindquarters to the apex predators known as Neiman Marcus shoe salesmen. The little girl knows better now. She will not hike in the *perfect* shoes; she will not even spend the day walking in them. She will treat them as the little miracles they are and she will hope that they will have a rich and rewarding life together.

She will also continue to troll ebay for a just in case backup pair.

Oh God It's So Slow

My computer and I, we have an understanding. I understand that until I am willing to invest more than $300 at a time, I will not have a top of the line machine; computer understands that even though it is not a top of the line machine, I will love it. Recently, though, there has been trouble in paradise.

Upon returning from our weekend in St. Thomas, computer was sad. Sad in a very very slow way. At first, I did what any remotely tech-savvy person would do. I made sure that I had no memory-heavy processes taking up space, verified that the wireless card was working, and rebooted. Usually this cures all ills. Not so this time. Not only is the internet connection so slow that in order to load a page I must type in the address and then take a shower while the page loads, but programs are running at a fraction of their usual speed. So I went to level 2 home tech support: I ran the mother of all virus scans. Ordinarily, this process takes about 4 hours; this time it took about 36. And what did it tell me in the end? No infected files. (It should be noted that last week I ran anti-spyware software as a maintenance thing.)

I have no virii. I have no background tasks eating memory. I just last month doubled my RAM. I'm pretty much out of ideas. Which means I have to turn the computer over to devoted partner who wants to come home after a long day and work on my computer about as much as he wants to come home after a long day and clean grout out of the shower. Additionally, I already needed his supervision on a server move for one of my websites. Yeah I know how to do geeky things like move a mysql database, but when I inevitably screw it up or manage to migrate only some of my data, it's nice to have him around.

All of this is only going to the unfortunate truth that I am in desperate need of a new computer. This current incarnation is a Frankenstein's monster of cobbled together bits and pieces that have upgraded over time (new hard drives, new power supplies, new fans, new memory, new graphics cards), but the motherboard may well be over 6 years old. Which is old. It's like 85 in people years. And while I have the money, I just hate HAVING to spend it. (Even as I have already decided to build the next computer as opposed to letting Dell do it - having devoted partner to supervise computer building really is a boon.) And once I buy a new computer I will have to buy Adobe CS4. My current copy of Photoshop is a) old and b) non-transferable due to lack of CD. So now I'm in it for the cost of the computer and the cost of the software. The idea of starting from scratch is both fantabulous and several days' worth of work I'd rather not do (this is, of course, after I take a deep breath and spend the money).

So I'm desperately hoping that devoted partner can work his magic and save the little computer that could, at least for another six months. In the meantime, I guess I'll learn how to play Super Mario Bros. on the Wii.

Victim of Advertising

Last week, my mother said my skin looked dry. She then mentioned that, as I wasn't as young as I used to be, I might consider doing a little more for my skin. My mom is a total bitch - I think I get my bitchiness from her. My drug store moisturizer (with SPF thank you very much) was sputtering every time I tried to use it, implying that the tube was empty. I have found myself returning time and again to the drug store moisturizer when I can't find any difference in the results given me by the fancy stuff (and I tried La Mer for 4 weeks - nada - I gave the rest of the jar to my mom cause she's REALLY old). So I went back to CVS to replenish the old moisturizer only to discover something upsetting: drug store moisturizer has gotten expensive. Oil of Olay, the pink stuff your grandmother uses, now has a luxe line where stuff costs 30 bucks. The only cheap stuff was Pond's.

So I did what any sane, rational person would do: I ordered the stuff from the infomercial.

Boys, I know you have no idea what I'm talking about; girls, I know you know exactly what I'm talking about: the magic melon shit Cindy Crawford keeps trying to sell you. Now, I know the melon is not magic. The reason I know this is that last year, while in France, I ate quite a number of those melons. They're called Cavaillon melons and they are everywhere. They are about as magical as a Red Delicious apple. But magic or no magic, I cannot deny that Cindy Crawford's skin looks redonkulous, so if she says the magic melon is magic, I'll come along for the ride.

But before you condemn me for doing something really really stupid, like give the Guthy Renker folks access to my credit card information, please remember that I might be susceptible to fake magic melon claims, but I'm not without use of my faculties. No, instead of falling into the BMG 10 CDs for a penny chasm (we all did it at one point), I went to my preferred trusted vendor: ebay.

Yes, ebay, where my handbags and shoes and evening dresses come from; where I troll for the last discontinued tubes of Bain de Soleil orange gelee in SPF 8; where I found a dizzying array of magic melon crap for sale - and these sellers weren't going to charge my credit card every month. So for less than I would have paid the TV people, I have now received all the things a girl could want made out of magic melon: cleanser, toner, day moisturizer, night moisturizer, and a mask. Devoted partner is perplexed by what he sees as redundancy. I could try to point out that Metal Gear Solid, Call of Duty, Uncharted, and Assassin's Creed are all essentially the same game, but some debates are just not worth having.

Now the challenge is actually using this crap. I'm just not a multi-step skin care kind of girl. I'm more the, "if it's not visibly dirty don't clean it" kind of girl. This works easily well for skin and toilets, by the way. But I would like to keep my skin as is - unlined and elastic - so I'm really trying to remember my regimen (ok, but last night I fell asleep on the couch and didn't do my nighttime routine, sue me).

The problem is, this kind of rampant consumerism fueled by people with better stuff than you on television is the slipperiest of slopes...

I also bought an InStyler.