consumer whore
03.03.05 @ 9:35 p.m.
Every time I go to Gateway Mall, I find oh, the classiest stores. Today I was wandering up and down the mostly useless mall (only good for movie theaters and Target) and I came across "More of Everything." Nothing says "high class shopping location" than candy, cigarettes, and Nascar collectibles. Oh yeah. I'd shop there, but I felt so underdressed without my pearls and ermine.
I bought a half a dozen postcards at the bookstore before leaving school today. Two are meant for Martha; birthday offerings, though they'll get put in the mail a day late, because I didn't think to bring her address to school with me to mail them this afternoon. Whoops. Two are a cover of a pulp novel whose title incorporates the last name of my mother's family. And a trainspotting one for Ena. Hmm. I guess I only bought five. I also patronized the hot dog cart two days in a row, which is probably not health-a-licious, but oh, they do good work. It is also probably not polite to go to class after wolfing down a hot dog smothered in onion, but that's why I carry a pack of orbit gum in my bag. Both days I ate while watching the phenomenon that is Hatoon's memorial. (Hatoon was a mentally ill woman who lived outside the bookstore, practically an icon on campus and well known and loved by a lot of people. The bench where she lived has become a memorial.) It's fascinating, and I feel a little bad for desperately wanting to study the spontanous outpouring of grief behind the memorial as folklore, to document and investigate.
This afternoon I went straight from school to Gateway. I grabbed components of a suit to try on at Target, and managed to choose pants that were too small and a jacket that was too big. Oh, I looked a picture. I tried on a couple of skirts, too, and liked them, but not enough to buy. I went to Ross, too, and had to keep reminding myself that I was not at Goodwill as my tacky alarm went off again and again. (In terms of housewares and decorative ceramics, I am hugely fond of the tacky and absurd. There was a pair of ceramic birds nuzzling each other that I would have seriously considered buying if they had been used instead of new.) I kind of regret not buying the black high top All-Stars they had in my size (only $14!), and if the ones they had with red embellisments were in my size, I would not have thought twice about it.
Best purchase of the day: a tiny, tiny Barrel of Monkeys from a vending machine.
Almost all my purchases were practical, in the end. A Brita pitcher (the water here is not so good, and tastes foul if left sitting for a little while), carpet foam, window cleaner, surface cleaner. The frivolities are five candles (a set of three small votives and two large pillar candles that were on clearance) and a gorgeous blue glass tumbler, also on clearance. God, I love clearance, even though it makes me spend more than I normally would. Really, though, the two bottles of cleansers were whimsy, too, because I bought Method surface cleaner and glass cleaner. I love Method's products, though I've never bought any before. I love their design, and the idea of cleaner that doesn't smell like cleaner. The glass cleaner is mint, the surface spray is grapefruit. It's wonderful. The bottles are fantastically simple. (I first heard of the company when there was an article in the LA Times over the design they were using for their detergent bottles at the time. I love design. It breaks my heart that I can't afford to subscribe to Communication Arts any more. Sometimes I wish I had gone into an art or design school, but writing is what I'm better at.
Ryan is pestering me to add to the fanfic thread on Dumbrella.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
