there are so many fantastic reasons to purchase things! the manhattan cocktail classic gala is two weeks from today, i'll be a bridesmaid in washington dc in a month, there are emerging authors and craftspeople to support, there are little forgotten corners of our apartment which might yet have but one or two layers of tchotchkes, the cats need matching outfits for cinco de mayo - the list goes on and on. i pooh-pooh (really well-written) accounts of radical downsizing. i maintain that fight club wasn't about consumerism at all.*
all of that said, even i can acknowledge that shit has gotten out of hand with my bargain-hunting and hoarding. while i'm not shopping us out of house and home, i think of how joe's face fell yesterday when i told him i'd sort of gotten a (really nice and aggressively discounted!) dress for the aforementioned gala; worse, even though i keep thinking of it, i bid on a pair of used shoes for that upcoming wedding just this morning. which brings me to rachel, one of my touchstones for all things crafty, delicious, and well-considered; her wonderful '09 and '10 posts about the benefits of a shopping hiatus are especially resonant today. alors, because i enjoy pronouncements, invented terms, and asking the internet to keep me honest, i declare this next month mayNOT, and i shan't purchase a thing. rachel made allowances for secondhand shopping in her versions of the hiatus, but i think i need to be more draconian: i can buy groceries and essential toiletries (read: soap and paper, not foundation or hair goo) and will still go out with the missus (it would be cruel to drag him along on my self-improvement jag), but that's it. here's hoping it purges my system a bit.
*NB: i won't say i dropped acid before seeing fight club, but i won't say i didn't.
8 comments:
can we still ask you for internets shopping help?
Yes and it is amazing the joy one can get from buying deodorant during these times.
it will be my only joy.
i hemmed and hawed about deodorant classification, then remembered i'm only like 5% french.
in other news, i sort of want to leave your comment on every other blog i visit today. particularly the ones about the royal wedding.
0?: I shall miss your plutography.
imagine how my manservants feel! i have them carrying steve around to stay limber.
mayNOT!
Also, honestly, every time I think of wanting to buy something I'm not totally sure I need, I harken back to your bedbug situation. "Would I want to bag this up and heat it to 120 degrees in order to keep it?" is an incredibly effective way to reduce my own consumption. Unless it is kitchenware, of course. Nothing helps with those temptations.
"Would I want to bag this up and heat it to 120 degrees in order to keep it?" FANTASTIC.
i'd like to do this soon.
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