Worth-its and less-sos

Inspired by Miss Self-Important's post on game-changers, but with guiltily-confessed prices in CAD:

Obviously:

Acca Kappa lip balm: I bought a cheap but gorgeous chapstick in a Naples pharmacy, only to discover, using it back home, that it's the only effective one in Toronto winter. Sold here? Of course not. But online, yes. Not super expensive *but* you need to reach $100 for free shipping and even stocking up on lip balm, this is difficult to arrive at, and took me about a year to decide was worth the splurge. Which led me to...

Acca Kappa hair brush: My first time owning a non-garbage hair brush and it doesn't pull out my hair when I use it, so I guess this is why people own such things.

Blundstone boots: Yes, everyone has them. There's a reason. Not having to think about which shoes to wear from October to May is... I mean a past version of myself would find this intolerably bleak, but the one that's taking a baby and a poodle out for afternoon walks and needs something slip-on and all-weather that looks good enough is a fan. And $200 seems reasonable for shoes that eliminate the need for any others.

La Roche Posay Toleraine face moisturizer: The only reliably skin-improving product I've found.

Durumi jeans: Exactly one pair fit nicely Before and continues to fit well enough After. If you're in Toronto you want to go to Queen and Spadina and buy a bunch of Korean clothing at that store.

Maybe?

Here, the commonalities appear to be that I never quite came around to cost:

Want Les Essentiels bag: I wear it every day, it's gorgeous, and it was something like 50% off. It was still too expensive, and I feel bad just throwing it under the stroller, which I vowed I wouldn't do but where else exactly do I think I'm putting it? The $40 USD camouflage zip tote bag from LL Bean was (is) more suited to my lifestyle and nearly as chic.

Gel manicure: I went and got one a couple months after giving birth. It looked amazing! What a miracle beauty treatment, where you can do absolutely whatever and your nail polish doesn't chip! But I can't imagine doing it again because it cost more than my haircuts. If I were a proverbial rich man, though, I might do this on a regular basis.

Moose Knuckles coat: Yes, you need something along these lines here, as I learned five (!) years ago, when I got this. But it still strikes me as having been (again, despite a discount, and despite the years of use at this point) unfathomably expensive ($700 or so), and I'm not thrilled to have a fur-trimmed coat, although I guess ask me again when it's negative-degrees Fahrenheit and I have the hood up. 

Balayage: While my hair now looks (to my own subjective tastes) fabulous, it took two salons and three bleachings to get there. It's almost less the time and money than the months going around with hair that just looked off. My natural color is vastly better than the orange that results from nearly any attempt at changing it.

Christophe Robin superfancy hair cream: I think it was something like $40 USD? Purchased because I'd been to a Christophe Robin pop-up in Tribeca once, where I got a free blow-out and got swept up in the moment and inadvertently learned that highest-end hair products are great. But are they that great? Or, rather, that necessary in Toronto's non-frizz-inducing climate?

Frank Costanza blazer: So stylish! But even if it could be worn even under the huge winter coat, do I do this? No I do not.

Nah:

The "nah" category for me is pretty much stuff I like the idea of but do not actually use, but failed to Know Myself and bought all the same, such as....

Eye shadow. Feels like a thing to own, looks nice, but it gets like four uses a year. See also: mascara, blush stick, brightly-colored lipstick.

Serum: A fleeting experiment with skincare in the form of one $24 bottle of something meant to de-age may have led to a weird skin reaction initially and has probably not done anything, but for cost-per-use reasons I'm still using it, I don't know.

Skirts, non-summer dresses. I like the idea but it's not really chasing-near-toddler-compatible.

Blouses; any shirt that isn't a t-shirt or tank top. I always look awkward in these. I wish I didn't but I've made peace with not being Alexa Chung.

...as well as items that are lovely in theory but useless in Toronto's all-or-nothing, scorching-or-freezing climate:

Suede knee-high boots. (If it's cold enough for these, it's too snowy/slushy/salty for them.)

All mid-weight coats (as in the ones that would be winter coats in not-Canada, but are not parkas). One I already owned, but another I bought, naive, soon after moving here.

On not buying new stuff for a little bit

At the supermarket checkout just now, I saw a magazine cover headline suggesting that readers stop dieting but still lose weight. An eternal promise! And yet, and yet.

So too, I guess, with spending. Principle-of-the-thing, I don't believe in cutting fun-spending that isn't adding up to much. But, what if it is? What if you live in a really expensive and getting pricier city, with future daycare costs and eventual not-one-bedroom-home costs to think about? What if you're on maternity leave, so the find-ways-to-earn-more part of the equation isn't something you can address immediately? What then?

Coffee out is just too bleak to give up, and as Helaine Olen has well demonstrated, it doesn't add up to much. But new clothes and accessories, this seemed - seems? - doable, and worth addressing. Partly it's that I went about a year unable to wear my existing wardrobe, so there's been a certain amount of excitement at all these 'new' clothes. (Some jeans from Before will probably never fit right again, but otherwise it's back to normal wardrobe-wise.) But it's also that... I mean, when did I buy all that clothing? When did I go from being shocked that anyone owned anything from Lululemon to realizing I've got something like six pairs of their leggings (of which two were for maternity - and very wearable beyond - but still).

This reaction to clothes-type stuff is, I think, a very normal aspect of being a decade or two into adulthood, but that gets confused with having some sort of maturity-inspired epiphany about materialism. For most of your life, getting new clothes will have been obviously necessary due to growing, then to life-stage issues such as, even casual work environments demand slightly different clothes than do 12th-grade classrooms, even if some of those clothes still fit. But then you're 28, 33 and the clothing from 23 is maybe fine in all sorts of ways - size, appropriateness - but you still want new stuff, and buy it, and then it's like, did you actually need-need to do this? What if the old stuff hadn't - not all of it, at least, disintegrated? What if it hadn't even gone out of style, but you just saw these other things, these new ones, that caught your attention?

And then you find that you're 35 and own not just half of what North American Uniqlo's sold for the past decade-plus, but also a significant amount of Everlane, some purchased from Canada despite duty because you are in fact that ridiculous. It won't be that you were ever all that ridiculous. The aggregate... situation in your wardrobe isn't the result of a spending spree, but of the fact that you purchased clothes in 2009, 2010, etc., and still own and wear this stuff. As in, I did not go out and spend $500 at Lululemon in one afternoon! And yet, I look at what I own and it feels like I'm seeing the results of someone doing just that, and hitting up a bunch of less-expensive chains and thrift stores as well.

There is probably a way to do this that doesn't involve self-flagellation at having ever bought anything, ever, and good on you if you've found it! But in any case, I have very solemnly vowed No New Clothes Or Accessories For Myself Until 2020. I did so I guess a few weeks ago? Shortly after (and thank goodness, not before) replacing a crumbling pair of white Birkenstocks with new, silver, ones. The challenge was going to be Montreal - land of tempting French-ish stuff, but in CAD - but it turns out spending your days with a baby strapped to your torso kind of gets in the way of clothes-shopping, and not just because of the difficulties of physically trying anything on. Also helpful: most of the clothing I remember really liking in stores now seems too young for me, so I'm not even sure what it is I would want. Accessories, maybe? But there, too, the need to combine whatever it is with a carrier means most of the more chic possibilities are out and the LL Bean camouflage zip tote continues its unchallenged reign.

Will this last as long as planned? Who knows. The best aspect of it has been rediscovering a reflective-material jacket purchased many years ago, that I was on the cusp of donating, but am now wearing daily. The worst: the mere fact of rules of self-restraint, which I oppose, even when seeing full well where they can come in handy.

The Uniqlo-clad poorhouse

Isn't it sad when a new mother has to pay her nanny (wild how nannies expect payment), and the nanny budget dips into the designer-clothing one, and she's forced to wear Uniqlo and J.Crew? Except... is that even the takeaway of this hard-to-interpret Vogue essay?

In one sense, it's a straightforward tiny-violins plight, complete with the requisite gesture acknowledging the far greater "sacrifices made by less well-advantaged moms in New York City, and across the country." In other countries as well, even, but I guess this was U.S. Vogue, so. As someone whose baseline apparently tragic existence involves a more restrained approach to shopping than the author's crisis-budget one, I should roll my eyes, right? But, in another sense... I don't work in fashion! No one expects me to go beyond circa-2009 Uniqlo! (But oh, I do go beyond it. There's some 2018 Uniqlo in there as well.) The author is in a different situation:

It’s not like I had a wardrobe allowance before the baby, and I wasn’t an influencer receiving bags of free stuff. ... The nanny budget made me feel shabby, especially during Fashion Week, when the unspoken dress code is in-season only and other women in my sphere show up in new outfits that easily tally up in the high four figures. Daily. 

So... maybe the issue isn't so much that she, Woman Clothes-Shopper, simply couldn't resist the latest thing, but that hunting down and purchasing the latest thing - sans reimbursement - is a requirement in that industry? Maybe the problem is an industry where a designer wardrobe is expected, but some entity other than one's employer (i.e., independent wealth, or credit-card debt) is expected to pay for it? A problem both for socioeconomic-representation-type reasons, and for industry workers themselves, who are maybe sort of taught to believe that the thing they have to do for work is actually just a frivolous craving they ought to suppress. It's an extreme version of the gendered thing where a woman can feel guilty for spending that she'd also feel guilty not doing. (We have seen this before.)

Which gets, tangentially, at the second question the essay left me with, inspired by this sentence: "We were about 1 percent shy of the 1 percent and we were broke." If that's indeed the case, and this "we" involves a husband as well, and the wife's job is fashion editorial which probably pays OK but probably not 2%-income-level OK, then... what was the husband spending? Was this genuinely that the wife's clothes-shopping — again, a requirement of sorts for her job — got out of hand? (Was she buying Manafort coats?) The clothes, that is, plus some car payments she mentions, which, again, for people that rich, would be negligible? Or is it possible, given the scale of all this, that he was maybe also overspending, and maybe... by quite a bit?

Or! Was this one of those cases where a childcare budget is viewed as coming from the woman's income? That sort of seems to have been the case, because the sentence, "My husband and I pooled our funds and paid her for that week," comes only after she has insufficient funds of her own money to pay (cash, which is another story...) her nanny's wages. 

Sure, I want to praise the author for resisting overshare, and for not spilling what could be potentially quite dirty familial laundry. But in restricting the story to one her own clothes-shopping habits, the author winds up telling a story that both reinforces clichéd notions of what overspending looks like, and that somehow feels as if it's missing key pieces.

Maternity garb, Part II: realities

To discuss maternity clothes is to discuss bodies. There's no one situation of The Pregnant Lady (or to expand further, and open up another whole set of questions: The Pregnant Person). Every thought you've ever had about your body — including relating to the pregnancy itself — is going to enter into the feelings that impact the day-to-day question of how to get dressed. I come from this topic from a specific place, as does everyone. Consider this not so much a privilege disclaimer as an everyone's-different reminder. What's been easy for me may have been difficult for others and vice versa. With that, moving on...

The challenges:

 -There’s an assumption behind maternity fashion advice one finds online: that you want to look pregnant rather than fat. On the one hand I get it – I am a woman living in our society! On the other, if you’re a woman who shows from approximately day one, you maybe don’t want to announce to every single person you interact with. So the first step is giving up the notion that you’re looking for something that’s somehow both slimming (or as it’s euphemized, in this age that gestures at body-positivity, flattering) and pregnancy-obscuring. Ultimately you may want some clothes from both categories. But ultimately-ultimately, at least in summer, at least if you're as short as I am, nothing's going to be ambiguous.

 -Also tricky: the conventionality of maternity clothing. Or maybe just the limited options, which assume a universally-shared female end goal of looking like the “after” on an episode of “What Not To Wear.” Or there are shirts that announce, with Pinterest-era graphics, the situation (with "mama" or baby-inside or whatever). If you're someone who values dressing like yourself, whatever that means to you, you kind of have to avoid maternity clothes, but sizing-wise, this may not be possible. 

-Oh yeah, and the big one: $$$. At just the moment in life when saving money starts to seem particularly important, it becomes necessary to buy all these new clothes for yourself. And not just any clothes, but ones a) that will only fleetingly fit, and b) that cost a ton because they can. (Forgive me for being a peasant, but $150 strikes me as steep for a plain t-shirt.) Avoiding the bleak-for-different-reasons paths of getting ripped off and wearing absolutely any potato sack involves a bit of thought.

Practically speaking, what works:

 -Oversize t-shirt dresses. Helpful in that I already owned some. Muji probably has the best (I have the Breton-striped, short- and long-sleeved), made of sturdy but chic material, and with pockets. Uniqlo Marimekko had one (also with pockets) but I think that’s done now. Regular Uniqlo (along with Gap) seems as if it would have this, but not so much. H&M is the place to go if you're willing to forgo pockets but just get $10 t-shirt dresses. And if you’re short, you have the option of actual long t-shirts, or so I tell myself. (I realize that in a pale-blue shirt-thingy I recently bought at Kotn, it looks like I’m going out without pants on, but I can live with this.) Giving up entirely on the idea of a waistline helps. Think enormous t-shirt, not merely jersey-material (but likely too fitted) dress.

 -Hideous but loose shorts. I bought some at H&M in very much the spirit of, this'll do, but when it’s very hot out and I need to take my dog out in something with pockets, they do the trick. They don’t have the maternity band (they’re not maternity shorts), which means they work when it’s a million degrees out. Why hideous? Among other reasons, because they’re not actually cut to be worn low-slung, so when I wear them it looks like I haven’t pulled my shorts up correctly. Oh well.

-Lululemon Align cropped leggings. New York Magazine was right, what can I say? I went two sizes up, and they fit where other leggings do not. Something to do with the waistband material. The seams are a bit itchier than one might ask of leggings that, with tax, approach the shame-on-me $100 mark, and the pocket situation is minimal (a tiny one hidden in the waistband), but... I haven’t found better? Very Tribeca Whole Foods Mom, even if she'd go for one of the more obscure and still pricier brands. (Did I mention I'm embarrassed I bought these leggings, even though I've worn them a ton, because doubtless somewhere out there are much cheaper ones that would have been fine?)

-Actual maternity bottoms from the mall. I’m just not a dresses-every-day person. It’s not what I generally feel like wearing, and it’s not even practical from a summer-laundry perspective. (I’m not buying a laundry cycle’s worth of t-shirt dresses, and if 85 degrees feels like 150 for me, I’m not keen to re-wear these a bunch of times before washing.) And the leggings-or-terrible-shorts thing was getting old. The prospect of buying clothing this fit-specific online didn’t appeal, so I (braved the unspecified threat to popular sites that day in downtown Toronto and) went to Thyme Maternity and got some regular shorts and jeans, both with the (too warm but what can be done) stretchy band, which together came to about $100. They're both... fine, I think — needed a shorter length in the jeans, so will see once those arrive. Both seem an improvement over the one such item I had already bought – Uniqlo maternity pants, I think the one style they sell, which were an acceptable $40 CAD but went from too big to too small, skipping the bit where they're meant to fit.

 -Random clothes you have around and can still squeeze into. I’m thanking my past self for not getting rid of enormous sleep t-shirts or very washed-out regular ones, but am also able to get into my usual t-shirts, even if they look very odd at this point. I even found a sleeveless, cowl-neck black dress from the Uniqlo Inès de la Fressange range circa 2014 that wasn't fabulous as a regular dress but that may now be my only correctly-fitting garment.

-The pregnancy-book advice to 'just wear your partner's clothes!' I was very skeptical at first in my case, what with the height difference, and was picturing going around in jeans a foot too long. But this approach may be what means I don't need to order maternity t-shirts. A task I'd been dreading, not least because wherever you get them, they'll cost three times that of an equivalent regular t-shirt. And what are you then supposed to do with those side-ruched, stretch-material t-shirts afterwards?

And now, what seems like it would work but does not:

 -Empire waist dresses. I know this is the look that says ‘pregnancy’ but this is, again, because the style gives the illusion of a larger midsection, and not because it’s actually comfortable when pregnant. The waist won’t fall where it needs to, and or will go from fitting right one day to near-bursting the next. I got an absolutely stunning navy prairie-ish dress at Durumi, a Korean boutique on Queen West – $35 down from $129! – that would be perfect for Park Slope Writer Mom. Empire-ish waist, button-up torso. Pockets. It fit perfectly for a week or so, but if I try again it will almost certainly rip.

 -The jeans you find when Googling “maternity jeans,” or stocked in the posh maternity boutiques where you can go to buy bras but not under any circumstances look around at the clothes. These jeans are $300 (in Canada, at least) and even if they’re good (which, judging by how they looked on a Tribeca Whole Foods Mom I saw in the Toronto obgyn waiting room, they very well might be), they can’t be that amazing, because they're still jeans with a strange stretchy inset, and that will only fit correctly for a few minutes. If I were ever to spend $300 on jeans (unlikely), I’d want at least the prospect of decent cost-per-wear, which this situation pretty much rules out.

Maternity garb, Part I: fantasies

Before the day came when I, personally, required special clothing to accommodate an ever-expanding midsection, I had only the vaguest idea of maternity style, or put another way, what you do when, abruptly, none of your clothes fit anymore, and yet the societal requirement to go outside dressed persists. This is at once the very least on my mind at this moment and, in a practical, day-to-day sense, the most. There's an immediate, daunting quality to trying and failing to get dressed in the morning, which the bigger-picture questions (aka anxieties) sort of lack. It is a good, and (relatively) manageable, problem to have.

While pregnant women of course come from throughout society, and have the whole spectrum of attitudes towards their situation, the ones I especially noticed, and who formed my impression of maternity style, were those who Garfinkel and Oates sing about in “Pregnant Women Are Smug.” Women, that is, for whom pregnancy is the pinnacle of bourgeois success. Who’ve checked every box and have now arrived at that one as well. Whose pregnancy look epitomizes that general sense that everything in their lives have lined up.

Do such women exist, really? Almost certainly not - with pregnancy at least as much as everything else in life, particularly where bodies are concerned, there's a lot, even in this supposed post-privacy age, that goes unsaid, or unpublicized.

What I was picking up on, then, was an aesthetic, or more accurately, two overlapping ones: Tribeca Whole Foods Mom, and Park Slope Writer Mom. As for why these two, it’s because these are the women several years my senior who I’d see when walking around New York in my early-mid 20s, as a grad student living in neighborhoods around or not far from such women.

Tribeca Whole Foods Mom – epitomized by Gwyneth Paltrow, who for all I know has never even been to that Whole Foods – involves being unfathomably rich, and toned in a way only possible with infinite money and personal training. There’s an enormous rock of an engagement ring. She wears head-to-toe name-brand, but understated, athleisure. She swaps out her Chanel and La Mer beauty products for still-pricier organic alternatives. This lady would have been selected to do a maternity installment of Into The Gloss’s Top Shelf, and would have inspired my 26-year-old, very much not-pregnant self to buy some too-expensive non-toxic nail polish. A California approach, but a bicoastal lifestyle. 

Park Slope Writer Mom, then, involves not quite as much money, but still a bunch. (A brownstone is likely, but could well have been purchased before those got so expensive.) Its essentials: clogs and in-the-know literary tote bags. As for clothing? Those long, notoriously plain dresses sold in Brooklyn boutiques where everything’s at least $400 (but ethically produced!) and nothing’s on sale. She was probably eating organic already but now that she's pregnant this isn't even a question. She not only has feelings about being pregnant (who doesn’t??) but the openness, talent, and connections needed to weave those into a well-received essay or memoir.

These two aesthetics, then, sit in the back of my mind as I try to sort out my own maternity style. I say “the back” because ultimately the question of style has not much entered into it.

Here’s what happened: One day, my clothing all fit. (I’ve moved apartments a lot, so stuff that didn’t fit for other reasons hadn’t moved with me.) Then it was like, neat, my jeans are snug, I really am pregnant! Then, suddenly, and earlier than the internet said this would happen, even leggings were too tight to get on. Dresses and shirts that probably made me look pregnant when I was not didn’t work, either – maternity-esque is not good enough. The lower bit of my wardrobe became limited to sweatpants and (certain) running shorts, not that I'm running anywhere in them. And now, at just past the halfway point, t-shirts have become an issue.

What I was left with was more an engineering (and frugality) challenge than a fashion one: How can I go outside and look decent, in the covered-up sense, not necessarily the elegance one? How do I convince myself to get past my usual rule for clothing purchases — only buying stuff I desperately want and have contemplated for months — when the time has come to emergency-purchase any cheap pair of pocket-having shorts that are big enough but don't fall down? And least expected of all, given my previous experience of Toronto 'summer' as a whole lot of nothing for which a/c isn't even required: How do I combine these new proportions with the fact that it's ten trillion degrees out this year, and in my current state feels hotter still, in a world where "maternity" is code for "thick band of fabric going up to the armpits"? These questions and more will be addressed in Part II...

Assorted thoughts because it's pouring outside

-When men wait in line once a week to see which new clothes a store has in stock, it's not about stuff. It's an experience. (Is Ruth La Ferla tongue-in-cheek here? Her sources, at any rate, don't seem to be.)

-Working from home may be associated with coffee shops but the afternoon coffee is almost inevitably leftover coffee from the morning carafe, over ice.

-Another budget tip (forgive me but I was, until three days ago, paying rent in two cities): Lululemon Run Club. What it is is, you go to one of the stores at a designated time and have... well, what you have is track team practice, minus the track meets. The fee is the same as for high school track practice (assuming a public school): free. No, you do not need to wear Lululemon to participate, although I have done so, both because that's the make of my non-disintegrated shorts and because it somehow feels like a nice gesture. If you need a kick to go running - which, in Toronto at least, with its absence of obvious running paths, I do - it's just the thing.

-There is a Lena Dunham controversy. Probably another since I started typing this.

-There is also curvy wife guy. Basically a man who's some sort of Inspirational Influencer Ted-talk-giving beacon of Positivity posted to Instagram that he's always liked shorter, curvier women than are on the covers of magazines (i.e. the vaaaaaast majority of women; dude has always liked women) and is Not Ashamed to admit that he loves his short, curvy, cellulite-having wife. (He mentions her butt cellulite in the post.) It went viral - if I'm getting the timing right - first with encouraging responses (his wife is among the post's vocal supporters), then with variations on WTF.

I'm embarrassed to admit I find this story incredibly compelling. Why? Is it because at a formative age, the "neg" was a big topic? Because of how similar dude's line is to the thing where men (Jewish or not) admit to actually liking Jewish women? Because it's yet another fine example of body positivity being a conventionally attractive young woman in tight clothes? Because it's a window into a whole non-poodle use of Instagram I find hard to comprehend at the best of times? Because it's hilarious to think of equivalently not-actually-flattering things a woman could say about a male partner's physique? Because dude seems to have confused body positivity (which is about how people, girls and women especially, see themselves) with his own coming to terms with liking a body type that is... what women tend to look like, give or take? Is it - as Sarah Ditum suggests - the "low expectations" angle, that is, how he wants to be congratulated for... loving his wife?

What I keep coming back to is, it's that he presents himself as someone who could have married a supermodel, but only after reckoning with his unusual preferences and becoming A Feminist was he willing to pursue his dream of partnering with a merely attractive woman. That's the premise of the post - that not-a-supermodel was a choice he made, as versus the reality for nearly all humans. That, or his premise is that all men could be partnered with supermodels (something an unfortunate number of men perhaps do believe). Either way, it's a heck of a starting point.

Un-Wanty

Under normal circumstances, I make a point of being Team Stuff. I am principle-of-the-thing in favor of taking pleasure from browsing and god forbid sometimes even purchasing physical objects. Now, however, I'm simultaneously on the lease for two apartments, in two different cities. Having two homes is a glamorous situation when intentional. When unanticipated (long story involving American and Canadian logistics), it's more like an expensive, if temporary, pain in the neck. Not dire, thankfully, but not inconsequential, either. (My desire to take up kickboxing, say, fluctuates, but is, as I type, at maybe an all-time high.)

Various situational factors have combined to completely change my relationship towards stuff. On the one hand, I can't imagine even wanting new clothes. The mere thought of packing - and of two rents - leads me to enumerate all those items that seemed so necessary, and to which I so brattily, in some past version of myself, felt entitled: Four sleeveless blouses. A romper and a jumpsuit. A blazer and a trench coat. All purchased, needless to say, Before.

While I know I'm a quick Google search away from reminding myself that my clothes-purchasing rate is unimpressive cost- and quantity-wise by the standards of the average Western woman, and while some of these purchases (no, not the romper) were the pretty straightforward result of under-packing initially, the sense of shame I feel when thinking about having gone to stores and bought myself stuff is sort of intense. While I confess to having replaced an old and broken $50 pair of sunglasses with a new and not-broken pair of the same over the weekend, my impulse to treat myself is at nil, and has been for the past couple months. Which is bleak. Situational, which is something, but bleak all the same.

It's not, to be clear, that the inability to go and buy myself whatever Uniqlo has new for summer is the biggest problem anyone has, or the biggest one I have, even just as it pertains to this rather craptastic situation. But I am basic and ridiculous and it's something I notice all the same. I experience one kind of self-loathing for having shopped, and another for feeling even at all bad for myself for not being able to do so now.

On the other hand, I will soon - finally - be settled. Or settled-ish. Settled for at least a year in a specific apartment, and indefinitely in a specific city and country. Which means... I'm not even sure what to call it. Decorating? Me?

In the immediate future, it means assembling (helping my spouse assemble) IKEA furniture, and otherwise stocking a new apartment with such urgent home decor accents as olive oil and laundry detergent. But I can finally - finally finally - have a vision for a space. Ancient history for many 33-year-olds, I realize, but a first for me. All previous places I've lived as an adult have either had dorm furniture of one sort or another, or the haphazard result of Brooklyn street-furniture and panicked IKEA, which is, let me just say, a very different beast from thought-through IKEA.

I dream - dream! - of purchasing a jewelry stand, and knowing I won't have to find a way to bring it on an international move. (Of purchasing jewelry itself? Ugh, nope.) Maybe even clothing storage purchased with aesthetics a liiitle bit in mind. (It is for the best that there's no Container Store in Toronto, because if there were, oh boy.) The same don'tspenddon'tspend impulse guiding my current not-shopping will still be present, but balanced with the need to, you know, not have all my clothes on the floor. All sorts of decorating inspiration picked up, inadvertently, from Japanese and Scandinavian poodle Instagram, is going to be channeled into, I don't know, bins or baskets, or selection of armchair cover. (Oh, did I mention an armchair is finally happening?)

The not-so-distant-future-oriented shopping that, look, has to happen whether I enjoy it or not is the cheerier reason for aggressive non-shopping now. I'm really looking forward to checking out this shop on Queen West that sells practical items for apartments. So I guess this means I'm still Team Stuff. It just means the Facebook ads for cool-girl athleisure are wasting their time with my account.

My wonderful new bag, an escapist post

A little while back, I saw a handbag - the handbag - on a Japanese Instagram account. It was Hervé Chapelier, a brand popular with private school girls on Upper East Side circa 1998, and a look I'd always sort of associated with 15-year-old girls dressed like grown women, but in a preppy way. But! The bag was camouflage. Camouflage in very much the same pattern as a skirt I had, in either middle or high school, from a punk store, I think. A kilt, with a pin, but camouflage. I loved that skirt. Somehow this all came together and... perfection. Also hundreds of dollars. Also readily available in Japan (where the brand appears to still be a thing) but nowhere more convenient.

Then I had the brilliant insight that such bags exist elsewhere. And sure enough! The L.L. Bean version, with zipper, was $39 with free shipping. Technically a hunting bag, but apparently also useful for "dog training," in which case, very practical! The bag arrived today. Looking at it, and one of the other Chapelier varieties online, I'm wondering whether the high-end version wasn't inspired by the less-so. Or vice versa because clearly the $39-and-available version would win out. The lining looks identical, which suggests some influence in some direction.

At any rate, I know exactly how to style it because of this thing called Instagram. Conveniently, what it goes best with are striped shirts, jeans, and sneakers or ballet flats. Probably also white Birkenstocks. Basically everything I own. And in an unanticipated actually-practical plus, it fits my computer.

No, this is not an ad; I'm not angling for any further tote bags. This one, however, is fantastic.

The long-anticipated Defense of Stuff

The piece I wrote recently for the New Republic about stuff vs. experiences seems to have gotten some interest. Elissa Strauss put the ideas into context helpfully in Slate, while Rebecca Schoenkoff had fun with the topic at Wonkette. The Atlantic included the piece in a "highlights" roundup. Miraculously I can still walk through the streets of Toronto unnoticed, but it's only a matter of time until we're talking sunglasses-and-autographs territory.

And there's now even a Bloggingheads on it! I got to debate materialism with Aryeh Cohen-Wade, who made the case for experiences. I was... meant to make the case for stuff, but never quite got there. What I did instead was make the point that much of what's often viewed as worse about 'stuff' applies no more to stuff than to experiences. The case, in other words, against being anti-stuff.

Because I ramble (slightly) less in writing, here's a second attempt at the positive argument for enjoyment of stuff:

For some people - for whichever mix of we-were-socialized-to and we're-just-like-that - it's fun to buy and/or make new things. This is a broad category that includes clothes-shopping and cooking, home decor and book accumulation. It doesn't mean enjoyment of all these categories, or indiscriminate enjoyment of any one of them. I can't speak to what it means for all, but for me, it means having a particular clothing item/recipe/book in mind (not quite at the home-decor life-stage, she types from her it'll-do IKEA couch) and being pleased to wear/use/read it.

But to simplify matters, I'll stick with the big one: clothes. That's the one with some shame attached. No one is judging me for owning condiments (with the possible exception of a broker my landlord hired to rent out our place, who passed along the not-false information that clear surfaces in the kitchen would make his job easier), or calling book-consumption shallow. But just saying I like clothes makes me sound cretinous. It demands disclaimers, apologies. But I'm going for positive here, so I'm going to save those for later.

Here's what 'liking clothes' involves, for me: I think of things I want to wear, inspired by women I know, or who I've seen on the street in Toronto, or on the street elsewhere when I have a chance to experience elsewhere, or on TV shows (female detectives!), or on fashion blogs (such as there still are), or because - and here I'm thinking specifically of the cherry-blossom sneakers; no other example is coming to mind - because I've seen something in a store window and thought how fantastic it is that this item even exists. I don't just go and buy all of it at once, both because $$$ and because that wouldn't be any fun. (How many times can I refer to Kei's brilliant concept of a "wanty list"?)

Because it's not about wanting white Birkenstocks since seeing a woman in Toronto with roughly my build and clothing color scheme wearing them. It's about sorting out which I'm looking for, in which material. And all that only after thinking about what, of what I already own, I'd wear them with. While I don't quite still view my wardrobe in terms of different fashion personalities, there's nearly always a vision for what will be worn how. What look it's all going for. And I'm not really an impulse-shopper. If I go to a store without a specific item in mind, or with only a vague plan ('I will buy a summer dress'), I wander around with... exactly the attitude of someone who hates shopping, and leave without buying anything.

But I got the sandals, and wearing them is great. I feel more myself in an outfit that I like, more together. And conveniently for me, I'm not so fickle as to require constant changing-it-up in the clothing department. If anything, I make the #KonMari mistake of hanging onto clothes (shoes) beyond repair, simply because I totally would still wear them if they hadn't fallen apart (red patent ballet flats), and sometimes do because... red patent ballet flats! Yes, that's what 'liking clothes' can mean - liking what you own so much that when it falls apart or no longer fits, this is a disappointment, so you keep wearing things a little too long. How oddly... not-wasteful.

For me - and who else would I have the authority to speak for on my very own Weblog? - putting in effort in this area is a matter of self-confidence, or something along those lines. At times when I've felt sort of ugh, I haven't felt I deserved either new clothes, or, on some level, even to wear the nicer things I already own. For others, who knows? If you're someone whose "ugh" leads to purchasing the entire contents of the nearest mall, this is not your experience, and maybe liking clothes is not, for you, a positive force in your life. For me, it is.

In a sense, the positive case for stuff is very straightforward. People like it! I don't need to explain why shopping can be fun, nor that in the history of humanity, people have acquired objects without falling into a sea of debt and hoarding. Thus why the anti-stuff tirades are always framed as, you only think you like stuff, but it's a mirage. What if it's just... not a mirage? What if the things in life that seem nice - new shoes, catching a glimpse of Justin Trudeau at the Pride parade - actually are?

And now the handwringing:

To like clothes isn't to like all clothes. Nor is it necessarily to like status clothes, or the clothes of the moment, although I see nothing wrong with either of these factors trickling into the great unknowable that is why we like the things we do. Nor does it mean spending a lot, or too much relative to income, on clothes. Nor, indeed, does it mean owning more clothes than people who just wear whatever. It means getting enjoyment out of deciding what to purchase and, once you own it, how to style it. It's that simple. No great sin has occurred.

Or, put another way: Those who go out of their way to make sure everything they wear is either used or (definitively) ethically produced (as in, not just expensive and marketed as an 'investment') get to hold a moral high ground. Those who simply don't care what they wear and have closets full of clothes they're indifferent to don't get any good-person points for non-enjoyment of the mall.

Oh, and if this needs stating: To like clothes isn't to get tremendous joy in one's own reflection in the mirror. I'm 20 years past losing sleep over questions of whether I'm stunning or hideous, having too many years' worth of accumulated knowledge that I - like nearly all of us - am neither. I fall into the same category as most, which is to say that if dressed reasonably nicely, I look quite a bit better than I do in sweats.

I'm not clear where the line exists between stuff and experiences. Yes, a plane ticket is in one category, and a knick-knack ordered online, another. But rarely is it that straightforward. (Or nor even there: maybe the flight is to a shopping trip, and maybe knick-knack-browsing online is a wonderful experience!) In a sense, maybe that's where my beef with the experiences-are-better-than-stuff brigade comes from. So, so, so often, the things praised as "experiences" and therefore noble sound awfully... stuff-y, while the things derided as "stuff" are basically about the experiences involved in acquiring the stuff, or that the stuff reminds someone of.

As came up on the Bloggingheads... while lots of stuff-acquisition is about keeping up with the Joneses, so, too, is plenty experience-having. Why does "stuff" suggest debt, while "experiences," which can be at least as expensive and ostentatious, get a pass? Indeed, given that everything gets photographed and shared these days, it's incredibly difficult for me to see how the mountain vista on a vacation that someone surely paid for is any different than a handbag.

In other words, insofar as there is a dichotomy, but it's not stuff vs. experiences. It's between the things (material or not) you actually get some sort of pleasure out of, and the ones you're under the impression you ought to consume, and consume reluctantly but out of a fear of what would happen if you did not. (There's a name for the latter category: kale.) If you find you're spending too much money and time on things you only think you should like, then... that's probably the place to cut back. As in, sure, the money I put towards new sandals could have gone towards one of those exercise classes that women of my demographics supposedly enjoy. But having once dipped a toe into the world of paying to exercise, I get the sense that it's not for me, not now, at least. I'd rather have the sandals, so I chose correctly.

The shoe-guilt school of criticism

Paulette Perhach's essay about the advisability of a "Fuck Off Fund" is a great read. That much is for sure. As writing, I loved it; read it! As advice? There I'm less convinced.

I mean, as advice, 'save up so you're not dependent on a guy or a specific job' is sound. Sound in the way that a plan for the week that involves jogging at 6 am, a full workday, and socializing over exactly one drink (no more, no less; red wine, for the heart), and then going home and prepping some quinoa, and then not watching any TV at all but actually getting cracking on whichever Great Book might remain on your list, is sound. Do everything right! Who can argue with that? If only it were so simple. If only those pesky desires didn't get in the way. Which reminds me of another Billfold piece, by Nona Willis Aronowitz, about the way that life's tragedies, rather than automatically bringing about perspective, inspire such things as shopping sprees. Can't-take-it-with-you and all that. It isn't just - as Jezebel helpfully YPISes (and I'm not being entirely sarcastic) - that being in a position to save is not universal - if you're impoverished and unemployed, good luck. It's also that... stuff is nice. (Did I recently buy a pair of shoes that are entirely incompatible with Toronto's salted sidewalks, salted until who knows which month but I'm thinking April? Maybe.) As is free time. Perhach advises working full time and having an additional job on weekends, and... while, fine, I do this, I can't fault the people who don't.

It's always the same, right? To lose weight, eat less than you burn. To save money, spend less than you earn. By all means, find new ways to help people with these goals (well, the latter) get there, but at least acknowledge that there are reasons - sensible and less so - why people aren't already doing what they already know they should. It's not generally because the advantages to a different routine haven't occurred to them.

And then there's the more troubling angle, from a feminist perspective - which is sort of the only perspective from which to read something like this. (Other than: as literature. Which I'd recommend.) Are women who, out of financial dependency, put up with sexually harassing bosses and mediocre-turned-abusive boyfriends to be faulted for having not thought to save up enough to get out of whichever situation? The structure of Perhach's essay - two alternate narratives - doesn't outright blame the woman who ends up screwed. It's more, I don't know, that this is an unavoidable conclusion. Of course, how would one offer that same, sound advice without a victim-blamey edge? With disclaimers. And disclaimers are annoying, and pointless, and it's not as if the ideal narrative Perhach offers involves 'win trust fund, have parents who support you until you're elderly.' So maybe just forget my qualms, the qualms of the all-too-fallible (but these are spectacular shoes), and read the thing.

A serious matter

I keep going back and forth on these sandals:

-They're fabulous!
-They might be more fabulous in brown, but they're only available in black.
-But they're actually maybe better in black? And they have this cool, south-of-France vibe, and for only $80!
-Actually, $80 is kind of a lot for glorified flip-flops.
-But they're so Gwyneth! So timeless!
-They're so impractical. It's not sandal weather, but even once it is, it's not sandal country. These are not poodle-walking sandals.
-But they'd be fine for, like, driving somewhere. (To the supermarket.)
-What makes you think they'd even fit? This is a place that charges $5 for returns!
-But free exchanges! And the t-shirts are definitely nice, so if an additional size doesn't work out...
-$80 worth of t-shirts?
-But... that leather belt from them is gorgeous, and similar!
-Do you ever wear that belt? Do you even know where you put it?
-But the thing with them is, they might sell out.
-This is a website that doesn't post reviews, and the Googled reviews seem to be PR-journalism written by people who've never so much as seen the sandals in person. (And are you sure those Facebook ads for the company aren't influencing your thinking?)
-Perhaps, but everything's advertised. Surely the day will come when some sandals are necessary.
-Yes, and when it does, the Naots from before grad school will do.
-No, actually, those have long since disintegrated and don't stay closed.
-Which doesn't change the fact that you don't need sandals.
-You make a good point, although I'm not entirely convinced.

How to shop your way to frugality

The BBC Woman's Hour has taken on the question of minimalism, bringing in anti-stuff advocate Teresa Belton. At one point Jane Garvey asks Belton about whether all of this let's-get-rid-of-everything is, in a sense, a class luxury - something for those who've always had enough and then some to ponder. Stuff, Garvey was saying (or was this just how I interpreted it?) is perhaps more appealing to those who can't take it for granted. Belton seemed to think Garvey was asking her whether it's materialistic for those who have nothing to dream of a roof over their heads; you'll be relieved to hear that the answer is no.

More frustrating, though, was the discussion throughout of "modest" consumption. "Modest" spenders were asked to call in, and call in they did. Some mention was made of there being a range of what "modest" means, but I'd hardly even classify it as a range. It's like "low-maintenance" - virtually no one's going to admit to being the other way. Everyone (with the exception of cast members of certain reality shows) points to the people who spend - or primp - even more. What's my hair iron and eyeliner compared with that lady's Botox and extensions!*

Anyway, my point is that I don't feel right discussing Cheapness Studies from the perspective of someone who has all the answers. I have yet to be able to teach myself to enjoy eating most legumes, so the proverbial pot of lentils isn't in my repertoire.

But what I will say is that Marie Kondo's thing about how you should love everything you own makes sense. I'd even go so far as to say that (with certain caveats) you should - for frugality's sake - own everything you love. With the I-hope-obvious disclaimer that "love" for objects is different from love for people, although analogies can (and will) be made. A further disclaimer: this is about clothes, makeup, jewelry. If you're a masculine-of-center individual, this may not be the post for you.

So. First, let me reiterate that loving what you own doesn't have to mean shopping at expensive stores. Just as people admire famous actors and models but love their partners, it's possible to appreciate the objective beauty of a Prada dress, while loving a particularly soft and well-cut t-shirt. And (to keep on mining my own shopping history for examples) as much as I can accept that there's beautiful expensive jewelry out there, I remain beyond thrilled with these splurge-for-me earrings I bought over the summer. And while I'm sure there are higher-end versions of the same (Céline? Eileen Fisher?), my grayscale-minimalist wardrobe is mostly Uniqlo with some Muji thrown in. (Note: none of these places paid me to promote them, or sent me free stuff. I should be so lucky.)

But why have, as a goal, owning all the clothes you want? Because - and here's what's either a brilliant thought I had while walking Bisou in the cold without headphones, or nonsense - it defines one's wanty list (credit for that oh-so-useful term, as always, to Kei) as finite. Or, if not finite, then temporarily achievable. Rather than assuming that every season, every lunch hour, you'll discover something new, figure that you have a limited list of things you simply must have. And once you find the pencil skirt or the corduroys, or the cap-sleeved black t-shirts that somehow make you feel like Angelina Jolie, you've checked that box, and the hunt is over. Having this approach doesn't make you immune to wanty-creation upon entering a store or checking out a fashion blog. But it does keep things from getting out of hand. Also: Owning everything you love doesn't mean going out and buying it all at once. Love isn't lust. It needs to be something that you've thought about, mulled over.**

More caveats: Yes, things get worn out, or go out of style. Yes, there's such a thing as the laundry cycle, thus meaning with stuff like t-shirts, you're not buying just the one. And no, you never really know which items you'll end up wearing for years. What I'd say on that front, though, is that you should avoid the ubiquitous advice to purchase "classics" or "basics" (which tend to be the very things where the silhouette will most quickly look dated - jeans and dress shoes especially). Instead, the thing to do if you want to wear something for years is to buy something you love. If you were super-excited to buy the thing, if there was sufficient mulling-over beforehand, you may very well keep on wearing it after it's no longer the thing, or (ahem, Petit Bateau Breton-striped shirts) after it's definitively worn-out.

*Indeed, I sometimes wonder if the point of those reality shows isn't just the straightforward product placement for whichever companies are ostentatiously named, but also to set the bar higher and encourage spending/primping more generally. Not because viewers will emulate the people they see onscreen (fine, some will), but because every indulgence that falls short of what's onscreen starts to look restrained.

**There are certain constraints. If the object is something general - alpine hiking boots, to give an example from my own stash of long-anticipated purchases  - you can wait for ages. But if it's one-of-a-kind - which can include fast fashion, given the turnaround, thus the never-purchased and still-regretted Uniqlo camel cape - you may not have that luxury. Thus why items seen while traveling cause such angst. Or did before globalization and e-commerce meant that those Japanese cosmetics are probably on Amazon.

New material

-Trace Barnhill has brought frugality to Into The Gloss, a site whose usual influence is to make spending $40 on luminizer seem like a great idea. Barnhill makes an interesting point about there being two kinds of thrift:

Some people prefer to cut out personal, almost invisible purchases—things no one else will see but you. You get the generic panty-liners. The veggie Ragu instead of the Italian-import truffle-infused sauce. I’ve personally not had a headboard on my bed since high school, unless the wall counts. Switching to generic allergy drugs. [...] 

But then sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes you only want to spend money on things just personally, intimately for you. Your coat can be shabby-chic consignment (and you know it’s actually really ugly), but you’ve got Chanel in your bathroom cabinet. No TV, but unlimited HBO Go. Little secret purchases while on the outside, you’re a quiet, thirsty soul.

I'd never thought about it quite like that before, but it makes sense. I think I fall into the second camp more than I'd like to, but in principle would want to be in the first. I'll very often be found in a pair of $30 corduroys from five years ago, but my cupboard (and, ahem, hair-product collection) shows evidence of splurgy trips to Japanese supermarkets. There's probably some deep, psychological meaning behind which category one falls in, but what that is isn't coming to me at the moment.

-I've been thinking about Miss Self-Important's second resolution from last year: "Get some new ideas so I can stop infinitely repeating things I've already said in my non-academic writing." The appeal of one's old ideas - for me, at least - is that one has thought through every aspect of them. Figured out all the counterarguments. From an impostor-syndrome-ish perspective, this is immensely satisfying. Sure, there will still be the 'this is the dumbest thing I've ever read' brigade on Twitter, but they'll fail to convince the author of his or her (her) own idiocy.

The trouble with a new idea - and I've just given one of those a gamble - is that one hasn't spent months analyzing it. I'm still trying to sort out exactly what I think about certain aspects of the undershare question, and at this point think the most compelling thing about it is that it's even a question.

Reading materials

-I'm halfway-ish through Women in Clothes. I figured I'd better read it after I was lent it by one person and then given it by another. It is, in principle, a book I should love. And I do very much like it. The idea behind it is to examine how women feel about their self-presentation - to treat clothing as a serious undertaking. It's a window into class, body image, gender, self-esteem, everything. It's all the guilty-pleasure voyeuristic enjoyment of Into The Gloss, but you're reading a book. Also ITG-esque: there was this one essay that I kept alternating between thinking was the most pretentious, too-cool-for-school thing I'd ever read, and finding endlessly compelling and inspirational.

The drawback to the book's approach is that it almost by necessity excludes the frivolous or generic. There's a lot about nostalgic relationships to mothers' wardrobes and gender as performance, but nothing (thus far) that gets into the head of the girls I saw in Penn Station yesterday in a North Face fleece and Lululemon headband uniform. There's a section - very cool visually - with photos of women's hands, to show their rings (or lack thereof), and oddly enough, no one's fiancé went to Jared. Poverty is acknowledged (Cambodian garment workers; broke writers) but ordinary tastes are (thus far) absent.

The closest (again, thus far) I've seen to a blunt, not-at-all-earnest-or-signaling entry was the one that just documents a woman's e-commerce browsing, site by site, item by item. It feels real, but also demonstrates the challenges of turning the real into the readable.

The book somehow evokes - for me at least - a certain kind of Cobble Hill woman, chic but intellectual, New Brooklyn but more polished than hipster, 30-something rather than 20-something. Maybe it's all the references to clogs and literary readings? Of course, perhaps the second half of the book ventures into mall-ier territory...

-Yesterday I came across a newsstand full of free issues of the latest Chopsticks NY. "Home cooking issue," reads the cover, "with 12 comfort food recipes." Oh! "Let's Cook At Home with Japanese Ingredients," suggests page 9, and they had me at hello. Yes, the magazine is ads, but it's ads for basically everything Japanese in the New York area, and is full of incredibly useful information. I now know about several more Japanese supermarkets in New York and New Jersey, and a Japanese kitchenware store in Long Island City that - unlike it's Manhattan equivalent - has some weekend hours.

-Take a moment to process this, from Marisa Meltzer's Styles article about shampoo alternatives:

The once-odd idea of using cleansing conditioners (they clean but don’t foam) as a substitute for shampoo became increasingly in vogue in the last year. 

“It comes out of the new insight that shampooing every day is not for all consumers, especially those with curly, kinky, wavy hair or color-treated or processed hair that might be more susceptible to damage,” said Ron Robinson, an independent cosmetic chemist and founder of beautystat­.com.

Yes - the standard for haircare has for far too long been based on what works for one hair type. Perhaps the time has finally come to question whether the women who achieve shiny hair by washing their hair daily (but can air-dry) are actually lower-maintenance than those who only need shampoo once a week (if that) but do require heat-styling or products of some sort to reach the same goal.

But I'm not convinced that the answer is daily hair-washing with some other product that isn't, but probably costs more than, shampoo. If "forgoing shampoo in this sweaty SoulCycle era is simply not an option," perhaps the more stylish (and frugal) alternative is taking advantage of the cold weather and running outside, something that's safe and easy to do in the kinds of locales where SoulCycles tend to have branches.

The American Art of making a mess of one's apartment

Question of the century: If it's presented as a "Japanese Art," will I find the prospect of cleaning the apartment appealing? That's probably the most fun it can be made to sound, "it" being sorting through a pile of books, magazines, bags, jackets, and, I notice, an umbrella all on a small table that's ostensibly for keys and a book or two. So thank you, Marie Kondo, for the inspiration. 

But if I think in terms of "'the [Japanese] tradition of folding,'" as expert Leonard Koren puts it, who knows? Maybe the pile of clothes on top of the bedroom drawers will not only leave that pile and find homes in the drawers in which they belong? "'Folding is deep and pervasive in Japanese culture,'" adds the expert. I choose to interpret this to mean that I'm excused from folding stuff, seeing as it falls outside my cultural tradition. It would be cultural appropriation to clean these surfaces! 

In all seriousness, though, I totally agree with Kondo's overall philosophy, as Penelope Green describes it. "Discard everything that does not 'spark joy,' after thanking the objects that are getting the heave-ho for their service; and do not buy organizing equipment — your home already has all the storage you need." That's basically what I already do. I don't go through stuff as often as I should (see above), but when I do, I'm not one for keeping things for sentimental reasons. I'm very much OK with thinking fondly of the times I wore an outfit in college, then bringing it to the thrift store if it's not something I'd ever really wear.

Some in the snarkfest comments to Green's article are saying that if they had to love all their clothes, they'd have none left. But doing so is actually kind of possible, and doesn't mean chucking everything that isn't formalwear. To give some examples from my (fascinating) life, I'm very enthusiastic about some socks from Muji, which are, yes, just socks, but I'm quite happy with them. Also with some t-shirts from Everlane. And, I mean, this fleece. Such logo-less simplicity! Zip pockets! And not baggy around the midsection, as is so often the case with fleece! If you're sufficiently enthusiastic about your, err, basics ("basic," such a loaded word) when you buy them, you may find that you can sustain that enthusiasm until - or, as is the case with those Petit Bateau Breton-striped shirts, long past - the point at which they're too worn-out to wear.

A "bookish" roundup

I was frequenting this brunch place in town, not because I like brunch, but because that bread. It's this odd mix of fluffy and wholesome, with all the grains and such I like, and none of the ones I just sort of tolerate. I figured it came either from the place or, more likely, from some special Central European bakery, perhaps a wholesaler, I'd have no access to. And... today I discovered said bread at Wegmans. $5 a (huge) loaf, or $3 for half, but still a better deal than the $13 (now $15) for the brunch. There are also soft pretzels that look... familiar, but those I haven't tasted to confirm. 

It's quite possible (I have my reasons to suspect) that everything the place sells comes from Wegmans, which is on the one hand disillusioning, but on the other... I mean, eating out always means a markup. They probably don't want customers to know their stuff comes from the supermarket, but they, I don't know, curate it? I'd have never found this bread otherwise, and it's amazing. ("Seven Grain Bread," for those in Wegmans territory.) And it's on the whole a good thing for me personally that I can recreate the meal I so enjoy. But this may well spell the end of a briefly-revived stint as someone who does brunch.

***

So I was trying to cross the street just now with my husband and our dog, and we were at a crosswalk without traffic lights. It wasn't particularly dark out yet. There was a car coming, but quite far, and on a 25mph road, so I stepped into the road - I think we all did? - and made the 'we're crossing' gesture. The car slowed down in a way that indicated the driver saw us, then sped up, only to more abruptly stop once we were definitively in the crosswalk. As the driver passed, he shouted a sarcastic, "You're welcome!" from his SUV, as if he'd done us the biggest favor in the world, allowing us to cross where you're supposed to, the way you're supposed to. And... I know I'm newish at driving culture, but is this a thing? You're supposed to thank cars that allow you to cross in a residential area, in a crosswalk?  

When I'm driving, I stop for pedestrians (without making a thing of it! they have the right of way!) and sometimes get a gesture of appreciation, but by no means usually, and I by no means expect one. I suppose maybe it's weird when a pedestrian thanks the driver who stopped first, but not the one on the opposite side of the road, but I've had this happen exactly once, and lost exactly no sleep over it. So, to be clear, this guy was in the wrong, correct?

***

A guy I think I went to college with (name sounds familiar, don't know if I'd ever met him, had no preexisting opinion of him, but it's a huge school) wrote this week's Modern Love. It reminded me of a novel I read not that long ago, so much so that I kept wanting to congratulate the female author on creating such a convincing heterosexual male protagonist. 

Anyway, what interests me is this:

I was amazed to have gotten this far. As my friends were sick of hearing, it made no sense to me that a gorgeous woman in her early 20s who spoke four languages and had lived on three continents was spending her Saturdays with me, a 31-year-old bookish type from Pittsburgh.

 And:

“How old are you?” one asked, which put our substantial age difference — something we had not yet talked about — suddenly under a spotlight.

(You can tell this is someone from UChicago because of the "bookish type" self-description.)

Anyway, a pairing of "31" and "early 20s" doesn't seem all that outrageous, although there's often a life-stage difference between 20 and 24, one far greater than between 24 and 31. I would say something about how you never see 31-year-old women with several-years-younger men, until I remembered several couples I'm friends with who fit that pattern.

What struck me, then, was how much of a thing it is, for a 31-year-old man, to be dating a younger-but-not-indecently-so woman. This isn't just, for him, a thing that happens once you're an adult, and are socializing with people who weren't necessarily in kindergarten the same year you were. It's part of her value. It's not enough that she's beautiful - she's a catch because of her not-31-ness. And yes, this absolutely did strike me because I, too, am 31. I'm surprised-but-not-really that even men as young as 31 would find same-age women excessively ancient. That a woman of legal age could be, in some meaningful sense, a younger woman to someone 31.

So I've watched some "Millionaire Matchmaker" in my day (and so I nominate myself for the alumni award for Least Bookish Type, literature PhD notwithstanding), and there, the men of course want younger women, but this will be for one of two (stated) reasons. One is that it hits them at a haggard 57-ish that they'd like kids. The other is that they just prefer women under 25, 30, 19, whatever, which is the trickier issue. These same men will also claim they want to settle down. (Yes, I understand that it's probably semi-scripted and actually an interwoven series of ads for cupcake and flower companies.) One put it... best?... when he said his perfect woman would be 29 and three quarters forever. The late-middle-aged man in question looked like a cross between Eric Cartman and Donald Trump.

It seems, in other words, a gamble to be appreciated for your youth. For your beauty... well, beauty may fade, but is more subjective. A man might cease to find a woman beautiful without her having changed in appearance, or might continue to be attracted to her because he still sees her as she looked when they met. But a man who settles down with a woman because she's such a great distance from the age at which he thinks women cease to be interesting... I mean, she will, barring unforeseen disaster, turn that age.

Groceries are complicated

-I need something called "nigari tofu coagulant." After watching the latest and most compelling Cooking with Dog, where Chef and Francis Host of the Show prepare soft tofu from scratch and top it with scallions, ginger, and bonito flakes... actually, even just once seeing such a video existed, I realized I'm obviously going to be doing this. It's only a matter of time. Well, of time, and of finding this ingredient in a quantity not advertised as allowing one to make 100 pounds of tofu. Where the proper sort of soy milk will come from is its own question. One I've answered before, that time I made yuba, but I'd rather avoid DIY on that part if possible.

-Caryatis, you'll be so proud! I bought eggs at a farmers market and totally checked them for cracks. The farmer or farmer-stand-in selling the eggs didn't seem even a little bit offended.

-I'm not going to defend this, but I'm one of those people who gets two different kinds of olive oil, the regular one for cooking, and the more expensive one for drizzling. I'm not sure I can taste a difference, but I tell myself I can, and even if it's just the pretty bottle, there are surely worse forms of self-deception, and clearly I'm not going through much of the fancy one. I have no brand loyalty in this area, and choose based on which pretty bottle is on sale at a given time. One or another always will be, and the brands seem to rotate quite frequently, rarely being ones I have any familiarity with. This evening, doing so, I was hit by a wave of cynicism: How on earth do I know that the bottle going for $11 (say) is really normally $20? Of course, if it's all the culinary placebo effect anyway...

In defense of Princeton in summer

-It's not as bad as it might be. And low expectations have a way of being exceeded. I mean, my husband's away, as are most of my friends. It's hot and humid, and my hair looks awful. It's tick season for humans and dogs, so the woods are, if not out altogether, substantially less appealing. Expectations were really, really low.

-Everything's on sale. At least everything in Princeton I might want to buy, which admittedly isn't much. But I just got discounted coffee beans from Rojo's at a pop-up (!) in Urban Outfitters and then, for $25, the pair of $70 linen pants I'd long been admiring at J.Crew, thereby filling the summer-clothing-other-than-shorts-or-nightgown gap in my wardrobe. (While I'm by no means a 000 at that store, I can extrapolate from their vanity sizing why such a size would be necessary.) But J.Crew at sub-Uniqlo prices, with tremendous selection... let's just say whatever shtetl peddler-type lives within me returned atavistically at this discovery.

-No one's around. Which is sort of bleak when it comes to Bisou-walking (if easier to handle after a week in Manhattan), but sort of fabulous when it comes to driving and parking.

Fabulous small purchases*

-A mouse for my "broken computer" which was really just a reasonably-functional if aging computer with a broken trackpad. $15 rather than $1,000 or whatever a computer is these days. Thanks to commenter FarFromBreton for pointing me to Staples, which had been right there all the time.

-A $20 Uniqlo dress (now possibly cheaper still) that solves the easy-to-wear formal-ish dress conundrum.

-One Montreal-style cinnamon-raisin bagel in Philadelphia - the owner (?) threw in a sesame as well. At $2 a bagel this was not the deal of the century, but I did enjoy both bagels and am thus not complaining.


*Apologies to Joseph Epstein.

Inadvertent cheapness triumph

I give up. I fail at shopping. I may be a heterosexual woman who grew up in New York, who studied French, who in stereotyped principle ought to be all about this, but at the end of the day, nope. I'm terrible at it.

I had spent the entire winter admiring a particular pair of Alpine brown leather hiking boots. They kept fluctuating in price from around $240 to around $310. I could imagine paying the former (as the previous such pair was one I wore from freshman year of high school until college), but not quite the latter. I'd been trying to find this kind of shoe for years, but kept wavering. $240 is still too much! Or is it? Yes! Or is it? Gah!

Finally, I realized that my lack of proper boots was causing, like, day-to-day inconvenience (the ice!), and when the boots dipped down once more to their lowest price, I hit "purchase." And then was like, maybe that was a mistake? So much money! But you can't cancel things so easily on Amazon once you've ordered them (I wouldn't think you could at all, but they offer this as a pseudo-option), so I figured, maybe forces greater than myself thought I should get the boots.

And then, lo and behold, the boots! So beautiful! So... enormous. For some reason, this company considers a 40 a U.S. women's 8. I'm a 7.5/8, which is more like a 38-39, which means these were not any kind of improvement over my existing footwear which, if nothing else, mostly fits. These basically slid off as I walked in them. So I put them back in the box, and sulked over to the mailroom with the return label and the boots.

Well, the return shipping label. Because I almost never shop online, and when I do, generally keep what I've bought because the process is so daunting, I'd forgotten to include the label that goes into the box. Much panic, much apologizing, and much humiliating myself before the mailroom staff on my second visit, I think I got the package right, and that the boots will be returned. Will I be ordering them in a smaller size? I think not.