Areas of Unrest

7 November 1999 - Shopping Binges

QOTD: "The only natural predator of satellites is launch vehicles.' - D. Burkett

Reading: Tony Wheeler, et. al., Lonely Planet Unpacked

Listening to: nothing, since I should really have gone to bed a half hour ago

We had a sort of Bards session on Thursday night. Only sort of since it was specifically so Greg could run through a piece he's performing on the 20th. We met at Penny's house (as we usually do), which is only about three miles from me. Somehow or other that provided an excuse for me to spend the time between work and our meeting shopping at the Westside Pavilion, which is a mile away from my place - in the opposite direction.

I was nominally looking to replace my favorite walking shoes, which are amazingly worn-out, but the walking shoe store was sold out of my size, and I didn't have the patience to confront the crowds at Nordstrom's. I have this peculiar relationship with Nordstrom's as it is. They have a wonderful shoe department but it's always so busy that the service gets slow. And the only other department I find tempting there is lingerie. They sell pajamas in all sorts of great prints and I often want to buy them, but it's silly because I rarely wear pajamas. (Except when staying at shared accomodations, e.g. hostels or as a houseguest, I sleep au naturel.)

Surprisingly few other temptations were on hand throughout the mall, but I did succumb to a minor book buying binge. There were two books I intended to buy (Sue Grafton's O is for Outlaw and the new work by Michael Lewis about Silicon Valley) but the other five must have jumped into my hands of their own accord. Those pages just call out to me, you see, and how can I possibly resist the entreaties of "buy me! buy me! I'll keep you company on the airplane on your next trip!"

And then there's the Contemporary Crafts Market. Twice a year it fills the Santa Monica Convention Center with all sorts of wondrous items. Penny and I planned to go on Friday, though we hadn't done a great job of coordinating meeting there, which led to some anxiety about finding each other. Fortunately, Penny remembered my fondness for the wares of Marty Magic and Marty more or less pointed her in the right direction. I was, in the meantime, convinced that Penny had gotten there hours earlier than I had, and being unable to find her right off, was doing my usual compulsive look at everything before buying. In the end, I bought a doll and one of Marty's dragon-shaped hooks. There was a lot of other stuff I was tempted by, but the show was closing for the night and there wasn't enough time to go back. Actually, had I been on my own, there would have been, but Penny is a slower shopper than I am.

To finish off the spending spree, I made another attempt at replacing my walking shoes on Saturday. First, I had to go to Long Beach to do a workshop as part of a storytelling class. I've concluded that I'm not a good teacher. I never feel really at ease watching a group of students trying to do an exercise I've set them up with. But I don't want to lecture, either. I was glad to leave after lunch and drive up to the Marina. A few weeks ago I'd noticed a store that specializes in the sort of comfortable sensible shoes I like. They carry the shoes I wanted but were sold out of my size, so I may have to brave Nordstrom's after all. In the meantime, I did get a pair of sandals - something I've been meaning to do for months. Then I bought a mosaic kit at Aaron Brother's (also something I'd noticed on my last trip to that mall) and a supply of Orangina (the Canadian name for the beverage sold in France as Orelia) at Gelson's, which appears to be the only supermarket that carries such an esoteric brand of soda.

I confined today's spending to the newspaper. Actually, I spent most of the day catching up on my sleep or I would have driven down to Torrance for the Handweaver's Guild show, which would inevitably have meant buying various odds and ends of threads for lacemaking. My budget was much better off with three naps a day!

So there we have the solution for people who spend too much. Nobody shops in their sleep. But I suppose the costs for sleeping pills would just keep adding up, so maybe it isn't such a good idea.