This day turned miraculously sunny, and I want to throw my arms around it and hug it for knowing exactly what I needed on my first day in weeks that does not contain plans. The clear air smells like smoke, and that, too, is exactly what I need today.
I celebrated my day off by drinking coffee at the hipster coffee shop and going to the horror that is that big box store that treats its workers terribly. (You know the one I mean. It rhymes with "Stall-Tart.") I generally avoid that store like the plague, but I am trying a new thing: to put the same amount of money in savings while adding a retirement account deposit every month. And not taking money out of savings. And buying plane tickets to Michigan (this week!). And having fun. And not having a credit card.
The Blue Emu that I massage into my knees every day for Project Do Kung Fu Without Permanent Knee Damage costs $17 a jar at the pharmacy near my house. It costs $11.50 at Stall Tart. Between that and the $4 I saved on my allergy eye drops, the drive out to Stall Tart was worth it. I made up for it by stopping at Goodwill on the way home for a few Halloween costume items.
I am going to be a bumblebee for Halloween. I bought a set of wings and antennae, and a black shirt that I will stripe with yellow tape.
But I am confronting, tonight, the fact of purchasing cheap, badly made junk. Not for the quality, but for the implications. How much damage am I doing the world and the people of the world by my purchasing?
I had a friend in law school who only bought fair trade clothing. One day of shopping at Stall Tart makes me think that maybe I should do the same. (The problem always comes, though, from the fact that I can't wear normal clothes. I need to buy talls, and there are no talls, that I have found, on fair trade websites.) And surely I could make my own bumblebee wings.
I celebrated my day off by drinking coffee at the hipster coffee shop and going to the horror that is that big box store that treats its workers terribly. (You know the one I mean. It rhymes with "Stall-Tart.") I generally avoid that store like the plague, but I am trying a new thing: to put the same amount of money in savings while adding a retirement account deposit every month. And not taking money out of savings. And buying plane tickets to Michigan (this week!). And having fun. And not having a credit card.
The Blue Emu that I massage into my knees every day for Project Do Kung Fu Without Permanent Knee Damage costs $17 a jar at the pharmacy near my house. It costs $11.50 at Stall Tart. Between that and the $4 I saved on my allergy eye drops, the drive out to Stall Tart was worth it. I made up for it by stopping at Goodwill on the way home for a few Halloween costume items.
I am going to be a bumblebee for Halloween. I bought a set of wings and antennae, and a black shirt that I will stripe with yellow tape.
But I am confronting, tonight, the fact of purchasing cheap, badly made junk. Not for the quality, but for the implications. How much damage am I doing the world and the people of the world by my purchasing?
I had a friend in law school who only bought fair trade clothing. One day of shopping at Stall Tart makes me think that maybe I should do the same. (The problem always comes, though, from the fact that I can't wear normal clothes. I need to buy talls, and there are no talls, that I have found, on fair trade websites.) And surely I could make my own bumblebee wings.
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