Damn it's cold here... Shopping spree

More fuel for the spammers to send pings to... I've got to start writing again regularly, between the bizarre (for Houston at least) streaks of cold weather, taking a few weeks off from eBay for a vacation, and the usual January malaise I haven't been too motivated lately to do much of anything.

And as much as I'm trying to keep informed of what's going on in the world around me on a semi-daily basis, which lately has been mostly comprised of watching at least the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Randi Rhodes (her shows are archived now, thank you goddess!), I need to get back to more trivial stuff (in addition to the horrors of this current world) just to get it out of my head and maintain some sort of balance. I think I need to switch antidepressants also, my OCD has just been out of control since last fall and the generic Prozac is just not doing it. My poor little kitty brain is just overwhelmed with things to do that it's difficult to get anything useful done.

And to be really hypocritical of myself, January is always my shopping month. Because my birthday falls at the beginning of the year and my parents are usually kind enough to give me some money, so I usually have a year's worth of wants and needs by the time the holidays roll around each year. So, yes, I go out and buy a bunch of stuff (and pay off bills also) annually, but I have to admit it's normally a very well thought out list. So that's also been keeping me busy. I get things I actually need and fill up the big empty hole I try and ignore the rest of the year.

My biggest problem with shopping is that I'm a really scarily efficient shopper. I worked in retail for most of my life, I've ran up thousands of dollars in credit card bills with the efficiency of the Neocons (which are paid off now, by my husband, and chopped up and destroyed, also by my husband). Being obsessive compulsive, though. buying a lot of things in a short time period can get really scary. While my husband goes and looks at the same big screen TV over and over again, I just walk in and buy everything I need and leave. Just checking things off the list, you know? Not that I don't appreciate getting them, it's just become such a weird routine for like the last 20 years, in January I buy a years worth of stuff.

And then I have a panic attack and feel like I have to get rid of a lot of things. Binge and purge. So I've been overdosing on organizing stuff, though I haven't managed to get half as much as I'd like done. I did manage to give away some more clothes to charity, though I really need to part with more. They cost so damn much, though. And clothes don't really sell that well on eBay, even fairly new ones, but it's hard to give away Liz Claiborne and Jones NY clothing even though I work at home now and rarely go anywhere I'd actually wear them to now. And even though it's cold, I hardly ever wear any of my sweaters any more. But they're merino and cashmere, dammit! (OK, mostly May Department Stores brand, but still nice stuff) But I'm so lazy now I don't want to wear anything I can't hand wash, I make it to the dry cleaner maybe once a year.

It's actually a good thing it's cold here in January because any kind of cold weather just freaks me out, I really do go into hibernation. I don't want to go outside, hell, I don't even want to get out of bed. (I have dry laundry in the garage right now, but I haven't worked up the nerve to go out in the cold and get it yet) I've got no coordination, no energy... and it's only in the 40s here, I can't imagine what it's like to live somewhere it actually snows! I froze my ass off in Austin, Texas during the three years I lived there, but that was during the coldest winter in recent history where it actually got down into the teens and there was black ice everywhere. The coldest place I've personally been in my life, though, was Kansas in February. OMG, my dad went through basic training for the army in Kansas in the winter time... I just spent a few days there and both me and my warm blooded hubby just about died.

Ok, so what did I buy for myself? I never know how much I'm going to get each year, but this year I did quite well so I managed to check most of the items off of my list.

Number one - an electric piano. I've been obsessed with getting one most of this year when I realized how good they sound now and that I'd probably actually be coordinated enough to learn to play. And it's a good project to maintain what little coordination I have left, the multiple sclerosis has taken a lot of it away. I got very discouraged musically growing up because I really sucked at playing guitar. I always wanted to learn to play an instrument, but I was never good at playing guitars, yet somehow I had three of them during my life. Even a pretty candy red electric one. I always wanted to learn piano, though, and/or drums. But of course, they were both impractical. And expensive. And loud. My parents did give me an organ as a girl, but all I remember of the poor thing was that the sound was awful, the key response was very slow (and I was very hyper), and I was not happy with it. So, due to modern technology, my musical curiousity is being satisfied. And now I have 829 different instruments sitting on the desk next to me, and a new thing to learn, which makes me just insanely happy.

Number two - a cobalt blue paisley comforter. Sounds like a simple thing to find, but finding a comforter that matches royal blue drapes and is not mostly white is near impossible. I've been looking for years for a nice blue printed comforter that wasn't navy blue (which tends to have some green in it). So when I found Ralph Lauren's Putney Paisley last summer, I crossed my fingers I'd be able to get it before all of the kings were gone. And by January it had been discontinued, but I hunted it down and found one. And I got a nice dark blue Lauren bedskirt, and the coordinating striped pillowcases instead of shams just to be different (and the shams were almost $100 each). And me and the kitty are both in heaven. I thought my last comforter was nice, but this one is just decadent, which makes it doubly hard to get out of bed now.

Also on my list were a new bigger esternal hard drive and a faster non-photo printer, but they didn't make the cut this time. Because the piano is supposed to be internet-friendly (though not very Mac friendly), I did get a router and the litttle thingy that is supposed to connect the piano to the router, and thus to my broadband connection, but all I managed to do was screw up my IP address and piss myself off bigtime trying to set up the router, so it's just sitting on my desk right now. I also actually broke down and purchased the upgrade for Suitcase and am still in the process of trying to get all of my fonts working again after I stupidly ran Font Doctor (which came with Suitcase for free) and let it "organize" my fonts (it's the whole organization craze again).

What else... I wanted to replace my current cordless phone with a 5.8 ghz version in hopes it won't be as full of static as my 2.4 ghz one is, but I haven't done that either (obviously phones are not as high on my list as computers). I did replace my enormous overly bright green display clock radio with a very small, nice red display one (that's a story unto itself for later), though it ended up only costing like $15. Now it I could get my husband to replace his (which is the same as my old one, it's so bright it throws shadows on the ceiling), maybe I'd be happy.

Brrrrrr, gotta go out and get the laundry now. And then maybe off to my warm cozy bed with the kitty. Probably not, but it's a nice thought.

Posted by Morticia at February 04, 2005 03:18 AM