Retail Therapy

There is one thing I like more than complaining about money, and that is spending it. With finally a few dollars to play around with this summer, I did what any normal 20 year old with extra cash would do: I went shopping.

Now, I am a very tricky shopper. I inherited my mom's sense of "gotta have it NOW, try on everything, buy everything" along with my dad's "If you don't need it, you don't buy it" mentality. So I will shuffle around from store to store (In this case, the mall and Targeé), maniacally throwing clothing off of racks and into messy piles of haphazard hangers in my arms. I will then rush to the nearest fitting room, armed and loaded with the first batch. When I enter the fitting room, one of three things will happen:

1. I will try something on, admire it, weigh it's "How good does it make my ass look" compared to "How expensive it is" and develop a ratio. The process gets very complicated and mathematical here.

2. I will try something on and immediately obsess about all the ways it makes my tummy fat bulge. I will keep the garment on for about 2 minutes, stuck in my own head, and then throw it off into the not-in-a-million-goddamn-years pile.

3. I will fall in love. Hard.

50% if the time, it's number 1.

30% of the time, it's number 2.

10% of the time, it's number 3.

10% of the time, my boobs don't fit in it.

After returning all of the number 2's, I go out and see what else there is for me. During this time, I second-think the one's I'm not sure about. And though I am not proud to admit this, usually I will casually desert a good majority of them randomly about the store. Anyone who works in retail, feel free to hate me. My rationality behind this is as a caterer, I am constantly dealing with other people's rejects, and they don't even think twice about throwing away an empty beer bottle or a napkin. Why then, when I'm shopping, should I get rid of my own unwanted items? I know, I'm still an asshole. But whatever.

So after abandonning about 25% of my clothing in the home furnishing/men's wear/cosmetics departments, I head to the register. My pile drastically reduced, and my confidence level that much higher. I triumphantly swipe my barely used debit card through the machine. Ahh, life is good. I am a smart shopper.

Who perhaps needs therapy for the way I use retail therapy.

I Like Lists

10 Things You May Not Have Known About Me:

1. Only one thing shares my bed with me nightly- and that is Jazz, a stuffed animal horse I have had since I was about 5. Jazz is a girl, as demonstrated by the eyelashes I sharpie'd onto her eyelids. And I love her. Toy Story was a hard movie to get through.

2. I'm a god awful waitress, but I am a great caterer. This may seem strange, but trust me they are very different fields.

3. I'm living in Rhode Island after college. This is not a request. It is a demand.

4. The one thing I really miss about my ex boyfriend was that he used to buy me My Little Ponies on important holidays. I really, really like My Little Ponies.

5. Though I do think my current career goals are feasible, and may make me happy, I still really want to work for Us Weekly and report on celebrity gossip until the day I die.

6. theknot.com and thenest.com are two of my favorite websites. Yes, I am aware of how creepy this makes me sound.

7. I do not have a good head for hats.

8. I put off taking PSY 205 until senior year because I knew I would want to be a psych major after taking the class- and listening/counseling is more of a hobby to me than a career.

9. I am an obsessive phone pacer. If I'm talking, I'm walking.

10. This past year of college (and the preceding summer) was the best year of my life. Following accordingly, this summer has probably been one of the worst of my life. And by that I mean boring. And by that I mean I am doing a blog entry at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night/Friday morning. There you go.

popping The Question

12:47 a.m. July 12, 2010. I sit on my bed, laptop in its usual place on my lap- heating my legs up with its usual, familiar warmth. I sit here, thinking about the future.

Ah yes, she has begun. The inevitable phase of every college kid's blogging career where they discuss The Question and their potential answers to it. The Question, of course, is "What are you doing after school?" The strange thing is, I am starting to see answers materialize. I'm starting to make up the potential answers, which (shockingly) might not be bullshit.

I am starting to have a vision of some things that I want. I can see an apartment in Providence with my Red Jeep parallel parked outside. I can see a cute little Shar Pei puppy and a handsome boy greeting me as I walk in the door. Paying bills by doing catering jobs on the side, getting drinks at an outside bistro with friends, looking up recipes on my iPhone. I can see a Life.

And perhaps most importantly- I can see myself going down two potential career paths. I think I've realized that there are two that I could see myself being happy in- Publishing or Event Planning. Of course with my luck, I'll end up in neither, but let me go into detail.

Publishing has been a dream that started somewhere in journalism, tapered when I decided I wanted to be a shameless celebrity gossip columnist and then blossomed again when I became a writing major. Besides selfish aims of wanting to be a published author myself, I enjoy reading the work of my peers. And I can sift through pieces like a bloodhound on a trail I swear to you. So there's that. Then again, I have little patience for bad writing, so... there's that.

Event planning has a bit of a funnier back story. I've been catering and waitressing and all-things-food-ing since I was old enough to work. Easy money and free food. Bingo. But a strange thing happened to me last semester, during my Five Hundred Thirty Eighth hour of Dome-ing. I LIKE what I do. I like doing displays, picking out colors and planning events. And I'm actually kind of good at it. I never thought that I would want to make a career out of it, but there you go. And with my minor (major) addiction to all things Wedding and Home Design- we'll there's that.

So with all the answers, there comes more questions. And perhaps my answer to The Question is a bit more complicated than the necessary response, which usually involves "Time Shall Tell!" or "I'm WORK-ing on it. Ha-ha! Get it?" Maybe I'll just torture people by memorizing this entire entry and reciting it whenever I am asked- that'll teach these people with their questions.

P.S. Please only comment in English. Appreciated.