My current online shopping life.

Today, the historian's son's wife texted me, saying

dreaming of shopping is my dream cardio.

Things I know for sure:

1. When I'm stressed out, I take things extra-personally. As you may or may not know, taking things personally is one of my signature moves. So, you know. Extra-personal, with extra extra-personal sauce, spiked liberally with extra-personal. And a shaving of extra-personal for a garnish.

2. When I'm taking things personally--extra-personally--I start and do not send about a billion emails. The aggression I thereby keep on the inside is epic.

3. When I'm feeling the epic aggression on the inside due to the started-but-not-sent emails, I buy things online.

To wit:

dagger earrings. as my colleague notes,
'taking stabby to a whole new level.'

What can I say: these earrings are not the end of the shopping, either.

But I am, in fact, taking things less personally as of this evening (it rises and falls, like the tides), and am feeling, thus, less pent up aggression on the inside. It probably has something to do with being home, and having worked out twice, and having walked the dog, and having eaten food at my own table, and being with the historian, and its almost being bedtime. These are just my hypotheses.

In fact, my aggression level on the inside is low. It barely registers on the Aggress-o-Meter. And I believe that wearing little knives dangling from my ears will be just the ticket. I can't wait. I also can't wait

• to turn in my damn portfolio
• to get caught up on my grading (when I'm dead)
• to clean up my study (after I'm caught up on my grading)
• to drive into the north tomorrow for fall break

Wait for it: an onslaught of scenery photos! and behind that camera, I will be so chill!

Lucky.

Recently, I have been on a quest for leopard print low heel ankle boots (none dare call them 'booties'). I can tell you, the people, that it's not necessarily true that you can find whatever you want on the internet, because sometimes what you want is only made at a price point that is prohibitive (but, just fyi, that phrase is alliterative because poetry) (another P!). And sometimes, what you want--or what you say you want to Google--turns out to be hideous in its current and therefore the only possible iterations.

yours is not to question why, yours is just to keep

looking for them until they manifest themselves in

the universe, at a price that is reasonable for a ridiculous

item such as this.

However: sometimes, if you are true to the quest, which means asking Google the question 'Where are they keeping all the leopard print Chelsea boots????' several times a week, sometimes you get what you want at the ZARA sale.

And then the ankle boots arrive in their spotted glory! Yet, and alas, they seem to have a powerful disinclination to go on your feet.

Universe, WHY? Maybe it's that you are feeling impatient. Maybe, because it's summer and you've been wearing flip flops round the clock, your feet are swollen. Maybe these shoes are not the actual answer to your quest.

But maybe, just maybe, if you set those shoes aside for a day or three, if you put them on in a more patient mood, they will slide right on, and be adorable and kind of sexy AND comfortable, given that you are wearing them with summer clothes and they kind of don't make sense. But still: SCORE.

Also, this:


I told my daughter tonight that I would like her to arrange for a song as compulsively awesome as 'Get Lucky' to be playing on the radio nonstop when we arrive in Scotland in two weeks. (!!!!!)

And this (shared with my by my daughter, retweeting Caitlin Moran's post). I find it very lucky to have been handed this via my daughter and also CM.

And THIS. (so lucky! that they got to meet each other!)

My Top Ten Black Friday Stories.

Just kidding. I only have one. Maybe two. But just one for today:

Black Friday Story Number ONE: "Deluded and Laughing in the Target Parking Lot."

Like so many Black Friday stories, this one begins on Thanksgiving morning, with the giant newspaper of doom. It was, like, fifteen years ago, which means that the giant newspaper of doom was even more giant and more doomier, because it was back before the Death of Print, and also the Death of a Hella Lotta Stores, because of the Economic Downturn of Doom. Anyway. I was reading the Target ad, and it had a giveaway. The first however many people at the store at 6 a.m. on Friday would win a chance to win a new car.

Aside number one: 6 a.m.! The next morning! Isn't that quaint? There will be whole nostalgic Christmas movies built around stuff like that in, like, the next five years, mark my words.

Aside number two: In case you weren't paying attention--win a chance to win a chance. Those are the operative words.

Revenons à nos moutons: Well, it so happened that I had great need of a car, a new car. And so, because it's one of my great strengths to plan for major purchases, I hatched a scheme: I would get up at the crack of dawn--even before the crack of dawn--and I would be one of those first people who would win a chance to win a chance!  And that would get me my new car, probably before Christmas. 

So I got up at the crack of dawn--even before the crack of dawn!--and hightailed it over to the Target on Fort Union. The historian was with me. There were also about a hundred thousand million people with me in the parking lot, waiting in their cars for the doors to open.

I laughed one of the great pure laughs of my own personal history of laughing. So that was good. And then we went to get breakfast.

I used to go out on the Friday after Thanksgiving with various of my kids and nieces and nephews to check stuff out and have breakfast and maybe see a movie. Today, I ate pumpkin pie for breakfast, chatted with both sons, read a couple dozen manuscripts (I'm screening for a competition), took a nap and a shower, and went to the movies with the historian. I highly recommend this as a template for all future Black Fridays. 

Fashion.

Awhile ago, I accepted an invitation to join Gilt.com from my friend Paisley. Gilt says this about itself:

Gilt Groupe provides instant insider access to today’s top designer labels, at up to 60% off retail.


Insider access! Today's top whatever! up to 60% flarf? I'm in, I tell you, is what I said to myself.

Since then, of course, there has been a proliferation of such sites, and I check a couple of them daily. That's right, daily, right when the sales kick in, which is, that's right, in the middle of my work day. I take a moment to pause at the shrine of, whatever, style, and then I move on. At first I bought a couple of things. Now I never. Almost never, anyway. But today, while perusing one of my sites, I found this label:

spiritual gangster

Now, I think this may be my true self/sign/icon/avatar? Because: I am a poet, and I have a thing about religion, yea, even the religion of my foremothers/fathers, and thus I am spiritual, maybe. And also, (b), I am tough and I am street, son, and I would totally flourish with that one badass ring.

But I ask you:

give love (in black)

is this gangster?

For that matter, is it spiritual? (or style, even?)

about spiritual gangster

I think I don't know what gangster means. Or for that matter spiritual.

The story of crab.

There are a lot of things to write about, not least of which is the birth of a brand new baby granddaughter. I hope to have more to say about this soon, but let us just say this, right off the bat: so very happy for the historian's son and his lovely wife, and for the darling little girl.

But for tonight, I am going to tell you the story of how I happened to have two enormous Dungeness crabs in my refrigerator.

Me, in Whole Foods, both blithe and smug, having put in my cart everything I would need for my portion of the Thanksgiving day feast . . . AND MORE . . .

Guy behind the fish counter: You look like a person who loves Dungeness crab.

Me: [thinking to myself: I do love Dungeness crab!] (aloud:) I do love Dungeness crab!

Guy behind the fish counter: Well, then come over here and have a taste.

Me: [thinking to myself: a taste! just a taste!] (aloud:) Thanks!

That crab happened to be some of the most delicious crab I have ever eaten. [Note to self: the word crab starts to sound kind of funny when you say it a whole bunch of times in a row. See if you can come up with a synonym.]

Guy behind the fish counter: . . . And it's a really good deal. You buy one of these, it's a nice meal for a person.

Me: [thinking to myself: that is a good deal!] (aloud:) That is a good deal. How many of them would make about 2 pounds?

Guy behind the fish counter: About two of them.

Me: well . . . crabs [crustaceans?] kind of scare me.

Guy behind the fish counter: Totally understandable. I can clean them for you.

Me: [to myself: did he just sing the words "I can clean them for you"?] (aloud:) Really?

Guy behind the counter: Yes! (shiny and melodic)

And that, my people, is how I ended up with 2 crabs, cleaned, wrapped in fish paper, in my refrigerator. And also how I ended up thinking, I have two crabs in my refrigerator, cleaned, yes, wrapped in fish paper, yes. And yet I am the only crab eater at my house.

Recent bargains.

TAGS: conscience, desire

Things I have put back recently.

I carried the below-listed items around various stores, but instead of buying, I returned them to their proper retail locations for someone else to buy:

1. bandanna printed shirt
2. yellow purse
3. gray suede shoes
4. navy blue dress
5. the new Beck recording
6. more organic cotton pillowcases
7. super expensive charcoal gray modal scarf from Italy
8. gray knit skirt, then a geranium knit skirt, then a black knit skirt

I did, however, download a whole bunch of Gillian Welch today. And got a haircut.

Retail Love

My shopping m.o.: enter Retail Establishment X with stealth. I am a stealth shopper. If it is a familiar venue (Target, Gap, Banana R., Old Navy, any of my favorite thrift and/or consignment stops), I surf it, seeing what highlights gleam among the goods.

Sometimes I pick something up immediately and carry it around for the duration of the visit. Yesterday: green linen skirt with frayed hem; grey men's teeshirt; beaded flipflops; baby-blue espadrilles.

This is the only time that I ever use the math that I so assiduously "learned" when I was in high school--it's like in A Beautiful Mind, when all that math scrolls by, or like in The Matrix--calculating how much money I have in hand, what I can afford, whether really, really wanting something overrules the "what I can afford" consideration.

I pick up and put down various items. Sometimes, an object's loveliness declines while it's in my arms; sometimes it swells. In the end, ninety percent of the time, I put most or even all of what I've carried around back on the racks (where they came from--I clean up after myself--).

Yesterday's net result: beaded flipflops. That I really, really wanted and I really, really love.