The Visa Diaries

Sometimes when I write about things I buy, I am painfully aware of how trite they are in the larger scheme of things. Especially when preparing to write about something like eyeliner.  I do realize, for example, that the plugging the cap on BP’s busted oil well on the gulf is a much bigger deal in every way. But then I remind myself that the small scheme counts too, and that it is generally what we feel most on a day to day basis. So, with that in mind, in the small scheme of things, I was extremely excited to find an amazing eye pencil!

Sephora eye liner

How it happened was this: I was sitting in Union Square one fine warm evening this week, enjoying a delicious fallafel salad bowl from the oh-so-fun and oh-so-Amsterdammy Maoz, when I got chased away by a trio of crack-ed out street folks. Perhaps “inspired to leave” is a better way to phrase it. However, I should really thank them, because I then felt inspired to go look in Sephora, which I had originally passed by with the very strange thought, “I don’t really need anything from Sephora right now.” However, my slightly raving street friends encouraged me to reconsider, and I realized “Well, don’t I *always* need something from Sephora?” So I passed through the stripey facade in search of what it was that I needed without knowing it.

It didn’t take long for the fog in my head to clear, and for me to realize – duh! – exactly what I needed: a new blue-green eyeliner. I have a peacock blue liquid liner from Mac that always gets rave reviews, but it is a bit much for every day. I also have a greenish blue pencil liner from NARS, but I am saddened to report that it doesn’t work very well. For one thing, it seems like the sharp woody bits of the pencil start sticking up and practically tearing my eyelids off almost the day after I sharpen it. And for another, it is a pretty hard, dry consistency, and I basically have to stretch my eyelids to my ear, and/or press super heard to get it to mark at all. Ouch! I feel like I get a new wrinkle every time I use it. Which I am surprised about, frankly, form NARS, who is generally my favorite cosmetics company.

Anyway, this time I was looking for cheap and cheerful. I wanted a quick, summery make-up fix, not the heavy-duty image investment that so much of make-up, and most certainly anything that could be called skincare or a ‘cosmaceutical’, requires these days. I headed back to the Sephora house brand section, where I have had good luck with the occassional party color before. There is was, a perfect green amidst the broken testers and smeared pigments. I bought it untested, and my gamble was rewarded. The color is perfect for everyday – a a gray-ish green that mellows into a amazonian smokey seduction. The best part, however, is the texture – creamy and effortless as it glides on, it is also waterproof, which means it sticks there a bit longer than average. Often I believe you get what you pay for, but some lucky times, you just get more. Between Sephora and the crackheads, the stars were in alignment.

Early on when Matt and I first started dating, apropos of very little, he announced to me that he had a great blender. He really emphatically wanted me to know what good quality his blender was, and went on about it at some length. This did not exactly make my knees go weak. “I’ve got a good blender, too” I said, referring to a cobalt-blue KitchenAid that had been my first grown-up home appliance purchase when I graduated from college. He looked at it, and was a bit dismissive, “Yeah, that looks ok. But I’ve got a really great blender.” I think the conversation must have ended about there, because I could not muster any more interest for the topic.

From that exchange until last weekend, I maintained the impression that my sweetie was a little weird and overzealous on the topic of blenders (actually kitchen stuff in general, but I can leave that for another post). It didn’t stop me from loving him or agreeing to marry him, but it did get filed away in that mental drawer where we all keep of secret judgements about the strange little quirks of others.

His error in strategy, I now realize, was announcing his blender asset in the middle of winter, when there wasn’t so much of interest to blend. Last weekend however, when he suggested that we could make frozen strawberry margaritas in his excellent blender, all of a sudden my attention for his appliance skyrocketed. “Frozen strawberry magaritas!!!” I thought, “I’ve never heard of such a genius idea!”

We went to the supermarket and got the ingredients: a big bag of frozen strawberries, a can of Limeaid, and a bottle of Jose Cuervo’s medecino. (We discovered while enjoying his elixir, that Jose Cuervo’s name in English would translate to “Joe Crow”… somehow not as flattering). That’s it: toss these things in the blender with some ice, and fire that baby up. This, then, is where the great blender becomes relevant. If you have one, such as Matt’s Hamilton Beach, after a few minutes all those icy ingredients will smooth out into one fine, slushy, slurpy, heavenly strawberry slurry. If your blender is not quite so great, well, after a few minutes you may have nothing more than some pathetically chipped frozen chunks and that unmistakable eau de motor burn-out. I’m sure you’ll agree that chunky, unblended summer drinks are just about as much of a buzz-kill as sunburn and sand in the bikini.

So that’s it – my purchase this week was summertime joy in a glass. All it took was three simple ingredients, and a guy with a great blender.

Back in March, I went to a beautiful, fancy spa with my mother. It is hard to imagine that anybody anywhere could have stuffed more loveliness and good feeling into one week than the folks at the Rancho La Puerta. The weather was sunny and dry; the grounds were fragrant and beautiful; the fitness classes were fun and toning. The morning walks were magical; the people were friendly; the spa treatments were decadent. And to top it all off, the food was simply amazing – fresh and beautiful and delicious. At every meal I wanted to oggle the gorgeousness of the vegetables and marvel over the succulence of the fruits almost as much as I wanted to eat them. And when I did eat the food, not only was it delicious, but with every bite I could feel its vitaminy-goodness entering into my cells and its phyto-wonder sweeping out my toxins. But there was something even more: it was as if all the essence of the food’s simple, organic life – short but well-lived, grounded in the earth, reaching for the sky, kissed by the sun and stars – was entering my soul. I somehow felt more *moral* with every bite that I ate.

Yes, the week at the spa was divine. And then it drew to a close. I found myself in the San Diego airport, a little peckish. The options, as I looked around at the vinyl airport chairs and the gray utility carpet, seemed to be old tortilla chips with fake orange cheese, and the plastic baggied, slightly soggy sandwiches they now peddle at Starbucks. I felt sad. And the thought of returning to my life in New York made me sad too. Of course good fresh food and produce exists in New York, but it didn’t exist so very consistently in my life. I used to go to Whole Paycheck pretty regularly, but then I changed jobs and no longer work or live near one. I could go to the Farmers’ Market at Prospect Park on Saturdays, it is true, but I never seem to make it. The fast food options near my work tend more toward street meat than biodynamic. As I mentally surveyed the state of my food life in New York City, I could feel my cells shriveling, the energy depleting, and the chemicals pooling. My color fell and my skin sagged thinking about it.

Never one to resign myself without a fight, I looked into my options first thing when I arrived back on the Right Coast. Being the bobo place that it is, CSAs are quite popular in Brooklyn, and at first I thought this was the thing to do. I came close to signing up for one, but then I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to go pick it up during the 6-10pm window on Thursdays when it has to be fetched, and thus would waste my bounty. In the end I settled on Urban Organic. Unlike a CSA, they are not tied to one farm. They buy a selections of things that are in season (all organic) put ‘em in a box and – here is the key – deliver it to you. I was sold.

I get a box every two weeks. It is usually waiting outside my door when I get home from work on Mondays, filled with a friendly crew of things like chard, cabbage, tangellos, potatoes, etc. Some are more exotic than others, some I like more than others, but all of them provide that vital nutrient I was craving: the goodness for body and soul of well raised food.

I wrote a while back about buying a carpet in a Souk in Marrakech. I haven’t been to Marrakech recently, and sadly no upcoming plans to go, but yet I need a new carpet. So I am trying carpet-buying American-style this time, which is quite a different process. No tea is involved. Nor such beautiful, unique carpets for such good prices. Nor the high-pressure, mind-messing sales tactics. Alas.

I need the carpet for my living room, and it has to go with a very specific color: my couch is a surprisingly difficult to replicate eggplant-y, gray-ish brown. Or perhaps its more purple-y, brown-ish gray. Or if I were J. Crew, I might call it something like “Polluted Midnight” or – I know – “Oilspill.”

Finding a color that compliments that couch, as well as the light gray floor, and my bright pink chairs, is the order. It also needs to be neutral – there’s a lot of other action in the space. And it must be cool. I’m over shag rugs, I think most modern carpets with designs are trying too hard, and then there is just a whole world of “classic” designs that really should be called “tacky” and not even allowed through Homeland Security.

I started out not thinking much of this carpet-buying task, but this turned out to be a serious underestimation. I have come to long for a local souk to ply me with tea and apply minor torture until I have purchased several carpets. I will spare you the painful details of all the websites searched and the samples ordered, but I will tell you what I now know: stores have plenty of browns, and grays, and a few aubergines, but they do not have brown-y, grayish purple.

I finally did find one with the right colors, but it was way too expensive – $1500. Really? For a girl who is just graduating from Ikea that’s a bit much. So I kept on looking. And kept on, and nothing showed up.

After a few years (ok, it couldn’t have been years, I realize, but it felt like it) I decided to bite the bullet and buy the expensive carpet. I didn’t tell Matt the pricetag, since he was dubious about the look of it anyway. I put it on my credit card and eagerly awaited to carpet that was so dear, yet so perfectly colored.

Finally it arrived. We unwrapped it, unrolled it, adjusted the placement just so, and stood back to survey it. And it was… ok. It was fine. Nice even. Just not the perfect wow I was hoping for. Eh.

What to do? I lived with it for a week or two. Matt actually liked it. A two-year old narrowly missed dousing with o.j. Then my credit card bill came. The $1500 extra dollars sat rather heavily on that bottom line. I took a gulp, wrapped it up, and trundled it back to UPS. Maybe one day it won’t have to be perfect for $1500, but today it does.

The old Ikea shag that was acting as a placeholder is back on duty. I was dispirited for a while, but now I am back on the horse. There is a carpet out there that will be just right, I have faith. I am considering felt. I will let you know how it goes.

Well hello again, wonderful wide web!
So, I know a few things in life, and one of them is that when somebody says they’ll do something, and then they don’t, its not a good thing. Like, for example, when I say I’m going to be back online with Visa Diaries (as I said almost a year ago) and then I don’t… well, you all go, “yeah, we’ll see.” And then my credibility is shot, and I have to really prove my intention in order to win you back. So yes, I know all that, and I also know that probably nobody is coming by here much anymore. But nevertheless, I am going to open the windows, dust off the cobwebs, put on a new lick of paint, and start having people over again. If not parties, because Visa Diaries never was a raging party type of place, well then salons, brunches, dinner parties, afternoon tea… Time and place to connect and think about the joy, sorrow, and perversity of a modern life in our modern world. All through shopping of course, because that’s how we do it.

Before we get down to business, I want to say a word about why I stopped VD, and why I am back, and to that end, the purchase of this post is: godaddy domain registry and economy web hosting! Between GoDaddy and WordPress, anybody can have a soapbox with almost universal reach virtually overnight. And each website owner gets to set up their little home on the network in whatever way feels like home. It is truly amazing.

GoDaddy and Wordpress

When I first bought this domain and set up my Wordpress blog on my very own Visadiaries.com URL, it was July of 2006, almost 4 years ago. I was living in London between the first and second years of doing my MFA at Yale. Visa Diaries was the online extension of my undergraduate thesis, in which I had logged and decoded 5 years worth of my credit card purchases, to understand the ‘fantasies’ that I was buying into whenever I plopped down the plastic for a new purchase. At that time, blogging was still kind of new, but gaining steam, and definitely a cool thing to be doing – maybe like Tweeting was a year ago. I was psyched to “have a blog,” and I think also psyched to have a platform in a way. Even though it was before Julie&Julia or this (even closer to home, though conceived completely independently) happened, I think I had an idea about being discovered through my blog… ok that’s an embarrassing thing to admit! However, I believe the lesson in that regard is that “being discovered” actually takes a lot of hard work, discipline, and putting yourself out there again and again, and I didn’t have the drive and focus for that. Poor Julie, as we saw in the movie, sacrificed her health and her marriage for her blog. Anyway, I had a lot going on personally and emotionally as I tried to keep it together in grad school, was confused about ending my relationship and life in London, and then moved to New York and trying to start a new life there. The Visa Diaries fell by the wayside.

Now the dust has settled a bit and the air in my head feels much clearer. I’ve been calling Brooklyn, which I love, home for almost 3 years; I have a good job doing graphic design for the City of New York; and, most excitingly, am engaged to be married this coming September to a truly wonderful man. And I’ve found myself missing the Visa Diaries quite a lot. As unlikely as it seemed, examining my purchases was a very profound road to self-discovery. Every time I wrote a post, a new insight would reveal itself to me, and it was incredibly satisfying. Plus, some people read it and seemd to like it, and that was really cool too. Even my dad read it, and that was super-cool . So those are the reasons I’m back – I believe both in living an examined life, and also in starting where you are, and somehow the things I buy turned out to be a very real entry point into making some meaning out of this crazy life. So, if anybody is out there, hello and thank you for reading, and I promise I will be back regularly.

here’s to peace, love, and a new day-
Kate

Well, hello again! how lovely to be back here. And thanks so much to Carter for giving another breath to the Visa Diaries. The Diaries have been on my mind, though not in my schedule, since moving back to Brooklyn and working to get settled in here. Yup – my last post was over a year ago.

And how things – especially consumption related things – have changed within that time. While there was definitely a chill in the air about the economy back then, now of course we are suffering from full-on pneumonia. I can’t help wondering if our consumption habits are making long-term changes, and what better place to publicly wonder about that than the old Visa D?

I  am so curious if this recession will have long term behavioral effects or not. While I am of course neither an economist or a future-teller, some people are beginning to talk as if there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Unemployment is still rising, but not as fast. Orders for raw-goods order are still shrinking, but not as much. Credit markets are beginning to work again. I guess the point is, at some point sooner or later, the pendulum will swing the other way.

And I wonder, will we have learned anything?

Will we have learned anything about consuming less and feeling more? About spending time with friends and loved ones instead of spending money? About not judging ourselves or others by the prestige of our job or the size of our paycheck, but by the courage and gusto with which we greet whatever comes our way? I guess what I am saying is, is there any chance that we will rediscover and remember the pleasure of simple, sustainable and sustaining values.

These bits of conventional wisdom go around all the time: money can’t buy happiness; slow down and smell the roses; be here now and appreciate what you have. When the siren of fast times and big bonuses is whaling loudly, it can be hard to test those adages out. But perhaps we are being given a gift a time to really check them out.

I don’t know. But I did buy something recently that made me hope the answer is yes: a head of cabbage. I brought it over, along with some zuccini and soy sause, to my friend Nicola’s house. She added some rice and sesame oil, and we cooked in into an amazing meal of fried rice. And we talked and laughed and had a grand old soul-satisfying time. Both leafy greens and good friends are that rare combination of making you feel good and being good for you. Total pricetag $18 (ok, there were some beers in there too).

A few months ago, a friend told me that if he heard the phrase “In this economy” one more time, he might explode. Little did we know, then, how many more times we’d get to hear it, and, frankly, how much more we’d care about hearing it. How we’d probably come to hang on the words of stories that began that way, and how we’d pray to move beyond it.

This is a story that begins “In this economy.” It’s a story about the joy that consumables can bring us, and the ability to find that joy for under $20. It’s a story about a showerhead that has changed my life, or at the very least, my mornings.

I live in San Francisco. I know I’ve mentioned that, but to me, San Francisco goes against the status quo. My default location tends to be the east coast, where life is both more coarse and more refined. Faster in the north where I tend to take quick trips to New York, slower in the south where I like to linger for weeks or months. Life on the east coast is not about a wholeness of the soul. Little time is spent talking about work/life balance, or balance of any sort, really. But life in San Francisco is somewhat obsessed with this. Companies compete to offer the most holistic view of life–which inevitably includes a LOT of work, but also a bit of a balancing act. At least, companies give the promise of this, and I’d argue it’s more prevalent in SF than back east.

And yet, people here still work too much. I work too much. I am constantly trying to balance my desire to press ahead in my career, working as hard as I can, with taking some time to relax and enjoy what’s around me. This has rarely been more startling than last night, when watching the Real Housewives of New York City. I only caught a few minutes of the episode, but as one couple departed Brooklyn for St. Barts, I realized I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I ever took a vacation as an adult. In fact, I have never taken an actual vacation, if you consider a vacation a trip where you go to spend time away from work that doesn’t include a family reunion or visiting friends. My trips are always, always, always to visit family or friends. This idea of taking time away from work and spending money on myself is just not something I engage in. I hope one day I will.

In the meantime, and “in this economy,” I’m trying to find pleasure in the small things. My consumer victories are fewer and farther between, and they also are less costly. But they are there… in the happy hour glass of wine or the deal on Kiehl’s shampoo at Marshall’s or the use of a frequent flyer flight on JetBlue. One of these recent purchases has made a bigger impact than the fleeting high of getting a good deal, it actually has changed my attitude about luxuries in my own home.

Last fall sometime, my showerhead began to squeal. Not all the time, but LOUDLY and without avail when you changed one of the pressure settings. Then, in early winter, it began to squeal all the time. I was fearful my neighbors might one morning break down my door, demanding that I turn off the water and with it, that bloody high-pitched scream. So onto my Christmas list went a consumable: new showerhead. My only wishes were that it be the handheld kind, be silver, and have multiple water spouts. I also hoped it would cost less than $40.

My parents found one at Bed Bath and Beyond for $60, got the online price in-store at $50, and used a 20% coupon. This brought us down to somewhere around my price point. I got the gift on Christmas morning, but saw the $60 price tag and was appalled. Even when they told me they’d spent less, I decided to keep looking to find something less expensive. It’s a showerhead, for goodness sake, and in my mind, utilitarian items should be cheap.

I kept looking, and eventually found the identical showerhead at Marshall’s for only $19.99. I was thrilled. I lamented the economy, the fact that goods were selling for next-to-nothing in January, but I scooped it up, installed it in my apartment in SF, and anxiously awaited a new-and-improved, non-squealing shower. Little did I know I would come to love it.

My first shower was an adjustment. I had to find the right water setting out of all 12 promised by the manufacturer. I discovered that there were truly only 6 settings, and that each of those individual spray-types had a low-to-high pressure scale, yielding at least 6 additional sensations. And in this selection process, I found a setting I’ve never had on a shower before. It is a fine, delicate mist, but with enough spouts to give even, adequate pressure. It is great. To me, it feels like standing in a rain forest, surrounded by lush green foliage with specks of bright blue sky coming in through the leaves.

This entirely new feeling means that I now look forward to my showers. They are points of luxury, of relaxation, of indulgence in my day. As my own private rain forest inside my SF concrete jungle, they are the counterpoint to my stresses. What’s even better is that these showers have opened my eyes to other indulgences at home that I have been missing. Like making time to sit on my rooftop and look out over the San Francisco Bay, or to do yoga in the evenings in my living room.

My point in telling you all of this, in light of “this economy,” is that reclaiming the luxuries right under our noses can be rewarding in lean and lush times alike. And so in light of balance, I’d like to offer a gentle nudge toward seeking your own (small) indulgences. Toward giving your day a bright spot to counter all those stories that begin  “In this economy…”

I am not usually on the bleeding edge of trends. An early adopter maybe, but there’s always a bunch of funky ‘kids’ in Williamsburg or Shoreditch or wherever doing anything before me. Which incidentally reminds me of a joke I heard recently about those Williamsburg hipsters:

Q: How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: You don’t know???

Ha!

Anyway, back to our story. In light of all this, I was completely thrilled when my friend Christy invited me to go see a hot up and coming band last thursday. Not only are hot and up and coming (and my resident hispter-at-work Noah had not even heard of them yet) but they are locals from my new home-sweet-some Brooklyn. For all those reasons I was disposed to like them, but then on top of all that, they have about the best band name I have heard in a long time: Yeasayer.

It may not sound like much, but I think the world is in need of a little saying yes these days. A little more ’sure, we can work that out’ and a little less ‘not my problem, mate.’ A little more of, “yes I care, yes I am engaged, yes I want to take action and make even a small difference.” “No, I am not too cool for school!” (see, that double negative there, is like a yes

Yes is more than a word, it is a very powerful attitude that influences how we are in the world. I recently spent 2 days at a corporate offsite for a client, which was perhaps a bit corporate for my taste, but was facilitated by some very cool improv actors who had all sorts of pearls of improv wisdom. One of the groud rules of improv, apparently, is to take everything done by other actors as ‘offerings’ and go, ‘yes, and…’ as opposed to ‘that’s stupid!’ or just ignoring it, which are called ‘blocks.’ We all know blockers, don’t we, and boy who wants to hang out with them? ‘Yes’ allows creative flow, ‘no’ cuts it right off. The more we say ‘yes’ to the offers already on the table in our lives, the more will come into our life in unpredicatable ways. Equally, the more we refuse offers, the safer and more predictable, along with stuck and boring, it becomes. They called accepting offers ‘allowing yourself to be changed by others’, which I also think the world could use a little more of these days.

There is also that famous story about how John Lennon and Yoko Ono met in a show of hers in a gallery in London. She had a piece that required visitors to climb a ladder to read something on the ceiling. It was a framed piece of paper that said, “Yes.” Lennon recalled later, “So it was positive. I felt relieved.”

In light of this positive spirit, I said “yes” to a lovely Yeasayer tee-shirt, which I am happily wearing as I write this. Oh, and the music was great too. Check it out at http://www.myspace.com/yeasayer

Oh dear. sigh. Has it really been so long? I know it must be bad when my father of all people says to me, “Kate, you’ve basically shut down visa diaries, haven’t you?” My father is not a man who is waiting for his latest dose of shopping gossip, so for him to notice – ouch.

Good thing Carter wrote just a little while ago, or else I would really only be hearing the lonely echo of my own tappity-taps on the keyboard. Good thing she wrote… except for the fact that she has just (and justly) shamed my more consumeristic and less socially conscious urges. How am I supposed to gloat about a new pair of shoes or sunglasses now that she has reduced them to nothing but a pile of toxic chemical inputs and permanent landfill outputs?? Ironically, I happen to be doing a project for a major cosmetics brand at work, and as a result have been buying all sorts of new make-up… not that I would tell you all about my peacock liquid eyeliner, or my new ‘deep throat’ blusher, because then I’d be shamed off the Internet – the shallow one who still bought lipgloss as the planet was burning…

Ok ok, I’m sure that’s a little extreme. I know that we are all making pained noises about the planet, while we semi-abashedly continue to buy take-out for every meal and forget to bring our eco-bags to Whole Foods. I am not the only one. But still, let’s have a think about less toxic lipgloss alternatives in the world of shopping and consumption. I mean honestly, there are a million and one ways to spend our money, and surely we can still shop and be decent global citizens at the same time.

Perhaps this is a good time to test out my theory that high design is good for the planet. Here’s why I think so: highly designed things are more expensive, so they create more wealth – more gdp, which is what the capitalists care about – with fewer natural resources. Plus, well designed and made products should also work better and be more pleasing to have around, so they generally raise satisfaction in using and owning them, and we will hang on to them longer. A truly classic design never goes out of style, and if for some reason it no longer fits into your home, it will be snapped up on eBay quicker than you can say “mid-century modern.”

For example, if I could afford it, I would buy this chair from Linge Roset:

I have seriously been coveting this chair for almost 10 years, since I first saw it in the swanky Istanbul house of some Eurotrash friends of mine. Since it costs, like, mega-bucks, a couple of years ago I bought a pair of knock-offs at Urban Outfitters. They have the same general shape, but are missing the extra excessive cotton padding and pillow-y down-y feel. Result: as soon as I can afford it, I will buy the Ligne Rosset original, and get rid of my knock-offs. Hopefully not just trash them, hopefully pass them along, but still. The point is that it would have just been better to buy the real, good object that I wanted to begin with, and then keep that forever.

So, how is my Post-Lipglossist theory shaping up? I admit that probably there is still some hard scholarship to be done, but basically I think Post-Lipglossism is just a fancy word for that age old wisdom: Two Zaras do not a Prada make…! er, um, I mean quality is better than quantity…

BY CARTER

Today’s top story on nytimes.com was accompanied by the subhead “A pullback in spending raises the possibility that the country may be experiencing a rare decline in personal consumption.” And in my mind, this is a good thing.

For the last six months of my life, I have been trying to consume less. Moving all of my items across the country via Amtrak, and paying by the pound, made me evaluate all the stuff I have accumulated over the years and what is really essential in my life. Additionally, I decided when I moved to San Francisco that I would attempt to buy more used items and fewer brand new pieces. This hasn’t prevented me from taking a million trips to Ikea and Target (I chose to buy new silverware, dishes, and glasses, along with other items), but it has meant that every piece of furniture in my apartment (save one) is recycled in one way or another. I have chairs and small cabinets and curtain panels I found on the street, an antique mahogany dining table that I purchased from craigslist for a mere $80, a Le Corbusier chair I snatched for $120, and a quirky set of knicks and knacks that I’ve gathered at thrift stores and yard sales and giveaways. When I have bought new items, I have attempted to buy pieces that are somewhat natural (like all-wool rugs from Ikea) and new make-up from bare Escentuals.

I’ve attempted to go more natural with my make-up and personal care products… things like soap and body oils and lotions and lip balms that I needed to restock when I arrived in California. After reading up on most of my personal products on the Skin Deep database, I made the decision to pay a premium for higher-quality, more health- and earth-friendly products; this also meant that I relinquished my habit of buying lip glosses every few months that I didn’t need, lotions just because I like them, or shampoos just because they smell good. Instead, I now buy natural soaps that do not contain sulfates or artificial fragrances, and I’ve weened myself off Carmex in favor of cocoa butter (Carmex actually causes lips to chap and flake since it contains salicylic acid… in effect, Carmex can be addictive, not to mention its harmful rating on the Skin Deep database).

And one fact compounded all of these decisions: a few weeks ago, I heard on NPR that nothing in modern landfills biodegrades. Nothing. Food from the 1950s has been found in landfills, along with millions of other items that “ought” to biodegrade. Since modern landfills have no air circulation, and since biodegrading requires oxygen, there is no way for anything to decompose. Which essentially means that anything we throw away, we are leaving for our children to deal with. I had never realized this was the case.

Knowing this has made me even more acutely aware of my purchases: I really don’t need a new lipgloss if it means I’ll be throwing out an old one, which surely is not recyclable. And do I really need another planter for my apartment, or a plastic bird feeder? Is it possible to buy items that are 100% recyclable rather than things that will break easily and won’t be able to be fixed?

As I have lived here a bit longer, and now that I have accumulated most everything I need for my apartment (which, mind you, is filled with stuff — I’m certainly no saint), I have little to no desire to go shopping. I am trying to purchase items that can be reused for other needs (I bought heavy whipping cream yesterday in a charming miniature glass milk bottle that I’ll reuse as a vase).

Spending time in traffic or crowds searching for snazzy items that I simply do not need is not a way to spend my weekends. I’d now rather try to have fun instead of trying to get ahead by spending money. Of course, this doesn’t eliminate the fact that I still can’t recycle my toxic toothpaste-tube (I just can’t yet make the switch to natural toothpaste) and that I buy salad in a plastic box instead of a loose bunch stored in my reusable grocery bags. It’s a slow road to take: the one where you evaluate what your life is made of and decide if you want it to be made of things. It has taken me a long, long time to distance myself from my belongings. Only now am I attempting to see the effect my consumption has on everyone around me, and only now am I attempting to fill my life with things that have no tangible form.

To be honest, it has been entirely more fulfilling than a new tube of lip gloss. The high is more subdued, but also a million times prolonged.