Skip to main content

Withdrawal Symptoms

I haven't been to the thrift stores in a while. I reached a saturation point, perhaps, with the pilled sweaters and the dull black shirts and tangled piles of crap. Some of that stuff didn't deserve a first chance--it was bought carelessly, thoughtlessly, and chucked out with as much care and thought--ugly dresses, grotesque knickknacks, vapid wooden signs that say "Love isn't the destination, it's what makes the journey worthwhile." I'm suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff that people cast off; the mass of things that they simply couldn't stand to have around another minute.









I don't miss it, particularly. Once the habit of it all wanes, I'm kind of the out-of-sight-out-of-mind school of thought when it comes to missing things. But remind me of something and all the missing comes right back
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Lost Designer of the 80's

Claude Barthelemy seems to have been one of those if-you-needed-to-ask-you-didn't-need-to-know designers. In the '80's, he was listed as a young, hot couturier alongside go-the-distance blue chips like Karl Lagerfeld and Lanvin with his oversized sweaters, minis, leggings and fur-trimmed stoles. Exclusive stores carried his soft-edged jackets to shoppers in the know. And then what happened? His pleated skirts, intarsia sweaters, and naughty, zippered wool catsuits still fetch high prices in vintage world and any dealer with his elegantly simple, Gallic tag on her racks raises a flutter in second-hand seekers. He designed for Barbie, for heaven's sake! But the designer himself, who seems to have cut a meteoric swath across the runways and then...? So what's the story with this wasp-waisted pleated skirt? I wondered what else this woman could have dropped off on her Goodwill drive-by--a Chanel original? A couture Pucci? Surely someone this linked in wouldn't just ...
2 comments
Read more

Change Your Tone!!

I know I have a "unique voice." But I can count on one hand how many people I know who can stand listening to their own voice. (That is not saying there aren't those guys who seem to love talking just to hear the sound of their own voice; but if you literally  played it back to them --they'd cringe and crawl under the sofa.) When I was in the 3rd grade, I was chosen to be in some experimental speech/voice therapy at our school. They tried for many weeks to raise the pitch of my voice by having me go up and down the do-re-mi scales until I hit one that they thought sounded pleasing. I had a deep, true contralto voice somewhere a few notes below "do." With the sort of rasping, old-chain-smoker undertones of a freckled Billie Holiday. The experimenters settled on "fa." For 20 minutes three times a week, I got to leave Ms. Foster's third grade classroom and go to the convent living room where I would sing "do-re-mi-fa" and say ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stop Telling Me I Must Simplify My Life Now

People love to talk about simplifying their lives. All those adorable tiny houses and the dream of whimsical, simple living! Everyone wants to be Henry David Thoreau or a Shaker or something. Well, without the whole celibacy and religious fervor thing. And with central heating and A/C, maybe. And my headphones. So more like Thoreau, maybe, because I definitely couldn't do that whole single-sex dormitory arrangement. Also, I like to spend Sunday mornings doing brunch with friends, so that whole church thingy? No, that won't work for me. Also--if someone else would do the laundry that'd be great. But the baskets? So gorgeous and simple!! I'd love to learn how to make stuff like that someday. Not now, of course. And I'll definitely need a yard for a dog. Gated community maybe so I can lock up my simple life and travel. Learn about how simply the people live in Vietnam and Japan. We can learn so much from other countries. How they make do without washing machines ...
Post a Comment
Read more