LITTLE VICTORIES OF CONSUMERISM

So I trust that not only you crazy Americans (of which, for the convenient purposes of this sentence, I shall not count myself as a member) who have spent the last couple of days in a tryptophan induced turkey-slumber, drooling cranberry onto your sweaters while watching the Detroit Lions get their silver-clad carcasses handed to them on a platter, so not only you all, but everyone else who happens not to celebrate Thanksgiving (or as we anarcho-atheo-liberal-tarian protest-puppet weird-sex-crazed weekly-showering grass-huggers call it, the Annual Feast of the Great North American Occupation) this week, might have heard of another annual event that isn’t as popular or (in most places) nearly as cool an idea.

Today was Buy Nothing Day. The first customary day of the Christmas shopping season has, for the last 11 years (that’s all? It feels like it’s been more), been an attempt to get people to think about how much they consume. What did you buy today? Anything? Was it important, what you paid for? Did you need it? Could you have actually gone through the whole day without buying anything? Did you?

For the first time in years, I actually did buy nothing today, though I can’t call it a triumph of anticonsumerism or anything. I spent the day in the house eating leftover turkey, reading the new Jim Munroe novel that my friend Kim got for me (signed! Ah, it's nice to be remembered by celebrities! I'll try to remember that lesson myself. It might come up, you know.) and playing on this new laptop computer I bought last week and which arrived two days ago.

So yes, I bought nothing today. But I wouldn't call it a personal triumph over consumerism. But I'm thinking about what I have, how I got it, how badly I need it, and what my possessions are worth to me and to who I am and what I love.

And that would be keeping-this-crap-in-mind thinking, not arriving-at-conclusions thinking.

I am the Method Man.

BETTER LIVING THROUGH MAIL ORDER

So, slowly, very slowly, excruciatingly slowly, glacially, I am moving back into the cool stuff I used to do, and today two things happened one after the other which were as good a place to start as any.

First, I got my first ever shipment from cafepress: my own personalized Metafilter t-shirt, which looks lovely (and not just because I have a relatively low ID number neither, but actually cos it's real classy and stuff - I can't wait to show it off at the next meetup or whenever I finally get my sorry carcass out the door).

The second thing I got today is an actual laptop. I'm still setting it up, but at least now I can actually answer emails from work, and update this space a little more often (coming home after rehearsal and trying to put something coherent and not totally self-pitying down for y'all was a losing battle there these last few months, and now all the wasted time I used to spend actually doing my job can go to something a little more, um, meaningful.)

Learning to type on this thing is a little odd (and Win XP will take some getting used to), but all that overtime I've worked these last few months is what paid for this, and I'm kind of excited.

Back to my usual ranting over the course of this long weekend, as world events start to re-encroach upon my ostriched head, the novel begins once again to vex and perplex (though it's been going quite well, actually, thank you), and everything falls apart and comes back together.

It's good to be back.