I am frequently torn between my desire for stuff – art, throw blankets, cushions, air fryers – and my desire to buy less stuff. These two desires cannot co-exist, I know, and looking around my overstuffed house, it is clear which one is winning, but it’s a catch-22 I am very much aware of.
I have always been an advertiser’s dream, quickly buying into the notion that x purchase will improve my life; y purchase will give me the best sleep of my life; z lip balm will truly prevent my ever having a chapped lip, ever again.
And so I buy the things – the latest, the Beautiful by Drew Barrymore air fryer I saw @rawbeautykristi saying had changed her life – and then, when they are hulking, looming, taking up precious space on my kitchen counter I think, maybe I didn’t need that.
But, of course, it’s too late now.
Monday
Salman Rushdie has been stabbed. At a speaking engagement in New York city, a man goes on stage and stabs Rushdie in the stomach, the neck and, most horrifyingly, in the eye.
I am really shaken by the news, although I’m not sure why. That Rushdie and I are both writers could not even be described as us having something in common; we could not be more different. And yet. The world is becoming something I don’t recognise.
Like so many news events, this is one that plunges me into a feeling of helplessness. What can any of us do?! The answer is, surely, nothing. But I need to do something so I buy The Satanic Verses, which I’ve never read, in the hopes that maybe Rushdie will see a spike in sales and realise that the world is behind him. That we are rooting for him. That we are sorry this happened.
I do buy it on Amazon, which perhaps dilutes my good intentions somewhat. ($7.40)
While I’m on my computer doing my good deed for the day (I say that with a touch of irony, I swear), I get an email about selecting my photographs for this month’s Mootsh subscription. I pick out 10 photographs I loved from the last few weeks and put in my order for them to be printed and delivered. ($17.12)
Atlas is back to taking glorious three-hour naps – at least, most of the time – in the morning so I actually get quite a bit done today, not just work but also laundry and tidying up and organising the kitchen a bit – and then, when he wakes up, it’s time to go and pick up Bea’s boys from school. Her eldest has a dentist appointment, so his Dad is taking him to that and I’ve said I’ll pick the other two up from school at 3pm.
I decide to take them for ice-cream at Zesto on the way home – I order a “medium” vanilla cone and I swear to God it is bigger than my head. My Nooming is not going great, I’ll tell you for nothing. ($11.53)
When we get back to the house, Nash bounds over to the car to tell us that they got McDonald’s after the dentist. “Well we got Zesto’s!” says Beau, delightedly. Nash’s face falls. “What?! I was only joking!” he says. Karmic retribution.
I go in for a quick cup of tea and a hi, then head back home with babser, who’s just about ready for his next sleep.
When Brandin gets home with the boys, we decide to order takeout for dinner. Babser is a big fan of chicken tikka masala, let me tell you. Although I have started to wonder, if it has such a dire effect on my stomach, what is it doing to his?! ($60.34)
Daily total: $96.39
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