I hate shopping.....

I've always thought that shopping must be easier, and therefore more enjoyable(on pretty much every level), when you are slim.

I've changed my mind.

I am, of course, nothing resembling slim at the moment, but this is irrelevant. I have done some looking into my past and I have realized that even when I was slim, I hated shopping. I walk into a retail clothing establishment and every ounce of joy and energy drains from my body. Within 15 minutes, my head feels like it wants to float to the ceiling or sink down through my spinal cord. My eyes feel like they're about 3 sizes too big for their sockets and that said sockets are lined with sand. If I didn't know it wasn't possible, I'd swear I was allergic to shopping. I should make clear that this reaction is largely engendered by shopping for clothing. I can spend an entire day in Borders, Barnes and Noble, Hastings, even Office Depot and I'm just great. Maybe if clothes came with a back pocket blurb (like on a book jacket) that let me know wether I would enjoy this item of clothing, it'd be a little less pressure-filled. But no. I have to go remove my clothes so many times my hair looks like the perpetual victim of an electrical storm, while I try to squeeze my uncooperative body with it's lumps of varying sizes and shapes into clothing that makes few allowances for said lumps.


And another thing..........


Do market analysts never figure out that flourescent lighting is perhaps the most depression-inducing lighting on the face of the planet today? Forget Prozac and all those other drugs. BAN FLOURESCENT LIGHTING! Do you know anyone who looks good in it's glare? You could put the most beautiful person on the planet under those lights(that being subjective, I'll let you fill in the blank for who you think that should be) and they would still look sallow-skinned and ill. Then you add to that fact that the harsh lighting is way overhead. Anyone who's taken any art classes knows what kind of hideously unflattering shadows that casts. Even if you have but the tiniest pooch of a belly, overhead lighting will maximize it. Shadows under your eyes? Worse! Bags under your eyes? Tripled in size! The shadow cast by multiple chins could cause a solar eclipse. It's just not right. I want new clothes because I already feel awful in my old ones. If you want me to frequent your establishment, make sure I feel good being there! Make sure the music playing doesn't sound like it comes from a video game, that the lighting at least makes an attempt to be kind, and that the prices don't make me want to swallow my tongue.

That's all I'm saying.

Well, here I am. Dragged into the new millenium by my sister who is, as ever, the queen of all things Cool and Cutting Edge. Of course, that's pretty much how I progress in all matters technical. Someone has to drag me into the present. I mean, I just barely bought my first cell phone, and even now I'm not really sure I want it. I keep it off most of the time anyway, so why have it?! Oh, I know, I know. It's for "emergencies". I just never want to reach a day when my definition of an emergency changes just because I have the ability to communicate it to another person.

But that aside, I'm a little leery of this whole blogging thing. I have no problem talking. None. It's the talking even when I've run out of anything to say. It's the question of whether or not anyone else will actually be interested in what I have to say. Every writer's greatest fear; that I will pour out my soul and hear only the applause of the crickets. But here goes anyway. Who knows? Maybe the cricket market is vastly under-represented, and I'll find my niche there.