Objective: Prepare for a trip which will involve “camping” (at a music festival), rock-climbing and walking around a lot in a much warmer climate than I’m used to (the average temperature in late April in the Indio Valley is a high of ~90°F, low of about ~60°F).

Item 1: Comfortable walking shoes.
Method: Shopping.

My 6 year-old Sauconies just aren’t cutting it in the all-day comfort department anymore, but they are seriously the most comfortable just-kicking-around shoes I’ve ever owned. After much research into available color combinations in my size, the pictured sneakers were ordered and will be arriving on Tuesday. That color combination is called Bayou/Black.

Item 2: Single-person tent and lightweight sleeping bag.
Method: Excavation?

I am assured that someone in my family owns both of these already - but that they’re either in the basement or the attic. I have a week and a half to put on my miner’s helmet and gas mask and see what I can find… and if they cannot be found or are found to be in an unacceptable condition, I think I can borrow a tent from a friend at work, and might just have to pony up the ~$40 for a sleeping bag. Perhaps the Columbia Double Whammy Fleece Sleeping Bag and Pillow.

Item 3: TSA-approved luggage lock
Method: Damn, a trip to Target.

My big “trans-Atlantic” suitcase is equipped with a TSA-approved lock. But the suitcase I’m taking to California is not quite as fancy or huge or heavy, so I’ll have to buy a lock. I don’t want to find the contents of my suitcase strewn about the luggage carriage because they decided to randomly inspect MY suitcase and then just zipped it up halfway (it’s happened to more than a few people I know). Chances are that if there’s a lock, it will be second nature (while running through their robot-like procedures) to replace it after closing the suitcase.

There’s more (shorts! a hat!) but I’ll deal with those later.

Today is my brother’s 29th birthday. I’ve already welcomed him to Old. There will be family dinner tonight. There may be blood (or just verbal aggression). I should do some mental preparation - maybe even go running so I’m feeling relaxed before we embark upon the excitement of the evening.

While driving back from doing some shopping with my friend Theresa (Nordstrom’s and Sephora - a girl’s gotta treat herself sometimes. I behaved myself and got some Sephora brand eyeshadow as well as my free birthday gift since I am part of their “insider’s” club thingie) we were listening to the oldies station.

Radio these days plays nothing I want to hear, so I’m all about NPR, the oldies station and my iPod. With those three, I’m guaranteed to have something interesting to listen to ALL the time.

The song that was just beginning to play was Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” We both let out a sort of squeak which apparently meant (in our personal friend language) that we were going to be singing along, ‘Wayne’s World’ style.

And we did. Boy, did we. I know it’s nothing new, but it’s been quite a while since that was the hotness (if ever it really was) and we still know all the words - like, really. We were not approximating sounds. I was impressed with us - all girlie shopping and then all spazzy like that. These are the moments that make life worth living.

Now, I must away to bed. I have to be in the office early tomorrow morning and I need to go running before that, so the only way to accomplish that is to get up at least 45 minutes earlier than usual. It’s not going to be fun.

Then again, I’m going to have plenty of fun later this month when I go out to California for Coachella and spend some time “up north” in San Francisco. More on that later…

I fully intended to come home, go running and then go shopping for spring sandals. But it’s raining. My wrist hurts. I would much rather get into bed and read a book while listening to the rain hitting the roof and the windows.

I think I’ll still go running (treadmill, indoors, Law & Order) but this might be a night to sit home, go to sleep early, and hope that tomorrow is sunnier - not in terms of weather, necessarily, but in terms of mood.

These songs seem appropriate listening choices:

The Dixie Nightingales - All I Need is Some Sunshine in My Life

Beth Orton - Don’t Need a Reason

Caetano Veloso - Cucurrucucu Paloma

Enjoy the tunes.

I’ll get to that answer.

I’m very tired (have been up and on the move since 5:30 this morning - at least I got some cool free books out of it) and I think being tired and a little stressed (busy busy busy at work) is affecting me emotionally at last. It’s what happens. Stress can take down both your physical and emotional immune systems like nobody’s business. There’s other stuff, of course (there always is) but it’s all stuff I just have to work out in my own damn head and not release as a burden on others.

I did get some new climbing shoes today, so that’s exciting. I’ve been doing the rock-climbing thing for a bit over 6 months now — and while I’m not doing a stellar job (OK enough to experience progress), I have to bear in mind that a) I’ve never been athletic, b) I am missing 3 of my wrist bones in my left hand and it’s still 60-70% weaker than my right wrist and c) I’ve only been at this 6 months.

My original shoes were OK - I didn’t spend too much on them because I wasn’t sure how far I was going to get with this. Well, yesterday, two people at the gym suggested I might need new shoes just because it seemed that the rubber on my (now) old pair was worn down due to normal wear & tear and not quite as sticky as it should be. I started looking a few weeks ago, but wasn’t positive that I needed them. Two suggestions in one hour = convincing. So I went over to an outdoor/climbing store after work and picked some up.

Those are the shoes over there [points up & left]. Some of the style names they give these shoes - esp. when they’re specifically for women - are pretty ridiculous. These are called “Siren.” Yes, siren… as in luring sailors to their deaths with a creepily hypnotic song. Then there’s a style called “Hottie” and another called “Elektra” (so you’ve got the choice of an awful Jennifer Garner movie or Marvel comics female ninja assassin… or return to an original spelling of Electra and you’ve got a Greek myth that gave birth to a Freudian complex called the Electra complex… female version of the Oedipus complex, in a really general sense.)

It’ll be good to try those out next time I go to the gym. Let’s hope they make a difference and give me some more confidence in my climbing. Sometimes a small exterior change can make all the difference to a personal perception and defeat a mental hang-up. Not the placebo effect exactly… but related, I suppose.

I’m glad I didn’t purchase a laptop this year. Because now I will have an excuse to seriously consider the MacBook Air.

Of course, it’s been all over the interwebs. I’ve just been reading and looking and absorbing. I do like the Mac (though I use a PC mainly, I have ready access to a Mac and the fun that comes with it) and since a notebook computer might be a good thing to have (it’s come up a few times) this would allow me to have both. And at something like 3 pounds and less than an inch thick? Oh, yes, please.

Here’s a nice little Wired piece on it (about its unveiling at the Macworld expo).

Clearly, I won’t be able to buy it when it comes out - and that’s just fine. I’m sure they’ll be hard-to-near-impossible to get at first, and it’s usually a good idea to wait a while before buying a brand new Apple product (prices drop, bugs are worked out, etc.)

But when I do finally acquire it (maybe next summer or fall) I already know what kind of case I’ll be getting for it. I’m sure you’ve heard the gimmick from Steve Jobs’ presentation: he pulled an Air out of a manila envelope to show off the slimness and size of it. Some hipster designers have already taken that and run with it. They call it AirMail.

“handmade out of durable upholstery-grade vinyl, and lined with fuzzy, soft fleece, a manila envelope for your MacBook Air.”

I want this. I also want to buy it for two people I know. I like giving people books.

Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch

In this “unexpected delight,” filmmaker David Lynch describes his personal methods of capturing and working with ideas, and the immense creative benefits he has experienced from the practice of meditation.

Now in a beautiful paperback edition, David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish provides a rare window into the internationally acclaimed filmmaker’s methods as an artist, his personal working style, and the immense creative benefits he has experienced from the practice of meditation.

Catching the Big Fish comes as a revelation to the legion of fans who have longed to better understand Lynch’s personal vision. And it is equally compelling to those who wonder how they can nurture their own creativity.

I also like the cover. That font is gorgeous.

I don’t know why I let myself look at NOTCOT.

Almost every day, I find an object of desire or lust. Because, like many Americans, I lust after objects, a.k.a. material things. (What!? Why you lookin’ all cross-eyed?) Today, this made me wish I’d started a fund back in the day, say, with a share of Google stock, and had held onto it until now so I could pay off debts and just go shopping like the crazy girl I am.

Um, hi. A silver scissor cuff bracelet - it does actually open, providing a different look. Right now, it doesn’t look like it’s available yet; it’s part of a forthcoming collection from an Italian designer. But damn. And I bet it will be out of my price range. Sadness washes over me.

One thing I could afford would be this unnecessarily huge birthday candle. The site provides an image of the candle alongside a champagne flute and a layer cake to give you a sense of scale. Incredibly ridiculous.

And how about the Negativity Refuse Bag? The gimmick there is that it’s printed with instructions on how to rid yourself of negativity or inner demons. You place the offending items (say, things that remind you of an ex or a bad habit) into the bag and throw it away. Yes, you could do that with an ordinary trash bag, but this has more flair. I’d consider buying a few if I had any friends who were serial daters who got totally attached to people and then ended up burning everything associated with that person when it was over. It would be a nice companion to the “let’s watch a DVD and eat some ice cream” combo.

There’s also a ring that’s carved to the shape of your loved ones’ facial profile. Those start at $580 (I’m guessing that’s for the basic stainless steel ring, not the platinum). They say, “Take your loved one’s profile with you everywhere you go- who could want more?” That might not be the right way to spin it, but I get what they’re aiming for.

I’m going through the items I’ve marked in Google Reader (I subscribe to the NOTCOT.org RSS feed) and there’s just too much coolness. Too much. I am overwhelmed. I will now let that wash over me.

I actually enjoyed my holiday shopping this year.

It was all done online, without setting foot in a store, and I didn’t have a single stressful encounter in a mall parking lot or in line at a store. Amazon.com, the Criterion Collection website, Etsy, Netflix and few others deserve credit for helping with this endeavor.

I spent lots of time on Etsy, browsing through various hand-made, boutique-shop-like, cool things. Jewelry, clothing, art (prints, paintings and sculpture), wine racks, bags, wallets, truffles, and just all manner of interesting and creatively inspiring goodies. I found several items that fit the bill for a particular person I was shopping for - and I think that this person will love them. Or at least really enjoy them.

It’s not mass-produced crap. The recipient of such a gift is not going to run into 10 other people on the street wearing the same earrings/shirt, carrying the same bag/wallet, or owning the same print (unlike the millions of people who have Klimt’s “The Kiss” hanging somewhere).

Could I have spent far more money than I did?

Yea, verily, yea.

Could I have spent a ridiculous amount of money on myself?

Hells yes. But I refrained.

I strongly recommend taking a look at Etsy or Shana Logic when you have your next birthday/holiday/gift-purchasing occasion.

Now it’s time to start wrapping gifts. I really enjoy doing it but I get a *little* crazy there. Take one (1) type A perfectionist with a mild obsessive compulsive disorder and major clinical depression. Give her some neat square and rectangular objects t0 wrap, as well as some oddly shaped ones and see how she deals with the self-imposed burden of wrapping everything as perfectly as the square objects.

It’s almost as entertaining as watching me compulsively straighten silverware at a restaurant or diner so the pieces are parallel to one another and in the center of the napkin. Or as entertaining as my (charmingly?) strange desire to have even numbers of tracks on a mix CD - and for all the DVDs in their clamshell cases to be straight, titles reading along a straight horizontal line, not rotated. It plays into control issues… there are OCD moments of scrapping paper and starting over if the patterns in the design aren’t lining up with one another after being wrapped around the item, and if it’s not done just so… well, it really feels like the end of the world and means that I am a useless waste who can’t do anything right and will be forever shunned by everyone around her. Because the wrapping job wasn’t perfect.

I’m learning to let go and laugh at myself. Really.

So here’s the dilemma: I’m not a religious person, but the holiday season is pretty secularized at this point, so it has become a time to wish your friends and co-workers good things for the new year (and not related to the birthday of baby Jesus), as well as a time to drop a line to people you think about but don’t get to see very often (or at all) and let them know you still care (or make them feel guilty or make yourself feel like a better person in fractured cases).

It’s difficult to find cards that convey the care without much of the holiday message. You’re usually stuck with ridiculously gimmicky cards (like the Festivus card I found yesterday) or something so generic, it’s devoid of personality. I managed to find two cards that did the trick for me:

The first I found at Barnes and Noble; the second at Target. The second is a bit harder to read, but it simply says, “snow is glistening.” I dig the rounded corners.

Now all I have to do is draw up my list and see if I have addresses for the peeps on the list. This strikes me as a perfect Sunday afternoon project.

I’m a strong proponent of rewarding oneself for a job well done. Over the last four months, I’ve been working fervently to get into better shape and I have managed to shed a respectable amount of weight. As a matter of fact, it’s equivalent to, say, a three-year old child. Yes, I’ve essentially shed a toddler. I felt it was time to reward myself for this accomplishment in some way.

And by “some way”, I mean “with shoes.”

I made my first visit-with-intent-to-purchase to Zappos.com (since I’ve read amazing and miraculous things about their customer service for many moons on Consumerist.com), and narrowed down my search to black heels, 3″ high or less.

The shoes pictured here caught my eye; the shape, the curve of the heel (not visible here and the image on Zappos cannot be saved), the stitching and all the other details.

It’s got a certain modern sculpture sensibility to it - except it’s a shoe.

Then I saw the style name : Oolong from John Fluevog’s “Teapot” collection. There are also styles called Darjeeling and Sencha, among others. I am guessing the collection name is derived from the shape of the heel; it’s quite reminiscent of the spout of a traditional teapot. I’m a girl who loves her tea. Could it be fate?

Cheers to free overnight shipping from Zappos. The shoes arrived at work on Friday and I was placing them on my feet before lunchtime to see how they felt and looked. Office opinion was positive, and they’re quite comfortable. One commenter stated, “They’ve got just the right amount of toe cleavage!”

Another item I purchased (not as a reward, but because it’s officially and finally winter here in the metro New York area) was a long-sleeved t-shirt from Etsy. If you’re not familiar with Etsy, it touts itself as “your place to buy and sell all things handmade.” Essentially, it’s a shopping site where artsy-craftsy people who make their wares can sell them - and other people can buy them.

For the last two years, I’ve done at least some of my holiday shopping through Etsy because you can find things that are truly one of a kind - or at least made in a very limited quantity. It also feels sort of good to know that you’re supporting an independent artisan (an actual person who will email you back if you have a question and include a handwritten “thank you!” note or extra treat with your order) rather than a production line somewhere in Macau. I’m just saying… and now I’m getting off my soapbox.

So here’s my purchase - a green t-shirt silk-screened with an orange gingko leaf. I love the shape of the leaves. It’s also a striking color combination.

I wore it to work earlier this week (because it works with a black skirt and sensible shoes). It was nice to answer the, “Where did you get that shirt?” question with, “Oh - I ordered it on Etsy. The artist silkscreens them on demand.” Eyebrows arch and the inquirers say, “Wow. I didn’t know people did that. That’s very cool.”

Yeah it is.