On the Importance of Maintenance Shopping

Two weeks ago, I had the delightful opportunity to meet my good friend Frenchie in the big city to do what we do best: gab, eat, and shop. It's something that we try to do once a year, and this time it was enabled by my wonderful, miraculous leave. Generally, we have to wait until the summer when both of us are available, but this time, we were able to go on her spring break.

As we tooled around the city, I found myself in the clearance section at Ann Taylor (hey, it happens). I tried on a bunch of stuff, from the feathered to the spangled, but found myself at the register with three items: a black cowlneck sweater, a black cardigan, and a black tweed skirt (a departure, actually, given that it's got pockets and pleats). Not exactly my most fashion-foward moment. As I waited in line, I defaulted to the rationalization of "maintenance shopping."

What exactly is maintenance shopping, you ask? Strangely, I'd never articulated it that way to myself before, but it's the utterly necessary task of buying and/or replacing the must-have items in your closet that you go to again and again. Black cardigans aren't exactly exciting, but when the one that you have is little but a collection of fabric pills and mended holes, it's time to do some maintenance shopping. I should note as well that it's easy to let maintenance shopping become a rut---and you'll know when you're there when you get home, stow your new purchase next to its brethren in your closet, and then when you go to wear it, you can't tell it apart from the others---but it's not a task to be neglected. It's not exciting, but it's necessary.

An academic leave does not engender maintenance shopping (at least not for me). This is the time when I realize how shallow other parts of my wardrobe are, in fact. I'm now wearing jeans that have been idling at the bottom of the stack for years, I keep running out of clean t-shirts, and my sweat pants are on permanent rotation. My array of professional clothes are hanging in a deserted end of my closet, all lined up with nowhere to go (and I'm just hoping that some of them will fit when I have to put them on again). Given that my sartorial experience for the next 4 months will involve the same t-shirts and sweatpants, maintenance shopping was pretty far down on my list of necessary expenses. However, Frenchie's visit goaded me a bit. "If nothing else," I figured, "it will be less I'll have to find and pay for come fall."

The bigger lesson here, however, is that maintenance shopping is important for exactly the reason that fashion experts tell us to always have one LBD in our closets----you never quite know when you're going to need it, and when you do, you can't guarantee that you'll have time to go and find something. Case in point, when a semi-random employer that you never really expected to hear from calls you and asks you to come for an "informal lunch" the next day. 24 hours notice is barely enough time for me to check in with every person who's ever given me advice about this kind of thing, let alone to go through my closet to see what fits and isn't stained. Thank you, maintenance shopping, for ensuring that I at least looked cute on short notice. [I just mis-typed that as "shirt notice" which would be a far better title for this post...]

Maximize Inefficiency

I was sitting on the couch yesterday, reading an article, and I had to pee. And my first thought was: "If you wait until you're hungry, then you can use the bathroom on your way to the kitchen to make lunch." This has got to stop.

I don't know at what point I fell into this Fordist mind-set, but it suddenly strikes me that it's a logic that rules my life. I have to get a pair of pants hemmed, but the tailor is by the Target, which is by the grocery store, and the post office is on the way---I should just save up all of my errands and run them at the same time. Don't waste a trip! There are weeds in the yard, and there are maples that need to be dug out, and while I'm out there I should put down mulch and put weed killer on the ivy---do it all at once, don't waste the motion! In this essay, I need to talk about the historical background, and then I need to find a couple of quotes from a document in the basement, and then I need to consider what my colleagues have said---I'd better figure it out before I start to write, I wouldn't want to waste a word!

What I'm realizing, of course, is that this kind of thinking is detrimental in two ways. First, the procrastination researchers would say, I'm setting myself up to fail. If every task is huge and seemingly insurmountable, then I can't ever start. By saving everything up to do in one fell swoop, I'm making every molehill into a mountain. Second, the effect is one of two things: either I do nothing, because I can't stand the idea of beginning such a huge set of tasks, or, when I do work up the wherewithal to dig into a project, I'm exhausted and spent by the time it's done, and then I never want to begin again.

If I had to guess, I'd venture that all of this is conditioned by some wonky idea about "efficiency," in which I think it is, literally, "a waste" of time, energy, gas, an extra step, if I were to not do everything all at once. As if I'd like to be some sort of cold fusion automaton who never runs out of energy because its system is so perfect as to conserve fuel all the time. Instead, what I should be trying to do is burn fuel like it's going out of style (which, eco-apocalyptics, it is, n'est pas?). I think I want to expend as much time and energy and thought as possible and see what happens. I know what efficiency looks like, and it bears a striking resemblance to paralysis and apathy. Let's try exuberant waste for a change and see what happens.

What's the worst that can happen? Maybe I pee before lunch?

Jinx!

As I left my office yesterday afternoon, I said the fateful sentence: "The internet has ended my scholarly activity." Well, sure, because if you surf the web for two hours, it doesn't leave you a whole lot of time to work on your article, now does it?

So, the Fates must have been listening, because as I sat down to work today, the modem died. A quick call to a humorless 'net provider yielded the "emergency visit" of a technician to decide whether the modem or the signal are at fault. The protocol for the emergency visit is this: sit by the phone and wait. They'll come today, but we can't give you a time. Not even a window. They'll call 15 minutes before they come, but if you don't answer, they'll take you off the list.

In the meantime, of course, it's come back on, but since I had this exact same problem last week, I'm gonna let them come. Will it cut out again? Who knows!! All I know is that half of my sources are online, so writing without internet access should be approximately four times as frustrating as it usually is!

In the never-ending saga of the painters and their music, did you know that Depeche Mode has made it onto the soft rock channel? Be still my 80's lovin' heart! I'm drowning it out with The Goldberg Variations, which is weird in two ways:
1) It's kinda pretentious, don't you think? "Oh yes, I've been listening to Bach to drown out the simply dreadful clamor of the workmen's music! Heaven forfend!"
2) It's ironic, as it's essentially a tool to enable my progress on a work about the poppiest of pop culture topics.

There should be 32 of me.

Combustion upon Re-entry

Thank you, Daylight Saving Time, for making my last, crowded, too-much-to-do, too-little-time day an hour shorter. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

That tone, above? Dripping with sarcasm? That's me all over. I can't imagine why three days in a major metropolitan city, in a swanky hotel, eating cupcakes in the village, far far away from all of my pressing tasks and the psychological clusterfuck that is on the horizon would conspire to make the return home and back to the realities of work such a difficult event. Nope! Just can't figure out why!!

It was lovely to be away, it really and truly was. Even walking 80 city blocks a day was fun, although before I do it again, I really have to figure out a shoe solution. Here I thought clogs were totally going to do it, but not really. What do cool kids wear to walk?

What I realized yesterday, however, was that I was saving up all of these grunt tasks---massive amounts of grading, writing up a major end-of-semester assignment, a few recommendation letters, a few lingering program admin things, my contribution to a grant proposal, doctor's appointments----for break. In addition, while I was working on the dreaded article, I put off all of these tasks as well. So here we are! At the end of break! And my list is long and arduous! Suck!

I can't remember the last time I felt this despondent at the end of a break. Forget rest and renewal. I just want to crawl in bed and sleep. With a few cupcakes.