Filthy Commerce

And you may find yourself/walking in a Toys'R'Us/And you may ask yourself/'How did I get here?'

I gave birth to someone who can only sleep if she's being held by someone, so grabbing time on the computer has required both extraordinary coordination and rigorous prioritizing. Hence the long, long, long time between updates. Life happens.

So here is one of the first crazy-making things I have learned in my mere seven weeks of parenthood: There is very little point in going to Babies'R'Us before you have the child because you're not going to know what you need or what works until after that little bundle of joy is here*.

Those people who yammer on about how they let their kid sleep in a dresser drawer and had only one blanket and five diapers and they managed fine? Sure, they're annoying. But they're also closer to right than one might like to admit.

Opening the door to collections

Not a week after I read Mirian N. Kotzin's essays on the perils and satisfactions of collecting, "Stuff" (The Smart Set, Jul 21, 10), Gael at Pop Culture Junk Mail alerted me to the site Crap at my Parents' House. The site is both funny and an excellent tool for anyone who needs clutter aversion therapy.

In that same week, the NYT styles section delivered with the delightful "Shoppers On a 'Diet' Tame the Urge to Buy" (Jul 21, 10). The article highlights the Six Items or Less experiment, wherein participants picked six items of clothing and mixed-and-matched them for a month. To the casual observer, lessons from this experiment are: When privileged people adopt tiny wardrobes, it's an experiment; Try not to do too many different activities within that month because it's tough to wear the same outfit to a charity gala and that class-V rapids rafting trip; if you have a rockin' body and the ability to accessorize, you're going to look great no matter what you put on; maybe we privileged professionals really do have too many clothes.

My initial response to this article was a dismissive snort: "Pikers. Try being seven months pregnant with an aversion to maternity wear."