"I'll have a little from Column A and a little from Column B, please."

Short, cryptic, and marginally observational snippets from life in the past week:

The incantation remains the same:

Memory, leave me something - I lose so much on a daily basis; give me this, on days when I was happy, for the days that will inevitably come when I am not, so that I may remember the taste of these moments that, inevitably, go…
— 'Rockies on my right,' 10 October 2004

So, for those of you who read the first installment and then wandered off to do healthy things like, oh, I don't know, living your lives or getting stinking drunk on New Year's…the short and sweet version is that I discovered the cult of Nordstrom.

I said I wouldn't become my mother, and that you would never find a rack of shoes in my closet and another set underneath my bed and another set of lesser-used shoes underneath the guest bed. I still say that. I think it's true; knowing a potential pitfall exists can sometimes help you avoid it.However, I skirted one pitfall only to discover another: the cult of Nordstrom. I get it, oh, I get it.

It was the damn makeup, see.

Back in September 2003, I wrote about my unexpected discovery of the goodness of Birkenstock, otherwise known as shoes that actually fit (the entry 'hippie sandal-wearing freaks'). Since then, my momentary $50 splurge on off-white Birks has proven to be one of the wisest $50 expenditures in my adult life. I knew I had unusual feet, but I figured I just wasn't trying hard enough to find shoes that worked for me.

It really wasn't planned. Honest. Except that I'd been dozing on the couch, and then I snapped awake with the horrid realization that I was planning on three weeks' worth of out-of-state trips in the not-too-distant future, and that one pair of sneakers, one pair of jeans, and two pair of shorts just weren't going to cut it.

Clothing. Needed. Now.