
I was so good today!
I went and paid my credit card bill. Really irritated with the clerk who took my payment, because she was giving a really hard sell on getting a store card to the woman in front of me in line, and the woman had to say no about ten times. I'm going to call the manager without spilling the clerk's name, and just tell them that their employees are doing an offensively hard sell on the whole credit card thing. Interest for the company's own bank is why they want people to get the store card.
Walked out into the mall for just a minute and went to the big rubber stamp store, and managed to get out without buying anything. Frustrated at their lack of AceyDeucy stamps. I have two and would really like to have more. It's OK that they didn't have any that I liked, because I can't afford them right now anyway.
After that, I went to the bookstore, returned two books I didn't want to finish, and went around the store looking for new stuff. Also got a drink and some cheesecake.
The returned books were All Families are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland and The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars by Steven Brust - which might have been good, but it irritated me a lot because Brust clearly didn't know visual art techniques from a hole in the ground when he wrote it and didn't expect his readership to know anything either - there are only so many errors like "conti crayons" that I can take. Dude, it's Conté crayons. it's a brand name of pastel. The name is ON THE PACKAGE in GIANT RED LETTERS. seriously. In exchange, I picked up a fantasy novel (erm... nervous! nervous!) called The Ill-Made Mute, Fraud by David Rakoff (which looks great), and a new hip-ish home decor magazine called Living Room, which is from Better Homes & Gardens and is kind of weird. It's sort of like a cross between nest and marie-claire or maybe even allure. But it looks interesting and is bright and poppy, and has information about some decorating ideas that I like, sooooo. Because I loved Cynthia Rowley & Ilene Rosenzweig's book Swell a few years ago, I wanted to get Home Swell Home, which just came out, but it was $24, so I decided to wait. The grand total was -$4! I actually got money back (I had to exchange my books rather than getting the total amount back, because of how long it had been, but they put the change back on my card).
So all the money I spent at the bookstore was on my mocha and cheesecake, and then I went over to a sandwich shop and got a sandwich and a bowl of soup for dinner. And I was fiscally responsible and made a credit card payment. I'm feeling very pleased with myself. It was rainy today, but people seemed generally friendly and happy and were very nice to me, and I felt good, like it was a little reward for being home sick and alone last night.
Now I am going to settle in, read my new magazine and eat my sandwich, and get ready for Buffy and Gilmore Girls. Deeeee-lightful!