Out With the Old, In With The New

Two activities that seem like perfect rituals for welcoming the arrival of a new season: clothes shopping and cleaning. And that basically, is what my weekend consisted of. On Saturday I logged approximately a million miles on foot between Dupont Circle and Georgetown. I was determined to revitalize my wardrobe. The shops in Georgetown were pretty disappointing. I found the quality of the threads I could afford sub par, and the stores that featured clothing I did like, beyond my modest budget. I found some chic, 60's inspired pieces at Cusp, Barney's Coop and Reiss, but 300 dollars for one piece was a bit much. And besides, those items were a bit too fabulous for my current lifestyle, where I am not required to dress up for work, and most of my social life takes place in dive bars. With perseverance, I did manage to find a few interesting pieces, and returned home with two new tops, two cropped jackets with slightly puffed sleeves, and a new belt. My wallet is lighter, but I am on my way to an improved personal presentation. I am also once again, contemplating a hair cut. Chop, chop. I've been feeling recently like I'm in more of a short hair frame of mind. I want a style that's more assertive, chic, slightly edge. When people look at me now, they see a huge mop of bohemian ringlets. Cute, but I'm no longer feeling the hippy glam. People should see your face, not an overwhelming mess of curls. I'm still thinking about it of course, but the idea is growing on me (no pun intended). Besides, Spring is a time of change, and a new haircut would be a great accompaniment to an improved personal outlook on life. I'm not talking anything radical here. Just a few inches. The difference between slightly beyond shoulder length and slightly above.

Sunday, I only meant to clean for a few minutes, but I got a bit swept away, and three hours later, I was still at it. Welcome to the great room purge of Spring, 2007. I got rid of a ton of stuff. Junk. Old shoes nobody would ever want, old notebooks from old jobs, more junk, yucky old tee shirts. I vacuumed, I dusted. I discovered that the Libertines and the Hold Steady provide excellent soundtracks to cleaning. And there's still a ton to do. But most of it will require a trip to the Container Store, something I can't really afford after buying all those clothes, which will have to wait for my next paycheck in two weeks. Also exciting was that I finally manage to extract a DVD that's been wedged inside my DVD player for an embarrassingly long period of time. Too embarrassing to share with you, in fact. In the past, I have attempted to address the problem in a variety of ways, none of them particularly effective. Finally on Sunday, I came to terms with the fact that said DVD player was probably already broken beyond repair and that the best solution to the problem was to yank the feeder drawer out altogether. So that's what I did. After that, it was pretty easy to extract the disc. Next pay check, I will buy a new DVD player. The old one is in the trash.

All in all, I managed to stay out of trouble, and have a pretty productive weekend. Did anyone else catch Entourage? I am so happy to have that show back in my life. I loved the interactions between Vince's camp and Ari's--how everyone was doing their part to manage expectations in the wake of their "breakup". How long do you think we have before they're reunited?

Also, have you ever had the experience when going through your things, of finding a random phone number and not remembering who it could belong to? This happened to me while I was purging. I set the number aside, not certain what to do with it. It's rare that I collect numbers from strangers. Luckily, an email from a friend this morning (totally unsolicited--I love how the universe works sometimes) helped clarify who it belonged to. Sadly, I can't make use of said number (for a variety of reasons too personal, convoluted and mildly scandalous to share), but I'm happy to know who it belongs to. I'm tucking it away for safe keeping.