Galloping Consumption

Galloping consumption is a disease that all of my favorite tragic heroines got in the many tragic heroine filled books I read as a young girl. My grandma collected old books she found at yard sales (see? I come by my junk collecting genes honestly) and lots of them were reprints of gaudy Victorian romances that no one wanted anymore. Hence the consumption. Consumption was tuberculosis, and when it came on fast and made you all fevery and vaguely sexy looking, it was called galloping consumption and it meant you were going to die, soon.

Galloping consumption is also what I did yesterday, because I had the day off and spent it gallopingall over town buying stuff. It felt good, I have to admit. I haven’t been shopping in ages and having nothing to do but spend money on things I thought were pretty was happy making.

I found some very shiny and adorable shoes on sale, and I snatched them up. I’m not sure about them, now, because they may be just a bit too Gossip Girl for me. I do like to wear loud tights, but patent leather red shoes might take things over the top. But they might make my life fantastic. I haven’t decided on that yet.

Of course with new shoes I needed more tights, because it’s not enough that I have a drawer crammed full of them. I always want/need/desire new tights. I found some lovely discounted ones @ Nordstrom Rack – geometric! I was a sensible young lady and got them in brown instead of the hot pink. I wanted hot pink, but I reminded myself that I had 3 pairs of hot pink tights at home and didn’t need more. Not right at that moment.

Next I fell in love with some lipstick @ the MAC counter. There was a time when I bought the bulk of my makeup at MAC counters, and by bulk I mean bulk because I was a big fan of the makeup. This was the late 90s when everyone was wearing layers upon layers with glitter and bindis and eyeliner, to boot.

Walking past the counter on my way to visit some bras,* I saw the pretty pretty lipsticks all in a row and just had to stop. I put this color on my lips and it was like little invisible angels drifted down to my shoulders and sang “aahhhhh!” in my ears. Seriously.

After I bought the lipstick, I was headed for the Island of Spending Temptation that is Anthropologie when my phone rang. It was Sky, on his lunch break! He needed to go scout out some high end German custom kitchen stuff and was headed my way. I met him at the market and we had a nice little goofy romantic lunch together. Next we headed to shiny stores with not a lot in them staffed by very attractive girls – archictects get all of the perks! We saw lots of lovely furniture that I wish we could afford and some really overtly rich looking kitchen cabinetry. I’m always suprised by how some very expensive things can manage to look so cheap and tacky.

It was fun to pretend for just an afternoon that we could buy a chair that costs half of our rent. Considering that on top of the shopping I’d also had my monthly massage that morning, it all felt very Ladies Who Lunch.

Except that once we parted ways, I waited for the bus on Pike Street near the Ross Dress For Less standing next to a patron I’d had to kick out of the library for drinking in the bathroom. And a dude who kept stomping on the ground a few feet away from me. That didn’t feel so Ladies Who Lunch. That felt more like Girls Who Work and Take the Bus.

When I got home I took a lovely bath and did a facemasky thing and then slathered on my new favorite moisturizer which I swear is making my skin feel soft as a baby’s bottom.

* I never did buy any bras, which was my only mission for the day. Woops.