shopping

I´ve never been a good shopper. Probably because I don´t really like to shop. I get tired and hungry (there´s a shocker) and cranky. I hate trying things on. The whole process of loading your arms full of tangled hangers and pulling on outfit after outfit in a hot, cramped dressing room, only to have nothing look as good as it does on those skinny-ass manequins, has never appealed to me. However, I love acquiring new clothing. And shoes. And accessories. For someone who doesn´t like to shop, it´s pretty amazing how jam-packed my closet is. It´s probably because I haven´t grown since I was about fourteen, and it´s probably why I still wear clothes I wore in high school. Yikes.

Anyway, the point is, it´s never really bothered me that I don´t like to shop. I save money, and time, and instead of spending beautiful Saturdays inside at the Mall of America I get to run around lakes and lie in the sun. But being in Buenos Aires is the first time I´ve really wished I had any desire to shop. The exchange rate is out of control. There are boutiques on every corner. There are entire areas of the city dedicated to outlet stores. There are endless store fronts filled with fashionable jackets and dresses and boots and shoes and tops and jeans and jewelry and scarves...

And as I walk past them every day, I really want all of that stuff to be mine. But whenever I make an effort to actually go shopping, I fail. Today I walked forty minutes out of my way specifically to hit up outlets with great winter clothing sales. I browsed through about four shops, found the grating music and ¨How can I help you?¨s and racks organized by colors and size absolutely exhausting, and got the heck out of Outlet Central and found myself some lunch.

Sigh. I would really love to be fashionable and well-dressed and put together. I even had daydreams about coming home from Buenos Aires with all this trendy clothing and a funky haircut and being all Argentine, but I just don´t think it´s in the cards for me. (That same daydream may or may not have included me growing three to four inches...) Every once and a while I manage to get myself together enough to look like I put some thought into my wardrobe, and people always seem pleasantly surprised. Maybe it´s best to keep it that way, not to set the standards too high, keep my fashion-o-meter set as low as possible.

But, despite all of this, I have managed to make a few purchases over the past few months. A pair of fantastic black boots (finally!), a pair of ¨skinny jeans¨ to go with said boots (more on that spectacle later), a dress that was way on sale, and an assortment of jewelry and scarves purchased at street fairs. Not too shabby. Maybe by December I´ll have summoned up enough shopping courage to put together two new outfits. Then I can just rotate between the two for the first month I´m home, until I´ve seen all of my friends again, and everyone can Oooh! and Ahhh! and gossip about how fashionable I´ve become.

Or maybe I should just keep dreaming...