IN WHICH I LOVE THE TARGET, PART TWO

I love the Target.

In fact, let's be honest here; I'd live at the Target if they sold beds like at the Macy's.

Truthfully, I can't make it out of the Target without spending at least $100 on wonderfully useless things. It is always surprising to me how quickly these cheap little things can become so very expensive, and today's Target day was a day just like that. 

Today's Target day was the same as always and yet so, so different, and discombobulating (a fantastic word), and disorienting, and so now, here is the story of today's Target Day,

-aka- 

Going Out The Way We Came In

-or-

Closure Is Important To Human Emotions

-but if you'd rather-

Let's Make A Target Sandwich

***

So, the other day I needed to go to the Target. 

Well . . . I didn't really need to go to the Target, but I did want some alone time. 

I also wanted to see this brass lamp that I keep on seeing all over Instagram. It is everywhere! It looks so classy!

You probably have one too, right?? Yeah, you do.

Whenever I see this lamp I always catch myself thinking it can never truly be possible that it actually came from the Target. Because it looks way too slick. It's probably not as great in person.

This was a theory I was willing to invest time into.

Mostly, however, the real reason I wanted to go to the Target that day was so that I could end this flipping blog already.

***

I have been ready to be done with this blog for something like ten years at this point.

And always, when I thought about it, I had this idea in the back of my mind that, this, someday, was how I was going to go out.

Which is to say, by going out the way I came in.

By which I mean, by writing about shopping.

Plus, I'd been having hella writer's block for a couple of months and I thought that maybe the long drive might crack something open.

(Well, it didn't.)

(Try picturing a Prius-shaped thought bubble hurtling towards the ever loving embrace of the closest Target, 90 minutes north of here, and you about got it.)

All the drive long I wondered and wondered.
What would I want to say in this, my very last blog post?
What are my messages? What are my themes?? Do I have any of those things??? What has all this been, anyway????
What does a reader even look for in a decent flounce post these days?

I definitely wanted it to be, like, MEANINGFUL.
An essay! You know, one of the good ones.
Make it mean something! On a treadmill! With Dave Chappelle!!

"I was eloquent! Shit!!"

But the more I thought about it, the more I knew. I am just way too over it at this point for something like that. I am just actually that ready.

***

So, this is it. 

Without pomp or circumstance or anything terribly exciting to go along with it, here it is. 

After ten years of blogging, I am closing up shop.

***

(This part is the part at the end where I say, "Hey, guys, thank you.")

Dearest People Of My Blog,

Hey guys. Thank you.

Thank you for always being incredibly fantastic and intelligent and fascinating and kind whenever we've been able to meet in person.

Thank you for your beautifully thoughtful comments and emails.

Thank you for your prayers! I've felt the them, I swear it. Every last one.

Thank you for your sisterhood, for sharing your experiences with faith, infertility, hope, and the hard things, and for letting me feel at times like I was your big sister. This has and will continue to give my life an insanely wonderful added purpose and meaning. It makes me want to cry anytime I think about it.

I'm so grateful for you, you weird little knuckleheads, for supporting me and coming along with me and for liking the same dumb things as me, and for asking me things like where I get my white t-shirts and clogs, and for buying my book, and f or showing up when I've held  events, and for always being so much stinking cooler than me.

Thank you.

Thank your, ladies and gentlemen!

And now for my parting words. My legacy! Get excited!

That lamp at the Target is EVERY BIT as rad in real life as it seems online.

Wouldn't it be nice if everything was like that?

GET ME DRESSED / FT. ESBY APPAREL

romper: esby apparel / jesus sandals: amazon (they're actually called that?)

Last month in Austin I got to meet Stephanie Beard, owner and designer of esby apparel. It was such a treat. I got to see and feel her gorgeous pieces, try them ALL on, and bring a few home to show off to my readers. I even made a friend out of the deal! 

I'd been hoping to show off her amazing stuff for weeks, ever since since I got back from South By, but then we moved house, life got REALLY weird, family came into town, and my Internet went bust. But! I'm here! Here I am! Better late than early! And here is that post finally, featuring two  of my favorite looks from the current line at esby apparel. 

this bag is an old one from madewell and it is amazing

First is this ROMPERRRRR. 

Hold up -- after culling my wardrobe again (KonMari Take Two! THIS TIME IT WILL WORK!), and now that the entirety of my wardrobe fills only half a standard closet, don't you find it FULLY FASCINATING that I somehow managed to keep onto FOUR WHOLE ROMPERS?? 

All of which sport WIDE-LEGGED SILHOUETTES!

Well, I do. #easilyimpressedwithmyself

Okay but wait -- how do you feel about wide-legged silhouettes? Now that I have you here?

Personally, having grown up the daughter of Julie Lovin, I knew off the bat that this wide-legged deal was going to be my Def Jam. I remember my mom wearing so much of this silhouette when I was a kid that for sentimental reasons alone I knew I would have to love this trend a very stupid amount. 

And, it turns out, I do!

What I don't love at the moment are my current white wall prospects. So disappointing. Grass! Shadows! Ugh! 

Anyway. I tried.

Alexandra took these next wide-legged photos for me just the other day. Thanks, Alex!

clogs: nina z / pants: esby apparel / top: fruit of the loom 

Here is the thing: My poor waist has played second fiddle in fashion to every other body part that I've owned for years. I used to watch period films featuring cinched waists and tight bodices and just feel so sorry for my midsection for being born in THE wrong decade. Until now! There she is! Hi, waist! I hadn't forgotten about you! 

Stephanie makes these high-waisted wide-legged trousers in just about every neutral color a neutral-phile could ever desire and I'm not going to lie to you, they make me feel leggy and waist-y and a little bit like an extra from Out of Africa. 

See also: GRANDPA PANTS! 

Well anyway, my white wall-ing needs some work. Don't I look awkward? But don't I also look like I'm enjoying it? ;)

AROUND HERE LATELY

Fulfillment. The name of the game here is fulfillment. 

Idaho is just about to end its long, slow slog into spring. 

Idaho does this every year. It waits and waits and waits and waits until sometime in May when it suddenly decides to get its act together and make us some buds. And then, POW!

Idaho in spring is absolutely heart-stopping, I can't wait. We're not quite there yet. It's shifting closer. It's so, so close. 

(I wrote a post on this once!)

But back to me, okay?

Change, Completion, Fulfillment.

Change, change, change.

(Anyway, could I GET any more obtuse?)
(Probably. You wanna find out?)

Um, here's a bit of excitement for you:

hey huck!

The Appaloosa Horse Museum! Not to get too excited about it or anything, it's just that, as much as I love lentils . . . 

("It's just that . . .", "Well . . . ", "Actually . . . ", and, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but . . . ", are apparently my favorite ways to start sentences, according to Huck and his newest ways of starting sentences.) 

Well. I am sorry to tell you this, but the Appaloosa Museum is super tiny. 

It did smell good inside though.

Did you know Huck's favorite food these days is octopus? 

Yes, that's it. Octopus. Shrimp will do, too, if the octopus is all out. He's very brave, ins't he?

Personally I haven't dared eat any seafood since we left the city, because I value my life. 

No no no, I'm sure it's not that bad, although someday when Huck is old enough to know what this means, I'd like to ask him whether eating seafood in a landlocked state should be concerning unto him. 

But then, what am I even talking about!? This restaurant up there is in Pullman! Which, while only 8 miles from where I sit at this moment in this very landlocked state called Idaho, happens to be in Washington, which, as we all know from the fifth grade, is a coastal state.

Doesn't that sort of make you want to question, like, everything?!? 

The End.

GET ME DRESSED / AND GET HER TO COLLEGE

jeans: kut, shirt: levi's, flats: sseko designs, tote: sseko designs, bracelet: austin (similar here),

awesome attitude: yo mama

So lemme tell you a thing about a thing. 

I've been going through my closet lately. ('Show me a woman who blah blah blah . . . ' you've read my book already, right?? ;) While I was in there the other day I noticed my denim jumpsuits. Like errant children, those denim jumpsuits. I own two; they're awfully sweet. Lately they've shared an equal amount of their mother's neglect. The poor dears.

So I said, 'I'm sorry jumpers!' (Do you ever feel the need to apologize to your clothes?) And then made the appropriate decisions.

The problem with the first is that it looks so similar to a combination of denim + jeans that I already wear all of the time. And the second of the two, well, I love her madly, but she is OUT THERE. Best suited for places where it's normal to see other people walking around in frumpy bubbles made of clothing while still feeling fabulous, maybe. 

And so they were rendered redundant. Such a sad story!

the first went out to consignment, the second to our storage unit, in case you needed to know. 

(i'm holding out hope for you, bubble romper! good luck in our storage unit, it's chilly!) 

(these are the shirt and jeans in question, should you wish to cast scorn.) 

But what I REALLY came here to tell you is, did you know epiphanic is an actual word? When you have an epiphany, that means your situation was epiphanic.

Epiphanous: Not a word. And why not?

ON NEW YORK NATALIE, MOSCOW NATALIE, AND THE TROUBLE WITH TIME + PLACE

this post is a pep talk to myself. it can also be a pep talk for you, if you'd like.

A million years ago I wrote a post about a version of myself I called New York Natalie.

The idea was that I was living in Idaho, feeling sad and frustrated, waylaid and lost, super sorry for myself, and I had remembered realizing one day that I never felt that way very often (if ever?) when I lived in New York.

I was tougher there. Or something. I felt more grown up. Less flailing.

New York Natalie had a whole different schtick going on. She liked being mature and making adult decisions, she liked saving money and planning for vacations, she liked taking on responsibility and, like, she even liked doing the dishes. (Or, at least she did them more reliably.) New York Natalie was pretty rad. I liked her! She was going somewhere.

At least, she thought she was going somewhere.

(Turned out, she was actually going to Moscow, so...)

***

Now that I've done this enough times to know by scientific reasoning, I can stick this feather in my cap: I'm pretty good at adapting to drastic changes in my environment. I think I do it without even realizing it. Someone called it "chameleoning" the other day, and maybe that's it.

Maybe it's just a lack of any overriding sense of willpower over whatever it is I'm encountering at the time? A white flag?

It's also a little bit like being a sponge. I'm sensitive to my surroundings, usually all it takes is a couple seconds til it soaks right in. Welcome to me, anything and everything!

I also love to try new things. I am sometimes overly open-minded. I can throw myself into just about anything and really get a kick out of it. I have a healthy sense of adventure.

Whatever it is, it's a pretty good quality to have if you don't mind my horn-tooting.
Or at least it is until it involves chameleoning/acquiescing/soaking/adventuring backwards, into a former, lesser version of myself, instead of progressing forward, as maybe all human beings should.

You know. 

***

So, Moscow Natalie. 

Ughhhhhhhhh.

Moscow Natalie was never anybody I wanted to be long-term. Even at the time I was being her, I was aware that Moscow Natalie was merely a survival mode. Just Get Through It Natalie.

Moscow Natalie was stuck in Idaho -- maybe against her will, certainly beyond her control -- and it really funked around with her sense of ownership of the thing. And as a result I'm afraid she was a little bit of a pain in the ass. Obviously it is rather unhealthy for one to compartmentalize oneself in this manner! Do not ye do it! Take it from me!

Still, having now been Moscow Natalie twice, for better or worse, I can tell you. It's a thing. It is definitely a thing.

Being Moscow Natalie es no bueno. Fer nobody. I know this for sure-sure, having now in the process of returning to Idaho also reverted right back into that Moscow Natalie person, relinquishing again any responsibility or control over my own life in exchange for moping around like a petulant child stuck somewhere she doesn't want to be, living each day just to get through it, all-in survival mode, washing her hands of the thing, just, BLAH and SHIT and BLAH and PASS ME ALL THE CHICKENS, and surprise of all surprises, it hasn't been working! I am highly dissatisfied!! I want my money back!!

(Except for my chickens. Chickens for all and to all a good night!) 

So, uh, don't be Moscow Natalie anymore, dorko.

This should be simple, I catch myself thinking a lot. Just embody all the things I liked about myself better while I was living somewhere else, without having to actually *be* somewhere else, be some kind of rad Moscow/New York Natalie hybrid, duh I can do that! I adapt! I've done it! And anyway, I mean, we all can! We can all be that version of ourselves we like best to be, whether or not we have the cheat of a rad city (or whatever else is tickling your pickling) to get us there. Am I right??!?

Okay, yes! 

Challenge, accepted! 

Thrifting hasn't gotten me there. Weirdly enough!?! And neither have granny squares or needlepoint or paint-by-numbers either, come to think of it. It's like this world has gone upside down!! ;)

(The chickens do help, but they're mostly a distraction.)
(MAYBE I NEED A CAT INSTEAD?)

And like I said already, I mean, thinking about yourself like this is a really bad idea. One definitely should not do it.

One cannot solve immaturity by engaging farther into self-centered, immature thought patterns! 

But anyway like I was saying . . .  about myself . . .

***

I'm afraid that maybe the entire Palouse in general just makes me miserable.

Is it the lentils?

I used to think it was the job at SEL that made me miserable. (Well, it was.)

Or my infertility and subsequent feelings of lack of any purpose at all. (Well, yeah, it was that too.)

Maybe the fact that we were poor grad students in a very bad economy with exams stressing the husband to death and back every semester and Peter Pan was always sick and required fancy dog food that even the Maharaja couldn't afford plus the fact that the sun doesn't shine out here for fully half of the year!?!?!! 

Cause obviously... yes. All those things are gonna mess with a person, that's just how that works, and that's all right.
That's just character building mumbo jumbo, or whatever.

But now that I am here again, mis-er-able, with none of those ingredients in my kitchen, and yet I am STILL baking that miserable cake!? AND YET!???!!

Sure, I'm still infertile (or rather, re-infertile after a brief period of non-infertile), but this time I have a kid. I'm a mom!
There's some purpose right there, slap you on the face with it.
We can easily afford the groceries.
None of my pets are unhealthy or even slightly high maintenance in the least!
(Chickens. Pass me all of the chickens!)

And yet!?!?

Just kidding it's still fully dark here fully half of the year.
That suuuuuuuucks. 

(Never underestimate the Seasonal Affective Disorder and that funny in-betweenness funk one always finds oneself in whenever the weather tries to change up it's seasons on you. That there a tip from me to you.) 

Maybe it's not the ingredients that's the problem, maybe it's the cake itself?
One layer of perceived lack of control, followed by a layer willingness to roll over and give whatever away in order to merely exist, followed by a layer of bad decisions, topped off with a nice chocolate ganache.

OR MAYBE THIS IS A MIDLIFE CRISIS!

That's an exciting thought. Maybe I need a sports car instead of a cat?

(Are cats the female equivalent of a sports car?)

(Oh gosh, wouldn't that be sad kind of?)

Maybe it's just the sheer lack of control over any of my life circumstances right now.

But here's a jolt of truth that helps to burn off any excess misery calories: I am here for my husband. I am here because I like to be wherever my husband is. I like that guy! I like this family! And I am willing to bet we are all where we are because of something we love that outweighs the rest of the shit that we don't love. Brandon is the primary breadwinner of this here shindig, and Brandon's professional needs do take precedence over a lot of other things. And while that can be hard, and while we're definitely allowed to grant ourselves that truth, we shouldn't get caught up in it.

Because getting caught up in it, that's selfishness. 

Pouting about a choice I made because of a choice I made because of a choice I made (Idaho Brandon / Breadwinner Brandon / Marrying Brandon) is hideous. I made that choice. The truth is, the control has been mine all along, and it continues to be mine even now.

The real truth is that it has never been about control at all.

***

I think the realities of selfishness are much more complex than we like for them to be. In fables, it's easy to differentiate the evil, selfish hag from the pure, thoughtful princess. That's the lesson. Nobody wants to be selfish, even the worst of us human beings on this planet want to believe that we are acting out of something higher than selfishness. But it's humbling when you realize just how often selfishness can disguise itself as other things. It's humbling when you realize the struggle you're in is a struggle you happily took on and would happily take on again and again.

I think to say that control is what will save us is to say that we are better and smarter than we actually are, or that somehow we could do better with this life than what the spark of creation has been doing all this time.  

It turns out, it is selfishness that's making me miserable. And that I can work with. 

So, I had myself a talk with Moscow Natalie.
(It definitely looked alarming from a mental health point of view.)

Moscow Natalie is going to try and bugger off for a while. She's not terribly helpful, and I don't very much enjoy her, and I have better ways to attend to this deal, and 25 wasn't a good time in ANYBODY'S life, thank you and you're welcome I am in no hurry to repeat that part of my life yikes.

I've also decided that since New York Natalie may take me some time, and since she probably wasn't even all that great to begin with (I probably have overly fond memories of her that are making her seem way cooler than she actually was), maybe it's time to come up with a different Natalie. 

A better Natalie.

I think I'm going to call her Kick Ass Natalie. 

This one won't be location-specific.