Penny Pinching

This is the time of year where I am simultaneously paying off Christmas and putting down deposits for summer camp, and have yet to cash in on the bounty of my tax refund. My son wants to go to a rather expensive music camp, which I think I will be able to manage, but it is hard to plunk down $400+ for one week of juvenile joy and learning. I could have an awful lot of fun with that money.

Obviously, the purchasers of Jack's shirts have no such monetary constraints. I wonder what they would do with two such ordinary looking shirts? Extract Jake Gyllenhaal's DNA from the armpits?

Marriage pop quiz from the New York Times, via the always interesting Susie Bright, which blows the myth of the 'traditional' marriage right out of the water. We are in possibly the most romantic era of history, because marriage today is based on love (or lust) and not wealth or political alliances or just societal expectations, and unfortunately, love is much more ephemeral than money. Wouldn't it be nice to get an annual love refund based on the love you expended throughout the previous year, so if you have been Mother Theresa, you could look forward to a night of unadulterated lust with a hot stranger (sorry for the mental image), and if you had been somewhat curmudgeonly, you could look forward to something a little lesser, like a brief smile from the checkout girl?

I do not get the appeal of Carine Roitfeld, editor of French Vogue and style icon to the over-40 set. She looks tired and manly, which I don't think is very stylish, though she is skinny which I guess always trumps facial deficiencies (see: Jennifer Aniston)

Here are some not so innocent Sanrio items. If I were in a compromising situation with a man (purely hypothetical I know), and he extracted a Hello Kitty condom, I would run for the hills.