Frugal Glee

but it was only a hipster. because most people look like this at berkeley (it’s true i dare you to come check) so i proceeded to see lots and lots of these charlatans. which is delicious and horrifying. in our humor magazine “squelch” there was a pretty funny headline titled “increase in hipsters cause third american apparel to open” or something like that, i dont think i quoted it exactly. ok i admit i wish i could take credit for it. it is totally relevant because everyday i walk to campus i think why the hell is there now two american apparels literally three stores away from each other? last year it moved three doors down but now the old store is all stocked with aa stuff too so perhaps they were just remodelling. i thought they had lost money and needed to move to the smaller, less awesome location. another shattered dream. and also, every day i notice so many people dressed amazingly from head to toe moreso than any past years and i think it is a combination of nice and indie clothes (in my opinion) getting more mainstream and younger kids nowadays being full of energy and sex appeal. i can’t believe i’ve been dressing less and less crazy nowadays, like i told myself i’d never do. but i’m actually getting rid of my gothic lolita skirts and neon green ballerina outfit and little house on the prairie dress (only one of them, i still have three left. so all hope isn’t lost?) because they look so ridiculous to me. there are still many other things i cant imagine wearing again but i will keep them until it becomes unbearable. i’ve been getting gray skirts and brown cardigans. it feels good to pass down the torch and become an old fart. i’m going to go finish reading my food blogs now.

i started a garden last week which will be a whole post in itself, hopefully coming soon!

so i was looking at the neiman marcus xmas catalogue at work today and it just really confused and overwhelmed me with strange emotions. i think they were emotions that were from the same family of jealousy and disgust and dirtiness and all those other ones people warn you about when you’re a kid. i mean what were the childhoods like of people who want to buy a lifesized lego sculpture of themselves for their husband/wife for the holidays? i’m trying to recall the most frivolous kid from elementary school but i guess i was blessed to come from a place where people ate meat and potatoes every night. although, in middle school we were mixed with some richer people from a really good neighborhood. i guess if they could wear abercrombie and fitch every day and were allowed to buy smelly cologne we considered them kind of well-off. our spanish teacher was supposed to be the most ritzy cultured lady because she maaaybe had been to spain and drove a bmw. but moving to california also apparently also made my parents rich. as usual i dont know where i’m going with this. reading the catalogue makes me feel kind of like going to the mall which i havent done since last winter. oh damn i feel a whiny rant coming on. sorry i sound so cynical but malls just make me feel so bad! i am a cheap person so i never get sucked into any of the sales and i am also too old (and cheap) to let malls make me feel bad about my appearance and i’m also too not trendy (and cheap) to even be tempted by any of the stuff but it still makes me feel foreign and ungrounded. i still get annoyed at the bad overpriced food at malls too. i guess food never fails to move me. at this particular time i wonder who buys from this catalogue and how they fall asleep at night
my chapstick broke and i smeared it on my hands today and it makes for awesome hand cream. sorry if that was disgusting. but if you dont feel it’s disgusting, i totally still feel its silkiness ten hours afterwards so if you’re ever out of expensive hand lotion..!

i always loved that her favorite place was the library and that it was what set her free. my impression is that all kids are well-seasoned library veterans, but i might be wrong about this nowadays. i know i went at least once a week to check out books, and videos, participate in events, and play games on their computer. there is absolutely nowhere else i can imagine giving access to timeless vhs gems such as the babysitters club (tv show), the paperbag princess, and oh, basically anything produced by random house. later i went on to volunteer at the library one summer, and now i still consider mself semi-involved by working at my university’s library. but nothing is quite as precious as a public library, with lovely crazy left-wing old ladies and children’s centers. my absolute favorite children’s center as a kid had a whole structure built with rooms that illustrated scenes from classic stories like homer price and charlotte’s web. it also had puppets. puppets in a public library are like an invitation to contract pink-eye, but still who can resist? in fact, the whole library was awesome because it looked like a greenhouse. i also remember transitioning from the children’s section to the young adult in that library. it was an almost guilty feeling like “is this stuff too old for me to read? with the library police come blow the whistle on me?” but it was nicely placed right next to the series such as nancy drew and goosebumps, which were like the nice safe area for kids who were on the cusp of moving into young adult. well back to the point, public libraries are the most lovely places on earth created by tax dollars. open to everyone, always temperature controlled, warm, safe, and providing an endless array of free entertainment. meeting someone who didn’t go to libraries as a kid makes me almost as sad as meeting people who say they don’t enjoy reading. which are typically probably the same people (i sense a correlation) and then i probably never see them again in my life. one of my teachers in middle school was like this. we were reading a novel out loud in a group and she mentioned that she never got used to reading shared books. apparently she always needed to read brand new books that were her very own when she was a kid and never got over that. what a sad life she must lead. i remember thinking that it was the most ridiculous thing i’d ever heard while she talked of it as if it were something to be proud of. books are always there, ready to provide so much for us whenever we deign to open them, but how often does a book really get read in its lifespan? why would she have an issue about having someone else read that book and sharing the wealth when it would otherwise be sitting on her (diamond) bookshelf? anyway back to my point…

once i found a business card in a library book and it simply said: “you are special”. that sums it up

hey. i wasn’t sure why i had started this blog in the first place, other than wanting to share my favorite hobbies (some people collect things as a hobby, i collect hobbies) and vent about what’s on my mind. but then i realized all these things have something in common, and that is “frugal glee”. this is a saying i’ve translated roughly from chinese, something my parents have always said about our lives, where the happiest times always spring out of utterly impoverished, almost hopeless situations. so i’ve noticed this still holds true for everything i’m interested in, whether it’s baking my own bread, sewing my own clothes, scavenging for food, getting a kick-ass deal at the store, going to the library, or any number of things. the things i love most always require little to no money, and as an added bonus bring me closer to simpler, olden times which are grounding and humbling. i’m hoping this can allow me to chronicle, and provide some advice about a life with less expense (something we all need in this day and age) but all the flavor.