Shop-stinance: Day 31

Day 31: Earlier this week I had looked at my calendar and had realized that I was completely free for the weekend. While others might scramble to fill their calendar, I get excited over having open weekends. It used to be that these days were for random solo trips to the mall, where I’d wander purposeless and take my time to enjoy finding new things to take home with me.

Going shopping solo is probably the most enjoyable for me. There are no deadlines, no hideous suggestions that I have to politely decline, and no feeling guilty about someone waiting for me as I vanish into the fitting room. One of my ex-boyfriends claimed he loved going shopping with me and insisted on it, but he would just sit in the normal men’s waiting area and text me the whole time. It always made the situation anxious and distracted from the joy of the hunt. I tried to explain that I enjoyed shopping alone, but he would pout whenever I wanted to go by myself.

But now, since I’m on shopstinance, it forces me to take the time for a personal day of pampering of the mind and body. Made both a hair appointment as well as a massage appointment for today, as well as keeping it in mind to go get a pedicure and eyebrows done, unibrow be gone!

Got up at 9:30, quickly changed and headed off to downtown San Jose to get to my hair appointment for a cut as well as a touch up of my grays and ombre hair. Linda, my stylist, I see about once every 3 months. She’s a sweetheart and always asks how I’m doing and if anything is new, and I don’t know why I’m always caught off guard by this question from her.

After about 4 years of having her style my hair, I’ve seen her go from awesome Batgirl cosplay at halloween, to engaged with an impossibly large diamond on her hand, to honeymooning in Asia, and this time a large baby bump. Compared to all these major events I see her having in 3 months spans, my life seems generally unchanged, and I feel honestly kind of boring.

I reply “Nothing much.” but only later think, oh man, I should have told her about Nomiku, New York or Shopstinance at least. The moment passes, as she spins my chair and I’m distracted by the shadow on the wall of her meticulously putting dye in my hair and foiling it up. I really want to Instagram this moment of shadow play, but decide I don’t want to be both weird and boring in front of her.

Before the Miracuru

Before the Miracuru

Once the dye is in and she heads off to grab a bite as it sets, I whip out my iPad mini and start reading Ready Player One, a book Joshua suggested I take a look at. It’s a lot like Charlie and the Chocolate factory but nerdier. Linda comes back, washes my hair out and gives me my standard layered cut that I adore, followed by a round brush blow out. I exclaim, “I love it” because I do, and then head to get my eyebrows threaded.

I arrive at the Threading Salon there are the owner’s two daughters are working today. One of them will always get rid of the arch in my brow that I adore, instead giving me a rainbow like curve. The other one masterfully repairs rainbow brows into an arch outline, that whereby I can fill in the gaps with my Naked Palette. I cheer a small internal victory and text Patricia when Rainbow Brows gets the person right in front of me, so I’m bound to get Arch Girl. This happiness is soon dampered by the fact that the customer that Arch Girl currently has wants to thread her whole face. Seriously?!?!

Suddenly I imagine having rainbow brows again for the next 3 weeks, and cringe. Meanwhile, I’m multi-tasking by giving Patricia a stream of texts from my consciousness at the situation unfolding before me. She replies matter-of-factly, “Just tell her you want to wait for her sister, she usually asks anyway.” Luckily Chewbacca face girl wraps up and I avoid all the contingency planning that we have come up with in the past 3 minutes.

The actual threading takes 5 minutes max, and is painless for me since I’ve been doing it for years. I hear the girl next to me crying out in pain for Rainbow Brows to stop so she can rest from the pain, just as I’m wrapping up. I tell Arch Girl she’s awesome again, as I look happily in the mirror and then bound out to my next appointment.

After walking miles every day in NYC, the soles of my feet needed pampering in a major way. It’s about lunch time, so I grab a turkey walnut pesto sandwich to-go at Erik’s Deli Cafe which is right next to my nail salon. I nosh on that while watching CNN on their Panasonic Plasma TVs, and getting a deluxe pedicure that includes paraffin treatment. Yes, this is the life.

The deluxe treatment takes longer than expected, and I’m late for my massage appointment. I rush out and make my way to the next step in my pamper superfecta.

Massage. It’s a beautiful thing. If you can afford getting one, I’d recommend it once every two months, or hell, once every month if you can. The combination of the weight lifting and traveling I’ve been doing has riddled my back in knots. I tell this to my masseuse and as soon as she touches my back she realizes this right away and focuses on the key areas. Somewhere along the massage I’m having bizarro everyday thoughts, “What are you going to do with that left over spaceship, ebay?” I catch myself, wake up with a start, and realize I had fallen asleep and was dreaming. The massage wraps up and I sleepily head home to wrap up with errands I had planned for today: laundry, food shopping at Costco, and house cleaning.

If I can’t buy things, then pampering and taking care of oneself is a necessity.

Bought: 0

Pinned: 10

Sold: 1

Returned: 0

Gifted: 0

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