Barnes & Noble Booksellers might be my mothership/Shopping is a dead end activity

Gaaaah, I love this time of year.
Everything is so... springy.

(cue the communal and inevitable "duh")

No, but really! This is my favorite season. It's not too hot (well, most places it isn't, here it's sweltering), the flowers are in bloom (I suppose "bloom" is subjective in Arizona), the air smells cleaner and fresher (when you're not in the smog)...

Well, damn. 

Thanks AZ, friend, you ruined my favorite season for me. Awesome. One of the pitfalls of living in a state that has two seasons: hot, and hotter.

It's okay though! It's not always terrible. A few weeks ago, the weather magically cooled to a balmy 65 degrees, and not everything felt quite like it was going to die tragically in the aridity of it all. There was a perfectly lovely fortnight with this unbelievably wonderful breeze that, though a bit strange in AZ's overall climate, was toooootally welcome.

(come baaaaack! please!)

So anyway, today's post.

Barnes & Noble Booksellers might be my mothership/Shopping is a dead end activity

So if you happen to be my friend on Facebook, you may have noticed I've uploaded a gazillion (hmm, interesting, Blogger recognizes "gazillion" as a word) pictures of books that I've found in B&N. I'm fairly certain I'm obsessed with books. And really, is there any other place that has a better ambience? I feel like I'm smarter as soon as I walk in, just knowing that there are literary giants present in the same room. (Not literally, duh, in the pages! THE PAGES!)


...Which poses a problem, as I'm also fairly certain I'm at least 24% hipster (which is not a desirable trait, I promise you), and I therefore get irate when people take my bookstore "mojo" (for lack of a better word). 


The problem is, while I love bookstores, I hate shopping. I loathe almost everything about it, except the long-term result of the endeavor itself: the merch.


(le GASP! but but but! you're a teenage girl! what could you possibly hate about shopping?)


Oh, I don't know. The... 


- way-too-long lines
- annoying people
- walking around until your feet hurt and still not finding anything worth your time
- loud food courts that you hear from 230849382 feet away (it's loud enough in general!)
- clothes that don't fit/don't come in your size and enter you into a rage or possibly tantrum 
- running awkwardly into others via your shopping cart 
- snobs that don't like your outfit when you're in public 
- lack of spending money 
- inability to choose/impatience at OTHERS inability to choose 
- lack of self-esteem in general to add insult to injury (injury mainly being the shopping cart)


And of course, all of these are subjective, and depend on WHERE you're shopping, but honestly? It doesn't change all that much. Whether it's the mall, supermarket, or standalone shops, it's usually a pressure cooker to pick out a purchase.


I've never understood it as a social activity, either. Going to the mall with friends doesn't exactly top my list of excitement. You may THINK you're secure in your friend choices, but the consequences of that kind of friendship don't really bare their fangs until you find yourself on a shopping expedition with someone who...


- is a different size than you, and can wear things you can't
- has more money than you, and can buy things you can't
- has different style than you, and so your clothing choices are always being judged, whether you wanted an opinion or not


Now, don't get me wrong. I love my friends dearly. But that's exactly why I can't shop with them. If I have any hope of staying friends with people, I can't expose them to the scary mess of person that is me at a mall. Also, yes, I do understand I'm probably blowing this way out of proportion and making assumptions that are most likely incorrect and off-base, but my mind is apparently very set in its ways. 


And my ultimate problem? If I can't handle shopping by myself or with anyone else, what do I do?


Answer?
Online shopping ftw. 
(Sure, there are pitfalls that are associated with online shopping too, but I just repress that kind of thinking.)


(notreallybye!)

So I'm starting anew.

I've never been one for blogging, I guess... I've always really wanted to, but whenever I read my "work", I feel like it's

a. pretentious
b. inappropriate
c. boring
d. stupid

So we'll see how this new run goes. I guess. I'm tired of writing these introductions! Haha. Now to the regularly scheduled programming...

The Container Store.

Have you ever been to the Container Store? It's possibly the most fascinating thing ON THE PLANET. It's not a small store, either. This mother is COSTCO-SIZED. Or maybe half of a Costco. Or a third. I don't know.
Originally, however, I wasn't terribly interested in going in, seeing as I believed it to be walls upon walls of Tupperware of various sizes, and I didn't think my ADD would appreciate me very much if I went in and spent any amount of time staring at WALLS. UPON WALLS. OF TUPPERWARE.

(calm down joey, don't scare the bloggers)

But, like most of my first impressions (delusions?) of places, I was wrong.

The Container Store, though named with the creative ingenuity of a Tic Tac (no, wait, Tic Tacs are too creative for such belittlement), was LE AWESOME.

(tell me more!)

Not only do they have amazing bins and things you can use for home/office/man cave storage (or whatever your heart happens to fancy), but they have SO. MUCH. MORE. OMG.

For starters, they carry the best little desk organizers, trash cans (mine has flowers adorning it, ahh, yes, yay, omg, /spasm) and other various instruments of work-related joy and happiness. (Sounds like an oxymoron, I know, it's really not, promise!)

But that's just the start.

The front of the store? The most incredible little... um... doohickeys. I actually don't know what to call them. There's a variety of, well, doohickeys in the front, including but not limited to:

1. key toppers shaped like cookies and sock monkeys...
2. Mini iPod speakers made to look like legos (LEGOS. LEGOS I SAY. YAY. :D)...
3. Bruise reducers fashioned in the style of those Mr. Men/Little Miss characters...

Um, yes? YES YES YES?

4. Magnetic flashlights that all you have to do is detach the magnet from the base and a super powerful brilliant beam is immediately issued from the casing (that, by the way, is patterned and therefore AWESOME)...
5. Rubber travel coffee mug handles that are molded into flowers and peace signs and other hippie symbols (which are all right by me, yep, okay) so that your boringly shiny Starbucks tumbler can be SPIFFY and NIFTY and other such adjectives...

And a whole bunch of other things I can't remember.

And then there's the gift box aisle.
Did you know there are a ton of gift wrapping/boxing options beyond the traditional paper/box/gift bag?
(If you answered no, then yeah, me neither.)

...

(If you answered yes... well aren't you just a smarty pants. Boo, go away.)

Chinese take-out boxes in different styles and colors, mini gift bags, other wrapping options that I can't even comprehend (I probably could if I tried hard enough, but who wants to try hard and think when they're shopping? Other than in the Brookstone store. That store is amazing in its purest form. Have you ever been in there? It's pretty much aweso... I digress, sorry). But the point is, in this store? There's enough color stimulation to last a lifetime. Aka, very useful for someone like me. ADD, remember?

...But the most fabulous item? One word.

BUBBLEOPE.

It's an envelope. Made with bubble wrap. And the outside comes in shiny colors. I kinda fell in love.
And of course, they have gigantic rolls of bubble wrap, but, as entertaining as that is, it's nothing compared to the bubbleope.
I have made it my life's mission to, from now on, only use bubbleopes to give gifts to my friends. It's really the gift that keeps on giving... BUT IT'S SHINY. YES.


I'm obviously a joy to shop with, what are you talking about?