Day 12: Vanity Mirror

A few years ago, there was a fad of lists that circulated through the online world that attempted to pinpoint you based on obvious stereotypes, lists like "You know you're ghetto when..." or "You know you're from Idaho when..." As I took the mirror down from my dresser to place it in my lenten outgoing pile, I thought to myself: "You know you're vain when..." I can imagine it, a long list at the bottom of an even longer series of forwarded messages, stuck in my spam box, dying for me to mark it "not junk" so it can be read and quell any growing suspicions that I just might care a little too much. Say it with me: I am not vain. I am not vain. (Is it vain to say that?)

You know you're vain when...

• You own a vanity mirror. (Ouch.)
• You wear makeup when you exercise. (Only if it's already on, I swear!)
• You have more mirrors than you can use. (Umm...)
• You have more photos of yourself on facebook than of your friends. (Phew, that's a no.)
• You turn the radio up loud and dance in front of your full length mirror. (Do they actually expect you to fess up to these things?)
• You buy more produce for facials than for salads. (People really do that?)
• Your computer's background display is a picture of you lifting weights. (That's a no, and 4/7 is still failing right?)

If all the mirrors I already had in my room weren't enough, I went ahead last summer and bought myself this vanity mirror. I thought it would make it easier for me to apply eye liner or to tweeze, but mostly it just makes my pores look really, really big and blinds me with its side lights. So to save myself from diminishing self-worth and permanently dilated pupils, this mirror gets the boot.

Day 11: Movies

I know. I can't believe I still own VHS tapes, either.

Several years ago, I bought a number of DVDs at once, planning on building a full-fledged movie library by the time I was old enough to own my own house. I didn't get very far, though. It turns out that time goes by pretty quickly, and that movies actually cost a significant amount of money in large quantities. Beyond that, though, I've finally begun to realize that the movies I keep are much like the books I've left dusty in my shelves all these years. They rarely get any use, but how could I not have a collection of them?

[Scene opens; friend looks in a cabinet below television, then another, then another until all the cabinets have been discovered to be bare]
Friend: Wait, you don't own a single movie?
Me: No, I don't really like re-watching movies, so what's the point? It'd be a waste of money.
Friend: But every normal American with a television has at least one movie. Name someone else you know who doesn't own a movie.
Me: Well, technically the television is my roommate's...


Truth is, I should get rid of all of my DVDs. I haven't watched most of them in more than a year. But there are some I just can't let go of. Not yet anyway...

Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others)
Damn those Stasi, or whatever they're called!

Pride and Prejudice (BBC)
Every self-respecting woman owns or wishes she owned this. If she says otherwise, she's in denial.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Matthew McConaughey isn't Colin Firth. But he'll do.

Toy Story 3
Favorite movie trilogy of all time. Star Wars and the Godfather have nothing on this Pixar masterpiece.

The Holiday
Another chick flick. Don't judge.

The Office, seasons 1-3 (not BBC)
I'm pretty sure every normal American needs unfettered access to at least one good "that's what she said" joke. Name someone you know that doesn't.

Day 10: Socks

In college, I knew a couple of girls that would walk around campus, wherever they went, completely barefoot. Beyond the obvious concerns--broken glass, stray nails, being stared at, residue from college activities like post-binge vomiting--I knew I could never bring myself to do the same. I just love socks too much. If I didn't have to do my own laundry, I might walk around in just socks, wherever I went. It would be worth the stares, though I think the possibility of vomit residue would still haunt me (no sock is thick enough for that). My anxiety about being barefoot, and in turn love of socks, probably stems from childhood, like all things. As a kid, my mom used to yell at us to put on our socks and shoes when we went outside so we wouldn't get worms. We would ignore her demand, and we would get worms. Eventually, though, we learned, and followed at least half of her directions, only to be fussed at about how dirty our socks were and all the holes we'd get in them. But they were just so comfortable, just the right balance of protection and freedom.

Years down the road now, I mostly wear socks in the house or inside shoes, but they nonetheless manage to become worn, dingy, and faded. Then there are the too-large and too-small socks, a common problem for a woman with long and slightly narrow feet. Like all collections, my sock drawer needed to be reevaluated. Half have found a new home in the garbage.

Day 9: CD player

One day in middle school, my friend Danika and I were sitting around my room listening to the radio, and a new song called by a girl named Britney Spears came on. "This is pretty good," I said. "She sings well. Is she black?" Then, if my memory serves me correctly, Danika looked at me like I was an idiot. Britney was no Brandy or Destiny's Child. In fact, she probably shared more in common with Hanson: white, blond, and hopelessly doomed to an on-and-off career of bad pop music. "Hit Me Baby One More Time" was the first and last Britney song I ever liked, and the last time I ever tried (out loud, anyway) to determine someone's race by his or her voice. Later, Justin Bieber would teach me that gender was no given, either.

According to manufacturer information, I got this CD player at the beginning of high school, years after I first heard that Britney Spears song. At the time, CDs were still pretty new to me. I got my first CD (Temptations Greatest Hits) in eighth grade and purchased a variety of music after that. The beginning of high school was around the time where my boy band phase (BSB4Life) met my Christian music phase (Jesus! Yeah!). Cassette tapes, like VHS tapes, were still a viable form of recording, and the 3-in-one radio/cd/tape component allowed for mixed tape creations. Personally, I was never any good at making mixed tapes. I usually don't recognize a song until the first words have been sung, and by that point, it's too late to hit the record button. Who wants a mixed tape of partially-recorded songs?

When senior year of high school came around, I got my first computer and spent innumerable hours on iTunes instead. No changing cds, no fast-forwarding to the right song on the tape. I could shuffle and skip and even burn CDs with my fancy CD-R drive. When I left for college, I lent the CD player to my sister for safe keeping (actually, I gave it to her...and then took it back years later). By the end of college, I had a laptop and an iPoD to play my music wherever I wanted, cord-free.

For the past three years, the CD player has sat somewhere in my room. For a while there, I would crank up the radio while I cleaned my room and bathroom, singing along to those same B97 airwaves that graced its simple antenna years before. But then Pandora came along, and I could give Britney Spears and the Black-Eyed Peas the thumbs-down, and never have to endure another "Imma Be" or "Circus" again.

It's funny how new technology makes old technology obsolete. Eleven years ago, this was a tizight CD Radio Cassette-Corder. Now it's a bookend on a bottom shelf. Somehow, I don't think it will end up like the record players people still keep to play old vinyls. Somehow it seems to me that this silver-purple machine will never be the kind of antique people rummage for at garage sales and on reality television. For now, though, it works, and surely someone still has an old *NSync tape they're dying to play one more time.

Day 8: Blouses

As I ended my t-shirt phase, I moved into a phase of colorful blouses: ones that sat on my shoulders and ones with French writing, some tight and some looser. There are even a couple of strapless shirts mixed in there. But let's be honest, they were all doomed from the start. The tight were too tight, and the loose, too loose. The strapless, well, there's just so little to hold them up that wearing them feels like I might inadvertently flash someone at any moment. Considering the limited amount of time I spend indecently exposed on Bourbon Street (oh wait, that's never) or at friends' get-togethers (still never), I suppose I have two options: visit a plastic surgeon for some extra support, or give away the shirts. All other considerations aside, the latter is clearly more cost-effective. Option two, it is.

Day 7: T-Shirts

Up until probably the end of college, I was the queen of t-shirts. It's been a few years since then, but I've still managed to hold on to enough t-shirts to merit two dresser drawers. Most of my t-shirts have some kind of history or sentimental value. The green shirt at the left was my elementary fieldtrip shirt in 6th grade, and the Landrieu shirt was given to me by a former student. The black and yellow shirt to the right was bought during my "I love batman" phase, and I got the "Wie Geht's Dir Heute?" shirt at a German language camp in high school. But my favorite shirt of all time is the one smack in the middle. My stand-in godmother, Becky, gave it to me when I was a kid, and I wore it so much that it's basically see-through now. I hate to let it go, but what good does it do me at the bottom of a dresser drawer? So, to Goodwill it goes.

Day 6: Toiletries

I'll try most things once, particularly when it comes to beauty/toiletry items from Walgreens. I have therefore amassed a large quantity of disappointing items that I couldn't stand to throw away...until now.