(no subject)

[olivermoss]

* I am very glad my travel plans are in October, which is famously before November. I am far from a doomer. I think Biden will win. But shit can and does happen, shit has happened before, so I am glad all of my current plans that involve money decisions and stuff are before then. Basically, I see Nov 2 and beyond as a void and I wont make plans past that date until we get there.

* I did the thing I do a lot when I plan big trips, I sliced off a section of the budget for a general quality of life improvement that will happen to also help with the trip. For the first time in ages, I have a separate writing laptop, a very cheap one. Honestly, considering how much time I spend writing I shouldn't be so resistant to doing things that will help. I like having an offline machine with no twitter or youtube. My main laptop is a giant, heavy gaming laptop that cries and then faints when I disconnect it from it's bulky, heavy power supply. I can technically take it places, but it's a mess.

Now, when I am writing for a bit on my photo walks or off writing in brewpubs I can have my actual files with me instead of just free-writing in composition books.

* The laptop does fit into my camera backpack, but I also want a smaller and lower profile laptop bag and those seem hard to find in 2024. I also want a smaller bag in general to bring to some events and things, when I want a bag but not one of my camera gear bags. Hopefully, I can find a single bag that can do both. Maybe I don't know current brands, but I feel like a lot of brands used to cater to laptop carriers but now not so much, and if they do they specify Mac Books Airs, which are wafer thin and I can't trust my laptop will fit.

I've actually been looking for a more low-key bag for events and stuff for a while and just don't seem to find much. I will not use one of those cross-body pouches, to me those will forever look like fanny packs worn in an extra dorky way. Also, they can't hold anything I'd want to carry.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

Not planning for anything after that point (yet) seems like a good idea, so I'm with you on being glad your plans are for before it!

I like the idea of using trips as a time to get those sorts of quality of life improvements as well. That's nice!

I have no idea about the laptop bag thing, though. The last few I got were from the "we're getting rid of these unless someone wants them" pile at our corporate office many years ago, and those were mostly cheap Amazon brand ones. (One of them has held up pretty well, but to only occasional use, one of them fell apart in less than six months.)

[olivermoss]

I don't think it will happen, but it could and it does, it's a big swing.

My bags tend to get super heavy use. Maybe I'll look at the used market, but used stuff tends to cost more here. We have a lot of clothes / bags / shoes resale places, not for designer but for every day stuff. Looking for something a bit... out of date maybe I should at least check one of those places.

[mistressofmuses]

So much stuff has declined so sharply in quality, even from "good" brands, looking for gently-used older stuff from a reputable brand might be the best bet to get something that will hold up long-term.

[olivermoss]

That's a good point, actually. I pretty much stopped buying used when I moved out here due to prices, but I should rethink that.

[mistressofmuses]

It feels really viscerally wrong to me to pay what feels like "new" prices for used stuff (or close to it), but the decline in quality of newer stuff is frustratingly real. :/

[olivermoss]

Yeah. Switching away from buying used when I moved here was odd, but things have changed a lot. I almost hate buying stuff most of the time.

[mistressofmuses]

I genuinely hate buying things I need. I enjoy dumb impulse purchases, but the sorts of planned "this is a thing I need and want to serve a purpose in my life" purchases stress me out more than anything. Quality is so difficult to ensure, and so many things simply don't hold up at all now.

Clothes shopping has always been something I strongly dislike (I hate trying to figure out what will fit, what won't, what size I wear in *this* brand vs *that* brand, invariably not liking whatever patterns or styles are "in" for the season, much less trying to find something that I genuinely like the look of, much much less like the look of *on me*... but at least it used to be that once I sucked it up and found a few things I liked, I was set for a few years. Sometimes many years! Now... I feel like I'm lucky if I get 4-6 months of moderately-frequent wear out of something, before it has to get tossed into the "if I ever actually put aside the time to try and mend this..." pile.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, a lifetime of experience that I have from buying things to upgrade my life is just useless these days. Buying stuff makes me feel anxious and dumb these days.

That's why I love big Goodwills. All the brands are there, try on all the different cuts. Then, uh, maybe buy more online from the brand. Maybe like 2 or 3. I used to routinely buy at least two of any top I really liked. Wish I'd done that more. When I look at shows from the early 00s I want to reach through the screen and get some of those tops again. Right now I am trying to build up my wardrobe and it's such a pain and a time sink. But I will hand wash / mend / air dry stuff just to get it to last longer. Sometimes people are stunned when they find out my jacket is a decade old.

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, it's the worst. I hate how anxious it makes me feel, even when it's not a really "big" purchase, so much as one I just hope to not have to make again.

Aw man, same. I spent most of my teens and early 20s too self-conscious to wear the things I liked, and stuck to almost exclusively t-shirts and jeans, and I wish SO very much that I'd done less of that. And ugh, I so wish I'd somehow managed to "stock up" on things.

I'm in that boat of wanting to get my wardrobe together, to have things I like that feel appropriately "me" for a change. Almost all of my clothing came to me as free hand-me-downs from a previous manager's daughter doing a closet clear-out, and while I am SO grateful that it gave me a selection of work-appropriate attire at a time when I was struggling to afford that... she and I did not have the same taste, so for six years I've been mostly wearing clothes that I would never have picked for myself. But trying to find decent quality stuff that also fits and that I also like and that I can wear to work and maybe by choice outside of work too is suuuuuch a time-consuming and potentially expensive prospect.

[olivermoss]

It is a lot, and it's just gotten so much harder. Jeans and T shirts I am fine on, but any time I want to dress even a touch nicer I'm pretty stuck. I've also got the problem that my few older pieces that reliably look good on me are more butch leaning, but are not men's clothing. That the fabric tends to be a softer weave makes things a lot more flattering.

Being around people all day in clothes that aren't you is rough. I did that at my office jobs, but for a different reason.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah. I still wear t-shirts most of the time for everyday wear (outside of work), but sometimes you want something a little nicer.

And yeah. I know that a lot of people base their reactions and opinions on what you convey via clothing and other markers of personal style. I've always struggled with figuring out how to convey anything that feels "accurate", and it's weird when the coworkers you spend the majority of your life around likely assume really incorrect things. (And yeah, I can find some amusement in "yes, this is my worksona" and find it funny every time that a coworker is shocked that I swear, but still.)

It's weird to navigate being in a position where you have to be very "not-you." Tougher when it's not something you have much choice in, so I'm sorry you had to do so.

[olivermoss]

I also did the worksona thing, because I've never wanted co-workers to know me. I've never had a job where I wanted anything but to be as distant from them as possible. I wish that wasn't the case, but it was.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah... I've been in the same place for six-ish years, and different coworkers have different levels of how much "me" they get to know. The coworkers I'm closer to are also like... part-time retired guys my parents' age or older. I don't feel too much need to be deliberately distant, but it's also pretty firmly within the "polite small talk" up to "friendly casual acquaintance" levels of interaction.