On a home improvement kick.

Ever since my toaster broke and I got my clear shower curtains, I've been frying bread in olive oil every morning, and enjoying the natural light in my bathroom!

That said, the minerals in the water leave little specks on the curtains when they dry. And, I was inspired today to go to Target and get a shoerack and a radio and a bag to store my winter clothes in up in top shelf of the built-in bureau of my closet.

I also had some coupons to get some quality colored t-shirts at another store - one was for $10 off any purchase of $10 or more; the other was for $15 off of any $30 purchase -- but, when I went to the store, the t-shirts were 3 for $29.50, and it turns out that the $30 purchase meant $30 pretax.

"Is there any way you can just mark it up fifty cents?", I asked the one black cashier woman, who was in her mid-30s and had a noticeable moustache.

"You so funny," she was like. "Tell you what, I'll ring you up here, don't go to the other cashiers, they won't help you out," and somehow she just took my coupon and threw it away and gave me a generic $15 off the t-shirts by pushing some special buttons on the register.

Also, the "MENU" button on my cell is broke, and it's not fixable, so I can't access text messages or do anything requiring the menu without disassembling the entire phone casing and taking off the keypad and then using a pen to poke the hole leading to the contact pad of the "MENU" button. It kind of sucks, but it's also kind of fun, since the little light in the cell phone actually is overwhelmingly bright once you take the phone casing off.

Somehow, though, I don't think I'll be sending many text messages now because of this; I kind of enjoy the eccentricity of having to disassemble my phone to use it, and it's fun to try to wean myself from a technology I've come to depend on, to show myself I don't really need it after all. It's always good to remind ourselves that what we think are our necessities really aren't necessities at all.