Last Saturday, I spent six hours removing a layer of July from my house. I put Killz on the ceiling where I had *thought* I'd shut the bathroom sink off after hand-washing the swimming suits. I scrubbed Okie dust off the windows. I attempted to open the door that's stuck shut because our house has settled due to lack of rainwater on the foundation. I scrubbed the floors.

Then, because Beloved had taken the little angel to one place I have absolutely zero desire to visit -- the Missouri State Fair -- I went to the swimming pool by myself with John Irving's In One Person. I stayed there for three hours, and in that time, I fell back in love with the writing of John Irving after several novels of "is what we had lost forever"? My John Irving high lasted through date night at Cafe Verona --  where we ate in the little courtyard and the waiter explained the locks hanging from the wrought-iron gates were engraved and hung on people's anniversaries to signify their forever love -- and well into the next morning, when we had a lazy breakfast and headed into the Plaza to get something I needed at Barnes & Noble and maybe browse with my gift card they gave me for Mother's Day, which was at least 50 95-degree-plus days ago.

The Plaza killed my high. I never actually *shop* in the Plaza, which for the uninitiated is a high-end four blocks of shops and restaurants. I love hanging out at the Plaza, but I never buy anything anywhere other than Barnes & Noble, because I don't have $375 for a handbag. We went into at least ten stores, but I realized I have grown really, really bad at shopping, because we've been trying to save money for so long I now fully understand that I really don't need anything and want everything. And everything I want costs more than the balance of the gift card. But everything I need I already have.

It's a quandry.

I ended up in H&M staring at all the cheap crap and ill-fitting clothes that would look good on my daughter but not on me and realizing there was not one thing in the entire Plaza that I wanted to buy. Then I saw a $12 white, gauzy scarf, the exact kind of scarf one would wear if one were riding in an open convertible and wanted to avoid mussing her hair, even if that convertible were built in 1997 and even if that woman were also wearing yoga pants. 

I bought the scarf and we drove home, and I realized I'd forgotten that feeling of wanting to be a better writer that I'd pulled from John Irving's words. And it made me mad -- the Plaza made me mad -- myself made me mad -- I went from feeling inspired and content with my lot to grouchy and jealous of other women's shoes in one hour flat.

The next time I go to the Plaza, I'm spending the entire gift card at Barnes & Noble, and then I'm getting the hell out.

Why do it to myself?