We've Secretly Switched Their Regular Roommate

In a decision brought about by both faltering finances and a growing yearning to live in a community setting, I gave up my studio apartment in Brooklyn Heights this past week and moved into a three-bedroom duplex with two roommates whom I don't know at all. Though I'm just two and a half months away from the looming March 15th end of this consumer experiment, I'm curious to see what kind of wrenches this throws in. When I was on my own, I could completely control what I bought and brought into the house, now I'm going to be living with folks who have their own set of routines and habits, and little or no inkling to make the drastic changes and challenges I have over the past year. In fact, I don't think they even know about it yet, not really.

The easiest way to look at it, an angle I've had to take a few times over the year, is that I can only worry about goods that I physically exchange money for. If a roommate buys Clorox Clean-Up instead of Seventh Generation All-Purpose Cleaner, I wouldn't worry about it. At the same time, I feel the pull to not make excuses or exceptions. As I've tried to do in previous situations where it just didn't work, I stop to understand the situation and learn from it rather than rationalize the circumstances. Does this mean that I don't share anything with the other roommates, or at least not anything that they've purchased? Hm. Maybe it's time for a roommate meeting.

Listen In: C® on NPR Today

Rebecca Sheir's piece about the Consume®econnection Project is going to be aired this afternoon on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. In New York that's WNYC 93.9 FM from 4-6pm (slotted to be on around 4:40pm). You can find your local station here.

Update: Listen Now on NPR.org

Why Does It Feel So Good?

I've tried to avoid giving (and getting) typical Christmas gifts. In the past I've printed teeshirts for my family, hand-made a set of building blocks for a newborn nephew, found Picasso and Eleanor Roosevelt dolls for my brother's kids, strung together a hundred dvds to present a Netflix account to my parents, and formatted a years worth of email exchanges between my boyfriend and I into a hand-stitched paperback book. This year was considerably more difficult, mostly because everything involved spending some amount of money, and because requisite gift-giving really started to seem ludicrous. I wanted new experiences with friends, not find something to give them because I had to.

It was also a challenging year for people who wanted to give presents to me. I was asked several times if I expected folks to know who made anything they were going to give to me. While I certainly wasn't going to 'require' it, I surely encouraged it. A few family members really took it to heart, and went out of their way to find locally-produced or socially-progressive gifts. My grandmother sent oranges and grapefruits local to her Palm Beach home; an aunt visited an artisan kitchen and sought out locally made jams, cookies and sauces in a handmade basket.

Knowing I'm also an avid swimmer and have begun training for a sprint triathlon this spring, my parents and brother wanted to help me with purchases I need in order to train but couldn't make myself. They gave me generous gift cards to Paragon Sports, a local independent athletics store in Union Square. I immediately made contact with the store and hope to be invited in to learn more about it and meet the folks who work there. In the meantime, however, my shorts are so threadbare I decided to let myself buy one new pair with their gift this weekend.

The shopping trip into the city was combined with a search for picture frames with Joe, which turned into a couple stops at art stores and at Muji. It hit me hard that this was the first real shopping excursion I had been on in a very long time. It was a rush of familiar feelings, wandering aisle upon aisle, picking products up and looking them over, reading price tags, thinking about what's on sale, comparing one store's offerings to another. It honestly felt like a guilty pleasure. I hated it, but it was so easy and strangely comforting. And when I finally made it to the register to check out after agonizing over the swim shorts, it somehow made me feel good about myself for a hot minute. Like I had power because I could buy something, or something.

I wondered what is it about 'retail therapy'. When I'm feeling down, why does it feel so good to go buy things? Even for someone who shuns shopping? But then I biked back to Brooklyn, wore the new shorts for 30 laps in the pool, and found a note from friends when I got home, thanking me again for the wedding invitations I designed for them. And I remembered that there are other things I've learned to do to make myself feel better that are lighter on my wallet, healthier for my body, and better for my community.