I had a meeting in the city yesterday, (I've recently been made fun of for calling it that. Have I become a total hick?) and since it was a gorgeous afternoon I decided to take a stroll down Broadway in Soho and do a little shopping. It's been a long time since I've done that.

It's really, really hard. I had forgotten about how crowded the streets and stores are, and definitely how expensive everything is. I specifically was looking in Best Buy for headphones (which I haven't had since my old pair died last April) and jeans at Uniqlo (remember when I lost about 12 pounds when I started this project? Well, I still don't have pants that fit me right, except the nearly shredded pair I stole from my boyfriend, and those are covered in goat manure at the moment). I really felt like a fish out of water. Not that it's completely foreign to me to buy something and not know who made it -- I did live in the real world for 30 years before starting this project -- but the process by which I would make these consumer decisions is not a comfortable one.

I went home empty handed.