Chairs For Everyone!

I’m sorry to say, but my thoughts have irrevocably turned to next week when I will be on “vacation” which is going to mean both lots of camping, lots of reading and writing (but not blogging probably), lots of finally painting my office and bathroom, and lots of praying that Matt will dig a pond in the back garden. It’s hard to stay “present” in the “moment” when there’s so much to do about the future, but I thought maybe goop would be able to help. I have a lot of shopping to do, and so does Gwyneth. Let’s look at her shopping cart, shall we?

The first thing she’s thinking of buying, or indeed, for how can we know, has already bought, are these: Apple Circle Pave Drop Earrings, which are “a trio of architectural hoops punctuated with forty-four brilliant-cut diamonds that catch the light beautifully.” I bet they do, and they better for sure, because they cost one-thousand-four-hundred-and fifty-dollars. That’s about what it would cost to fly to anywhere in Africa or afford half a month’s rent in many major cities. But why would you want to do that?…I mean, I’d honestly rather do both of those things because I don’t think these earrings are that pretty, but I suppose that the fact that goop sells them makes them excessively more desirable than if you just happened upon them in, say, TJ Maxx or somewhere like that. Anyway, let’s see what else we could buy if we had any expendable income.

Ooooo, here is something. It’s called Novello Di Notte Extra Virgin Organic Olive Oil for the sweet sweet price of seventy-four-whole-dollars. You might want it for its “acute level of freshness, upheld from Italy to your doorstep.” Mmm, delish.

And, if you really really wanted “acute levels of freshness” you could poor that elixir into these: Richard Brendon Diamond Shot Glasses, two of them!, for only one-hundred-and-forty-four-dollars. They are “made of intricately hand-cut crystal,” that is “some of the finest crystal drinkware that money can buy.”

But, you know, those glasses and that oil have nothing on this: The Oura Ring, a two-hundred-and-ninety-nine-dollar “comprehensive wellness tracker that fits on your finger” or, as the whole description goes,

the Oura Ring also measures more than your average step-counter-slash-heart-rate-monitor. You wear the ring on your finger and it picks up data on your body’s natural signals—things like heart rate, heart rate variability, and body temperature. And it spits out clear, actionable insights via the Oura app. It provides you with cumulative scores for sleep, readiness, and activity. Oura also helps you learn your body’s individual needs so you can set goals that are appropriate and achievable for you. (Ten thousand steps a day does not fit all.) It also has an in-app mindfulness program called Moment, which tracks your precise heart rate during guided and unguided meditation sessions.

Mmm, I love all my guided and unguided meditation sessions. Also all the goal setting. That will be super helpful for me as I lie back in my seven-dollar Walmart camp chair admonishing children to keep collecting wood so that my toes stay heated through the long rainy, wilderness evenings. Seriously, this year I am all about the money. I went wild and bought enough chairs for all six of the children this year. I know! No one is going to have to crouch on a stool or a log, or even share. They’re all going to get to have their own. It’s going to be so epic. Anyway, I think we have time for one more.

Passing over the two-thousand-five-hundred-dollar gold necklace, I think what I must really lack is this thirty-five-dollar “I Am Invincible” “unputdownable, hilarious, incredibly useful, and fun-to-read guide to life, aging, and physical and mental health, from fashion designer Norma Kamali.” At 304 pages, it’s just the thing “Whether you’re seventeen or eighty-seven.” Moreover,

designer Norma Kamali’s funny, brilliant, real-as-it-gets advice is fun to read, incredibly useful, and super inspiring (the woman makes being seventy-five look fantastic). It’s a guide to staying mentally and physically engaged in life no matter what your age, and it covers everything from sleep and sex to aging and alternative health. It asks the question, “If you felt you’d get better with age, how would you live your life?” and then gives concrete, actionable ways to live that life.

If you want to spread out the thirty-five-dollars over four months you can pay eight-dollars-and-seventy-five-cents, which is barely even a swig of that amazing olive oil. After all, as the cover of the book says, “When I feel empowered and when I am healthy I feel strong and then I can do all the things I need to do to reach the goals I need to reach in order to fulfill my big dreams that are as big as the world and as optimistic as my mind can imagine I will age with power and influence change because I know my purpose,” which is practically Pauline in its sentimentality if not its run-on-ingness.

Well, there you are, everything you need for a nice holiday. Personally, I think if I felt I could just get through the weekend, I would be happy no matter how many wellness trackers I happened to be saddled with. And now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to go clean something, and kill some Japanese beetles, and not ask myself what “alternative health” is–oh I can’t help myself. Is it like where you’re actually spiritually and psychologically and physically bound to an eternal and disconsolate death but you lie to yourself and just buy a lot of “wellness” junk on the mistaken assumption that if you just spend lots and lots and lots of money you’ll really be happy and empowered and full of purpose and that the howling desolate wilderness of an eternity without God isn’t pressing itself into the back of your mind no matter how many thousands of steps you take and five-hundred-dollar infrared sauna blankets you wrap yourself in? See, I can do a pretty good run-on sentence too! Have a great day not thinking about God or anything, I know I will!

Photo by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash